May Reading Wrap Up
The first few months of 2026 flew by and work was so busy I lost my way a little bit, but I am back! May was really a time to get back into the swing of things and I am really enjoying what my reading looked like this month and I’m hoping I can keep up with this amount of reading for the summer. Let’s jump into the may reading wrap up!
My May Hopefuls
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My May Hopefuls *
My hopefuls for May were a mixture of NetGalley ARCs that I’ve fallen behind on and a few gifted books that I have been looking forward to reading. Spoiler Alert! I didn’t love one of them ‘-_- nonetheless! I was successful in getting to more of these books that I thought I would.
Let’s get into what I actually read!
Drum Roll Please
Drum Roll Please
My May Reads
I read a total of ten books, which is honestly more than I thought I would because January through April I basically only read about 4 a month, then again work was extremely busy in those months and completely died down for May.
To kick off the month, I jumped on the Dungeon Crawler Carl train, and let me tell you — it did not disappoint. I highly recommend checking out the audiobook to this series, the narration just makes the world come alive tenfold. In case for some reason you are not familiar with the DCC world by Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl follows ex-Nation Guard, Carl, who ends up entering an intergalactic reality show with his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as aliens invade earth. The point of the reality show? Survive the dungeon to continue to live. If you like gaming even remotely, I highly recommend checking this one out. I rated it 4.5 stars.
Then, still on my audiobook kick, I jumped into Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green. If you were a teenager in the 2010s, I can’t imagine you not knowing who John Green is. From Looking For Alaska to The Fault in Our Stars, John Green paved the way for millennial existentialism through the prose of teenagers who were far too well versed for their age. Everything Is Tuberculosis leads you into a deep dive to disease itself and how it functions, to the prolonged and dramatic history. TB oddly takes form in the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, in the sense that instead of Kevin Bacon, everything can trace back to TB. This was my first 5 star read of 2026. If you were a YouTube kid, and enjoyed Crash Course by John and Hank Green, I would highly recommend the audiobook.
Moving on to a few ARCs that I fell behind one, I read two very good but very different short story collections. The first, I Know A Place by Nat Cassidy which is a horror short story collection. It was gory, dark, and beyond creative. I will never look at googly eyes, or elf-on-the shelf the same way ever again. The second, If We Cannot Go At The Speed Of Light by Kim Cho Yeop, translated by Anton Hur, which is a sci-fi short story collection that really makes you ponder are we looking for more connection as we search the universe, or just expanding loneliness? I highly recommend both. I rated them 4 stars.
To lift my spirits from a few very good, but very serious (and darker) reads, I picked up Play Along by Liz Tomforde, which is the fourth book in a series of sports standalones. This follows an MLB player and an athletic trainer who drunkenly end up married one night in Las Vegas and in order to keep her job, the MLB player insists that he has had a secret affair with the athletic trainer for a while before getting married and that it wasn’t an impulsively drunk decision. Ultimately this was such a fun romance read but I took a star off because I did find the FMC to be a little too negative most of the time. 3 stars.
After the light read, I jumped back to another John Green book on audio, The Anthropocene Reviewed, and into a fairy tale horror book, The Lamb by Lucy Rose. Both were incredible. I can’t recommend them enough.
I had an ARC deadline coming up so next I read Dead Weight by Hildur Knutsdottir. Translated to English from Icelandic, this horror thriller was austere. After an unlikely friendship forms between two woman, their bonds are tested after a violent altercation. This novella has you supporting women’s wrongs just as much as women’s rights.
To finish out the month, I finished my monthly buddy read with my mom, Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney, and completed a book that had been on my TBR since last year, The Knight and The Moth by Rachel Gillig. While Good Bad Girl is definitely a thriller you’d find in an airport gift shop, and mildly predictable, it was honestly overall a good time. It at least kept you guessing through the entirety of the novel. I wish I could say the same about The Knight and The Moth. I gave into the hype with this one, and definitely went in with high expectations. Ultimately the writing felt clunky, and the story line was too predictable leading to the ending dragging to an anticlimactic cliffhanger setting up for a second book.
Overall, while I may have ended the month a bit of a sour note, I had an amazing reading month. I can only hope June is just as good if not better.
A June Sneak Peek
A June Sneak Peek
Here is a little sneak peek into the books I’m hoping to get to in June. Perhaps a little too ambitious but I want to give myself plenty of options while also tackling my physical TBR and NetGalley ARCs. I have four buddy reads coming up this month as well that I’m looking forward to so I’m hoping I can stay motivated!
Thank you so much for being here <3
Until next time.
xx