January Wrap Up: The Month of Laziness + Announcing a ReadAThon

Hi all!

How is January over already??? It felt like the month just dragged but then the last week or so went by really fast!

January was a very lazy month for me. I went away to Hobart in Tasmania with my friends for a weekend, and we had so much fun! Then, because work was so quiet, I had a lot of time off where I just read and watched TV. I also went away with my family to Mornington for a couple days. It was super relaxing and I wish I were back there!

Books read

13 reads: 12 books, 1 collection of poetry

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Books reviewed

Any Old Diamonds is the newest m/m romance from KJ Charles and it’s now a new favourite. The book features incredible plot twists, amazing characters, shameless flirting, sex at some pretty inopportune moments, and some fucking horrible peers of the realm. I adore it. And you really need to preorder it ASAP. Review

★★★★★

 

Girls of Paper and Fire is such an important novel. It’s about survivors of sexual assault who learn that they are strong enough and powerful enough to bring down a king. It’s about two girls who reclaim their autonomy and seek to enforce a much-needed change in their society. Please be aware of the trigger warnings before reading this book, because it’s quite graphic. But Ngan sensitively discusses these issues with the respect they require. Review

★★★★★

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BOOK OF THE MONTH

GUYS! I CAN’T BEGIN TO TELL YOU HOW AMAZING THIS NOVEL IS!!

Red, White & Royal Blue will be published May 14 and I was so, so, so, so, so, lucky to receive an advance copy! My review will be up sometime in February but let me tell you how good it is: so good that it’s my best book of 2019 so far. I know that’s probably too early to call, but it’s true!

RWRB is fun, flirty, sweet, romantic, and a very important novel. The main character is bisexual and Mexican, and the love interest is gay … and the prince of England!

aifhausfhafhg  I just fucking afore this book. I know I just read it, but I really want to reread it again and will sometime in February.

★★★★★

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MONTHLY DISAPPOINTMENT

I can’t even begin to tell you how upset I am with this book! I’ve been slowly reading the series for two years — the books are all very similar so reading them one after the other got very tedious, so I had long breaks in between reading each book — and the ending SUCKED.

I loved the last two books in the series and I was waiting for everything to come together in the final book … but it doesn’t. Literally none of the mysteries that the previous books focused on were solved. I was so upset. Because why had I even read the books then?

To check out the questions I still have about this book, read my short review on Goodreads. There’s spoilers, so beware if you haven’t read the series or want to.

★★

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The ABC Book Challenge

I didn’t have the chance to post the ABC Book Challenge during December, so it’s been a while since I updated. But I really wanted to finish the series as I only have a couple of posts left!

This is a weekly tag where bloggers share memorable titles starting with a letter of the alphabet, as well as books on their TBR also starting with that letter.

Check out my posts for January:

V,W,Y

The last post for Z will come out in February.

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 Extra content

This month I had a whole bunch of posts about my 2019 reading goals, some 2018 wrap ups, as well as a sort-of discussion post! Check the posts out by clicking on the images below!

In My 2018 in Books and Blogging I share my favourite posts of 2018, some of my favourite books, some book statistics about the books I read in 2018, and what you can look forward to from me in 2019.

In My 2019 Reading and Blogging Goals I share the goals I have for both my reading habits and my blog. So far, I’ve managed to follow these goals, so here’s hoping I can continue that for the rest of the year!

In My Massive 2019 TBR I share the books that I NEED to read this year! This includes the books from my in real life book club, as well as some YA titles, some classics, some romance, and some non-fiction!

In My 2019 ARC Pledge I talk about all the reasons I’m going to be decreasing the number of advance reading copies I’ll be reading and requesting There’s a whole bunch of reasons but the main one is it’s effecting my reading and I find myself reading books I don’t actually like, and I want to change that. So far, I suck at this as I’ve requested quite a few ARCs this year already.

In My 2018 Reading Challenges Wrap Up I look back over 2018 and the reading challenges I set myself and see which ones I’ve completed, which ones I failed at, and which ones I cheated in!

In Best Books of 2018 I share my top 20 favourite books of 2018! This list was originally 36 books and I had to bring it down heaps, otherwise you would have gotten three posts out of me. If you can’t guess my favourite book of 2018, you don’t know me that well. Let’s just say it features a little shit who’s also bisexual and whom I love with all my heart.

In How To Get Out of a Reading Slump I share the 10 ways I’ve been able to get out of a reading slump before! Some of these tips you’ve probably heard of or done before, but some you might not have!

In SapphicAThon TBR I share my TBR for the second round of SapphicAThon! SapphicAThon is a readathon dedicated to reading books with sapphic characters. The first round focused on f/f romances, while for the second round, you just need to read books where the main character is sapphic. I’m really excited for this round as we have a group read!

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ReadAThon Announcement 

I announced on Twitter my readathon that will be coming in April!! It’s the …

The #UnsolvedAThon is based on the Youtube show Buzzfeed Unsolved, where Ryan tells supernatural and true crime stories to his skeptic friend, Shane. I know a lot of people love this show, and originally I wanted to make a book tag, but someone else already came up with that idea, so I thought of a readathon!

I can’t give you many details yet, but it’s an interactive readathon. And even more exciting: I’ve commissioned an artist to draw up the bingo board and some character cards! My very lovely friend Steffie is drawing everything up for me and she’s sent me a draft of the bingo board — it looks amazing and I’m so freaking excited!

I’ll be posting an announcement blog post in early March about the whole readathon, but I wanted to give people a heads up.

This readathon will run from April 1 to April 30, your time.

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Blog tours

• Release Blitz: Is It Over Yet? by L.A. Witt
• Release Blitz: Pisces Floors Taurus by Anyta Sunday

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ARCs I received 

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Books purchased

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Non-bookish stuff

As mentioned above, I went away with my friends for a weekend to Hobart. I’ve been best friends with these girls for 12 years and we’ve never gone away together before. We went to the Museum of Old and New Art (which is a very famous museum), we drove all the way up Mount Wellington, we went to the Salamanca Markets, and we watched New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn: Part 1 because we’ve been rewatching the Twilight movies.

Here’s a couple of photos from our trip:

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I also went up to the Mornington Peninsula for a few days with my family. My aunt has a beach house up there so we went up for the long weekend, as it was Australia Day. We went to the hot springs there (amazing!), we hung out at the pool and the beach, and I got to spend a good few days just reading and relaxing. It was so lovely! Here’s some photos:

This month, I watched season 5 of Grace and Frankie! If you haven’t watched this amazing show, what are you doing? Get on it! It’s so funny and full of heart. I can’t believe it’s already up to season 5, and I can’t wait for season 6.

I also watched the second half of the last season of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt! I’ve been waiting so long for the second half to come out and it was just as amazing as I thought it would be! I laughed, I cried, I wanted this show to never end! It was such an amazing ending to an awesome series and I encourage everyone to watch it!

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Looking forward: February 

Reviews to come:

• Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
• Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare
• The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
• The Wicked King by Holly Black

Blog tours:

• Not Dead Yet by Jenn Burke

Tentative TBR:

HOW WAS YOUR JANUARY?

How many books did you read? What shows/movies did you watch? Are you going on a holiday? Let me know!