I’m drowning…

In ARCs.

Last month, I took a break from reviewing Advance Reader Copies and gifted books from authors/publishers so that I could focus on my personal reading goals. I grabbed a big library haul of anticipated reads and cleared out a couple old nonfiction books I’d had on my shelf for a while. It was a lot of fun and good for my mood-reader brain.

During that time, did I stop requesting ARCs from NetGalley or turn down offers when authors or PR folks reached out to me? Ummm… no. Silly me.

I know there are many book reviewers who receive dozens of books every month and love reading the latest books. But I’ve been conservative for a long time so that I would never feel like I have overcommitted and because I really like diving into authors’ backlists. Now that I have more ARCs/gifts in queue than usual, I feel like I’m drowning and want to hurry up and read all these soon to catch up! I’m reminding myself that reading is for fun, and I won’t let my wonderful hobby turn into anxiety or work.

At the start of this month, I had:

• 6 requests on NetGalley still pending an answer from the publishers—but strangely, the pub dates are one book each for the next 6 months, so even if they are approved I should be ok
• 8 approved books on my NetGalley shelf (4 of which have pub dates in August or later so no rush there)
• 3 books from a PR firm for a book tour this week (thankfully they were quick reads)
• 3 books gifted directly from authors

That list felt like a lot to me. I usually read one or two ARCs/gifts a month! I intend to read 10 of these in a row in early May then let myself read some ebooks in my kindle library and grab another library haul. In mid-late June, I’ll complete the other 4 NetGalley ARCs that have later pub dates. If I get approved for those others, I’ll slip them in based on pub date; they were all SFF reads that looked too good to pass up!

Happy Reading!