*State of the ARC* February 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 I missed my January State of the ARC post (after getting December's posted mid-January). Moving (or being a displaced person temporarily living with my parents) and working from my laptop rather than my much-preferred desktop just led to a whole mess of missed posts at the end of January, and I don't really feel bad about that. I probably should, but I don't. That means I'm technically on month 5 of this experiment, and I'm pretty sure that even though I wasn't getting blog posts built, I was still getting new ARCs at an obscene rate (if I was counting my Goodreads wins in this, it would definitely be obscene as I've already won like 380 books on Goodreads just since January 1st, but I'm not counting those.) 

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

Netgalley

First of all, I got two reviews written and posted from my Netgalley ARCs since my last update! But, I found myself snagging more read-nows and requesting (and getting approved!) for a few books as well. So even though I got some reviews submitted, my numbers on Netgalley still rose the past two months. I currently have...

139 books

...to read. That breaks down to:

8 samples or excerpts.

11 children's or middle grade books.

4 books that I've already started or finished reading.

and 116 books that have yet to see the light of day. 

I went so far in the wrong direction it's ridiculous, especially since I've been in the process of moving (we have a house now and I've already made a significant dent in unpacking all of our stuff as long as we pretend my 102 boxes of books don't exist). 

Physical Books

Once again I saw no change in physical book ARCs, which means I still have...

6 children's books.

and 5 non-children's chapter books

...to read. While I packed the children's books in my luggage before we left Germany, the chapter books got shipped out by the movers, so I have yet to find any of them, so don't expect that number to change in the near future. With luck, I'll find some time to get the kids books read and reviewed before the end of this month, between unpacking and normal daily life (although I'm not going to hold my breath on that.) 

When I first started participating in this, I said it would possibly be an exercise in futility for me, and so far, my prediction is holding true. However, for the time being I'm going to maintain hope that things will turn around for me (and I'll learn something like self-restraint) now that we're getting fully settled in what should be our forever home. 

I guess my goal for the rest of March is just to not get any new books on Netgalley, because I just can't worry about trying to sit down and read ARCs right now with half a house to still unpack. I'm sure y'all understand. - Katie