We all have them. I'm definitely in one now. I think it's just I don't want to read the books I have started/need to read right now. Like N0S4A2. Just not in the mood. Maybe I need to read something different to break it up. Not sure what though. It's a conundrum. 

Anyway, I don't think I'll be doing bingo this year. I love it, I just can't even THINK about reading books right now. It's a bummer. 

It's been awhile.

The reason for this is I've been through -this sounds more dramatic really than it was- my biggest reading slump in years over the past couple of months. I was surprised and it took some time for me to realize what was happening. I've been reading steadily for at least the last five years (and although I've tuned down my reading challenge a bit since 2018 what with the PhD and everything) I felt everything was going fine. Also reading wise. Until it didn't.

I guess I was stuck with some books I didn't enjoy reading and it is not in my nature to quit them. I know I can't really complain since I still read six books in the worst month of it. But more than the sheer lack of books being read it was much the feeling that encompassed it. I didn't feel like reading (very weird feeling, would not recommend it ;) ). I am ashamed to say some books (I always read multiple at any given time) took me half a year to finish. But finish them I did and finally saw some light at the end of the reading tunnel.

I'm happy to say the joy of reading has returned to me, and I feel like I've been making up for lost time, slowly trying to catch up with my reading challenge (which I still hope to make by the end of the year). Only 14 books behind (rather than 30), so it's already a win.

However, when I didn't feel like reading I also didn't feel like writing about it, so I haven't spend much time on here lately. I will have to write some reviews to catch up and I hope you can forgive me for my absence.

PS. I plan on taking on the 24-in-48 again, however previous attempts have gone horribly awry (last time my parents decided to bring home a cat, and the reading was done for the weekend) so I'm curious to see where it is going.

I haven't been very interested in sitting down and reading lately, although luckily it doesn't seem to have affected my desire to listen to audiobooks. I'm still doing a good deal of that. I made the mistake of putting multiple audiobooks on hold and, since they all came in at once, I now have an excessive amount to listen to.

I've also drifted back to visual novels (sort of like choose-your-own-adventure style computer games). I'm currently working my way through 428 Shibuya Scramble, one of the few non-romance visual novels in my collection. Judging by reviews, it usually takes people about 40 hours to get through the whole thing, and I just started my 5th hour.

The controls are occasionally a bit annoying (you can't change the text speed or use a mouse, ugh), but the story has one of the most interesting structures I've ever experienced in a visual novel. It starts off focused on a kidnapping: the twin sister of one of the characters has been kidnapped, and the first POV you follow is that of one of the cops watching as she waits to hand off a suitcase of ransom money.

Right from the start, you get one of the bad endings. In order for the story to progress, you must follow hints and switch between various POVs. One character's decision to talk to another (or exterminate or flee from an insect) could determine whether someone else's story continues or not. There are five POVs: Kano, the young cop with fiancee problems; Achi, a street smart young man obsessed with recycling; Osawa, a virologist and the father of the kidnapped girl; Minorikawa, a freelance journalist trying to help out a colleague; and Tama, a girl stuck in a cat mascot suit who is attempting to sell a questionable diet drink. A timeline helps you track each POV and switch between them at various points - all of their stories are going on simultaneously, so it's helpful to know that, say, Achi is doing X at 12:20 PM while Tama is doing Y.

The screenshots made it look like a pain to read, but it's actually been going better than I thought it would. I'm not sure that the basic story would have been that appealing, but it has a lot of energy and great humor.

A couple screenshots from Tama's storyline:

This is somewhat less creepy in context.

The game is riddled with often amusing explanatory notes.

Is it really a slump when you stop reading because you want to focus on something else for a while? I mean, I already read over 50 books this year and I think that is pretty good for someone who has trouble focusing.

(I have years of 200+ books, but I don't want that kind of pressure anymore. Reading = fun, not a job or chore! More power to people who can read that much all the time, but I can't keep that up year after year!)

Right now, I am technically in the middle of 3 books (4 if you count the one I haven't recorded online. Oops. Does it count if I haven't recorded it online...so is the era we live in! :/ )

Paperbacks From Hell:

(I want to savor it!)

Paperback Crush:

(Same)

Ordinary Souls:

(Short story collection, so I can take my time if I want to.)

The Hobbit:

(Shifty eyes... for some reason my brain thought it was a good idea to try and read The Hobbit and LOTR again. Curse my brain!!)

***

Anyways, hi. I haven't updated in a while  because I've not been reading much. How is everyone doing?

I don't know if I'm in a reading slump or if my current reads just aren't working for me. At any rate, I've been playing games more than reading lately. I'm at least trying to get some of my review backlog taken care of, but that's slow going too.

Steam has their Summer Sale going on right now, and I wish I could buy up my whole wishlist. I figured out what the total would be if I did and...no. But I did get some goodies and spent the weekend trying out one of them, Sunless Sea. So far, my first captain committed suicide by pirate rather than face eating her crew (or being eaten by them - the ferret was acting particularly menacing near the end), and my second captain foolishly took on an enormous shark with the game's default weaponry. My third captain is doing fairly well at the moment, which makes me nervous. I keep waiting for him to accidentally make a bad deal, or get surrounded by monsters he can't run away from, or something equally awful.