How are we already a week and a half into February?
How is it already time to review what I read in January?
I suspect witchcraft.
Or maybe it's just because time flies when you're reading great books? Who knows?
Anyway, my reading year is off to a good start. Despite falling asleep reading more times than I can count (from post-Christmas exhaustion), I still managed to finish eight books, and get three quarters of a ninth in January. I'm happy with that, especially considering a few of them were pretty chunky books, and six of them were so good that I rated them 4.5 stars or above!
Let's have a look at how I did:
January Reading Stats:
📖8 books completed, 1 started.
📖3 hardbacks.
🎧5 audiobooks
📖4277 pages (including audiobooks).
🎧 48 hours 52 minutes listened at 1.1x speed.
📖4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reads!
📖2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 reads!
📖Average rating: 4.31 stars.
📖Average book length: 446 pages.
📖Average time to finish: 8 days.
I Read:
📖Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. 5⭐ (Reread).
📖It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. 4.5⭐
📖Throne of Secrets by Kerri Maniscalco. 5⭐
🎧House of Flame and Shadow (Graphic Audio) part 1 by Sarah J. Maas. 5⭐ (Reread).
🎧The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. 3⭐ (Reread).
🎧A Deal with the Elf King (Graphic Audio) by Elise Kova. 5⭐
🎧A Dance with the Fae Prince (Graphic Audio) by Elise Kova. 3⭐
🎧The Little Liar by Mitch Albom. 4.5⭐
And I Started:
📖Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros. (384/525 pages).
Favourite Reads: My favourite read of the month had to Throne of Secrets by Kerri Maniscalco. I. Was. Obsessed. I enjoyed it so much, I immediately wanted to go back to the beginning and read it all over again. It's not often that I seriously consider doing that, but that's how addictive that book was. I kept waking in the night thinking about it, and it's still on my mind over two weeks later. It's a brilliant dark adult romantasy inspired by Cinderella, with enemies to lovers between a hot demon prince and his rival, some forced proximity, hidden identities, high stakes, killer ice dragons, a misdirected competition to find a bride, a manipulative step-mother, shock reveals, betrayals, lost memories, hexes, magic, witches, vampires, and hot demon princes with courts each powered by the Seven Sins. There's also several spicy scenes, death, and violence on the page, so check trigger warnings before reading. It's so good, though, and I'd highly recommend it. But it's part of a series, so read The Kingdom of the Wicked series and Throne of the Fallen first.
Favourite Listens: I listened to some great audiobooks in January. I'm torn between House of Flame and Shadow (part 1) by Sarah J. Maas, and A Deal with the Elf King by Elise Kova, which were both so fun to experience as graphic audios. I've wanted to try A Deal with the Elf King for years, and it had a similar vibe to ACOTAR. One of the characters was also voiced by Gabriel Michael, who does the voice of Lucien in ACOTAR and Xaden in Fourth Wing, which might have swayed my decision to read it, as I could listen to that man speak all day.
Another audiobook I highly rated was The Little Liar by Mitch Albom, a Holocaust novel about an innocent young Jewish boy who was manipulated by a Nazi into getting the Jewish people on the trains to Auschwitz, with the promise of jobs and new homes. He only realises the lie when he's separated from his family as they're forced aboard, and the Nazi reveals the truth, and it then follows the fallout of that lie for himself, his brother, their childhood friend, and the Nazi commandant during the war, and after liberation. It was really well done, and very moving, especially as Nico succumbed to his guilt by becoming a pathological liar, and the others suffered the horrors of Auschwitz. Even though it's a novel, it still highlighted so many atrocities that happened during the Holocaust in real life, and with everything that's been happening in Gaza, it certainly got me thinking about what people went through, how terrible humans can be, and how little progress we've made in the last eighty years.
Least Favourites: My least favourite read of the month was the Age of Miracles, which was surprising, as when I read it in print, around a decade ago, I rated it five stars. I thought it might be fun to reread as an audiobook, but I found the narrator's voices really irritating, so it made the reading experience far less enjoyable. It's still an interesting book about what happens to one Californian pre-teen girl's life when the rotation of the Earth slows, and causes the days and nights to lengthen- animals and people get sick, relationships become strained, people turn on their neighbours for adhering to real-time instead of clock-time- but it loses something as an audio. I wish I'd reread as a physical book. But you live and learn.
Overall, January wasn't a bad start to the year. I wish I'd read more pages, but I kept on track, read some great books, discovered a couple of new authors, and tried a good mix of genres.
Now, how do I top that in February??
How are your reading goals going so far this year? Have you read any good books lately?
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