You may notice that I changed the name of my monthly wrap-up. I have decided that going into 2019, I would not be participating in major reading challenges such as PopSugar or BookRiot so that would no longer be a focus. That being said, I would still like to post monthly updates on my reading progress throughout the year. Maybe I will even include highlights from other blogs! Either way, this feature will be a work in progress for the next few months.
General Updates
Books Read this Month: 5
Book Reviews: 1
5-star reads:
- Crush by Svetlana Chmakova
- The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
3-stars & under:
- The Button War by Avi
Book of the Month Choice(s) (and link):
Back List Pick of the Month
While I may not be participating in other major reading challenges in 2019 such as PopSugar or Book Riot, I will be participating in this one. Beat the Back List is a unique reading challenge in that it does not have prompts that need to be filled or tight deadlines in which to fill them. Instead, it is a year long commitment to reading books that are already on your TBR. The only catch is that you read books with a 2018 or older publication date. You go at your own pace, which makes for a fun and unique reading experience. In order to do a better job of checking these back listed titles off my list, I let my fiance pick one that I had to read based on a few shelves of unread books. Here is his choice:
Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young (2018)
I picked this up on a complete whim, totally because of the hype. I don’t know a whole lot about it, other than it is about Vikings and something about a dead brother who turns out to not be so dead anymore. But a lot of people have had great reviews of it though, so I am hopeful. This was my “must read” book for November but with all the craziness of end of the year, I have decided to roll it over to my first Back List choice of the month.
Calendar Girls
I participate in the monthly blog event hosted by Katie @ Never Not Reading and Adrienne @ Darque Dreamer Reads which sparks discussions about books that fall under a specific theme. It was originally created by Flavia (Flavia the Bibliophile) and Melanie (MN Bernard Books) but has been taken over by Katie and Adrienne in the last year or so. For more information about this blog event, click here.
The theme for December was:
Let it Snow: Best Book Set in Winter
Normally I would leave a link to my participation in this section but I did not not participate this month. I guess I just haven’t read many books set during winter because I couldn’t think of anything (that wasn’t Harry Potter). You can see Katie and Adrienne’s original posts below.
Also please note that ANYONE can participate in this event, boys and girls alike! Just review the “rules” for posting and always make sure to tag the hosts (so everyone knows you are participating) and that’s it!
January’s theme is:
Happy New Year
Most Anticipated 2019 Release
Community Highlights:
This is a new feature I want to start implementing in my monthly wrap up posts. I used to do a feature called “Favorite Things” but stopped after a little while because of the volume of great content that was being posted. But I want to (sort of) bring that back! Here, I will provide links to some of my favorite content posted by other people in the bookish community during that month. It could be a blog post, youtube video or something else! Let me know what kind of content you would like to see featured in this section.
Drizzle Hurricane Books : How to Avoid the Hype as a Book Blogger
Pages Unbound Reviews:Negative Reviews are the Highest Form of Respect
Reading Every Night: Why Are Reviews So Hard to Write and So Unpopular in the Blogging Community?
Naty’s Bookshelf: My Favorite Booktubers
Bionic Bookworm: My Year in Books 2018 Wrap up
A Whisper of Ink: What Makes You Seem Like a Less-Genuine Reviewer
Hailey and I are on the same wavelength with 2019 bookish resolutions. I am determined to up my average book rating to at least a 3.5 or better. I am going to do that by not being afraid to DNF a book I am not enjoying. This is something very important to me going into the new year, and certainly something I will be working on.
What do you guys think of this setup? What do you think is missing from it (or could be cut from a monthly wrap up)? Please let me know what you think :]
Sky in the deep is rolling over to my 2019 TBR too!
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I went into Sky in the Deep pretty blind about what it was about other than Viking inspired, and it worked out great. I usually fall way outside the masses with hype, but this was one of my favorite reads of 2019. Hope you enjoy it, and I can’t wait to see what you think! 🙂 Hope you have a great January! 🙂
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That’s kind of what I’ve been hearing all around for it as well! I am trying to do that (go in blind) for a lot of “hyped” books in 2019, while also not being afraid to dnf if I’m not feeling it 🙂
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Yes! I find that sometimes it’s better with the hyped books to do so. Hopefully it shall work! 🙂
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I can’t wait to hear what you think about Sky in the Deep! It was so hyped, but I was hearing really mixed opinions about it, so I decided to hold off on it. But I’m still keeping it in the back of my head because it looks so fun.
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I will deff let you know what I think when I finally get around to it 🙂
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I’m so glad you enjoyed The Poet X, I really need to read that one at some point, it sounds amazing 🙂
thank you so, so much for sharing my post, I’m glad you enjoyed it ❤️ I hope you’re having a wonderful January! ❤️
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I really did not expect to like poet x as much as I did. It was a weird one too because I ended up squeezing it in at the very end of the year (like literally finished reading it December 30th).
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