May Recap 2020

Another month of being home—this really hit home when I went to grab photos for this recap post and they were all home-based . . . again. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been working from home full time eleven weeks now, but not that hard anymore. With Tim being in healthcare and working directly with COVID-10 patients we’ve been a lot more cautious than a lot of people we know (more for their sake than ours). Thankfully, it hasn’t been too trying because we’re both pretty introverted.

I do miss going places, but some advantages include being able to eat my lunch salad in a big ass bowl without being judged and the fact we “opened” our roof deck for its first full summer, so we both have glorious tans 😀 And the big news this month was that our upstairs hallway has finally been converted into an office, so I have that to adapt to now (yay for shaking things up)! We planned it prior to coronavirus, but it was put on hold and finally as we entered Phase 1 they converted it in three days:

I included the photo of me because I had to wear a face mask in the house while the workers were here and I thought it was hilarious. It also shows off my tan compared to earlier in the month when I dyed my hair purple. Purple was a happy accident, it was supposed to be blue, but eh what can you say right? It made me laugh, plus it was temporary. There’s only two weeks between the two photos and I look so tan and the purple was totally gone.

Books and Bookish Things
I read A LOT this month. I’m officially over the two dozen MM romance books during quarantine total and I’m probably going to keep reading them, but I will definitely slow my pace because I have review copies to read this month. That and I’m finding it hard to find new MM romance authors that I really enjoy reading.

I read EIGHTEEN books in May. 14 were MM Romance, 1 was an ARC and 3 were illustrated young adult LGBT+ graphic novels. I’m still reeling over my back-to-back re-read of Two for Trust. For some reason that book just hit me with all the feels and I seriously loved it. I’ll probably read it again in a few months to see if any of its luster wears of—it wasn’t even the best book, it just was perfect for me.

698. Arctic Sun (Frozen Heart #1) – Annabeth Albert
699. Two for Trust – Elle Brownlee
700. Two for Trust – Elle Brownlee
701. Staggered Cove Station – Elle Brownlee
702. Out of the Shadows – K.C. Wells
703. The Names We Take – Trace Kerr
704. At Attention (Out of Uniform #2) – Annabeth Albert
705. The Weight of It All – N.R. Walker
706. Throwing Hearts– N.R. Walker
707. Arctic Wild (Frozen Hearts #2) – Annabeth Albert
708. Hotline (Murmur, Inc. #1) – Quinn Anderson
709. Arctic Heat (Frozen Hearts #3) – Annabeth Albert
710. #Hockey (Check, Please! #1) – Ngozi Ukazu
711. Sticks & Scones (Check, Please! #2) – Ngozi Ukazu
712. Action (Murmur, Inc. #2) – Quinn Anderson
713. Force Play – Elle Brownlee
714. Heartstopper (Heartstopper #1) – Alice Oseman
715. Cam Boy (Murmur, Inc. #3) – Quinn Anderson

I picked up a couple of books from Kindle Unlimited and a few ARCs (*) to read in the next few months that hopefully I will actually read.

• The Deviant’s War – Eric Cervini*
• The Jewel of Colorado (Jewel of Colorado #1) – Jason Collins
• Legacy (Jewel of Colorado #2) – Jason Collins
• Once You Go This Far – Kristen Lepionka*
• The Mosquito – Timothy C. Winegard*

On the Bookish things from I found these pieces from Colossal to be incredibly beautiful and I loved that the display incorporated the books so it wasn’t just paper art.

I also found the literary world to have been incredibly inspiring around Black Lives Matter and the political unrest that has happened in the US over the past week (months and years). Many publishers, bookstores, and others acknowledged their own short comings around race and black representation in their authors and work forces and some pledged to do better. This tweet stood out for me in particular because so many immediately jumped to provide reading lists about trauma and racism and slavery/colonialism (rightfully so), but this one highlighted there is so much more out there to read as well.

Please read happy Black books too. We don't just write about slavery and colonialism. Consume Black history and art about anything. It all helps to decenter whiteness

— #KWA (@athenakugblenu) June 1, 2020

What’s Next?
Honestly, I have no idea. We’re just sort of existing at the moment. Thankfully our jobs appear to be stable and things are slowing down at Tim’s, but our vacations have all been cancelled this year so far. We are looking at maybe renting a place for a week or two later in the summer to get out of Boston. The advantage of that is working remotely I can work anywhere so I wouldn’t necessarily have to take all of it as vacation, but who knows. I’ve eased up on the baking front and have actually stored my sourdough starter back in the fridge for the foreseeable future.

On the reading front, I’ve already started The Deviant’s War and am looking forward to reading more of Annabeth Albert’s backlog. I made a full list of her works and am going to work my way through them all. She is hands down the best MM Romance author I’ve read and I can’t get enough 😀

Do you have any summer plans? Are you looking forward to reading anything in particular?