#2.43 vol 3

[theultimatenonbinarynerd]

March 2024 Reading Wrap Up

The Calendar

Another incredible reading month and I'm so glad I managed to keep my streak this time despite still recovering from illness. It's been a scifi packed month and I absolutely will do my best to fix that next month. I'm one of those people who want to do their best to diversify their TBR. I'd also dub this the Aftermath month as I decided to reread Aftermath to prep for reading Life Debt. And despite the still obvious flaws im so grateful I decided to give Chuck Wending a second chance.

The biggest excitement of this month is that I'm proud to announce that after three agonising months I finally finished Black Spire. When I re-read it in the future I can absolutely assure you that the read will be shorter. I don't know what happened it just took absolutely ages to read. It was a fairly decent novel and I adored the themes of Rebellion and Resistance. I just wish the other characters were fleshed out more as Vi and Archex are the only ones that are. 10th of March was the best day ever as I was just so glad to be finally rid of this side read as I have a whole block of other side reads I wanted to get too.

The High Republic comics are an absolute delight and I definitely want to get more of them in the future but they're still not my focus. The High Republic Adventures Vol.1 was incredible, I borrowed it off my brother and was really excited to read it and it was incredible. Lula and Zeen are an absolute power couple. The story telling was super enriching and fun. I definitely want to get my hands on Vol.2 sometime as I've also weirdly already read Vol.2. After I've read Fallen Star I definitely will need to re-read Vol. 3. I'm not suprised it took five days as that's normally how long comics usually take for me.

And then to finish off my side reads I managed to miraculously finish Vol.5 of the Animal Crossing New Horizons Manga. Vol.5 was really good and I loved how it incoperated the final 2.0 update and the dlc. Especially since Dark seems to be my reading mood preference I always love to incoperate a few lighthearted reads in there to save my shattered heart cos lord I need it, need it massively. This series is awesome and i'm happy it's gone on to have nine volumes but im definitely only sticking to eight of them thank you.

Then we have of course the Doctor Who Big Finish audio dramas. I'm very close to the end of The Eighth Doctor Adventures Series 1 now and have really enjoyed the series. It's gotten me deeply into Big Finish. Phobos and No More Lies were very fun and easy listens. I think unless it's a box set I'm definitely gonna be able to listen to single Big Finish stories in one day as you can tell by the calendar.

March has been fun but I really wish I'd read more than scifi and I hope April will be the chance to improve upon that.

March Stats

I'm using all my stats and log templates from LEEBEE_READS from now on as their all beautiful especially this flowery March theme. I've also got the hang of using it better so it looks neater. So here's a breakdown of all my stats for March from left to right.

I "read" 6 books in total this month. Four physical books and two big finish audio dramas. I didn't expect to read as much as I did in February due to missing my support group and getting another FNAF book off my friend but I shouldn't have been as I still have a lot of side reads I need to get through. Pages was good too as I didn't think I'd reach 1000 pages but I did. This March I read 1047 pages only 47 more than March 2023. I don't care about beating records but I still find that quite the achievement. For listening it went as well, I managed to listen to 2.43 hours. A number that will go up as I listen to the longer audios. We'll see what April brings but I'm very proud of myself.

Genre was very scifi this month. The only none scifi book I read was the Animal Crossing Manga which just cracks me up. Scifi is an amazing genre and I've love all the scifi stories I've listened too and read but I feel like it doesn't hurt now and then to go outside of the box. After hopefully getting to Brotherhood I have 3 none Star Wars books to help break this spell which should hopefully balance out the stats. So my genre's ended up being very simple with only Scifi, Fantasy, Video Games, Manga and Graphic Novel. 5 Scifi listens and reads is just mind blowing its definitely helped me understand and figure out what my favourite genre indeed is. With what I have planned for April I'm very curious how my genres will look.

Mainly reads like I said last time is budging as I'm into very adventurous books that are dark and also have mystery. I also still adore 300-499 page books and that's never gonna change but we'll see.

March was a very interesting month for moods as last year I only logged three moods but this year I've managed to log eight moods. Through out my reads and listens I've managed to pick up the moods, Adventurous, Tense, Mysterious, Lighthearted, Hopefully, Funny, Dark and Challenging which is in my opinion the most impressive streak of moods so far. Adventurous is always gonna take the top spot but im really happy at how balanced this chart is. I read a pretty Dark Comic in terms of The High Republic Adventures Vol.1 and then balanced it out with Vol.5 of The Animal Crossing manga series. People may want to read all dark reading month but I still think it's super important to balance things out with lighthearted stuff as Dark books are dark for a reason as they can be super heavy. Really curious about how April's stats will turnout.

Finally the Star Ratings which shocked me as for the first time ever I remembered quarter star ratings existed and rated too reads/listens 4.25 stars. In the future I'm definitely gonna try remember quarter star ratings and be more critical about how I rate books. I had two 4 star rated reads one being a re-read, two 4.25 star reads/listens as both were good but had flaws which meant it didn't quite deserve 4.5 or 5 stars and one 5 star read. That resulted in and average rating of 4.33 stars. Which is the same average rating I got a year ago. Haven't got an average rating below 4 yet but we'll see what happens.

Overall a very good month for stats I'm very intrigued to see what April shall bring.

Reads/Listens

Looking at this lineup is hilarious and amusing for me because you can tell the Animal Crossing Manga is the odd one of the group. It's giving and Peggy 🤣. I'm still proud of the lineup but I'm disbelief at how much sci-fi I've consumed.

Phobos and No More Lies were really good listens I'm super impressed at how talented the Big Finish team are. The Eighth Doctor Adventures Series 1 was definitely the best place to start as from Blood Of The Daleks it's only gotten better. I enjoyed both stories due to how experimental they were. No More Lies hit me right in the feels once the explanation for the timeloop was revealed and Phobos gobsmacked me at how dark it got. Judging on my journey I think I might enjoy the stories with orginal villians more.

I deserve a medal for how long it took me to read Black Spire I'm absolutely gobsmacked that it took me 42 days to finish this book especially since some of the chapters were short. Sure I took breaks so I could read my main reads and recover from being ill and it sending me into a reading slump. I did enjoy this book for the most part it was just a drag to get through. I'd still recommend it as it's themes are really deep and relevant for today. I loved the characters of Vi and Archex and definitely want to get my hands on the Phasma Audiobook so I can understand the story better. Good birthday present.

Oh the High Republic is my comfort franchise and I love it. I never planned on picking up the comics but when an opportunity presents yourself you take it. Very much enjoyed this volume and loved the themes of found family. Considering Zeen is queer it was very purposefully metaphorical that her friend betrayed her and disowned her after she had to out herself as a force user to save people. I also think it fleshes out the Nihil recruitment process and shows how easy it is to turn to the wrong people. I hope in the future I can get to reading Vol.2 but I'll definitely be re-reading Vol.3 of the High Republic Adventures that's for sure. Vol.1 was a delightful read and hit me right in the feels its well deserving of 5 stars.

Aftermath after mistakingly picking up the book as my first Star Wars read I was absolutely done with this novel. I knew I'd have to continue the Trilogy as a completionist but I was absolutely done with Aftermath as far as I was concerned. Having completely forgotten the events of the book though I knew it would be best to Reread Aftermath before I dug my teeth into Life Debt so I did and it helped a lot. Reading alongside Marc Thompsons narration on audio gave the book so much of the life it needed. It was a much more pleasant experience on Reread. I thought I'd hate it even more but the rating did not change. Infact it got me in the mood for reading Life Debt. Glad I gave Chuck Wending a second chance and I hope Empires End is even better than this book.

Finally Animal Crossing. One of my favourite video games and I think this manga series has not only faithfully adapted what made New Horizons charming but also actually added personality and life into the npcs and villagers. Vol.5 was a welcome suprise as I didn't think they'd add the 2.0 update and dlc into the series but its a very nice and welcome suprise. This manga series is just a nice breath of fresh air and I can't wait to get my hands on Vol. 6, Vol.7 and Vol.8. I seriously haven't enjoyed an entry in the series this much since Vol.2. Rumba does a wonderful job.

Conclusion

After the end of February's reading took a down turn I'm proud I managed to pick myself back up again. March was very interesting and I'm glad even if mainly Sci-fi that I managed to read and listen to a good bunch of stuff. I'm very optimistic for April and think it'll be just as good. I do know that the Calendar is for sure gonna be interesting.

If you want to see my full reviews for the audios and books featured in this post you can find me on The Storygraph and Goodreads.

Goodreads: Melody Soundy

Storygraph: melsage1823

Well this has been March's reading wrap up until next time...

-Melody-

They/Them