After my best reading month ever in April, I had a terrible month in May. I was partly in a bit of an after-Realmathon slump but also spent a week in Disney, did a lot of knitting, and read one very long book. June is already looking better with one book already done and another well underway. But here’s my brief wrap up for May.
Reading Stats
- Books Read: 2
- Pages Read: 998
- Average Rating: 3.00
- 1 – 2 stars
- 1 – 4 stars
- Genre Breakdown:
- Fantasy – 1
- Contemporary – 1
- Format:
- Novel – 2
The Books
My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Follmuth
2 stars – Full Review
Ugh, I had such high hopes for this book about a girl joining her high school’s robotics team and falling for a boy. I am a mechanical engineer, I spent years in the robotics lab as the only female, by all accounts I should have loved this. However, I hated the main character and felt she was a terrible representative of women in STEM. The discussions of sexism were incredibly heavy handed and didn’t remotely follow any of my experiences or those of my female engineering friends. If you want a fun YA romance that follows an Elle Woods of engineering type lead, you’ll probably like this but if you want actual STEM rep, please look elsewhere.
Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
4 stars
Most of my reading this month was reading Royal Assassin. I really enjoyed this story but it did take me a long time to get through, it’s very dense and nearly 700 pages. This story is very character-driven which isn’t usually my thing but the character work is extremely well done and I really do care about these characters. I need a little break from high fantasy (especially with my readathon plans in June) but I’ll likely pick up the last book in this trilogy over the summer.
Knitting Update
In May, I finished knitting a really fun project. This is a sweater for a newly adopted toddler that a friend of her parents ordered from me. I love the idea of this sweater and put a lot of care into it. The date on the back is her adoption date which is a detail I just love. I received pictures afterwards of the adorable little girl wearing her new sweater for picture day at pre-school, I love it.
I’m also working on another sweater than I’ll finish in the next few days. I’ll share pictures in June’s wrap up.
What’s Up Next
In June, I’m participating in Whateverathon on team Sunset Scholars. I did this readathon last year and I’m excited to participate again. I’ve pledged 8 books, here are the 7 definite reads that will complete my bingo board, I’ll mood read the last one.
What was your favorite book in May? Happy Reading!
Susan Lyn Knits and Reads 