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Welcome to the Monthly Wrap Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction to share our monthly wrap-up posts that summarizes our month in books, our favorite books of the month, what we did on our blogs, and anything noteworthy we want to share.
May 2024 Wrap Up
I read some really great books this month! Yayy! I managed to read 18 books, but only 3 of them were from my May TBR intentions. I got very, very sidetracked! I don’t expect to follow my TBR to the letter, of course, but I’d like to try to rein it in just a little so that I’m actually reading towards my challenges and goals!
My May 2024 TBR Intentions
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTeirnan
The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
I should probably rethink this section and do a “Notable Books of the Month” rather than a favorite, because I don’t think I could ever just choose one!
The Blade Itself and Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie were amazing! I meant to binge through to the third book and write a collective review for the series in May, but I just only finished reading the final book in the series, Last Argument of Kings, today! So I guess it’ll be a June review.
Funny Story was another favorite, maybe my favorite Emily Henry so far! It was hilarious and made me laugh out loud so many times!
Carrie Soto is Back is also a favorite. I love TJR’s books, and I think Malibu Rising and this book is at the top of my favorite TJR books!
2024 Bookish Books Challenge – 5/10 – Started at 4/10 at the beginning of the month. Only read one bookish book this month.
2024 Audiobook Challenge – 40/75 – Started at 25/30 at the beginning of the month, hit my target at 40/30. Now upping my challenge to 75+ audiobooks!
2024 Library Love Reading Challenge – 56/60 – Started at 43/36 at the beginning of the month. Only four more to go to hit my target. It’s the highest level of the challenge, so I’ll probably keep going after that but consider the challenge accomplished.
The Classics Club – 3/10 – Started at 2/10 at the beginning of the month. Read one classic book this month!
June 2024 TBR Intentions
I’m trying to be good and focus on the books I meant to read and/or that count towards my reading challenges and goals, but there are several books listed here that had been scheduled as buddy reads and bookclubs’ BOTM, so I’m just going to do my best!
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Winter Night by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Spring Dawning by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Nina the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
I’m most excited for the Dragonlance Chronicles because I’ve been wanting to reread them for ages, but I’m excited about the other books too!
How was your month in May? What were your most memorable bookish moments? I hope you have a wonderful June with lots of great books!
Welcome to the Monthly Wrap Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction to share our monthly wrap-up posts that summarizes our month in books, our favorite books of the month, what we did on our blogs, and anything noteworthy we want to share.
April 2024 Wrap Up
I finished 16 books this month and there were a lot of really good ones! A couple of them were books I started months ago and just happened to finish this month (The Count of Monte Cristo and Blitz). There were a couple of poetry, graphic novels, and short books.
I managed to finished four of my intended TBR, and there was one DNF, but overall I’m happy because I finished the ones with deadlines (book clubs/buddy reads/readalongs) and I can read the others later.
My April 2024 TBR Intentions
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal (DNF)
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
A Fire Endless by Rebecca Ross
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
Oh I don’t like this game anymore! I cannot choose one, there were so many amazing books this month! I’m gonna cheat and go with multiple books; The Way Forward, Bookshops & Bonedust, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Kite Runner!
2024 Bookish Books Challenge – 4/10 – Started at 3/10 at the beginning of the month. Only read one bookish book this month.
2024 Audiobook Challenge – 25/30 – Started at 16/30 at the beginning of the month. Now I have 5 more to go to hit my target.
2024 Library Love Reading Challenge – 43/60 – Started at 27/36 at the beginning of the month. Since I’ve hit 43, and achieved my original goal of 36 books, I have decided to level up to 60+ books!
The Classics Club – 2/10 – It’s 50 books in 5 years, so I’m aiming for 10 this year.
May 2024 TBR Intentions
I’ve already started on The Blade Itself, and Sea of Tranquility is for my in-person book club for May. Hopefully I’m able to finish as many of the other books as possible.
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTeirnan
The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
I’ve been anticipating some of them since the beginning of the year and I’m excited to get to them as soon as I can!
How was your month in April? What were your most memorable moments? I hope you have a wonderful May with lots of great books!
Welcome to the Monthly Wrap Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction to share our monthly wrap-up posts that summarizes our month in books, our favorite books of the month, what we did on our blogs, and anything noteworthy we want to share.
March 2024 Wrap Up
I only read eight books this month, which isn’t bad at all, but last month I read a whole bunch so I had expected better for this month. I also had a couple of reading slumps, and I was reading a few really dense and thick books. I felt like I was slogging through molasses. Hopefully April will be better!
My March 2024 TBR Intentions
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross
A Fire Endless by Rebecca Ross
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherworlds by Heather Fawcett
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo. The Sparrow was really amazing too and I’d say technically, it’s a better book than The Fox Wife, but it was a much more difficult read emotionally and so for that reason I enjoyed The Fox Wife more.
I still want to read the books I didn’t get to in March, so I’m bringing them forward. I don’t think I’ll be able to finish all of these in April, but who knows. I should also probably add some nonfiction and classics in there for my reading challenges, but I figure since there are more diverse authors on this list, I could potentially knock out a few for my Diversity reading challenge, and then catch up to the other challenges later.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
A Fire Endless by Rebecca Ross
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
I’m looking forward to all of these!
How was your month in March? What were your most memorable moments? I hope you have a wonderful April with lots of great books!
Welcome to the Monthly Wrap Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction to share our monthly wrap-up posts that summarizes our month in books, our favorite books of the month, what we did on our blogs, and anything noteworthy we want to share.
February 2024 Wrap Up
I had a pretty good reading month. I read 19 books, which is a lot more than my usual, but 11 of them were novellas/middle-grade/graphic novels so I got through them fast. I’m also very happy that I managed to read/cross-out several of my February TBR intentions, although I’m a bit disappointed because the two books I dnf’d were meant to count towards my Diversity Reading Challenge goal, and obviously they can’t count anymore. I also had a couple of books on the list meant to count towards my Nonfiction Reading Challenge, but I didn’t get to those either.
Fortunately, I did manage to read other books that counted towards those goals, so I’m not too disappointed! Here’s my February TBR list to recap, and then below are the books I actually read for February.
My February 2024 TBR Intentions
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherworlds by Heather Fawcett
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner
The Way Forward by Yung Pueblo
Children of Virtue and Vengence by Tomi Adeyemi (DNF)
Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien (DNF)
Books Read in February 2024
All My Friends Are Dead by Avery Monsen and Jory John
I cannot decide on one because I loved them both so much, so I’ll have to make it a tie and award the title to both Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, and The Storyteller by Dave Grohl.
On The Blog
I didn’t write a lot of posts this month on the blog, other than book reviews (linked above) and Top Ten Tuesday posts.
I’ll do this every month as a sort of sticky-note to help remind me of the books I want to get to sooner rather than later. I don’t expect to stick to the list exactly, but it’s a great reminder for when I get distracted by new and shiny books!
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (it’s my bookclub’s BOTM)
Fairy Tale by Stephen King (I’ve read it, but there’s a readalong happening in March!)
A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross (I’ve already started it)
A Fire Endless by Rebecca Ross (because it’s the sequel)
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo (I’ve been anticipating it the most and I just got the book from the library!)
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree (because I loved Legends & Lattes)
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherworlds by Heather Fawcett (because I loved Encyclopedia of Faeries)
Hmm… It looks like this list is more reactionary based on urgency, timing, and excitement, but that’s okay for now. I’ll do better after I finish the ones I’m excited about!
How was your month in February? What were your most memorable moments? I hope you have a wonderful March with lots of great books!
Welcome to the Monthly Wrap Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction to share our monthly wrap-up posts that summarizes our month in books, our favorite books of the month, what we did on our blogs, and anything noteworthy we want to share.
January 2024 Wrap Up
I read 11 books in January, which I’m both happy and worried about. Happy because I can’t seem to separate my sense of accomplishment from reading quantity vs quality, and I love that I read more than I normally do in a month. Worried because my goal this year was to read more slowly, savor the books, and remember more details, and I’ve found myself rushing a bit towards the later part of the month. I need to remind myself to read slow!
And be more mindful in book choices as well. I have a lot of books I mean to read this year, but I keep adding more and more new books to the TBR and some I’m just too excited about to wait! Which is fine, but I’d like to try to read some of the books that have been on my shelves forever.
Oooh, tough choice. Reeaalllyy tough choice. I’m going with The September House by Carissa Orlando, but only by a hair. Holly by Stephen King is a close second.
On The Blog
In addition to the reviews I’ve written for books read in January. Here are some of my other notable posts in January.
This is a sort of TBR list for February 2024. I’m sure I won’t be able to stick to it exactly, but these are the books I anticipate I’ll be reading in February because of release dates, where I am on the library waitlists, being next in a series I’m reading, and other random reasons. It will also help remind me to stick to reading the books I initially wanted to read!
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherworlds by Heather Fawcett
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner
The Way Forward by Yung Pueblo
Children of Virtue and Vengence by Tomi Adeyemi
Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien
How was your month in January? What were your most memorable moments? I hope you have a wonderful February with lots of great books!
Welcome to the Sunday Post, a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer to share weekly news and updates on what we’ve been up to on our blog, with our books, and book-related happenings.
An Ice-Skating Christmas Day
The week started out wonderful with Christmas Day and a small ice-skating gathering in the morning. We made some new friends and had a lot of fun even though it was outdoors and really cold! We didn’t do much the rest of the day but we did have some really yummy leftovers.
I’m also happy because I did quite well this last week with finishing and reviewing three books. And I got out of my comfort zone and signed up for three more reading challenges for 2024!! That means that I’m currently signed up for nine reading challenges in 2024. NINE!
To be fair, Finishing the Series and Series Enders are complementary, and the Library Love and Audiobook challenges would have a lot of overlap since I get all my audiobooks from the library! Also, the Classics challenge is technically a five-year challenge, so if I don’t do well in 2024, I can catch up in the next years!
I really hope I don’t regret this! Have you signed up for any reading challenges? How many reading challenges are the sweet spot for you?
I also managed to get A Christmas Carol finished! Holy description, Dickens has got a way with words! I’m familiar with his works in pop culture and adaptations, but I haven’t actually finished any of his books. This is my first, and will definitely not be the last.
I will probably be writing the review for A Christmas Carol this week, but also, it’s the first week of 2024 and I can finally get started on all the books that fit the challenges I signed up for!
Holly by Stephen King – for the Finishing the Series and Series Enders challenges
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson – for the Nonfiction challenge
The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin – for the Bookish Books challenge
Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson – for the Bookish Books challenge
These are books already on my digital bookshelf, and will count for the Library Love and Audiobook challenges too! I don’t know if I can finish them all this week, but they’re the first ones on my list.
I hope you had a great week last week, and I hope you have a great one again this week!
