Yes, it’s true. My May reading plan has taken on water, capsized, and sunk. Circumstances led to water gushing in. And the spoiler sank it. I am now in a life boat with too many alternate choices and paddling hard for shore. Will I complete this giant new TBR? I have no idea, but it’s not looking good.
I am only a week into my May reading plan, and it looks very different than when I started. It’s chaos, but I am not surprised, and it is my own fault. Mostly.
I couldn’t resist trying to complete the Goodreads Spring Reading Challenge. During the Winter challenge I got lucky. Books that I had already planned to read were challenge choices. For the Spring Challenge, two books I reads in April fit two categories apiece. I was not so lucky in May, so it is back to the drawing board. I also had a mini challenge release in my 52 Book Club that I couldn’t resist. Two of the three prompts didn’t fit books I was already reading.
To make room for the challenge books, two books are coming off my Tier Two list and two more are coming off of my Tier Three list. They are moving to later in the year. Two of these include Social Media for Writers and Taking out the Carbage. I just don’t have time to read the first one right now, and reading it closer to my book’s release date will be fine. The second one is a huge cookbook, and I am substituting a shorter one for now, so I have more time to read fiction (Snacking Dinners by Georgia Freedman). The other two coming off are How to Solve Your Own Murder and Letters from Japan. An Ending on Elliott Bay may have to move too, but it releases so late this month it may be a moot point.
I have even more going on in place of these.
First off, I added in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. This had nothing to do with the new reading challenges. It’s more like a mine that exploded by the ship and blew a hole in it. It’s a library book, and I only have three weeks to read it. I’d planned it for June because I was pretty far back on the borrowing list, but overnight I jumped to first place. So, May it is. That’s my bad luck, but I have read it before, so I am hoping it goes quickly. Worst case scenario, I return it unread, and borrow it again later.
Other unplanned additions include Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki (fits a coffee shop setting prompt), The Perfect Roommate by Minka Kent (fills a roommate character prompt – and it’s short), The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu, and Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books by Hwang Bo-Reum. These are all the additions due to the Goodreads Spring Challenge and the 52 Book Club May challenge.
Then there’s the spoiler problem that shook up my list. I was reading The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It’s a thriller about a writer who decides to write the sure thing bestseller of another author who dies before they complete the book. Then he gets accused of being a thief by someone who knows what happened.
Everything was fine. I was about a third of the way through and I made the mistake of looking for a piece of information about the book online. I was just curious about something. I wasn’t looking for a spoiler, but I found it by accident anyway. I tried reading through the halfway point with the thought that at least I didn’t know exactly how things would play out to the now known ending. But they use the word “spoil” for a reason. Knowing the ending in a thriller really did spoil it for me.
I was not expecting that. I’ve always thought that spoilers wouldn’t bother me. But I think that’s in the context of reading the book after seeing the movie or vice versa. I think this was actually more similar to a mystery or a thriller where you guess the ending too early and lose interest. I’ve had that a couple of times recently, and it either led me to DNF the book or rate it a bit lower.
For this book, before I DNF’d it, I gave in and read the last chapter for closure. I plan to donate the book so someone else can have a good time with it. I was enjoying it prior to the spoilage, so I would still recommend it. And going forward I will be a lot more careful on searches like that, or avoid them until I am done. But I had this book planned for the Goodreads Challenge and DNF’ing means it doesn’t count. So Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books is taking its place for the sake of the challenge.
It’s been quite a shake up in just seven days. In other news, I am making good progress on The Odyssey (34% in) and Sense and Sensibility (13% in) and I am enjoying Fourth Wing more than I’d expected so far (11% in).
Do you quit reading books if you stumble over a spoiler?
Thanks for reading!
