What I read in 2021

 

At the beginning of the year, I set a goal for myself to read at least 100 books in 2021. I'm happy to say that I surpassed the goal, ending the year with 103 books read.

 The average rating for the books I read was 4.03 stars, broken down as follows:

• 5 stars - 33 books
  
• 4 stars - 40 books
  
• 3 stars -  30 books
  

The 4.03 stars average was higher than the 3.96 stars in 2020.

Undoubtedly, my Goodreads Choice Awards reading challenge contributed to the higher ratings this year since the 28 books I read as part of the challenge resulted in a 4.11 average. Unlike last year, when the New York Times Bestseller challenge pulled down my average, this year's reading challenge raised it. I'm planning to continue the challenge in 2022, so we'll see if the 2021 Goodreads Choice Award finalists are as good as the 2020 books.

In my next post, I'll list my top ten reads of 2021. Stay tuned!

 

Goodreads Choice Awards reading challenge recap

For my reading challenge this year, I chose to read at least twenty books from the list of 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards finalists. I ended the year reading twenty-eight of them.

The books I read were (in alphabetical order by title):

• Anxious People - Fredrik Backman
• Beach Read - Emily Henry  
• Confessions on the 7:45 - Lisa Unger
  
• A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik 
• Devolution - Max Brooks
• A Good Girl's Guide to Murder - Holly Jackson
  
• The Hollow Places - T. Kingfisher  
• Home Before Dark - Riley Sager
  
• The House in the Cerulean Sea - T.J. Klune 
• House of Earth and Blood - Sarah Maas
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V.E. Schwab
• The Kingdom of Back - Marie Lu 
  
• The Loop - Jeremy Robert Johnson  
• Luster - Raven Leilani 
• Malorie - Josh Malerman
  
• The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
• Migrations - Charlotte McConaghy
  
• The Night Swim - Megan Goldin 
• One by One - Ruth Ware
• Oona Out of Order - Margarita Montimore 
  
• Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
  
• Solutions and Other Problems - Allie Brosh
• The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson
  
• Strange Planet - Nathan Pyle
  
• Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid  
• The Sun Down Motel - Simone St. James
  
• To Sleep in a Sea of Stars - Christopher Paolini  
• When No One is Watching - Alyssa Cole 

Of the 28 books, I rated 12 as 5 stars, 7 as four stars, and 9 as three stars. The average rating came out to be 4.11, which is higher than my overall average of about 4.0 stars for the books I've read and logged on Goodreads. It was also much higher than the 3.5 average from my New York Times Bestseller reading challenge in 2020. As far as reading challenges go, this one was a success. I read a lot of books that I really enjoyed, including some that will end up on my top ten favorite reads of 2021.

There were a couple of interesting observations from this reading challenge. First, the category winners didn't perform as well as the other finalists. My average rating for the books that won in their category was 4.0, the same as the typical book I read. The real gems were the finalists that didn't win in their category. I also found that I usually either really liked one of the Goodreads Choice Award finalists or thought the book was mediocre. As noted by the ratings above, there were more 5-star and 3-star ratings than 4-star ratings. This was unusual because normally, 4 stars is the most common rating I give a book.

Since this reading challenge went so well, I'm planning to continue it again next year, using the 2021 Goodreads Choice Award finalists. I hope I'll enjoy them as much as I enjoyed the books I read this year!

NaNoWriMo 2021 recap

Another NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is behind us. I started this year's NaNoWriMo with the same modest goals as last year: to write 20,000 words in the month of November. The good news is that I accomplished the goal, ending the month just over the target with 20,040 words.

November started out well for me. After the first week, I had already written nearly 7,000 words. And then work kicked my butt. During week 2, there were days when I barely had fifteen minutes to write, and my average daily word count for the rest of the month was less than 400 during the work week. Yet, thanks to the fast start, I hit the midpoint of my 20,000-word goal by November 13. The weekends also helped because I was able to write more on Saturdays and Sundays. However, it still came down to the last day before I crossed the 20,000-word threshold.

My WIP is now at about 40,000 words, and I estimate the first draft to be 50,000 to 60,000 words long. Given that I still want to finish the first draft by the end of the year, that means another mini-NaNoWriMo for me in December to accomplish my goals. Now that I've already written 20,000 words in November, another 10,000 to 20,000 in December looks more doable than it did a month ago.

NaNoWriMo 2021

It's that time of year again when writers around the world try to kick their monthly word count goals into high gear for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). As someone who has reached 50,000 words in the month of November three times before, my goals have been more modest in recent years. Now I approach NaNoWriMo like someone who joins a gym in January: to reach short-term goals if I can, but also to develop better habits that will hopefully last beyond the month. 

Last year, I used NaNoWriMo to add about 20,000 words to my YA zombie apocalypse novel, Hopeless. This year, I'm working on its sequel, and I hope to emulate the writing schedule that led to the publication of Hopeless in June. To reach that goal, I'd ideally finish 40,000 words by the end of November. I've written about 20,000 so far, which means my NaNoWriMo goal this year is another 20,000 words.

Since I wrote 20,000 words last November, I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll be able to reach the goal again this year. As always, I'll report on how I did at the end of NaNoWriMo. Wish me luck!

Hopeless is on sale for Halloween

The title pretty much explains it all. From now until Halloween, my YA zombie novel, Hopeless, will be on sale for 99 cents! Buy it here, or if you're a member of the Kindle Unlimited program, you can read it for free!

Description:

The zombie apocalypse happened faster than anyone could’ve imagined. 

On what she believes is a normal Friday night, seventeen-year-old Sara goes to bed believing that she’ll see her parents and her brother the next morning. Instead, she wakes up to a new world where zombies are taking over. Worse yet, she is alone. The rest of her family isn’t home from their outings the night before, and she can’t contact them. 

Slowly, Sara learns how dire the zombie situation is. With only herself to rely on, she must figure out what’s happening and how to survive. But more than anything, she hopes she’ll be reunited with her family again. Even if she has to risk her own life to make it happen. 

A 2021 writing update

 

First of all, thank you to everyone who supported my latest release, Hopeless! I hope you enjoyed reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I'm currently working on the first draft of the sequel to Hopeless, which is still untitled. (I have a few options in mind, but I haven't decided which one I like best and may not until after the first draft is completed.) Last year, I started writing Hopeless in June and completed the first draft in December. January through May of 2021 consisted of revisions, editing, and everything else involved in putting a book together for a June 2021 release.

I liked the 12-month cycle that I went through to publish Hopeless, and my intention is to follow the same schedule as much as possible for the sequel. A couple of weeks after the release of Hopeless, I began writing the second book. I've only finished about 10,000 words, which isn't as far along as I'd like, but I have nearly four months remaining until the end of the year. Last year's word count got a boost from NaNoWriMo, and I anticipate using November to help me catch up this year as well.

If I'm able to replicate this schedule for the sequel, I'll continue sticking with it for subsequent books in the After Z-Day series, assuming the books are all roughly the same length as Hopeless was. But first things first. I want to reach 25,000 words by the end of October, add another 15,000 to 20,000 during NaNiWriMo, and complete the first draft by December 31. Let's see how I do against these shorter term goals.

Walking: Good for your body and good for your writing

Thanks to the pandemic, I couldn't go to the gym from March to November last year, so I had to find other ways to exercise. I bought some dumbbells and elastic bands to work out at home, but I also discovered an easy exercise that helped my body and my writing: walking. 

Before the pandemic, I walked mainly to get from point A to point B, e.g., from my house to the train station, from the train station to my work office. Since we started sheltering in place, the only places I needed to go was from the bedroom to the bathroom or from the living room to the kitchen. I also didn't have a treadmill or exercise bike at home, which meant I lacked any cardio exercise. One day, soon after the pandemic started, I decided to walk around my neighborhood. Then I did that the next day, taking a different route. Before I knew it, I had built a daily routine of walking for 30 to 40 minutes.

Not only has all the walking helped me keep my weight in check (an accomplishment in itself since I've been staying at home and snacking throughout the day), but it also helped rejuvenate my creativity. The ideas I got on my walks helped me finish Hopeless, which I might not have done as quickly otherwise.

The reason walking helps my creativity is because (1) it's solitary and (2) it requires little mental effort. I can let my mind wander as I walk, and unlike running on a treadmill or working out with weights, I don't have to think about the exercise itself. Have you ever found that ideas come to you in the shower? I believe it's for the same two reasons, but walking has the added advantage that you're getting exercise too!

If you're looking for an easy activity that's good for your body and your writing, try walking!

 

How I read 100 books in a year

I call myself an avid reader and writer, but truthfully, I spend a lot more time reading than writing. Last year, I read over 100 books, and I'm on pace to read over 100 books again this year. When I tell people how many books I read, they are often amazed. That may be because the average American adult reads 12 books a year. They ask me how I'm able to read so many books, and I tell them it's because I just love reading. While that's a simplistic answer, there are some things I do that help improve the number of books I read. 

1. Spend a lot of time reading - This may sound obvious, but spending time reading means not spending time doing other things, like going out to parties or watching TV. Fortunately, I'm not the party-going type. I do watch some TV, but I limit the amount of time spent in front of the screen. My main source of entertainment is (no surprise) reading.
2. Read multiple books at once - Most of the time, I have two or three books that I'm in the middle of reading. Reading more than one book at a time helps me because if I get to a slow section in one book or just want something different, I can switch to another book. I also advise reading books that aren't too similar. Not only does it give you a break from what you're reading, but it's less confusing to switch books. Earlier this year, I read two high fantasy books at the same time and had a lot of difficulty remembering which characters belonged to which book!
3. Log the books read - If you're the type who's motivated by seeing the counter increment on the number of book you've read, this is a good strategy to keep you going. I record my books read on Goodreads, and I like seeing how I'm progressing against the yearly goal I set for myself in January.
   
4. Create reading challenges - Since 2015, I've participated in the annual Goodreads reading challenges. Before that, however, I set up my own reading challenges and continue to do so. For example, some of my favorites that I've documented on this blog include the Authors A to Z challenge and the Reading Outside the Box challenge. This year, I embarked on the Goodreads Choice Awards challenge.
   

If you want to read more books, try out some of these strategies. If there are others that you employ to help you read more books, please share in the comments. Happy reading!

Release announcement: Hopeless

I'm proud to announce the release of my latest novel, Hopeless! If you're a fan of zombie apocalypse stories (with a PG-13 rating), this book is for you.

Hopeless is currently available on Amazon. If you're a member of the Kindle Unlimited program, you can read it for free!

Description:

The zombie apocalypse happened faster than anyone could’ve imagined. 

On what she believes is a normal Friday night, seventeen-year-old Sara goes to bed believing that she’ll see her parents and her brother the next morning. Instead, she wakes up to a new world where zombies are taking over. Worse yet, she is alone. The rest of her family isn’t home from their outings the night before, and she can’t contact them. 

Slowly, Sara learns how dire the zombie situation is. With only herself to rely on, she must figure out what’s happening and how to survive. But more than anything, she hopes she’ll be reunited with her family again. Even if she has to risk her own life to make it happen. 

Returning to normal?

It's been a difficult past fourteen months for everyone, no matter where you live. Who knew back in March 2020 that the specter of COVID would still loom large in May 2021? Fortunately, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the pandemic situation is under control more so than in many other parts of the world. With the initial rush over, vaccines are becoming easier to get, and our state continues to take precautions that make me feel safe.

I still haven't dined inside a restaurant or gone to a movie theater since before the pandemic, but there are definitely signs that we're slowly returning to normal. A couple of months ago, my gym reopened, for example. However, nothing has been a bigger sign of hope for me than our local public library opening again. 

The library isn't offering all of the programs it used to yet, but that doesn't matter. I'm finally able to walk among shelves of books again! You don't know how much I've missed that. I was also glad to return the books that I had checked out before the pandemic, books that I've hung onto for over a year! Who would've thought I'd be able to keep library books for so long without a late fee? :-)

I'm looking forward to resuming other activities I enjoyed before the pandemic, but the library was a big step forward.

May the COVID situation where you live improve as well. Stay safe!

Cover reveal: Hopeless

It's been almost three years since I published my last book, so I'm very happy to announce that I'll have a new book coming out in a month or two (fingers crossed)! In the meantime, I want to share the cover for the book, titled Hopeless. If things go according to my plans, Hopeless will be the first book in a new YA zombie series. I love YA, and I love zombie books, so it makes sense that I'd want to write a YA zombie series, right?

 

Description:

The zombie apocalypse happened faster than anyone could’ve imagined. 

On what she believes is a normal Friday night, seventeen-year-old Sara goes to bed believing that she’ll see her parents and her brother the next morning. Instead, she wakes up to a new world where zombies are taking over. Worse yet, she is alone. The rest of her family isn’t home from their outings the night before, and she can’t contact them. 

Slowly, Sara learns how dire the zombie situation is. With only herself to rely on, she must figure out what’s happening and how to survive. But more than anything, she hopes she’ll be reunited with her family again. Even if she has to risk her own life to make it happen.

The Type of Monster Matters?

Some of my favorite books have featured monsters. By that, I don't mean serial killers (which some of my favorite books also have) but rather non-human monsters like zombies, aliens, and mythological creatures. The monsters can be the primary antagonists, such as the zombies in World War Z or the Rot & Ruin series, or they may be creatures that populate the book's fictional world, like the ones in the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson books.

All along, I thought that I would like reading books with any kind of monster in them, but I read two books this year that made me reconsider. One of the books was about Bigfoot and the other was about mermaids. They were books by authors who have written other books (books involving monsters, no less) that I really enjoyed, so my hypothesis is that it's Bigfoot and killer mermaids I don't like. I couldn't think of any other books I've read that featured Bigfoot or killer mermaids to refute my theory, which is evidence in itself that the type of monster contributed to my not liking the two books.

 

When it comes to monsters that I enjoy reading about, based on my reading history, zombies are at the top of the list. In addition to the aforementioned World War Z and Rot & Ruin series, some of my favorite zombie books include the Newsflesh series and Warm Bodies.

Is it any wonder that the book I'm currently working on is about zombies?

 

A writing update (Feb 2021)

It's been a while since I gave an update on my writing progress. The last time I mentioned what I was working on in July 2020, I had just given up on a novel in the thriller genre. While that was disappointing, I didn't let that setback stop me. I started writing a new story back in the YA genre that I'm more comfortable with. 

The good news is that I finished the first draft of the YA novel in December! Since then, I've been revising the manuscript. I completed my first editing pass already, focusing on the big picture, whether the story makes sense and fixing major plot holes. I'm currently wrapping up my second editing pass to improve the writing itself. I never know up front how many passes it will take before I'm satisfied with the quality of a manuscript. I could be done after a third pass (although that's highly unlikely), or it could take fifty more (I hope not).

My current goal is to release this book some time in the summer. As I make more progress, I'll post additional updates. After not publishing a new novel in nearly three years, I'm excited to have another book on the horizon to share with everyone!

Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge

Every year, I try to come up with a reading challenge that I hope I will enjoy and that will expose me to new books that I wouldn't ordinarily read. Last year, my goal was to read a book a month from the top of the NY Times Bestseller list. While that didn't go as well as I had planned, I learned my lessons, and as a result, this year, I'm going with the Goodreads Choice Awards reading challenge.

Every year, Goodreads asks its members to vote on their favorite books in various categories, culminating in the Goodreads Choice awards winners. My goal this year is to read at least twenty books that made the finalists cut for the 2020 awards. Looking at some of the finalists, I already feel better about this challenge than last year's because there are several books that sound interesting. 

Unlike last year, I won't constrain myself to reading books only by authors I haven't read before, but I'll try to read as many books from new authors as I can. I'm also not limiting myself to the winners in each category. One reason is that there are only twenty categories, so I would only be reading the winners to fulfill my goal of twenty books. The other reason is that I already read three of the winners last year, and honestly, they were not my favorite books in their respective categories. I'm sure that I will be reading some of the winners this year, but for the sake of a better reading experience, I want to expand my pool of books to all finalists.

As with previous reading challenges, I will provide an update on this one at the end of the year. Happy reading in 2021!

 

Favorite reads of 2020

Happy New Year, and good riddance to 2020! :-) Before we say goodbye to 2020 for good, here were my favorite reads from last year.

1. Scythe - Neal Shusterman

Before 2020, I heard a lot of good things about Scythe, and now that I've read it, I can say that the book deserves all the accolades it received. Now I'm wondering, why did it take me so long to read it? What can I say about a book that covers life, death, and humanity in a way that's both very entertaining as well as makes the reader ponder the value of life and what it means to be human? Everyone should read this book, if not the entire trilogy.

2. The Toll - Neal Shusterman

I read the entire Arc of a Scythe trilogy in 2020, which is rare for me since I usually take long breaks between books in a series, but I liked it so much that I couldn't wait. The trilogy ended on a strong note with The Toll. The main story lines were tied up nicely, and even though the book was over 600 pages long, it felt like it flew by. Overall, I was impressed by the world-building in this series. The actions of the individual characters and society as a whole felt consistent with the premise set forth by the books. I enjoyed learning new things about the world in each book, and The Toll provided a satisfying conclusion.

3. When You See Me - Lisa Gardner

Lisa Gardner is one of my favorite thriller authors, and When You See Me is one of my favorite books from her. Although it's part of a long-running series, the novel also makes for a great standalone read by itself, full of action, mystery, and powerful characters. Juggling between the perspective of four characters, the author does an admirable job of weaving a compelling story. You don't have to read all of Lisa Gardner's books to appreciate When You See Me (although any thriller fan should), but to get the most out of it, I recommend starting with one of her earlier books, Find Her.

4. My Calamity Jane - Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows

The Lady Janies are masters at taking a genre I don't normally read (in this case, westerns) and turning it into a story I can't put down. For a book that was over 500 pages long, this flew by for me like an amusement park ride. Like My Lady Jane and My Plain Jane, My Calamity Jane was full of fun and humor. Who would've thought that the Wild West and werewolves would make such an entertaining combination? Well, now I'm going to have a hard time not thinking of werewolves when I hear about Calamity Jane, Annie Oakley, or Wild Bill Hickok.

5. Tweet Cute - Emma Lord

If there's one book I've read this year that best captures the YA awesomeness of Rainbow Rowell (even more so than Rainbow Rowell herself!), it's Tweet Cute. While the book follows a conventional contemporary YA story line, I loved the characters and the banter, both online and in person. An added bonus is that food plays a big role in the book, and reading about the desserts mentioned made my mouth water. This is Emma Lord's debut novel, and I'm looking forward to her next book.

6. Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell

Speaking of Rainbow Rowell, she hasn't published a new book in a while, so you'd think that I'd read Wayward Son the first day it was released. The reason I didn't is because it's the sequel to Carry On, the only Rainbow Rowell book I didn't love. Thankfully, Wayward Son was more like a typical Rainbow Rowell book, and now I'm excited for a third book in the series if there will be one.

7. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens 

Despite the great reviews and its bestseller status, going into this book, I was skeptical about how much I would like it. It's classified as both literary fiction and historical fiction, two genres I don't ordinarily enjoy. However, I found the characterization of Kya so compelling that I couldn't put it down. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her life as she grew from childhood to adulthood. This book is well deserving of all the praise it's received.

8. The Breakdown - B.A. Paris

I've read a couple of B.A. Paris novels before (Behind Closed Doors and Bring Me Back), and while I liked them both, The Breakdown is my favorite. The way that the protagonist's mind slowly unraveled from day to day was done in just the right way and at the right pace. While I suspected what was happening, when it was revealed, I didn't feel a letdown at all. The way the ending of the book wrapped things up was more than satisfactory. As far as psychological thrillers go, this one was my favorite of the year.

9. You Are Not Alone - Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

The authors of my favorite read of 2019 (The Wife Between Us) were at it again. I was excited when I heard that they were releasing a new book in 2020, and they didn't disappoint. You Are Not Alone is filled with twists and delicious scheming that made their first two books so enjoyable. It's hard to explain  the plot without giving anything away, but as with their other books,  I recommend this one too.

10. The Afterlife of Holly Chase - Cynthia Hand

After reading her Lady Janies collaborations with Jodi Meadows and Brodi Ashton, I wanted to read a book written by Cynthia Hand herself. I wasn't disappointed. The Afterlife of Holly Chase had many of the elements of the Lady Janies books that made me so fond of them (e.g., characters I rooted for, an entertaining plot, a liberal dosage of humor). While the romance between Holly and Ethan was predictable, I still enjoyed the way it played out. Overall, a fun, well-paced YA novel.