In September of last year, I finally decided to really try and see if I could get approved for Netgalley books. I had had my account for a year and up to that point, the few times I’d requested a book, I had been declined. But after slowly and sporadically adding reviews to my blog, I finally decided to make this my home for my book reviews. And so began the obsession that would leave me drowning in Netgalley books.

For months, I slowly had to make my way through the books on my list. Some days, this was easy enough. But after my concussion last winter, there were several months where I was physically in pain by trying to read a single ebook. But alas, I continued on and almost two months ago I finally reached my percentage goal of 80%.

For anyone who has never used Netgalley, you probably won’t understand the significance of this percentage. But in a nut shell, it’s a way to show you are a dedicated reader. There are actually publishers on the site that won’t allow you access to any of their books without a high percentage. And for someone like me, who wound up with a ton of books at the start, it was hard to make it to this point.

As of today, I have been approved for 63 books and have finished reading/reviewing or at least sending feedback for 54 of them. That leaves me with a percentage of 86%, which I’m pretty content with for now. As for the feedback, if there is a book where I don’t get at least halfway through and I decided I just can’t get into it or it’s not the kind of book I like to read, I just send them feedback thanking them for the opportunity and explaining it wasn’t the book for me at no fault to the author or the content of the book. I feel this allows them to know that while I didn’t enjoy the book, it’s just because it wasn’t the kind of book I like reading. Now, if I DNF a book because it’s poorly written or the story is drab, I’ll do a review. I know there’s some debate over that kind of thing, but I feel it’s important to be honest and there’s a big difference between not getting into a book and not liking the book.

Here are a list of the Netgalley books I still have to read/review:

Looks like I’m finally getting my Netgalley list under control. I still have two pending requests, but I no longer feel like I’m drowning in them. My hope is that by the end of summer, I will have at least half of these read. Now before you go “Only half?”, you should know The Phantom of the Earth is a five book omnibus. So that’s five books I have to read. Plus Skeleton in the Closet is book 2 in its series, so I plan on reading book one first. I don’t know what Netgalley books will be in store for me in the future, but I can’t wait to find out!