As you probably saw from my previous post, 2018 I spent in something of a tailspin. I came nowhere close to completing on any of my intentions around reading, reviewing or challenges. I’m still a little sad about this, but I know it happens. I did read a bunch of books by Australian women writers though. I did not review any of them properly. But here’s a quick run down on how I did in hindsight, despite the year exploding in my face amidst exhaustion, burn out and my graduate year as a midwife.
The goal I set initially:
Once again I’m throwing my hat into this challenge, I really love it and that it keeps me engaged with and reading new work by Australian writers, particularly women. This year I’m choosing my own level again and I’m going with my previous challenge of read and review 15 books.
In 2018 I’d really like to make sure they include some works by Indigenous and non-white authors, and works telling stories about diverse characters too. Hopefully I’ll be more successful with this – I earmarked a bunch of books last year already, so now to actually go forth and read them. I also want to finish reading through my Twelve Planets project if possible.
Reader, I did very little of this. However, looking back at the goal I’m proud of myself for setting the bar high. I utterly failed at it – but largely due to things that I couldn’t do much about. Breakups happen, and my grad year really did take more out of me than I had anticipated. Also, these things happened in combination and I started out the year in a state of burn out so… it’s not surprising. But go me for aiming high. This helps me consider what do I really want to aim for in 2019 (post forthcoming) as well.
Books by Australian women writers I read (and did not review properly):
- Dragon Blood series by Avril Sabine:
- Angel Blood by K.S. Nikakis, book 1 in the Angel Caste series
- The Electric Empire series by Viola Carr
- The Fire Sermon series by Francesca Haig
- #1 – The Fire Sermon
- #2 – The Map of Bones
- #3 – The Forever Ship
- More podcast serials at Sheep Might Fly by Tansy Rayner Roberts (these kept me going in 2018).
- Let Sleeping Princes Lie – A Castle Charming series #3
- Cookie Cutter Superhero (no separate Goodreads listing, but part of the YA anthology Kaleidescope)
- Kid Dark Against the Machine #1 from the Cookie Cutter Superhero universe.
- Halloween is Not a Verb – Belladonna University series #4
- Icefall by Stephanie Gunn (one of the best things I read last year).
- Zeroes from the Zeroes series, with 2 of 3 authors Deborah Biancotti and Margo Lanagan both of whom are Australian women writers.
- The Mocklore Omnibus by Tansy Rayner Roberts
- Stormbringer by Alis Franklin, book 2 in The Wyrd series
This last book I’m including here is by an Australian genderfluid person rather than a woman writer. However, since the purpose of the challenge is to bring attention and reviews to people under-represented by mainstream reading and reviewing trends and publicity, I think it fits within the purview of the challenge without the need to misgender the author. Also, this book was everything I wanted from a paranormal romance in recent years and found a bit lacking much of the time. It. Was. Awesome.
- Blackwood by Pia Foxhall first book in the Perth Shifters series
In total, that’s 19 books for the challenge. If you click through the Goodreads links, you’ll find that I did put some short mini-reviews for some of them, but none of them got a full proper spread here on my main blog.
That’s honestly far more books relevant to the challenge than I thought I’d read, so I’m pleasantly surprised! And with that I’m going to draw a line under the challenge for 2018 and think about my plans for 2019.