Musing Mondays - reading Heartless & how to read more when you're busy

Musing Monday January 16, 2017

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

• I’m currently reading…

• Up next I think I’ll read…

• I bought the following book(s) in the past week…

• I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…

• I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…

• I can’t wait to get a copy of…

• I wish I could read ___, but…

• I blogged about ____ this past week…

 I’m currently reading…

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

I know last week I said I was enjoying Little Vampire Women because I'd mentally framed it as taking place in the same universe as Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Unfortunately though even that didn't stop it getting supremely boring to me by the end of chapter 5. So I've decided to set it aside and call it a did not finish, I don't do it often but there are so many books I am excited to read that it just doesn't make sense to stick with one I am not actively enjoying. Which leads me to the book I'm reading now. I was super duper excited to get started on this one from the moment it arrived in November's #owlcrate. There has been a lot of hype surrounding this book. I've never read anything else by Marissa Meyer (yet, Cinder is on my shelves) but I am familiar with her name and I know that she's a really well liked author. The hype that sucked me in though is that this is a re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland in that it's an origin story for the Queen of Hearts. I've said it many times Alice is one of my absolute favourite stories and Wonderland one of my favourite fictional worlds. I also love to see stories I enjoyed re-told from the perspective of a different character (Lion King 1 1/2 is one of my favourite Disney films for that reason) and this isn't the first one I've read from the POV of the Queen of Hearts - that would be Colleen Oakes's Queen of Hearts which if you have never read, you should do because it was amazing and the sequel comes out at the end of this month (here's the review I wrote of it back in 2014).

So when this came in my #owlcrate I was super excited and it's been sitting at the top of my reading pile waiting for me to get to it. The edition we got in the #owlcrate is an exclusive edition only available through them, I'm not sure what makes it different than the non-exclusive editions except that it's got a white dust jacket. I think I mentioned that I have a plan for tackling my to be read shelves this year? In case I didn't here's my plan, it's a cycle: read a newer book, read 2 graphic novels, read an older book - lather, rinse, repeat with as needed interruptions for library books that have due dates coming up. So Betrayals was my first book of the year and it was newer having been bought with Christmas money, I followed that up with volumes 2 and 3 of Akira and then immediately went in to Little Vampire Women as my older pick. Once I realised LVW wasn't going to work for me I cleansed my reading palette with the 4th volume of Akira and then promptly and excitedly picked up Heartless. I've been reading it slowly because I haven't felt like bingeing so I am only up to the beginning of chapter 10 but I freaking LOVE it so far. It's meeting my expectations at the moment!

"Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland and a favorite of the unmarried King, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, she wants to open a shop and create delectable pastries. But for her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for a woman who could be a queen.

At a royal ball where Cath is expected to receive the King’s marriage proposal, she meets handsome and mysterious Jest. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the King and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into a secret courtship.

Cath is determined to choose her own destiny. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans." -- via Goodreads

        THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: How do you make time for reading when you are very busy? Or how do you find a better balance between wanting to spend time reading and other commitments?

I feel like we answered a variation of this question a month or so ago, hmmm better go hunt that down so I don't accidentally write the same thing twice! I was sort of right, there were similar-esque questions, one on reading during the holidays and one on reading to relieve stress. To tie in to what I was saying in the musing about reading to relieve stress it always seems that the busier I am the more I want to not do the things that I have to do so I can just read - because reading relaxes me. Because I know how much I love to read and because I know the calming effect that reading for pleasure has on me I always make it a priority to balance whatever is going on with time to read. Sometimes that means I only get to read comics/graphic novels but that's enough to make me happy too!! My best trick for making time to read no matter how busy I am is to get up a half hour before I actually need to be awake in order to use that half hour to just read. It's my morning ritual before I shower. I can usually get through about 2 chapters in that time depending on how long the chapters are. One of the best things about this is that after I've done that then I can tackle whatever a busy day throws at me knowing that I've already read. And I'd say about 50% of the time, depending on how tired I am, I usually read for a half hour right before bed as well. So that's my tip, schedule chunks of time to read and then enjoy them and make them sacrosanct, no matter what else is happening, that chunk of time is dedicated to reading bar any absolutely unavoidable circumstances.

Do you schedule time for reading into your day?