I'M SO STRESSED PLEASE SEND HELP

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PSA: This post is a mess. I'm sorry. I'm just rambling away and pouring out my stress and anxiety lol.

One of the best and worst things about being a book blogger is receiving ARCs/Review copies of books.

On one hand, free books, sometimes pre-publication to review. But on the other: P R E S S U R E. Oh my good lord. ARCs stress. me. out. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE the fact publishers want to send me their books and I LOVE reading them... it's just sometimes I accept a book to review and then... I'm just not in the mood.

Back in July, I was contacted by Fledgling Press about 'Wants of the Silent' by Moira McPartlin, which is Book 2 in the Sun Song Trilogy. The first book in the series is 'Ways of the Doomed' which just so happened to be the first book I was ever approached to review back in 2015 so of course I wanted to read book two! So why, two months later, have I not reviewed it yet?

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I could give some great big excuse but the honest answer is... I just don't want to read it yet. It's been two years since I read the first book so I wanted to reread it before diving into the new one, however, whilst I rated the book 4 stars I do recall it being incredibly slow. 

At the time of reading, I was actively posting on my booktube channel and I reviewed the book there. I have no clue how horrific/embarrassing/hilarious this review is but I figured I'd share it here for you all!

Ways of the Doomed is a dystopian, set about 80 years in our future, in a world divided into the Privileged and the Native Underclass. Our main character, Sorlie, is Privileged but when his parents die he is sent away to live with his rather icy grandfather on an island penitentiary where Sorlie discovers things are happening to the Natives and thus reveals shocking secrets about his grandfather and the truth about himself.

This first book is very lacking in plot of the most part. It is definitely there to build the world for us and set up the rest of the series. Nothing really happens until the end and to be honest, I can't be bothered reading it again. This is where my dilemma comes in. I could just give up on my reread and dive into book two: I already know what the world is like and I have a rough idea on what all the big reveals were and I'm sure they'll be brought up again anyway, but I risk forgetting a lot and then not enjoying or understanding this next book as much as I could. Or I could force my way through my reread and possibly force myself into a slump and then not want to read anything. 

I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up abandoning book one and just go into book 2, but that doesn't solve my last problem; I'm not in the mood for dystopian. UGH. When I accepted the ARC, I was keen to read it. But of course I wanted to reread and we know how that went so I'm sort of stuck in a mood where I don't want to read it but now I feel obliged to. 

Of course I'm obliged to review the book I was sent in exchange for a review; what I mean is that I now feel I MUST read it immediately and post my review. I feel rushed. I don't know why, in the email the publisher literally said 'let me know when/if there's a review'. But still. I want to review the books I'm sent. I want to support authors and publishers. But I also want to give these books as good a chance as they can get and read and review them when I know I'll enjoy them. 

I guess the point of this post is to get my anxiety about not reviewing this book yet out and also to get it out there that I haven't forgotten this book exists. I haven't forgotten I need to read it. But also to say that I'm not going to read it when I know I'm not in the mood for it and that I'll hate it. Because I don't want to hate it. I don't want to give any book 1 star or so. I wish all my reads were 4 and 5 stars. So the best thing I can do is hold off reading books until I WANT to. 

In this case, it was my fault for forcing a reread I knew I was going to struggle with. But hey ho. Yay for slumps and crappy life events forcing bad moods and bad reading habits!

I have literally just thrown these words on the page and haven't read them over, so excuse typos and grammatical errors. I promise next week I'll have a better blog post with more proof reading and editing up.