I’m just picking nine books this month, as I’ve really enjoyed the freedom that September’s mood reading gave me – so a small list, but hopefully one that will be easy to clear!
October TBR Challenge: Let’s Get Witchy!
Tag: reading challenge
August TBR Challenge: A is for August Mid-Month Check In
I’ve had a bit of a slow start to August – between a writing deadline and a reading slump I think it was the 7th before I finished a book! However, I’ve made a little bit of progress on my challenge TBR (see here for the introduction post), so here are some quick thoughts on the five books I’ve got to so far:
August TBR Challenge: A is for August
It’s time to pick a new challenge TBR, and after a month of mostly romance reading, I’m ready to tackle some fantasy and sci fi! This month’s theme is ‘A is for August’, by which I mean I’ve chosen twelve books from the TBR with titles that start with A. Let’s see what’s on the list!
June TBR Challenge: Mid-Month Check In
We’re halfway through June and despite life being disrupted with a lot of work being done to our house, I’ve still managed to get a good amount of reading done. Sadly almost everything from my challenge TBR that I’ve picked up has been disappointing so far, but hey, at least they’re done!
June TBR Challenge: Just Get On With It
Can you hear the exasperation in that title?! As you’ll have no doubt seen if you read my May Wrap Up post yesterday, I’ve really been struggling to get my TBR down in the last few months. I’ve been so hectically busy with other projects that my reading rate has fallen below my books-in rate, so this month I’ve decided to focus on a few books that feel like they’re looming large on my to-do list – not necessarily long books, but just things I keep thinking about. I’m also dropping the number to just nine books, as the last couple of months I haven’t managed to finish longer TBRs, and I can always add more later if I need to!
May TBR Challenge: Free Choice Fifteen
No theme, no overarching reasoning this month – just fifteen books I kind of fancy reading! My reading in April was pretty slow for me, and I can feel a bit of a slump coming on, so I think the best thing to do is let myself read anything I’m excited for…
April Reading Challenge: Spring Cleaning Wrap Up
This post is coming to you a little early this month, because I managed to fill up the last few days of the month with blog tour posts! If you would like a refresher of April’s challenge this month, you can check out my TBR post, and if you want to see the eight challenge books I read in the first half of April, that’s here. Two weeks ago I had five books left on the list – I didn’t manage to finish them all, but I did tick off three!
First up was Dark Breaks the Dawn by Sara B Larsen, which was a DNF for me. I think I probably would have enjoyed this much more if I’d read it as a teen; unfortunately it only came out in 2018, and I think even by then, its super-perfect lavender-haired, violet-eyed princess heroine and its learning-to-use-your-royal-magic themes would have been a bit dated. The first 100 pages of the book were mostly flirting, training sequences, and descriptions of how stunningly gorgeous everyone was, and I just really struggled to become interested. It’s a shame, because I think Swan Lake is under-used as inspiration generally!
After that I tackled A Darkness of Dragons by SA Patrick, which as I mentioned in my TBR post, I’d started before and not managed to get very far into. This time I persevered, and I really do think that the first 150 pages of this book are a slog, and not necessarily representative of the rest of it. The beginning is very slow and extremely dark – like mass murder, horrifying prison conditions, cruel punishments and insane prisoners screaming through the night dark – but the rest of it is a fairly standard upper middle grade fantasy adventure, with bandits, a girl cursed into the form of a rat, various odd magic users and a half-dragon, half-griffin. It’s a little bit dark, definitely 10+, but not nearly as violent or grim as the beginning – it’s a jarring switch and I honestly would have started the book with Patch’s escape from prison and hand-waved the backstory to get things moving earlier. Once the second part of the book was underway, though, this is a pretty fun fantasy adventure, if a little bit heavy on the ‘your princess is in another castle’ trope. I’d read the sequels if I saw them in the library!
My next read was The Archived by VE Schwab, the first book in The Dark Vault bind-up. I was surprised how much I liked it – I was only planning to read a few dozen pages to test the waters, but I ended up finding myself at 100 pages before I knew it. Like all of Schwab’s writing, it’s certainly very readable, and the concept is cool. I didn’t love the main character, who was a bit too much of a traditional punchy YA heroine for me, and the romance particularly felt very predictable by YA standards, but it’s an enjoyable time. There’s a lot of discussion of death, particularly child and sibling death, so it’s one to go carefully into if that’s not your favourite thing. I think I’ll try to read the sequel quite soon, so I can see if the duology overall is one I want to keep!
So I didn’t manage to get to Grounded or Sherwood, but given that I added two books halfway through, I suppose I did actually tick off the planned amount of spring cleaning books! Though I enjoyed most of them more than I thought I would, I ended up deciding to rehome 9 of those 12, so that’s a decent chunk of shelf space regained (though you wouldn’t be able to tell!). I’m definitely going to try this again at some point – it’s been a great exercise in recognising where my tastes have changed.
April Reading Challenge: Spring Cleaning Mid-Month Check In
It’s the 15th already, so time to see how I’ve been getting on with my April TBR challenge! If you need a refresher on the books I’m trying to read this month, you can check out my original post here – otherwise, let’s get into the mini-reviews!
April Reading Challenge: Spring Cleaning My TBR
This might seem a little bit strange, but my TBR challenge for April is to read books that I’m pretty sure I’m not going to enjoy that much. Like most people, when the sunshine returns I get the itch to tidy up, so it seems like a good time to filter through my bookshelves and try to leave only the books I really do love – plus, with my birthday at the end of the month, it’s always a good idea to make some space in case I get any new books!
I’ve chosen twelve books that I’ve either been putting off reading because my tastes have changed, or I suspect I’ll have fun with but not want to reread. Some might surprise me and make the cut, but there might also be a few DNFs if I really don’t click with them. Please don’t be angry with me if you spot a favourite here: everyone’s tastes are personal and this list is not meant to be things I think are bad books in themselves, just things I’m no longer sure I’ll love personally!
Trilogy Tidy Up!
After the success of January’s Duology Do-Overs, I thought March would be a great time to try and tackle some of the unfinished trilogies on my TBR. As with the duologies, these are series where I’ve read the first book, but never made it further than that – in most cases, I’ll need to reread the first book to remember what’s going on before pressing ahead. I haven’t included trilogies where all three books are new to me, or series where I don’t own all three books already, or I’d be here for years!
As it is, there are seven trilogies here, which is 21 books to read this month on top of my other commitments – I’ll consider finishing three of them a success. Some of these are very beloved series, so it might be a bit of a shock to discover I’ve yet to finish them!
A Cat, A Book, and A Cup of Tea 