mid year check in

So I have been reading my ass off this year. Far more than I have read in any other year of my life. At the beginning of the year I set my Goodreads challenge at 48 books. One book a week felt like too much, so I went with 4 books a month and set a stretch goal of 100 books. Because why not, right? It's good to have goals. I also set a goal to read (eyes on print) every day this year, 365 days, and am currently at 173 days.

For the last 2 years I have been keeping a pretty detailed reading spreadsheet that I got from Rachel Manwill from Book Riot. (NEW YEAR, NEW GOALS, NEW AND IMPROVED READING LOG). It's way more than a casual reader needs, but I'm not a casual reader, yo. And here are my stats:

As of June 23, I have read and listened to:

• 85 books: which works out to 11, 956 pages and 192:01 hours. 

Format:

• 65 print/digital
• 20 audio

Form:

• 38 Prose
• 40 Comics
• 5 Poetry

I started the year with a handful of comics on my TBR. I wanted to use Pretty Deadly as my western for the Read Harder challenge, finally check out the new Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Monstress which I picked up on kindle sale. So first off, the artwork in Monstress alone is worth a read. But Vol. 2 was so compelling I couldn't wait for Vol. 3 and bought all the singles. I was kind of disappointed with #17, though. ANYWAY. That was my plan, But then I discovered Lumberjanes, and that really became my comfort read when I was too tired or stressed to read anything else, so I read through Vol. 8.  And I thought that was my favorite. AND THEN, I found Phoebe and her Unicorn and immediately read all of those. So there has been A LOT of comic reading this year. I'm slowly working my way through Saga and about to read volume 3 of Goldie Vance.

• 62 Fiction
• 20 Nonfiction
• 30 Adult
• 13 YA
• 16 Children's/Middle Grade (this is primarily Lumberjanes and Phoebe and her Unicorn).
• 55% Fantasy
• 10% General Nonfiction
• 8% Sci Fi
• 7% Memoir/Biography
• 45 female identifying authors
• 9 male identifying authors (I'm not really trying to give too many men air time in this year of our lord 2018. Especially not white men.)
• 29 POC authors
• 18  Queer main characters

Clearly I'm a fantasy reader. And I understand people who don't like fantasy and other world building and prefer their literature, well, real world or sci fi-y. But don't try to genre snob me with your love of whatever that's not fantasy. Fantasy encompasses the characteristics of ALL other genres, WHILE simultaneously world building. <hops off soapbox> 
While I've always preferred YA, I hit a serious wall with YA in April and then all fiction in general. Nonfiction was the only thing that didn't just irritate me (Lumberjanes aside). So in the last couple months I have read The New Jim Crow (infuriating), I Contain Multitudes (fascinating, you actually do have cooties), The Nature Fix (go outside folks), The Orchid Thief (the geographical history of Florida and the world of orchids, my god. I had no idea), The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up, and two very comprehensive books about tea. (I'm kind of a tea expert now).  The only fiction that snuck in was A Gathering of Shadows and A Conjuring of Light, both on audio, and both amazing. 

Mini Challenges: 
Read an author's library:

• N.K. Jemisin: (just her series) I finally finished off The Broken Earth trilogy in February and read the first books in The Dreamblood Duology and The Inheritance Triology. 
• Leigh Bardugo: I read Crooked Kingdom and Shadow and Bone but had to give up on Siege and Storm when I banished all YA from my reading life. I'll get back to it this summer. I have the 2 remaining books in the Grishaverse and The Language of Thorns. 

So that's where I am as of now. One of my goals for the rest of 2018 is to read and listen to books I own, instead of checking 15 books out of the library, but the struggle is real. 

Thanks for checking in with me and happy reading!