Cybils Reading

I was very honored to be chosen as a judge for the 2012 Cybil awards in the SF/F category for round 1.  I've learned a lot of things this year, though, especially with how different round 1 is from round 2 (where I judged last year).  Here are three important things I've learned about the Cybils this year (spoiler free!):

3.  Free Books are only fun for a while:

*PART* of my Cybils reading

Of course it's fun to get free books in the mail.  It's especially exciting when a title you've been wanting to read for a while comes in.  Eventually, though, it just gets intimidating.  After all, you're getting all these books with the expectation that you READ them.  That's a lot of reading.  A whole lot.  And it should all get done by the end of December.  Excuse me while I quit blogging to go read . . .

2. There are only so many places you can put books:
I have books EVERYWHERE.  They're taking over my couch.  And behind my couch.  My bookcase is already full.  I even took four boxes of books from my shelves to the library donations to make room, and there's still NO ROOM.  The books are taking over!

And the #1 thing Cybils reading has taught me:

THIS IS HARD!!!  The books we're reading were all nominated by someone who thought they were the best book of the year.  While that makes for a lot of books, it's all good books.  It's so humbling to read a book critically yet keep in the back of your head "someone loved this book."  And it shows.  I'm starting to feel so spoiled reading one good book right after another.  I think my reviews are suffering because there's only a few ways to say OMG THIS BOOK IS AMAZING and I've got so many books I need to say it for!  It's also harder and harder to choose which books should be in contention because they're all so good and so different and yet I want to choose all of them!  Why is the short list so short?!?