Hi folks!! Is there a book character that made you realize you were queer?? If so who??? Because I just came across a post that made a realize that I wanted one of the characters in a book to be a lesbian so bad... I didn't think much of it until now, because how did I just ignore it all this time? The signs were there. The character was Yara from the Princesses of the Fantasy world series by the way 🫠.

Oh no! Your current PB username has been stolen somehow!

What would you pick as a second option (and why)? (Assume that all other potential usernames are available.)

For the past couple of years, my yearly average rating has been in the gutter. I'm talking averages of 2.6, 2.8, just VERY ugly. Books I was excited about disappointed me, every book I was reading just for entertainment would entertain me just as much as it would frustrate me. It was a very dark time and I don't remember half of these books because not a one of them was good.

We're halfway through this year, and my average rating is a 3.55. Almost an entire star higher than what it was just two years ago. I would be a fool not to credit this lovely space for part of this glowup, I have been encouraged to pick up some real gems because of how you all spoke of some of these works.

But I have been doing a little project for the past two months that has also helped. For every book that disappointed me (2 stars or below/DNF), I would read something off my five star predictions shelf. Surprise surprise, half of the books I picked up were not five stars. But most of them were works I really valued, and that encouraged me to pick up more of those books naturally, without being bound by this fake rule I created. In the last two months, my average went up by .1 and I have 17 five star reads under my belt (9 being rereads)!

I'm having a great reading year so far, but how are your reading years going? Have you been struggling to find a good book recently? Do you have a game plan to change up your reading year, or are you just seeing where your mood takes you?