May Reading Round-Up

May was a good month, but I can't believe it's almost over.  I read some great stuff this past month.  We had more rain here in the Bay Area, but that's good because we need it.  Also good is the cooler than usual weather - I hate being hot.  It's been amazing to wander about in the neighborhood around where I live and look at people's roses - they're just gorgeous this year (because of all the rain).  I've included some pictures of flowers in the neighborhood throughout this post.

Roses in San Leandro, CA

Other events of note in our house for May - my son got into Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and my husband got into UC Berkeley!  I'm officially one year away from finishing my MBA so we're going to be an edumacated family!  We also had a 3.0 earthquake with a 2.8 aftershock around midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning.  We really felt it because the center was near San Leandro where we are.  The cat really hated it, but everyone settled down shortly after and we got actual sleep.  It also reminded me that we need to get some bottled water to put away for when the big one hits - the Brita filter will only last so long!

Digitalis (foxglove) planted underneath a tree - San Leandro, CA

Here's what I read and reviewed in May:

1. A Place of Greater Safety by Hillary Mantel (review)
2. Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth (review)
3. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (review)
4. The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford (review)
5. Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll (review)
6. A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read (review)
7. The Crazy School by Cornelia Read (review)
8. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead (review)
9. The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (review)
10. Beauty by Robin McKinley (review)
11. King of Shadows by Susan Cooper (review)
12. Horns by Joe Hill (review)
13. Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman (review)
14. Hellhound on His Trail by Hampton Sides (review)
15. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (review)
16. Skellig by David Almond (review)
17. Sabriel by Garth Nix (review)
18. Seeing Stars by Diane Hammond (review)
19. Reckless by Andrew Gross (review)
20. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (review)
21. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (review)
22. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (review)

I read a lot this past month, but it was a bit of a mixed bag.  I abandoned both the Hillary Mantel and the Joe Hill books (the latter with only about 100 pages to go).  I'll probably go back to the Hillary Mantel when the weather changes to fall/winter - for whatever reason I tend to want to read more serious books when it's not so sunny and beautiful outside.  Books of note were Blood Oath (a great political thriller with a vampire hero - I know, but it was good), both Cornelia Read books, Skellig, my re-read of The Egypt Game, Seeing Stars, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (I liked the second one, but the first one just rocks).

I also completed some reading challenges this past month:  Battle of the Prizes - American Version, Random Reading Challenge, Speculative Fiction Challenge 2010, and the Thriller and Suspense Challenge.  Lest I be bereft of challenges I also signed up for the Birth Year Reading Challenge.

Peonies!

I changed my blog template - with summer on the way I wanted to have a fresh new summerish kind of look.  If you have a Blogspot blog and haven't played with the new template designer available in Blogger in Draft you are missing out!  It blows their old stuff completely out of the water and is incredibly easy to use!

I'll also be unveiling my very own rating system that I'll begin using in June!  I wanted something other than stars and I finally decided what I want.  Stay tuned!

As always, thanks for visiting and reading my reviews.  I hope you all had a great May - let's go have a great June, too!