Mid-Year Reading Check-In

[owlmoose]

With July comes the middle of the year, which is a good time to take stock of reading goals for 2019 and share some of my favorite books so far. Starting with goals:

• I read 20 books as of June 30th, a good bit behind the pace for my goal of 50 for the year, but not so far behind that it feels insurmountable.
• Of those, 11 are by authors of color, which is ahead of pace for my 50% goal! Not only that, 6 of those authors were new to me, which means I've hit my goal there with half a year to go. I'm very pleased with myself and hope I can keep it up.
• Books that I already owned: a whopping grand total of four, which considering that I meant to hit 50% is not so great. I'm almost done with Hugo reading for 2019, at least, which means I can hopefully start pulling from the TBR a bit more often. So even if I don't catch up all the way, I can make some progress.

Some favorites so far:

• The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: A coming of age story about a young man caught up in politics and the life story of a god who is also a rock, with shades of Hamlet. Wonderful characters, engaging story, many musings on the power of storytelling and language.
• Thornbound by Stephanie Burgess: The sequel to Snowspelled revisits one of my favorite romances, set against a backdrop of political intrigue and an academy of magic for women.
• The True Queen by Zen Cho: Women's education seems to be a theme of my reading this year, as this sequel to The Sorcerer and the Crown sees Prunella fighting a similar battle to legitimize her academy for female magicians. But this book is really about Muna, a girl from Malaysia who (more common themes) ends up in a political battle crossing England, Faerie, and realms beyond.
• Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman: I actually caught up on all of Hartman's Southlands books this year, but this one was by far my favorite. I was so compelled by Seraphina's journey to find the other half-dragons, its highs and lows and her eventual discovery. I also enjoyed the romance. Rarely have I more wanted a love triangle to be solved by polyamory, and it's even more rare to actually get that resolution.
• The Black Gods Drums by P. Djèlí Clark: I reviewed this, my favorite novella published in 2018, with my Hugo novella reading round-up a few weeks ago.

So how is everyone else doing on goals for the year so far? Any surprising discoveries? Let me know!