*State of the ARC* August 2018

So I'm hooking up with AvalinahsBooks for this newish meme, State of the ARC. According to the lovely Evelina, this is a "fun way to share our ARC (advance reader copy) progress," but near as I can figure, it's just a way to self-shame for being greedy and getting behind on our ARC reading. I'm personally coming to the conclusion that I was born without a shame gene, so this may be an exercise in futility for me, but it's only a once a month post, so why not play along (also when I went on my graphics making spree, I created a header for it, so I've got to use it). 

To start with, I need to bloviate about what qualifies as an ARC for me. Obviously books on Netgalley count (this is scary all on it's own, you'll see for yourself in a minute just how scary). But sometimes I get "suckered" into reviewing non-Netgalley books too (or you know, I'm just so greedy because I want all of the books and the synopses sound good and I have no self-control), so those books should really get a place here too (probably even more than the Netgalley ARCs because they're usually physical copies). I will not be counting the ARCs that I win through Goodreads giveaways however, because I want to pretend that this list is still theoretically manageable.

So with all that in mind, where am I at right now?

Netgalley

Guys! Since my last State of the ARC post at the beginning of June, I wrote a review for a Netgalley book, and I finished reading another one (but I still need to write the review for it). Unfortunately I've also added more books to my to-be-read shelf over on Netgalley too. For some reason there are marketers that think it's a good idea to send me pre-approved widgets in spite of my 23% feedback (and the fact that I have outstanding ARCs for them specifically). I just don't even know what goes through their heads when they add me to those pre-approved lists. I would not add me to pre-approved lists with my current track record. But anyway. I currently have...

161 books

...to read on Netgalley. That breaks down to...

7 excerpts or samples 

13 children's or middle grade books

8 books that I've already started or finished

and 133 books that are just waiting for my attention. 

The last time I posted I had 10 excerpts or samples: I added one and haven't reviewed any, so it looks like some have been removed from my shelf or I'm just not remembering exactly which ones are samples because they're not always clearly labeled. I am really bothered by that discrepancy between this post and the last one (not bothered enough to really dig into it, but still). Maybe if I get bored later and don't have anything to read (ha!) I'll look into it. I got behind on my YA Request Roulette approved books (but I am currently reading one of them that went live at the beginning of July). I'm going to try real hard to get caught back up this month, though I make no promises. 

Physical Books

I have been a bad, bad girl when it comes to requesting physical books lately. While I did actually get one of these that I requested reviewed, I have requested more than just one new physical book. That means I now have...

6 children's books 

and 11 non-children's chapter books. 

I did finally manage to figure out what all the books were. I even took some time and built a post listing every single book that I owe a review for on both Netgalley and the physical books. If you want to take pity on any of these authors and buy their books, or even encourage me to get my butt in gear and read a specific book because you read it and it was awesome, you can check that list out here.

My goal for June was to get three books from my list read and reviewed...and I only got two books from my list read and reviewed, so that's a half-fail (but that's better than a total fail). For August I would really like to get caught up on my YA Request Roulette approvals, which I think means I need to read and review five books. It may be doable if I can just get a little bit better at managing my time. Wish me luck. - Katie