Toby > Recent Status Updates

Happy 2024 everyone! I hope it’s a boring, precedents year for all of us.

I surely do love staycations and the time that they afford me to read! I’m about half through this staycay and have been spending much time with my nose in a book. Also, happy February, y’all.

That feeling when you really hone in on reading as escapism. It always is escapism — but at least personally, there are times when I really lean into it intentionally as escapism rather than just something fun that helps me unwind. Usually when life is overwhelming.

Setting my goal to 100 books for 2023 but what I’m not able to specify in my challenge is that I want it to be 100 of my own books (physical copies not ebooks). We shall see how I do. Happy New Year!!

It’s 2022 and now I don’t wanna do anything but read. I made it past the holidays at my workplace — I want 2 uninterrupted weeks to just read as a reward. 😂

I feel like I’ve fallen into a rut of mostly giving 4 stars to books as long as I’ve enjoyed them.

Oh well. I used to be super strict with star ratings but honestly, I’m not as strict anymore and I genuinely don’t care that much. At least, I don’t think that I do. 😂

Ugh there’s just so many books out there that I want to read and so little time, really... 😩

Anyone else noticing that you can’t search for books on the search bar? Mine says “0 results found” for literally anything I type in, including books that I’ve written reviews for in the past.

My reading pace has significantly slowed down and that makes me sad. Stupid stress making it difficult to focus. :(

I wonder what percentage of my reading is done in the bathroom, as I am someone with IBS & anxiety (& have done a lot of reading while indisposed — a habit that began when I was 6 years old. I can’t be the only one, can I?).

I also wonder what percentage is done to stave off insomnia — a much smaller percentage, I’m sure, compared to the bathroom reading, but increasing since my surgery in June.

This is where my training as a clinical social worker impedes my enjoyment of a book. 😩 Down Syndrome is NOT a learning disability (like dyslexia). It is a developmental disability. PLEASE DO YOUR RESEARCH!!! 🤦🏻‍♀️

Just preordered two books — something I almost never do — for a few reasons, including the pandemic but also because now I have two packages that will arrive in late May and early June respectively, and I’m betting I’ll have forgotten that they’ll be arriving so it’ll be surprise happy mail! Which is just a smidge better than just normal happy mail.

Continuing to try and shelve all of my books — yesterday I forayed into shelving some of my (3000+) Kindle books as well as the books on one of my (3) nonfiction shelves in my library. Continued apologies for the book spam. I’m trying to keep it to a sane(ish) amount daily (compared to what it could be🙈), I promise!

Please excuse the book spam that’ll be happening the next few days/weeks. I’m finally starting to catalogue books in my (extremely extensive) personal collection!

What the flying fuck does the description “long eyes” even mean? I don’t understand — do you meant slanted? Narrow? Deeply set? And “long eyes” is a description that’s been used for at least 2 characters in multiple settings so far and I don’ttttt getttt itttt.

I love Ruth Galloway’s books. 😍 Also, this book is about Pendle and references the 17th century Pendle witch hunts... which I’m reading about in another book! #Synchronicity

...that feeling when you grab a book from the library and start reading it and get halfway through and look it up on Goodreads and realize you read it 6 years ago.

Oops. I didn’t remember ANY of it, either. Lulz.

It may be worth noting that up until I was on page 32, I thought the name of this book was “Love, Lies, and the List.” Which I think sounds better than it’s actually title, NGL.

Mmmph. Not sure what psych hospital in the present day has the standards shared in this novel... these standards are more like a 1960s insane asylum than an acute psychiatric unit in the 2000s.

Omg I ADORE Kenji!!!!

Again... can we not use failed IVF as a plot device?! It’s so overused! And I am blessed to be reading two very different books at the same time that use the same thing to drive the plot. 🤮 NOTHANKYOU.

Can we please stop using failed IVF as a plot device?! Omg I am so over it!

You checked this book out from the library on a rainy day in January and sat down to read it on a dark, snowy morning, a cappuccino at your side. Not even 40 pages in, you find yourself wondering — for the umpteenth time — why an author would opt to tell her story in 2nd person. You wonder, too, if the author is as sleep deprived as you are when she penned this novel.

This is far bloodier than I anticipated. Still, a captivating story reminiscent of the Hunger Games. (Premise is eerily similar, actually.)

Man, how did I forget that I have approximately 79 pages of books on my Kindle, most of which are unread?! 🤦🏻‍♀️ (I actually have more pages of books than that, those are just the downloaded books...) All the unread books... so many on my Kindle as well as in hard copy in my personal library. Does anyone else struggle like this too? 😂

Less than 2 hours of reading time, and I started and finished a 300 page book! *flex* Speed reading for the win!

I’m in a weird kind-of reading slump. ;_; This sucks. Any advice?...

Does anyone ever really struggle with wanting to read but just not having (much) time? How busy I am and how tired my brain is makes me sad; I miss reading for hours on end. :(

That feeling when you're awake far past your bedtime, so you decide to organize your books on Kindle... and realize that over the years you've accumulated over 300 pages of Kindle titles... oy. Got lots of reading in my future! I'm rich!

This book has been a good choice as one to read on my phone as a backup when I don't have my Kindle or any paperback books. Definitely a relaxing story!