Hey! Look Who's Back!

So, my two week hiatus turned into a month.  I was feeling overwhelmed by... everything, actually.  I realized that I was either working or working on the blog and barely finding time to read.  I need to read.  It calms my brain, it reduces my stress, plus, there's the entertainment factor.  I couldn't do anything about the job so it was the blog that got reduced.

It was really a terrible time for me to take a break, what with BEA just around the corner, but, boy, was it necessary.  And I got to read... a lot.  Not as much as I used to - working 6 days a week really puts a crimp in my reading time - but, still, more than I had been.  Here's what I discovered:

Sometimes, I stick with a series out of habit.  I keep reading because I read all the previous books, not because I can't wait to find out what happens next.  So, I took stock of my teetering TBR pile.  I ended up culling several series from my reading list.  Not because they were bad but because they were only fine... and because I won't miss them.

I'm over the zombie apocalypse.  If a book has zombies in it, I'm gonna take a pass.  No matter how great the buzz is.  I have read some terrific zombie books in the past year ( and I cannot wait to read Blackout by Mira Grant), but its not my favorite genre and a little goes a long, long way.  

Dystopian stories are depressing.  Although I've read some that I just absolutely loved, cumulatively, they pushed me into a real reading funk.  And that's unacceptable.  (Thank god for Shelly Laurenston.  Her books were a welcome antidote.)  So I'm gonna be choosier when it comes to the genre.

Just because a YA book gets great reviews and has the fangirls squeeing, doesn't mean I need to read it.  I'm not a fan of the YA genre.  Nothing against it, its just not what I am interested in reading.  I have a small stack of YA books that have been sitting on the shelf for almost a year.  Each is supposed to be great, each is one of the hottest books in the genre and I can't bring myself to pick any of them up because I just don't care.  So, I am going to pass them on, unread and not acquire any new ones.  (Except for the Penryn & the End of Days series which is awesome.)    

So, that's where I'm at.  Trying to maximize my reading pleasure in a minimal amount of time.  We'll see how it goes.