May 2017 Reading Wrap Up

May was a very successful reading month for me. Thanks to being sick in bed for a couple of weeks, I crossed a whole lot of books off my challenge lists. This cough may be killing my soul, but at least it gave me the gift of time to read. Here's the breakdown:


1. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (4/5 stars)

• Back to the Classics: A romance classic
• Classics Club: #78 on my list
• Mount TBR: previously owned

2. Tuesdays with Morrie (4/5 stars)

• Popsugar Challenge: a book with a month or day of the week in the title

3. Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (4/5 stars)

• Classics Club: #48 on my list
• Mount TBR: previously owned

4. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (4/5 stars)

• Popsugar Challenge: A bestseller from a genre you don't normally read

5. Rigorous Reading by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher (2/5 stars)

• Popsugar Challenge: A book with career advice
• Mount TBR: previously owned

6. Trouble by Non Pratt  (3/5 stars)

• Popsugar Challenge: A book with a red spine
• Mount TBR: previously owned

7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (5/5 stars)

• Popsugar Challenge: A book you loved as a child
• Mount TBR: previously owned 

8. The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King (4/5 stars)

• Popsugar Challenge: A book set in the wilderness

9. Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (3/5 stars)

• Popsugar Challenge: A book with a main character that's a different ethnicity than you
• Mount TBR: previously owned

My current challenge status is:

• Classics Club: 11/100 (on track to end 12/31/21)
• Back to the Classics:  9/12
• Popsugar 2017: 35/40
• TBR 2017: 31/60

I have read 40 books so far in 2017!


My favorite reads of the month were Rebecca and Born a Crime, which is funny because these two books couldn't be more different from each other. Rebecca was a twisty Victorian Gothic-style mystery, while Born a Crime was the true story of Trevor Noah's childhood in South Africa. What both books did share, however, were compelling stories that made a deep impression on me as a reader.

My least favorite read of the month was Rigorous Reading, a teacher book that I found to be too general to be truly useful to me.

Since I'm on summer break now, I hope to be able to read more books than usual in June. I'm planning on lots of lazy mornings, cups of tea, and stacks of books for the next few weeks!