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.