I lieu of sounding like a broken record, where did May go? Time sure is going by fast for everyone being cooped up and on self-isolation. The best thing that this has done for me though is that my reading has been amazing. I did start out the month in a bit of a reading slump, but I’ve had no issues getting into books these last two-three weeks.

I managed to read an additional 11.5 books this month. This puts me at 52% of my 2020 reading goal completed. Oh yeah! I’m more than halfway through my reading goals and we’re not even halfway through the year. At this rate I’m looking at reading 25% more than I anticipated.

Complete List of Everything I read in April 2020

1. The Paris Hours | ★★★★| See my full review HERE!
2. Catherine House|★★★ | See my full review HERE!
3. Big Summer|★★★★ | See my full review HERE!
4. The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires|★★★★★ | See my full review HERE!
5.  Valentine |★★★★ |See my full review HERE!
6.  A Taste of Sage | ★★★ |See my full review HERE!
7. The Boy from the Woods |★★★★|See my full review HERE!
8. A Good Marriage|★★★★ |See my full review HERE!
9. The Boyfriend Project| ★★★★| Full review coming Wednesday
10. Sparrow | ★★★ | Full review coming soon
11. The Vanishing Half |★★★★★|Full review coming Tuesday!
12.  The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne | ★★★★|In progress

Reading Stats

Favorite book of the month: The Vanishing Half & The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. – This book was all over the place but in a good way. Even though there is a vampire in the book, it’s not you traditional vampires, and I loved it.

Least Favorite book of the month: Taste of Sage. It was cute but cheesy. The ‘spark’ between the two love interests just wasn’t there. I did love that there are recipes in this book though!

Goal Updates

For 2020 I am attempting at keeping myself more accountable for the goals I set myself. You can see a full list of my 2020 goals HERE. Below I have highlighted some of my progress towards these goals. This is just a snapshot, but I believe that sharing it with you, my reader, helps me to stay motivated which leaves me more likely to reach them.

• Reading Goal: 52% of my reading goal completed this month. This is an increase of 11% from March. Or 52 out of 100 books read so far this year.
•  I did not purchase any books this month besides my Book of the Month picks. I’d say that’s a win!
• My Netgallery rating is up to 20%. And in June I’m aiming to get this up another 10%, wish me luck.
• While Sadie and I were doing really well running this month by participating in the 5K a day May, an ankle injury has kept me sidelined for the past two weeks. I’m hoping that by staying off it, my ankle will be nice and healed to get back into training in June.
• Once again I kept up with posting 3+ blog posts a week. I feel myself getting into a really good rhytum with my posts & find that I am doing so much better about writing reviews as soon as a finish a book instead of procrastinating. I also hit 200 followers on the blog this month! Huge thank you to everyone who follows and tunes into my rants.
• While I am nowhere near 10,000 followers on Instagram I am sitting at  3.7K+ which is almost a 300+ follower increase for April. At this rate I’ll hit 5K by the end of the year!

May, another strange month of staying home. We did start to venture out of the house towards the end of the month and I even helped to host a drive by baby shower. It’s been nice to get to see friends and family again. I’m hoping that a second wave doesn’t hit too hard, and we can all try and get back to our normal routines and lives.

I hope you enjoyed my May Recap. What other facts and tidbits would you like to know about my reading or even about my month? If you liked this recap please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof_books.