January was a strange month. I finally got back to blogging and I remembered how much I enjoy it. I also managed to get some reading mojo back and finished a whole bunch of books. I also remembered how much I don’t enjoy reading to a schedule when i was trying to figure out how to blog again. Yet, I somehow joined a whole bunch of reading challenges which basically require me to have some kind of reading plan, which is very unlike me, and I spent all month obsessing over whether I would manage to move house or not (spoilers for February, I definitely moved). Covid also started hitting closer to home with friends catching it and my stepdad. It seemed like everyone got it after Christmas, which sucked. I didn't go out anywhere near as much as I usually do which was pretty boring, but it was also for the best, I really needed to save the money as February became an extremely expensive month in the space of a day.
Music of the Month
I was going to pick an album for the month but there was actually one song which I obsessed over all month. I stumbled across it a little late as I had forgotten how much I love Frank Turner’s music, but once I listened once I had his songs on repeat. A Wave Across the Bay actually made me cry, it was marvellous. It was written about the death of Scott Hutchison, lead singer of Frightened Rabbit. I remember his death and it hit hard as I loved that band, I didn't realise that Frank Turner has been friends with him until I read up on the song. When I listened the second time it hit hard and I haven't been able to stop listening to it since.
What I Read
I was so proud of myself. After spending so many months not reading properly I managed to get through 21 books in January. I admit, many of them were rather short. There were more novellas than full length books but they still managed to clear my shelves. I think my favourites are easy to choose, they were The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Let it Shine, and That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon. There were plenty of books I enjoyed but looking back on the month those I remember so well for various reasons.
5 stars
Let It Shine, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
4 – 4.75 stars
Shadow of Night (4), The Book of Life (4.5), Shards of Hope (4.5), Allegiance of Honour (4)
How to Dance an Undead Waltz (4), How to Live an Undead Lie (4), That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon (4), Mistlefoe (4)
Craving Flight (4), Deadly Silence (4)
3 – 3.75 stars
Shield of Winter (3), How To Save and Undead Life (3), How To Claim and Undead Soul (3), How To Break and Undead Heart (3.5)
How to Wake an Undead City (3.5), Dragon Unleashed (3.75), Pat’s Pantry (3.5), Snowed In (3.75)
Tithe (3.5)
Books I Unhauled
I thought I better talk about the books I unhauled as well as the books which I read. My clearing the shelves project means I am DNFing or plain old skipping reading books just because I don't fancy reading them. I try and read the first few pages and then if it doesn't grab my attention or even make me feel slightly motivated to try it again another day then it gets moved to the 'never gonna read' shelf. It's sad because I've paid money for some of the books but I just didn't fancy reading them anymore. I also realised that I should stop getting tempted by all of those freebies.
Reading Challenges
I think I'm doing quite well with my challenges. I’ve managed to read a book for the monthly prompts easily enough and I’ve not fallen behind on my Goodreads challenge (in fact I’ve already beaten that one). The best part is I really do feel like I’m making a slight dent into my unread books which is definite progress for me.
2022 Monthly Key Word Challenge
Last, Kingdom, Girl, Dark, When, Winter, Light, Window
I read Shield of Winter for this challenge. It actually helped motivate me to finally finish the first Psy Changeling series, so I'm pretty happy with that. I’m sad I didn’t rate the book higher but it was just missing something
Buzzword Reading Challenge
A book with one of the 5 W's in the title
This was another prompt which made me read a book which had been sat on my shelf for a while. I've not got to reading the epilogues on this one, they're kind of unnecessary in my opinion anyway. How to Save an Undead life was surprisingly easy to read. I did have to get several books in to really start to enjoy it but that was because it was very obvious to me some of those characters were the worst and were set for betrayal.
Beat the Backlist
This was the challenge I was most invested in to try and clear some books from my shelves. I have read 21 books which were all published before this year, and I also managed to finish 10 of the 52 prompts, although a couple of those books applied to a couple of different prompts so I may change them yet.
What I Blogged
Romance... I'm Not Loving it Right Now
My Thoughts on the All Souls Trilogy
My Search for a Goodreads Alternative
TV Highlights
I admit, I watched quite a lot of tv this month, I tried to not just binge watch stuff as I usually do but some shows just have to be binge watched. Queer Eye managed to have me tearing up every episode and I loved it. Cheer was surprisingly emotional as well. I don't know what it is about Cheer which has me glued to the screen but I was. And finally, Archive 81 totally hooked me. I started watching it while my stepdad had covid so I needed to find something to keep my brain busy outside of reading and that was the perfect show for it. I listened to the first season of the podcast it's based upon and the two were rather different. I do hate how they removed the F/F relationship from the podcast, though. I can't see any good reason for it, they may have altered the plot and the approach of the show to the story but that F/F relationship made more sense in the podcast than the way they did it in the show.
And that was my January. What were your January highlights? Do you keep track of the books you unhauled as well as those you read?
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