A Never-Ending TBR | Reading Update 5.22.23

Hey hi hello friends, and welcome to another reading update! 

This month has felt so contradictory in terms of my reading. I feel like I've been reading nonstop, and at the same time it feels like I haven't read anything. Maybe it's because the first book I picked for May took me over two weeks to finish, which always puts me in a sour mood. Or maybe it's because everything I've read so far this month has been from my library and so my actual physical TBR hasn't gone down at all. 

In fact, it's gone up. I've bought 9 books in May (so far) and 6 of them are TBR. My "own-tbr" shelf on Goodreads currently has 77 books on it, which is the highest it's been in a very long time. Though I have to remind myself that the shelf also includes my unread manga, so it's not as high as it seems. 

Okay, I just took a minute and counted all of the unread books on my shelves and I came up with 44. So I have 33 unread manga volumes (most of those are My Hero Academia volumes that I have technically read since I've been getting Shonen Jump Weekly for a few years, but I'm planning on doing a proper read through of the series once I have all of the volumes so it's easier to mark them as unread for now). While the ratio definitely makes me feel a little better, I'm still anxious that I have nearly 50 unread books on my shelves. With so little growing space, I feel like I need to be more cautious about what I'm buying from now on. 

Will that stop me from buying books? Likely not. But it might make me feel a little guilty during the process. I know that doesn't seem like a positive, but for someone like me who has serious cost blindness and issues with saving money, it can't hurt.

All that being said, I just returned home from the library (again). Right now I have 3 physical books from the library sitting on my desk--Atalanta by Jennifer Saint (what I picked up today), Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse, and Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge--and 2 e-books on the Libby app; Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones and The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan. 

(Technically I also have the physical copy of The Tropic of Serpents, but I'm reading it in tandem with the audiobook, which is where Libby comes in.)

I have no idea if I'll actually get to all of those in a timely manner. Atalanta and Don't Fear the Reaper have a shorter time limit on them since they're (semi) new releases, and they're also the ones that I want to prioritize. I'm currently reading The Tropic of Serpents. If this means that the other two books fall to the wayside this month, that's okay. It's not like I can't borrow them again, right?

The problem with my library activity is that there are books of my own that I wanted to read in May, but now I don't see that happening. I really wanted to read both A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon and The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro, but I keep getting new holds from the library coming in and in turn those books keep getting pushed back. So I might not read them until June, which kinds of hurts a little bit. I've always read the newest Rick Riordan book the day it came out, but it's already been over a week since TSATS was released and it's just been lying in wait. 

At the end of the day, I am faced with that underlying problem that every reader faces: too many books, not enough time. 

If anyone ever cracks the code to time travel or the ability to freeze time, please let me know. Imagine how many books I could read if I could stop time whenever I wanted!

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That's all for this reading update. I'd love to know how your May is going. Let me know in the comments, or DM me on Instagram (link in sidebar under the header "More Media"). 

Until next time!