Hello, friends, to readathon heaven. I mean, I'd prefer back to back but all at once is also fine. (And while diverseathon and slowathon are over - Tackle Your TBR still has a week left, readathons are my jam).
I have a lot of feelings that this last week promoted - about reading diversely and my privilege as a white person, which I have been aware of before and tried my hardest to... be aware of it and use it correctly, I think that's the best wording I can get. I feel like I've always been aware of the privilege I have, and don't have, but only the last few years have I realized that I can use it.
Anyway - all of my thoughts just aren't coming together. The other thing I wanted to talk about was reading diversely, what this whole week was about. Only the last few years have I purposely tried to read diversely, realized I should - even then, I know I'm not doing as well as I could be. And I'm sure there's a ton of reasons, but one of the reasons is when I'm not in a normal reading schedule - aka: a reading slump, to me - then I just want to read fluffy things. Easy to read things.
And I say this with a lot of love, but normally (mainstream) diverse books are dealing with issues - which I understand, obviously. And it is something I love and look for in diverse books, but I have to be in the right headspace for it - and normally my reading slumps coincide with my 'down times' as I've been calling them, and I just can't. I can't do it.
I'm going to try and be more firm about it because there are books that aren't "issue books," and since I've gotten my kindle paperwhite, I can actually stand to read ebooks for long periods of time. And I know a lot of diverse books are self published because of various reasons - particularly diverse romance because romance is a giant and well selling thing in the industry - and try to be more conscious about not just buying diverse books, but actually reading them.
There's also the fact where I gravitate towards some diverse books more then other - LGBTQIA+ being the most usual for me - and so there are definitely weaknesses in my diverse reading, that I really want to try and fix.
Now - onto what I read this week, and what I'm still actively working on at the moment.
Reading: (finished this week and actively currently-reading)
Mostly Void, Partially Stars (Night Vale Scripts #1) by Joseph Fink, Jeffery Cranor (5/5)
I've been listening to this podcast for years now - sometime towards the end of their first year of episodes - and I'm still listening. (Did you listen to the new episode this week? Someone got a binural microphone and it was awesome). Anyway - I loved this. There's a few of the older ones I relisten to but most I don't, so it was a lot of fun to relisten by reading. And catching on smaller things I didn't before or forgot. I highly recommend this podcast and everything related to it (also Alice Isn't Dead. I've only listened to a little of Within in the Wires so I can't say I'd recommend it, but what I have heard was awesome)
Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time: An Indigenous LGBT SciFi Anthology (5/5)
I found this kind of by accident, just looking through the "people also bought" thing on Amazon, and I saw this and was like - that, that's something I want to read. And, going in having heard nothing, I definitely don't regret it. Some of the stories I liked less the others, but there weren't any I didn't like, nothing below 3 stars (which is kind of - it was okay for me, but doesn't mean I didn't like it at all). I'd definitely recommend this - and if anyone has recs of books, fiction and nonfiction, about indigenous characters being two-spritied, I'd love to read them, I seriously want to learn/read more about this. Have found one that seems to be legends retold without those parts cut out, but I'm not sure how good it is so - if you know any.
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankin (5/5)
This wasn't a comfortable reading experience, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't suppose to be. It's very real and very just out there with all of it. I follow sports 0%, so all the stuff with Selena William's surprised me a little, I didn't know any of that. I kind of think everyone should read this, especially if it's going to make you uncomfortable, because it might make you think. It definitely made me think. Besides that - I'm still not sure how to put my thoughts together about this? There's a lot there.
Ash by Malinda Lo (5/5)
All I knew going into this was: f/f retelling of Cinderella. And I was just like: hell yes, take my fucking money. And then I didn't get around to it at first, as I do with a lot of books for some unknown reason with my brain. I'm a little angry at it, though, about this one - this book as incredible. I'd heard Malinda talk - at a LeakyCon lit panel, multiple ones - and so I knew I liked her then, and she definitely sold me on her books, but I just got around to one. I own Adaption, and am now hoping to get to that one soon because - this book. It had all these fairy tale elements and was just amazing - read this book immediately, and then follow me in reading all of Malinda's books. All of them.
Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O'Neill (5/5)
This was so cute - it was only about 50 pages, but I would of read like a whole series with them having adventures and such. They're both adorable and there's a unicorn, and teaching an ogre how to dance - so cute, I can't handle it.
The Dark Wife by S.E. Diemer (4/5)
Okay. This was way more adorable then I thought it'd be for a Persephone/Hades retelling, even one that's a f/f one. (Sidenote: if anyone knows of more queer myth retellings - please let me know). It was... not slow, but it also wasn't fast paced. That's just the way it was, though, I super enjoyed it. Loved the characters of Persephone and Hades, and also Pallas - all the ladies were awesome, pretty much, and Hermes. Definitely check this one out.
Currently-reading:
The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archives #1) by Brandon Sanderson
This is a reread and I just - it's so good? Like I remember I was completely in love with it, but... I guess I forgot what that meant, how much I was in love with it. I'm definitely not rushing this one. (Mostly because I don't want to but also because tiny print).
Duma Key by Stephen King
I accidentally started continuing my reread of this - it's September, I have to crochet and this was my current audiobook - and I didn't realize, at first, that it could count towards diverseathon considering Edgar's missing an arm and his hips fucked. And while King didn't get hurt that bad, this did stem from a bad as hell accident he was in. It's one of my favorites
(I said this on Litsy but there's a few King books I read when I was very young - 11 - and they're my favorites and I will reread them over and over until I do. For instance: Duma Key, Dreamcatcher, Bag of Bones. Most importantly: IT. I'll probably reread IT soon just because of the recent movie (remake) hype, cannot wait).
Stuff:
More thoughts on diverseathon here, I wanted to talk about the other stuff up top because it felt very important to my reading. I didn't end up really getting to any of the twitter chats, though I popped in a few times while cooking dinner because priorities (priorities being the food, sorry twitter). However, overall, I think it's just such a great and needed idea.
I think more people will participate if it's planned earlier, because while it felt like there was a good amount, I'm sure some people were put off by the last minute part (I also didn't do it because my heart was so set on slowathon, but I have been trying to focus part of my reading on The Way of Kings because I'd been planning that).
Mostly I think this was a good kick in the ass for me, to remind me I have all of these diverse books I want to read, I own them, they're right there, I've just got to read them. And I talked about this up above, of course, but I'm just saying it again, mostly to remind myself.
There's no shortage of diverse books - POC authors, characters, MC's with different backgrounds, religions, genders, sexualities - as long as you're looking for them, they are there. And after the last week, I have found so many that sound interesting and I'll definitely be looking into - if you've got any books you love by authors of color, and about POC, then please leave them in the comments or let me know somehow. I may have a ton of new recs, but you can never really have enough, can you?
Right now, the end of this week, I've been feeling that: I own so many books I want to read, and there are so many I don't own yet. I want to read like 100 books next week. Which, I guess, is a good feeling but also a stressful one because, obviously, I cannot read 100 books next week. I have enjoyed the slowathon, as well, and slowing down my reading this week - though, honestly, I was too tired to do anything else. Particularly with The Way of Kings, which I read a year ago and remembered the basic things but definitely forgot smaller things, and most of the medium sized things. Cannot wait to inch my way through it more.
Tackle Your TBR still has a week left, so that's what my week wrap up next week will be about - stats and page counts for both week, but I also want to put this ones info here because I don't feel like I've wrapped up a readathon unless I have
Books Read: 4
Graphic Novels/such Read: 1
Pages Read: 1,178 (+ 4 hours, 36 minutes listening to Duma Key)
Time Spent Reading(+ some listening): 15 hours, 16 minutes
(Side note, wow this post is a long one: I also wasn't sure, after writing up my rec posts, about posting them - but I did. Mostly unsure because I didn't feel like there as anything new there, they were pretty well known books. But it is hard to know everything, so maybe someone say something knew. Or didn't realize something was diverse in whatever way. And, hopefully, next time I'll have most and different books to recommend, depending on how soon)
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