Offbeat Offline: March 2024 (Plus Announcing the First Hiatus of the Year)

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? The hubs got some of the money he was waiting for but didn't make any progress on the walking front; I read some good books but got a stiff neck, and the dumpster fire house is screaming for vengeance. I'm tired and angry, but what's new? especially since, after 19 months spent tending to my bedridden husband, I can't see the end of the tunnel yet. Also, I have a ton of ARCs for review (well, five, but at the rate I'm reviewing, they might as well be a ton)...so I decided to take a hiatus this month. In the meantime, here's the rundown of my March...

📚 STILL GOING SLOW. I did my best in order to cross some review books from my list, but I couldn't manage more than 3 (though one of them was a 640-page-long monster. Beautiful monster, but still). It's not like I didn't want to do my homework write my reviews, and heaven knows I'm NEVER not in the mood for reading, but time flied (OK, I did waste a few hours doing word games on the internet, but I need a break sometimes, and they're less brain-consuming than writing a book report...). Also, I usually have my reviews for the month written in advance, but this time I had to race to finish my March books and review them in time for pub date. Anyhow, here's my monthly bookish recap...

Approvals (0):

Yep...I've got nothing this month - but not for lack of trying. Some of my requests are still in limbo, two were refused. Maybe it's for the best, given the rate at which I go through my ARCs lately...

Reads (3):

• Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis (Adult, sci-fi/mystery/contemporary)

I didn't know cozy sci-fi was a thing before I read it, but I guess it's not really MY thing. I did like it enough, but it didn't leave an impression.

• Colossus by Ryan Leslie (Adult, sci-fi/multiverse)

Now that's the kind of sci-fi I enjoy. Kind of epic.

• The Book of Love by Kelly Link (NA, afterlife/supernatural)

Even better than I expected. I could have done without the bouts of graphic sex, but otherwise, it was a fantastic read!

Reviews (3):

• Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis (see above)

Mini review posted around mid-March.

• Colossus by Ryan Leslie (see above)

Review posted a few days ago.

• The Book of Love by Kelly Link (see above)

To be honest, I've barely started on this review, and I plan on posting it right after my hiatus (that is, in May...I was so late with regard to the pub date already, so why hurry at this point?).

As I said, I'm taking the month off in order to get my act together (which involves reading my three June ARCs at least, and writing reviews for all of them 🤯. I plan on posting them on the blog in May...wish me words). But I'll resurface on Tue. 30th for a Tell Me Something Tuesday round-up covering all the March and April questions (if in brief!). In the meantime, here's the TMST prompt list for the month of April, in case you want to join in:

• April 2nd: Are you fluent in more than one language? (a question I submitted)
• April 9th: What have you been watching? Share your TV show or movie picks
• April 16th: What new-to-you authors have you enjoyed in the past 12 months?
• April 23rd: TBR update: How is your list coming along?
• April 30th: Social media: Where can you be found these days?

😓 MIND YOUR STEP. You might remember that my husband got his new prosthetic in February, and he's been trying to go back to walking since then, but with very little success. I can only repeat what I said last month...it's not just that he's been in a bed for one year and a half - the situation is made extra hard by his having to heavily rely on crutches (which he has already been using for years, practically destroying his arms in the process) and his being unbalanced (his remaining leg, the one with the ulcer, is bent sideward because he started to wear a prosthetic at age 4, when the bone was still tender, and back then the follow-up for amputations wasn't the greatest...). Add to that a case of chronic pain, and you get a recipe for disaster. He tries to walk a little in between rooms every day, but after a couple of rounds (with a pause in the middle, too), he's done for. Frankly, I'm dismayed.

💶 MONEY MATTERS. We're still waiting for my husband's pension to arrive, but in the meantime, we got his assistance allowance (with arrears) and severance pay. The latter was a complete letdown...think working for 40 years only to get around 22,000 euros. Early repayment of our mortgage (which we hoped we could do with the redundancy money) would involve twice that sum and then some. So we're stuck with paying such mortgage for another seven years (I'm talking about the 61,000 euro loan we should have paid in full by now, had not the first bank crashed and our debt been bought by a second one for 100,000 🤬 😭).

PUBLISHING NEWS/TIPS

• I'm so excited because author Nova Ren Suma (whom I love) has a new YA novel out in 2025...after a 6-year-long hiatus!

THINK-PIECES, DISCUSSIONS, ORIGINAL FICTION

• Sam discusses reading rate.
  
• Cee Arr asks if we should judge older books by modern standards.
• Again, Cee Arr shares her excellent short story Everyone Is Born With a Void.

REVIEWS/RECOMMENDATIONS

• Jen lists her favourite thrillers like And Then There Were None.

OTHER

• Briana explains how Wordpress and Tumblr are selling your content to AI companies to train their models.
• The Orangutan Librarian spreads awareness about the same topic, and calls out AI "art" as theft.
• Shannon is back from Conageddon, and even if you know zilch about The 100, her enthusiasm is infectious!

That's it for now. My next post will be up on April 30th, and it will be the TMST round-up I mentioned above. In the meantime, I'm going to disappear in my cave and try to make a dent in that ARC list...while doing my best to quench the dumpster fire in my house. Wish me luck...

So, what were your highs/lows in the past month?