This has felt like a slow reading month for me. Though, to be fair, I’ve been busy, so that’s reflected in my reading speed. Regardless, I still made enough progress from last week to warrant another WWW Wednesday this week.

WWW Wednesday was revived and hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. The idea is to answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses.

What are you currently reading?

What have you just finished reading?

What are you going to read next?

Currently Reading

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND by Beverly Gage: I have to admit, I’m struggling with this nonfiction ARC a bit. The first couple of chapters, which were about Virginia and eastern Pennsylvania, were great. But the Texas chapter felt like a history information dump. The New York chapter was a little better, but still info dumpy. I thought this would be a travelogue that looked at how various places presented history and whether it was presented well. But instead it’s more the author telling me the history of each place and it’s not enough of a narrative nonfiction to keep me occupied. (I say this as someone who doesn’t gravitate toward reading historical nonfiction, so I need a narrative storytelling slant to stay interested.) I’m tempted to DNF this, but I’ll try to give it another chapter or two. I’m over 30% through at the moment.

THE MAD WOMEN’S BALL by Victoria Mas: I bought this short translated (from French) novel from Brookline Booksmith years ago. It’s time to give it a shot and I’m alternating it with the above nonfiction book. I’m not too far into it, but so far I like it. “A New York Times best historical novel of the year, Victoria Mas’s The Mad Women’s Ball is a feminist literary thriller, adapted as a major film for Amazon Prime.“

Just Finished

ROLLS AND RIVALRY by Kristy Boyce: This was a quick read, though unfortunately I didn’t like it as much as the first two books in this series of standalones. If you missed my review, you can read it here.

DEFY THE NIGHT by Brigid Kemmerer: I finally finished this, yay! My audiobook game has been so slow this month. I actually thought this was pretty good, especially since I’ve moved away a lot from the YA genre because the angst just annoys me. If I didn’t have so many other books to get to, I’d probably more strongly consider reading the whole trilogy.

THE PEARL by John Steinbeck: I picked this up on a whim because I was feeling slumpy due to my nonfiction current read. The fact that this novella is only 90 pages felt attainable to me. For once, I actually enjoyed a “classic”! I was surprisingly riveted by what would happen to Kino and Juana. The ending was sad, though.

Reading Next

THE BLACKTONGUE THIEF by Christopher Buehlman: I won this in a giveaway from a fellow reviewer on Twitter years ago. It’s been so long I can’t remember who it was. I have big goals to finally read it, though in audiobook format because, as I’ve said before, I just cannot get through all my books with my eyeballs…not unless I magically become rich and can quit my job. “Set in a world of goblin wars, stag-sized battle ravens, and assassins who kill with deadly tattoos, Christopher Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief begins a ‘dazzling’ (Robin Hobb) fantasy adventure unlike any other.“