Next week, my daughter starts preschool and there’s just been this piece of me that wants to fit in all those things we didn’t get around to doing this summer. But I think I’m finally realizing a lot of things are just not going to happen. And my daughter prefers to find those quiet, snuggly moments with me. I’m not complaining.

You know how you just want to slow down time, and that’s always when life speeds up. That’s where I am right now. Life with my daughter couldn’t be lovelier, so of course it’s going too fast. Agh, I guess I’ll just enjoy these last few days I have her all to myself. And of course that will include lots of reading together.

Now, let’s get to what I’m not reading with my kiddo this week.

There’s a new study that analyzed how often you should post on Instagram. Unsurprisingly, it’s backing up that you will get the most out of Instagram by posting to the feed daily. Does this mean you absolutely have to post to Instagram daily? No. Post as often as you can create high quality content. Frequent low quality content will not do you any good and will likely harm you on Instagram. But consistent high quality content? That can make you a star. So if you’re not up to daily content right now, it might be time to make it a goal to get there.

Past

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett is a part of a silly series that I got into when I was a part of the Fantastic Strangelings book club. To be honest, I wasn’t really into many of the books I received as a part of this book club, hence why I am now a former member. But I very much liked the first book of this series and that took me by surprise.

I’m not a huge fan of fantasy except in very specific circumstances. And a fairy researcher who falls in love with a fairy prince does not fit those circumstances on the surface. It was the humor that got me. And that was the problem with this book: The humor was missing. Did I still enjoy it? Yes, but I think now that the fairy prince has become a fairy king, his silliness left him. There was no character that stepped into that role. Thankfully there was one (the fairy king’s uncle) who had a wonderful dry sense of humor. I just wanted the silly, and it left the building as soon as the crown was put on the king’s head. I still have hope that this series can be brought back to it though. Score: B

Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn got so much right while also getting so much wrong. I was kind of excited about it because it started off with all of the right feelings of being a woman divorcing during the pandemic.

But the woman was just too selfish and too privileged. And just so angry. All of her problems were pretty much non-problems. Anything that could have actually been a real crisis just ended up being a whole lot of nothing. That could have been forgiven if the character study had been worth it. It wasn’t. There was also a cast of two dimensional secondary characters. Maybe that would have been fine if it was just the people she was sleeping with but it was everyone, including those who were supposedly so special to her. Just a very disappointing book in so many ways. Score: D

Present

I kept seeing The Antidote by Karen Russell on must-read lists. So I was a bit surprised by how quickly I got it when I put it on hold with the library. I stuffed that down and reminded myself that I put it on hold because I was excited to read it. And then a friend told me that she had decided not to read it because someone who reads like we do said it was boring. Ugh. I have no idea what I’m getting into with this, but I have it in my hands right now. It’s what I’m reading. Let’s hope that it exceeds my very low expectations for it.

What are you reading? What books are you looking forward to?