[Books] May 2021 Reads

 I still managed to keep pace with my reading goals during the month of May and I feel like I managed to explore some interesting territory. A focus on more franchise-based fiction like the different Doctor Who and Star Wars books certainly helped in that area.

But that didn't limit me from exploring some interesting pieces that had been sitting in my collection for a while. So on the whole, it felt like a good month for reading. I certainly read a bit faster a the beginning of the month, but things sort of bogged down towards the end and I felt I slowed down. But maybe that's just me.

For the month of May 2021, I read a total of 35 titles consisting of 5 novels, 26 comic book volumes, and 4 Audible audiobooks! That certainly helped to make up for what felt like more limited reading in previous months.

Reminder: I'll link to some of the featured titles I read using Amazon Affiliate links. If you want to help support the site, feel free to purchase them using that link! 

For novels, focused on sort of mini-arcs for my franchise fiction. This included the two-book Star Trek Enterprise arc covering the Romulan War and the two-book Doctor Who arc known as the Time Lord Victorious. Both felt like very interesting explorations for their respective universes and I enjoyed them a lot. 

For comic books, I was all over the place as usual but some books that really stood out was finally reading Ed Brubaker's The Fade Out, which was a deeply intriguing noir novel set in that classic old Hollywood period. It was rather different from my usual superhero fare, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Then there's Legend of the Scarlet Blades, which was another intriguing fantasy exploration set in feudal Japan. Great story beats and wonderful pacing combined with vibrant art made for some great reading. The only other title I'd single out is the new ongoing Doctor Doom series. While I do generally love Doom stories, this one is a very interesting take that doesn't try to make him into an anti-hero. He's still quite the megalomaniac who believes he should conquer the world to save it from itself, but that doesn't make him a good guy.

I felt a lot more tactical in the audiobook department this month since I did focus on some shorter fiction to help things along. After wrapping up Bird Box, I skipped along with titles like Trixie and Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood, What If It's Us, and the very short The Tales of Beedle the Bard, just to clear more things from my library. To make up for this, I'm now listening to Circe by Madeline Miller, which is quite the lengthy tale. Hopefully, I'll finish listening to it in June.

And this covers all my reading for May. Catch you again once we get through June! And if you want to explore my reviews of everything I read, feel free to check out my Goodreads page.