Hello, reader!

We’re into the second week in February, so I figured it was about time I wrapped up my reading in January. I’m planning on doing things a little bit differently this year. I’m not going to be including my year-long reading challenges in my wrap ups anymore because all it did was cause me stress 😅 It felt like I was barely doing anything because I would only have one or two books a month in that section! I’ll be keeping track of that separately and talk about it in a dedicated post, I think. I’m also only going to focus on my best book of the month as opposed to doing highs and lows. This is because what may be a low for me might be someone else’s favorite book and I always felt bad drawing attention to the fact that I just didn’t jive with it. We’re focusing on the positive in this blog! Of course, that’s not to say that I’ll never talk about books I didn’t like (it’s part of being a reviewer… you can’t enjoy every book!) but I’m not going to make it such a feature, ya know?

Alright, enough blabber. Let’s get to my first wrap up of the new year!

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Click on the covers to be taken to the book’s Goodreads page

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This is probably going to be fairly obvious as I only had one five star read last month, but the Book of the Month for January is…

Is anyone shocked? Probably not 😂 This book was just incredible! I kept me on my toes, worried for Rin and all the characters I’ve gotten so attached to in such a short period of time. It’s so interesting to watch Rin and follow her thinking throughout this book. As the reader, you can see how she is being prodded and manipulated, and you just have to sit there and watch her make one bad decision after another. And, yet, far from making me angry, it made me want to hug her because you can totally see her reasoning behind it. It made sense. Now, I’m prepared to fully destroy what’s left of my heart because I just picked up the last book in the trilogy, The Burning God, from the library. Pray for me, y’all!

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I have to say, this was an interesting reading month. It was good in that I read far more than I thought I was going to read! It was meh in that I read more books below four stars than I did in the last few months of 2020. Of course, three stars isn’t a bad rating, it just means that the book was average to me. Perhaps I got spoiled last year with so many spectacular reads that I feel weird giving out more than one three star in a month, lol. Either way, I think it was a strong start to the new year.

I will say, I most definitely bogged myself down with blog tour books! I love doing blog tours. They are some of my favorite posts to write! But, as someone who doesn’t read all that fast, committing to three or four blog tours in one month means I typically don’t get to do any mood reading. And I’m a huge mood reader! I’m trying to focus on letting myself mood read more in 2021, which means I’m probably going to cut back on how many blog tours I do. Maybe one to two a month, excluding the BBNYA blog tours for the books from last year as I’ve already read those! I think that will help me to not feel so overwhelmed and keep my content from feeling to rushed and stressed, ya know? Plus, mood reading! I’ve missed it!

And, perhaps, this is the year that I finally try DNFing? I always advocate for dropping a book if you’re not enjoying it… for other people. When it comes to myself, I feel like such a quitter. I know that’s ridiculous and I know that DNFing would probably vastly cut back on reading slumps. And, yet, it’s so hard for me to do. Perhaps this is the year that I do a trial run. We’ll see if I can work myself up to it, lol.

It is a new year, after all 😁

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How was your reading in January? Did you find a new favorite? Make any progress on some challenges? Let me know in the comments!

And, as always, happy reading!