FEBRUARY | State of the ARC | #01

State of the ARC meme

State of the ARC is a monthly meme at Avalinah’s Books meant to motivate you to finish up all your long overdue ARCs (Advanced or Early Reader Copies). You can track your reading progress and link up with your own post. Most commonly it comes out on the 30th of every month.

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I’ve had my eye on this “State of the ARC” meme for a while now. I’ve never wanted to participate, since I myself am shamefully, incredibly behind on quite a few dozen ARC’s that I have. I cringe every time I think of them.

I found myself reading a few ARC’s I had this month, so I’m happy to say that I’m going to try and participate in these every month!

Netgalley is my biggest weakness for any and all ARC’s. All but two ARC’s that I have received are eARC’s. I’ve been on Netgalley since 2015 (can you imagine, omg). I legitimately have books I still have to read from that year (2015), onward. I have so much reading to do.

I do have an account with Edelweiss, but, since the site is too confusing for me to use, I stick to Netgalley. I’m even thinking of deleting my account with Edelweiss. I probably will. Anywho..

Back to the books! I have an obscene amount of books that I have to read. Like, too many to count. I don’t want to look at them, let alone think of them, please don’t make me think about them! I’m both dreading, yet also looking forward to reading the books that I’m (majorly) behind on. The total amount of books I have yet to read are: 101 books.

Yikes! I know. I’m WORKIN’ ON IT.

I have two physical copies that I have to read. One I won from a GoodReads giveaway Sweepstakes last year, and another that a publishing company sent to me; which sounds interesting, but I’m kinda anxious about reading it for some reason.. To break down the books I’ve yet to read even further, by genre:

• Children’s,
• Young Adult: YA Mystery/Thriller, YA Contemporary, YA Fantasy,
• New Adult,
• Adult/General Fiction: Mystery/Thriller, and Fantasy.

While that’s quite a handful of genres, I’ve been reading a lot of ARC’s lately so the number has — thankfully — gone down a smidgen.

This February I’ve read 11 ARC’s! Marked one as DNF that isn’t worth talking about.

I actually had a first this month: I read a Manga ARC! It was a fun read, with an unexpected dark side to the story: Goldfisch, by Nana Yaa. (my review)

Searching by C.S. Johnson; I genuinely wanted to like this one. The synopsis held a lot fo promise for me. Unfortunately I marked Searching as DNF at 61%. I couldn’t continue on with the story. (review to come)

Standing Sideways by J. Lynn Bailey, which came out on January 30, 2018, was a book that at first I didn’t think too much of. Then I read Standing Sideways and was torn apart from the feels. (my review)

Speedbump by Charli Coty; is a queer romance that came out on February 05, ’18. I don’t want to say too much since I don’t want to spoil the book. (my review)

The Last Wolf by Marie Vale; was published on Feb. 06, ’18. The Last Wolf has a very unique point of view. I didn’t know if I would finish the story or not, since the first chapter was very iffy to me. I’m glad I stuck around though. (my review)

Flight Season by Marie Marquardt; published on Feb. 20, ’18. Flight Season was completely unexpected. Seriously! The ending is incredibly bittersweet; it has me wanting to cry my heart out, while at the same time I feel healed. I’m still currently working on the review — I’m hoping my review of Flight Season will be out early March or so. (my review)

Maybe Never by Sadie Allen; published on Feb. 20 ’18! Maybe Never was a really interesting read. I didn’t know what to think of the book before hand, other than genuinely wanting to know what happened, and if Maybe Never was appealing as the synopsis previewed. (my review)

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw; which is coming out March 06 2018(!!!) was a genuinely great atmospheric read. I easily got into the feel of the book because of it. And then the plot twist of the month took me by complete surprise! (my review)

If I Tell You by Alicia Tuckerman; Even though I knew how the book ends (the synopsis gives it away), I didn’t mind knowing. So I went into If I Tell You with a happy outlook. I thought that even though the main character’s love dies at the end, it’d have a happy ending. And while it kind of does, what I’m calling the “main ending” completely, 100% obliterated my emotions. I was bawling my eyes out, ugly crying at 11pm. That said though, the rest of the book is littered with a ton of homophobia. If you’re going to pick up If I Tell You, just be aware of that. (my reivew)

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi; Emergency Contact was a book that I was immensely looking forward to reading. I’m so, so glad that I got the chance to read it as an arc. I love the character that both Sam and Penny go through, and I love that they grow together. (my review)

When I started this post sometime around Feb 10th, I was at a 37% Feedback Ratio (FR) on Netgalley. I’m incredibly happy to say that my CURRENT FR is at 40%! I’m going to work hard in March and hope for a higher FR. I don’t want to be over ambitious and stress myself out, and then end up not reading the arcs I have, so I’m not going to put down the specific percentage I have in mind.

All in all, I had a great ARC reading month. Most of the books I actually read this month were ARC’s. Which is awesome for my ARC pile, but not so much as my TBR pile. All well! If I had to say which book was my favourite, I legitimately would not be able to tell you, since I genuinely enjoyed all but 2 of the books I read.

The ARC’s I read this month were books that will, and have been, published in 2018; with one exception from 2017. In March I hope to read a handful of books that will be also published in 2018, but for the rest, I hope to read books back from 2015.

That’s all for now. Thank you so much for stopping by!

Happy Reading, friends!
— Adele

[EDIT: On June 28, 2018, I added links to reviews of the books I read.)

State of the ARC meme was created and is hosted by Avalinah over at Avalinah’s Books!