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I’m in a reading slump.  Oh, the shame!  My library shelf is full of delicious looking books, but whenever I pick one up, I move through it like molasses.  I’ve only finished three books this month – three!

I’ve been shunning my audio book (Beauty Queens) in favor of listening to NPR – although that might be the fault of the book.  The beginning had me hooked but then…I have no idea where it’s going.  Libba Bray, you and I need to have a talk about this – you lure me in repeadedly (A Great and Terrible BeautyGoing Bovine!) and then you drop me (ahem, The Sweet Far Thing).  I wasn’t exactly surprised when my enthusiasm for Beauty Queens cooled, but like the other books it just had so many good reviews.  And I liked the first couple of discs.  We’ll see about you.

I’m also just started rereading Chime on audio – I was curious to see how it felt on a reread, and how it came across listening instead of in print.  I’m also still trying to decide if it’s awesome or somewhat fatally flawed.  So far I’m digging it, although I’m listening in the house and I do tend to space out a bit when distracted by cooking or housework or whatever else I’m doing at the same time.

In print, it took me five days to get through After Hamelin, which was what my kids’ bookgroup picked for November in my absence.  Enjoyable, but it never had me enthralled.  Before that, I felt the same way about The Boy at the End of the World – funny and plenty of adventure, but never a page-turner or full of rich characters and atmosphere.  I think I need one or the other to really dig a book.

Before that was Icefall, which was pretty fabulous, and before that Daughter of Smoke and Bone which was definitely fabulous.  So they haven’t all failed to grip me, but I still feel like I’m in a slump.  Or maybe I’m just not dedicating enough time to reading.  What have I been doing?  I sure haven’t been writing my thank-yous or finding homes for the rest of the wedding gifts.  And here I am with half of a day off (hurray for holidays and three-day weekends, the perk of a public service job) and nothing to show for it other than a nearly-consumed apple oven pancake and…um…shoot, I’d better go take a shower and get something done.

First there was this:

wedding

And then there was this:

hawaii

And this:

And of course lots of time actually at the beach and in the water, but no photos of that.

And now there’s an apartment with gifts piled in the corners, waiting for homes (I either need a few apartment or some very creative storage solutions).  And thank yous to write.  And all kinds of things that have been neglected over the last few weeks and months.  And an incredible number of books that I put on hold “to read on vacation” and never got around to opening.  And a husband.

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