Rogan Shannon

Video: https://youtu.be/VmNfZdaTa-c

Happy Pride month!

Hello, I’m Rogan and welcome to my May books wrap up and TBRs. I will try to make this quick, because it’s a wrap up and two TBRs. Kind of. I will explain after the wrap up. Let’s get into it.

We Were Eight Years in Power. This is really fascinating because it’s basically an anthology of articles that he wrote over the eight years of the Obama presidency. But he also adds in his reflections of that period, what the context of writing the article was, explaining why he was thinking like that at the time, a little bit of his background, who he is. It’s a really fascinating read. He pretty much talks about how things were a little different with a black person in the president’s office, and how that affected the black community. How that affected the white community. I would say yes, read this, because it’s really fascinating to see perspectives from the beginning of the presidency to when it was almost finished.

Children of Blood and Bone. I really enjoyed this. Wow. This is set in a fictional land, where there used to be magic, but it vanished after they lost their connection with the source of magic. Then at some point, some start to get their powers back. This is part of a series, but this was just released in March, I believe, so it’ll be a while before the next book comes out. I will say I really enjoyed this book. It touches on things like oppression, caste systems… Because they have a group of people called divîners, people who used to be able to do magic, or would have been able to do it, they were oppressed because people were afraid of magic, and whatever. I really enjoyed it, but it did have some problems. It had a… A kind of romantic relationship that felt really rushed, because if it had been over several months or something, fine. But this book is–I think it happens over the span of only a few weeks, maybe not even a few weeks, just one week or less, I don’t know. But it happens in a very short timeframe, so… When there’s a HATE turned to love, turned to romantic attraction, in that short, short span? That’s… Pushing it a little bit. Other than that, I really enjoyed this book, so yes, I would recommend it.

A Gathering of Shadows. This is the second book in the Shades of Magic series, the first book is A Darker Shade of Magic. If you liked the first book, you will like this one. It’s a continuation of that story, but it’s also really interesting because it has a whole arc that reminds me a lot of pro-bending from Korra, Legend of Korra. So I was like, I can kind of picture what it would look like because it kind of parallels that. I enjoyed that part. But other than that, I’m not going to say much more because it’s a series, it’s the second book in a series. So let’s move on.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Do I even need to say more? Basically, Simon, a 16-year-old in high school, has been emailing back and forth anonymously with someone who goes to the same high school as he does, and they’re both closeted gays. They bond over that. A classmate finds out about that, and blackmails Simon to help him get someone he’s into. And disaster after that, because Simon’s trying to not hurt his friends, but trying to not out himself and not out his email buddy. It’s really worth the hype, it really is. On a side note, I JUST yesterday got Leah on the Offbeat. I’m so excited to read it.

Artemis. It’s set on the moon, a colony on the moon. It follows a person who’s a porter, she’ll deliver things for people. She gets involved with a conspiracy to shut down a business so someone else can take over, and profit from it. I don’t want to say any more than that because this was really interesting in how they brought up all of the difficulties of living on the moon, and what you have to do to get around some of the things. What I liked about this is that it’s actually a colony, not like they terraformed the moon so they could live on it. It doesn’t act like it’s an utopia in the future, it’s easy to live on the moon. No, it didn’t do that, I liked that part.

Juliet Takes a Breath. It’s about a queer Latina from the Bronx, on her way to Oregon after JUST coming out to her family. She has no idea if her mother will ever speak to her again, but oh well. She went to Oregon to intern with her favorite author of a specific book. The book’s all about feminism, empowering women, all of that. She’s very excited. But on arrival, she realizes something: is she really running from her problems? Or will she actually figure out who she is over that summer? I really enjoyed this book. It touches on a lot of things like racism, sexism, queer people and their issues they have to face. It’s great, I would definitely recommend this, yes.

Arabella and the Battle of Venus. This is the second book in a series, the first book is Arabella of Mars. The second book is completely different from the first book. It’s still set in the same universe, and follows the same main character obviously. But this… Arabella is on a journey to save her fiancé from war. And it’s interesting, because in this universe, the English and the French are two big empires and they’re at war with each other. And Napoleon is in this. It’s really interesting, the little twist on history.

Touchy Subjects, I actually have the uncorrected proof, so I don’t know how different it is from the final version. It’s an anthology of short stories about diverse, everyday people living their lives. Some are queer, some are straight, some are mixed, it’s diverse. It’s really good. Some of the stories, I’m like, I do not understand what’s happening. Some stories, I was touched really good. On the back, it tells you what some of the stories are. A man finds God and finally wants to father a child, only his wife is now 45 years old. A coach’s son discovers his sexuality on the football field. A roommate’s bizarre sexual secret liberates a repressed young woman. It’s a really diverse set of stories. I thought it was interesting.

That’s it for the books that I finished this month. I’m going to go ahead and do the TBR for June. The reason why I said sort of earlier is because I think I’m–honestly, I’m not going to do the TBR this month, because I’m doing two readathons and I still haven’t read these from previously. So, okay. I did finish the two books for March. I still have Profiles in Gay & Lesbian Courage from March, and I think I want to read it for Pride month. Then I have The Innocent and Cyclops from last month. I haven’t even touched these. (Editor’s note: I cut out the part where I said that I was halfway through Lord of Snow and Shadows, so I technically still have three books left.) With all of that, I think I will do no TBR for June, because I have too many books to read right now, AND I accidentally got extra books from the library. That leads me into my next thing, the Libraryathon TBR.

The Libraryathon is starting on June 3rd. So that’s why I need to get my TBR up today. For the Libraryathon, you basically get books from the library and read them. They have six challenges to meet, and I did plan on six. One book, I somehow misunderstood and got the wrong book. Well, not the wrong book, but the wrong book for the challenge. And I think I might change one of the challenges and do just five books. Because I have a lot of extra books. I accidentally got like three, four extra books from the library. I have a stack of 10 books. I got all of those yesterday so… I have two e-books right now, and I may be getting a few more in the next week or so. Ahh! I really don’t need a TBR this month, other than the readathons. Okay, I’m just going to go through, I’m going to tell you what the challenge is, and which book I picked for them.

1. Borrow and read a book set in a country you’ve never read a book set in before. I got Saints and Misfits for this one, but that was a mistake. This is set in the US. So… I’m going to read it anyway, and just skip this challenge.

2. Borrow and read a book you’ve never heard of before. For this one, I just went to my library and looked at their featured shelves, and grabbed Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist. It’s set in Seattle, so that will be interesting to read.

3. Borrow and read a book that’s out of your comfort zone. Can be genre, age group, themes, etc. For this one… I will read anything really, so I decided to pick a book that I will never experience as a white male. Love, Hate, & Other Filters is the book I chose for this challenge. This was recommended by a BookTuber I follow, so yes. Sure.

4. Borrow and read a book you’ve been meaning to read, but haven’t gotten around to. Queens of Geek. I am excited to read this. I’ve been waiting to read this.

5. Borrow and read a book you’ve been meaning to read, but haven’t gotten around to. Queens of Geek. I was originally going to do a different book for this one, but I decided I’m going to drop that and do just one book for two challenges.

6. Borrow and read a bookish book. It can be a book on the cover, in the title, a book about books. I chose The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. It’s set in a bookstore. I love that kind of book. I’m excited to read this one, I’ve heard a lot of good things about this so yes.

That’s it for my Libraryathon TBR. I have more books, but I will save those for my June wrap up. And that will be a lot of books!

I was hoping this would be shorter, but oh well! Let me know in the comments if you’ve read any of these books, did you like them, dislike them, whatever. Or want to read any of them.

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