Hands up if you, too, felt January go by like the wind! It has been quite a month for me – I have been reading as usual, though not as well as the last two months. I had been hoping for a good start to the year, both reading-wise and personally, and so far all I can say about January is – hmmm, how about I put it in a gif?
I don’t know what this year is going to bring, but there is always one thing for certain – I will keep on reading. On the blogging front, I have been more regular about my schedule – I only slipped up twice! As for art, I had thought to do some practice every alternate day, but that didn’t really work out, because I would have these bursts of energy and creativity that would go for like consecutive 5 days, and then just 4 days of ‘ugh I don’t wanna’.
I wanted to get a good head-start for the year and so ended up reading 33 books! In those, there were 16 full-length books, 2 novellas, 14 graphic novels/manga and 1 poetry book.
Ah-mazing!!!
Pretty good
Try it out maybe?
Reread
And now, onto the yearly challenges:
Beat the Backlist Reading Challenge
Progress: 15/100 books
Contemporary Romance reading challenge
Progress: 3/21+ books (Grand Slam)
AtoZ reading challenge
Progress: 11/26 books
B 
E 
I J K 
N P Q R S T V X Y Z
Cloak and Dagger challenge
Progress: 8/35 books
New Release challenge
Progress: 15/200 books
Netgalley & Edelweiss Reading challenge
Progress: 20/100 galleys
2019 Debut author challenge
Progress: 2/24 debuts
Audiobook challenge
Progress: 5/50 audiobooks
Monthly Keyword Challenge
Progress: 0/12 keywords
Nothing this month 😦
Dystopia Reading Challenge
Progress: 1/16 books
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
Progress: 5/25 books (Ancient History)
Retellings Reading Challenge
Progress: 3/25 retellings (Fairest of them All)
Space Time Reading Challenge
Progress: 2/20 books
Series to Finish Challenge
Progress: 3/24 series (1/12 new + 2/12 old)
Gotham Academy: Second Semester (2 of 2) – new
Timekeeper (3rd of 3) – old
Gallagher Girls (4,5,6 of 6) – old
Year of the Asian Reading Challenge
Progress: 4/51 books
Besides these year-long challenges, I also had three reading challenges.
Late-a-thon (Jan 1-31)
I was to read 12 old galleys this month, but sadly I couldn’t.
Bout of Books (Jan 7-13)
Progress: 7/7 books
#24in48 readathon (Jan 26-27)
My goal was to read for 24 hours and I did it!
ICYMI
TTT: Best Books I read in 2018
TTT: Most Anticipated Releases for the first half of 2019
TTT: New-to-me authors in 2018
TTT: Books I meant to read in 2018 but didn’t get to
TTT: Most Recent Additions to my TBR that aren’t books yet
Diversity Spotlight Thursday #30: OV Asian rep
Diversity Spotlight Thursday #31: Gay MC rep
Diversity Spotlight Thursday #32: Trans MC rep
Diversity Spotlight Thursday #33: OV Black rep
Diversity Spotlight Thursday #34: Lesbian rep
Book Blogger Hop: Jan 4-10
Book Blogger Hop: Jan 11-17
Book Blogger Hop: Jan 18-24
Book Blogger Hop: Jan 25-31
Stacking the Shelves #43
Stacking the Shelves #44
Stacking the Shelves #45
Stacking the Shelves #46
Other news
- I have started a new series of blog posts – Shouting from the Shelftops – which is all about celebrating book news, be it me squealing over cover reveals, or book deals, or interesting author Twitter threads. The only rule is you have to scream along with me! Check out post #1, #2 and #3.
- There were some other changes I wanted to implement in the blog, including a long-overdue image change, but I didn’t get around to it this month. Hopefully I will have time in February to do so.
- I have been working on three fanart pieces this month – all of them are for a Wolfstar Reverse bang (basically, artists make art and writers write a 10k fic based on it) and I am so excited for my pieces. I can’t show them yet, but I will when it is okay to release them! So keep a watch out on my Instagram.
YA on my Mind 