Hooray! We made it through all 3912749 days of January!
But did I make it through my five planned books?
In a word? No.
But that doesn’t mean the month was a write off – I finished seven books in total, DNFd one book, and I am less than 100 pages from the end of my last of the planned five titles. (And there’s day left yet, maybe I will finish it and make a liar of myself before morning?)
January Round Up!
Mostly, I have enjoyed the books I have read this month – the exception being Only The Pretty Ones which I really did not rate (but it was short so I pushed through).
Not pictured is the book I decided to DNF after struggling through to 10% completed – Nightshade by Autumn Woods. It was a dark academia set in Scotland that should have been right up my street, but instead it felt like it was written by someone who had never been near Scotland, and didn’t know how weather, electricity, or reality worked. If it had been fantasy-ish, it might have been okay, but it was supposed to be realistic but with a dark academia filter and it just did not work for me. I got cross and put it down.
I picked up When The Weaver Met The Gargoyle by Lila Appleton on my Kindle instead and that was much better romantic fantasy nonsense. The weather in that was bonkers too, but it was at least supposed to be. It was a little bit too insta-love for my tastes, but equally it worked and was good fun to read.
I borrowed Maus off Arthur and it’s not really a book you are supposed to *enjoy* as such, given the harrowing topic, but it was a satisfying read that made me think, haunted my nightmares, but also made me chuckle at times. It was a very human story, for something that depicted everyone as animals. It tells the survivor story of the author’s father who survived Hitler’s invasion of Poland and his time in Auschwitz and beyond in a stark black and white cartoon style graphic novel.
All Better Now was a really interesting exploration of how emotions affect actions and what drives people to do the things that they do. A new pandemic sweeps the world, the side effect of survival being the sudden lack of negative emotions – everyone who survives is content, happy, blissful. Rich men give away their fortunes, people open their houses to strangers and share everything they have, people are driven by the urge to help others no matter what. And that’s not always the best move.
The latest instalment of the alien cowboy series Smitten by the Alien Saloon Owner was sweet, spicy, popcorn fluff of similar standard to the rest of the series. They are silly but nicely written and I enjoy them as an escape from all of the crap going on in the real world.
My two audiobooks this month were Stain and No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished, which technically were both continuations of series I started some time since.
Stain is book 8 in the Everybody Loves Large Chests LitRPG series and it was irreverent, ridiculous, loud, crude, and far better than it had any right to be – just like the rest of the series. They should be awful, but I love them. Boxxy T Morningwood is my hero. (He’s a literal monster, but I love him anyway.)
Meanwhile No Good Dragon continued the series of draconic politics and intrigue with laugh out loud funny sassy characters and lots of fun sibling rivalries, creepy spirits, and the ever foreboding hints about Bob the Dragon’s mysterious pet pigeon.
Currently Reading
I’ve pulled my nose out of Control Alter Delete by K. L. Kettle to write this blog post. It is published on 5th February so I will be telling you what I think of it in a review some time over the next few days. So far so good though – once I’m done here I intend to get reading again. I rolled my decision die and it said I had to finish it, and when the Dice Gods roll, you roll with it. Right?
February Plans
January was all about finishing things I had started, but February is going to be about reading things I’ve stolen.
Well, technically borrowed. But I’ve had them for a while and I should really read them and return them to their rightful owners before they become part of my furniture forever.
The ‘stolen’ books that I intend to read are:
A Heart So Fierce And Broken (Cursebreakers #2) by Brigid Kemmerer – YA Fantasy (Paperback)
The Old Guard, Book One: Opening Fire by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernández, Daniela Miwa, & Jodi Wynne – Fantasy Comic (Paperback)
The Old Guard, Book Two: Force Multiplied by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernández, Daniela Miwa, & Jodi Wynne – Fantasy Comic (Paperback)
The Old Guard: Tales Through Time by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernández, Daniela Miwa, & Jodi Wynne – Fantasy Comic (Paperback)
Other books on my TBR for the month (that are not stolen) include:
An Echo Of Things To Come (The Licanius Trilogy #2) by James Islington – Fantasy (Audible)
A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry – Children’s Fiction (Paperback)
2026 Total So Far…
At the end of the first month I’m sat on 7/52 (8 if I finish Control tonight), which is a nice healthy start to the year and has already built me a bit of a buffer for any reading slump months.
Anyway, I’m off to read… catch you later!
P.S. All my fancy graphics and statistic graphs are from the Storygraph app/website which I use as a handy reading journal/record and is brilliant – check it out here if you’re interested! (Not an ad, I just love it.)
Carole Finds Her Wings 