I hit a bit of a reading slump in May. I only read seven books this month. Part of it was that I struggled with a few of the books I was reading. The rest of it was being busy with the perpetual novel edits, going to a friend’s wedding, and then life becoming very, very stressful.
In mid-May, I had an experience while Neutron was guiding me that clarified some odd behavior I’ve been seeing from him in the last few months. This set off a flurry of vet visits and then ophthalmology visits and then calls with the Seeing Eye and finally a visit from the Seeing Eye. I actually wound up going up to New Hampshire to see the veterinary ophthalmologist we’ve seen in the past, because the new ophthalmologist my vet in D.C. recommended couldn’t see me until late June and this felt more urgent. The long and short of all this is that Neutron has iris atrophy, which means his pupils can’t constrict in bright light. Right now it’s minor, and after working with the Seeing Eye, the consensus is Neutron’s guide work is still perfectly safe, but it’s definitely something I’m going to keep an eye on. Pun intended. I’m so glad this is how it all resolved, because I was well-aware that the alternative was probably retirement sooner rather than later and I was not ready for that. So though it turned out well, it made for a very stressful few weeks.
But you can see why I didn’t read as much this month and why it took me so long to get this post up. I’m just glad I did it before the end of June.
Like I said, I read seven books in May. Four were continuations of series I’ve been reading. One was the start of a new series. One was a stand-alone. And one was a science/history nonfiction. Looking at the picture, it was a very pink month. Let’s dive in.
I started May with the last book in The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. This book takes place sixteen years after the cliffhanger ending of the third book. Daystar’s mother, Cimorene, has sent him out into the Enchanted Forest with no explanation and only the instruction to not come back until he knows why she sent them out there. Daystar winds up on a quest to reach the castle, accompanied by a magic sword he doesn’t understand, a fire witch whose kagic is ruled by her emotions, and a host of other characters, battling the usual wizards and swamp monsters and so on. This book was fine. The big problem I had is that because we’ve read the first three books, we know exactly why Daystar’s mother sent him out into the forest and what the secret Daystar doesn’t know, so a lot of the tension was lost for me. I understand Patricia C. Wrede wrote this book first in the series, and that makes more sense, but coming as the fourth book it just didn’t work for me. There were other things that also didn’t work, like how there just weren’t enough feelings for my taste during the resolution, and how much I kind of hated Cimorene in this book. On the whole, I would probably recommend the first book in the series, Dealing with Dragons, and maybe the second, but I’m not sure I would recommend the rest of the books in the series.
Next, I read Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. This is set in an alternate 2020—no pandemic, a fictional democratic president—and is the story of the president’s son falling in love with the prince of England. This book was so much fun. There was a bit too much description of the sex for my taste, and I’ve confirmed that romance novels really aren’t my favorite thing because I was more interested in the subplots than the romantic relationships, but on the whole this book was really quite delightful.
After that, I read Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. This is the book Apollo 13 that the movie is based on. I found the science and the history really interesting, and obviously the drama of the story of Apollo 13 is gripping and powerful. I read this book in high school and wrote a history paper on it, so it wasn’t totally unfamiliar to me. What I was surprised by was also how dry the writing was. Like this is a high stakes story. The spaceship is broken and we’re not sure if they’re going to make it home. But honestly the number of times I fell asleep while listening to the audiobook, woke up and turned it off an hour later, and then felt that I could have gone on without rewinding and wouldn’t have missed much, was unfortunately high. I described this book to my parents as simultaneously one of the most interesting and most boring things I’ve read. If you’re interested in delving deeper into the science of what was happening inn the Apollo 13 mission, then I’d definitely recommend giving this a read (and that was what I was interested in, so I’m glad I read it on the whole). But otherwise, I’d say you’re probably better off just watching the movie. It’s good.
Then I read the first Temeraire book, His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik, and oh my goodness I loved it. William Lawrence is a captain in the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars. When his ship captures a French ship and they discover a dragon egg on board, and then the egg hatches, Lawrence becomes bonded with the baby dragon, and they set off to join the British Aerial Corps to train and then fight in the war from dragonback. I loved Temeraire, the dragon. I also loved all the other characters we got to meet. The book was well-paced and exciting. And maybe because of what I was going through with Neutron at the time I was reading this, I actually noticed some interesting paralells with working with a service dog. For example dragons live a really long time, so they will have a series of handlers, and that can be really hard for them. It reminded me of how a guide dog user will have many guide dogs and how a lot of us say that is the hardest part of having a guide dog. That really spoke to me, as did the bond between dragon and handler. The only part of this book that I was not a big fan of is how Levitas’s subplot was handled. I don’t want to give spoilers, but Levitas deserved so much better, and I am prepared to shout that from the rooftops. I read the second Temeraire book in June, so I’ll be talking about that soon, and I’m on the waiting list to get the third one from the library.
Finally, I read three Princess Diaries books in may, the novellas Sweet Sixteen Princess and Valentine Princess, and the next full-length installment in the series, Princess on the Brink, all by Meg Cabot. The two novellas were fun, but they also felt very similar in that they’re all about Mia being worried about her relationship with Michael because she either wants or doesn’t want something and Michael seems to want the opposite, only to find that if they’d just communicated better it would have been fine, and in the end, everybody goes home happy. Princess on the Brink was quite a book, , and I’m not exactly sure in what way I mean that. Michael is going off to Japan, both to prove to Mia’s family that he’s worthy of her and also to get some space from Mia because he’s distressed by the fact that she won’t sleep with him. Mia is devistated. Mia decides to sleep with Michael in an attempt to get him to stay with her in New York. This goes terribly, because to be clear, this is an absolutely TERRIBLE idea. I just felt like Mia was so so stupid in this book, like so stupid, and we’re now eight books into the series, and I would have thought she would have learned something—anything—from the last seven books and three novellas. Suffice it to say I was frustrated by this book but interested to see where we’re going next.
And that’s it for May. Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? I’ll be back soon with my June books and some exciting writing news.
In April, I got more edits on my middle grade sci fi project and did a lot of work on those revisions; put in a lot more time at work to finish that major project and release it into the world; had my parents visit for Easter; met my pedometer app’s April challenge to reach my step goal 17 times; got my second covid vaccine (yay!) and accompanying side effects; and ventured into a supermarket for the first time in a year. Oh, and I read fourteen books in April.
I also read twelve books in February. Two were contemporaries, one was nonfiction, and the rest were fantasy. Two were rereads, but the rest were new to me. I didn’t finish any Braille books this month. There were a couple I wasn’t super excited about, but on the whole it was a good reading month.
I read fifteen books in January. Many of them were quite short, which is how I got through so many. I was also almost definitely avoiding stress with books, which isn’t the worst thing in the world but which I’ve realized I need to be aware of. But I also just loved so many of these books.
At the end of 2019, I read the Remnant Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson and absolutely loved them. In November and December of 2020, I reread the series, and I’m finally doing what I started to do in 2019 and never finished: raving to you all about them. A couple months ago, I wrote about the first book, The Kiss of Deception, and about how Mary E. Pearson pulls off a twist midway through the book that manages to be surprising without coming out of left field. You can read that post 
No, I did not like the name Mopsy. I actually considered changing it, but nothing I came up with seemed right. And the name grew on me. It fit this spunky girl perfectly, and soon she was not just Mopsy but also Mopsy Girl, Mopsicle, Flopsy Mopsy, and the Mops.
Mopsy attended every class and sat through every exam. She was very well-behaved and quiet, though she did untie my shoes under the table once, and she was known to grumble happily every time someone mentioned a dog or whenever the silence after a professor asked a question became too long. She learned Italian right along with me, and we spent a summer abroad in Torino in 2012. She put up with dressing up for Halloween but made her displeasure known by shredding the antennae off her costume during English class. 
She stood by me when my childhood pet, Kokopelli, passed away, and then when I lost my eye in 2013. In 2014, Mopsy and I graduated from Kenyon, me with my bachelors in English and creative writing, and Mopsy with her bark-elors degree as dogophonus maximus, because she loved to sing along with my clarinet and the wind ensemble. On her diploma, in Latin, it says, “With me you will go safely.” 
Mopsy was with me through some of the most important years of my life. When I left home for college, took my first steps as an adult, realized my independence, went off to law school, she was there. When I was happy, she shared in the joy, and when I was lonely, she was there to be a friend.
Rocket was objectively annoying. One time, he tried to chew on Mopsy’s ear, and she very gently put her paw on his back and put his entire head in her mouth to prove that she was in charge. But she let little Rocket snuggle with her too. Mopsy and Neutron had a special bond from the beginning. 
