February 2018 Summary: 03/01/18

February was also completely free to read what I wanted. That said there were two things that influenced what I read. The first is the schedule I made at the start of the year, to make sure I made time to read and review at least one newly published book each week. The second was a large number of library books coming due as happens when I am too impulsive in my requesting of books from my wishlist.

February did not have the scheduling problems that January did due to a small number of newly published books available and their delivery being hampered by storms back east. I actually now have a bit of a cushion of extra books all published in these first two months to read and review should future pre-orders arrive late. So far, though, they've been arriving early.

February marks the eighth month in a row that I've read more inclusive books than not. Inclusive, I admit, I'm being rather broad in my description. They are books that don't feature a white, male, able bodied, cis-het protagonist or means — nor are they books that are like me: California, upper middle class, white. But I am including books from foreign countries (unless they are ubiquitous here). I am striving to read more books by a diverse range of authors — not just books featuring diverse characters.

That said, more than half of February's books fit into the inclusive or diverse category (twenty-four in total). The remaining ten fell into the not-diverse, not-inclusive category.

February's reviews, though, fell short of my goal of including fifty percent of the reviews being from my diverse / inclusive reads. I should have reviewed fourteen to reach that goal. I reviewed thirteen. I am also trying to work through my backlog of older reviews and those books were chosen with less regard to author or character representation.

April will continue to work on the goals of reading and reviewing with more attention to representation. Right now my schedule shows I will be reviewing eighteen qualifying books, brining me over my stated goal. Of course schedules can change.

At the start of February I had twelve reviews from 2015 I wanted to post. That's now down to seven. The 2016 reviews are down to fifty-nine from sixty-four. I posted seven reviews from 2017, brining that total down to sixty-one. My 2018 reviews have grown from eighteen to forty-six.

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