Pondathon II: A Round 5 Summary
You can tell that April has been a slow and unproductive (blog wise) month for me since my post before last was my round 4 summary. Oops. Oh well! Sometimes life just gets in the way. ANYWAY, here is my Pondathon II round 5 summary!
A few notes:
- All of the Pondathon graphics were created by CW of The Quiet Pond and belong to her!
- Find my intro post about joining Pondathon II here!
- And find all my other Pondathon blog posts here!
Round 4 Pondathon II Quests
We had lots of rewards to choose from for this round! I love the sunflowers and thistles especially. The tall hedges are so cute too! I kinda wish I had collected all the colors of the carnations though haha. That would’ve been cool!
This round Varian gave us a quest to read a book either by an autistic author or by a Muslim author (since it is both Autistic Pride Month and Ramadan). If we read two books for those objectives we got a badge. And if we read three, we got a secrete achievement reward! LOOK AT THESE REWARDS THOUGH. So dang cute.
We also had a second round of the time warp quest! To complete this, we had to read a diverse book that was either a historical fiction of sci-fi (future) book. And we could choose from a selection of past rewards!
Books I Read
I “only” read 7 books this round. I know that’s still quite a few books, but for me it feels like a low number. I loved a lot of these though!! Standouts were definitely Kaikeyi, Thorn, and Spear. And I actually read Once Upon an Eid via audiobook, and it worked really well for me. I normally have a lot of trouble concentrating with audiobooks. I think this one worked for me because it was short stories.
- Thorn by Intisar Khanani (a really wonderful retelling of the tale The Goose Girl)
- Once Upon an Eid edited by S.K. Ali and Aisha Saeed (a collection of short stories by Muslim authors centering around the Eid holiday)
- Spear by Nicola Griffith (a queer and genderbent Arthurian legend retelling – read my review here!)
- Not the Witch You Wed by April Asher (a fun fantasy romance following a magic-less witch)
- Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier (a really great standalone fantasy following a young lord returning home from being a war captive)
- The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang (an #OwnVoices romance following a woman with autism dealing with a family tragedy and finding love)
- Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel (a brilliant retelling of the Ramayana but centering the “evil stepmother”)
Character Card and Garden Update
I completed the bonus for the side quest, and I got the “Bee-ing Caring” badge! The design of this one is my favorite so far. I just really love bees!! But I mean all of them are adorable.
My garden is getting VERY CROWDED. The secrete achievement rewards this round were BUGS!!! To go with the side quest rewards of the different insect houses. I love all the butterflies and bees! They make the skies so happy. And the carnations, thistles, and sunflowers are wonderful. I don’t know how many rewards I can fit in though haha.
What have you been reading this month? Do you have any book recs by autistic and/or Muslim authors?
I loved Once Upon an Eid, especially reading it in season! And your garden looks so colourful and joyful
heheh thanks! but whoops im replying so late that it’s now time to make my final garden haha
Oh, I’ve not considered short stories via audio before! Interesting idea. 🧐 How was The Heart Principle? I wasn’t a fan of the second book in the series but really enjoyed the first one, so 🤔🤔
I really loved The Heart Principle – it definitely deals with heavier topics and it’s a lot more than “just” a romance novel. the second wasn’t my favorite but I did still enjoy it
I read Once Upon an Eid too and OMG IT WAS SO SWEET! I thought it was a YA book, but I was so pleasantly surprised to find it was a middle grade book! Your garden is bursting! I need to update mine soon!!
yeah I had no idea it was middle grade! that’s on me for not really reading the description I guess haha. well it’s about time for me to once again update hahaha
I never really read descriptions so I was pleasantly surprised! I know, I need to update my garden one last time… I’ve just been really lazy 😅
I love your garden so much!! It looks lovely <3
eeep thank you Kat!