Announcement – Dip into books

Hello friends!

Sorry for the lack of post last week. I was in reading slump and did not have any idea on what else to post. As a matter of fact, I’ve been struggling to keep my one post a week promise lately. It was going great when I just started on implementing the idea of shorter reviews. However, as the months passed I have come to another realization. I just could not read fast enough to post one book review every week. And in the near future, I will have even less time to read. The reasons for this are both bad and good. On the good side, I just got a new job – with better benefits and (hopefully) career path. On the downside, as I begin to start the new job next month, I fully expect longer working hours and even less time to read and blog.

Then there was a problem of me being a moody reader and haven’t been in the mood to read lately. The best way to illustrate this is by showing you my currently-reading shelf on goodreads.

As you can see, I’ve been reading Timekeeper for nearly a year and Genie Lo (my most anticipated read this month) for nearly 3 weeks. And both of them are books I actually enjoy reading.

So, those are the reasons why I’m taking another hiatus. I will be back once I’m settled in my new workplace, hopefully by October or November. In the mean time, I might be slow to response to comments and emails, but if you need me I’ll be on twitter. Take care!

Hello all!
Yes, it’s me, Windie, back after a 6 month of unannounced hiatus. I’d love to tell you why I left this site collecting dust for months, but that’s a long story for another time.
Anyway, even though I have not been blogging, I spent the last few weeks brainstorming ideas for the site. After dozens cups of coffee and power naps, I arrived at these conclusion:

As much as I love writing a long winded review, I no longer have the time to write a fully-fleshed reviews for every book. As you might have noticed, English is not my native language and I spent more time editing and revising rather than reading and writing. Counter-productive as one might say.
I need more ORGANIZATION.
I have mostly reviewed popular or best-selling books, most of them are from cis-het white authors. I did this because it’s just so convenient and let’s admit it, those books have tons of followers. On the other hand, it’s not easy to know about or get my hand on books from authors from smaller publishing company, and many of own voices still fall into this last category.

Clearly, I need to make some changes to the site in order to motivate me to go back and post regularly. So, here’s what I decided.

From now on, my reviews will be in a short (well, short-ish) bulleted format. As a new bujo addict, I found bullet format that much easier to write. No promise that I won’t digress though.
Calendar! As you can see from the menu, I have now added a calendar to the site. In here, you can find schedule of new book releases that I prepared for the site and my plan for upcoming blog posts. The calendar will not include all books release since I don’t have the resources to do so. However, I’ll add books I intend to read and review here so in a way you’ll get a teaser on what’s to come. As for how I select books to add to this calendar, I’ll explain in #3 below.
I’ll be dedicating more space for authors of color, authors from LGBTQIA+ spectrum, other own voices (including but not limited to physical disability and mental illness), and diverse books. This also means I will have to focus on a more specific genre since I cannot possibly keep up with everything. After a long deliberation, I decided to focus on speculative fiction – for now – from my reviews. This is a difficult decision to make, but I do have my reasons: 1) SFF was my first love 2) SFF was one of the more problematic genre in term of diversity representation (compare let’s say to contemporary young adult fiction).

So, what does this means for the site and me in general?

(See me trying to keep up with bullets and numbered list?) I will post REGULARLY. At least once a week.
There’ll be less Brandon Sanderson mentions in my site and there’ll be fewer recs of contemporary books too. I’ll still be reading them, obviously, and I’ll be reviewing them on GOODREADS and quite possibly still fangirl and goes into hysterics on twitter whenever I get my hand on Oathbringer. Please still ~~love me~~ talk to me, my contemporary lover/cosmeranauts friends.
Hopefully, more time to interact with my fellow bloggers. I haven’t been blog-hopping for almost a year now and I do miss leaving long nonsensical comments on people’s posts. ^^

These changes will not happen overnight as I still have a couple of book reviews in other genre I need to post, and I need time to adapt the site, but rest assured that I’m committed to them.

That’s all for now! If you have any feedback, suggestions, virtual hugs, and coffee, please send them to me. Love you!