Category: Monthly Wrap-ups

A fresh new year starts in my quest to finish my TBR. And I have to make some changes around here. There’s nothing wrong with going with the flow and reading whatever my mood dictates. These posts are becoming monotonous to me. I’ve been cooking with the same spices for a long time, and sometimes I need to use something new to potentially make the recipe taste even better. Since there’s a new year ahead of me, why not start by doing a haul of all the books I own? Because while saying I have over 80 books in my TBR seems like a lot, at least it does to me, how does that number compare to my entire library? Without counting digital editions, I have 243 books read on my shelves – if I’m not missing any – plus 9 repeated books (same story, different edition). That alone is …

Vacation is over. Summer months are done. I’m ready for autumn to begin ( I was also ready by July, but that was just me). I’m still excited to write these HRCYED updates. Slowly but surely, I’m making some progress and having a good time with the books that I’m reading. And with autumn starting, the sweater weather upon us, the rainy afternoons… I can smell the cosiness in the air, and the books are thrilled to be picked up. New HRCYED month, new book. I started Insurgent by Veronica Roth straight away. If I wanted to keep up with my plan to reread the whole series before the newest member of the Divergent family arrives, I had to read it soon. This also marked the start of my Shiritori, and sadly, the only prompt this book counts for. The last time I read Insurgent was in 2016, and I …

A month has gone by since HRCYED 3.0 officially began, and I did an upsy. Here I was with talks about reading more and bringing back a good reading habit. But then I bought a game. And not just any game, Blue Prince. Obviously, for a little while, the only thing on my mind was the game. I was thinking about clues, next steps, theories. My mind was thinking about everything except reading. Usually, this isn’t a bad thing. I have multiple interests, so it’s normal to jump between them and give more attention to some instead of others. But it’s really not helpful when I’m taking part in a readathon. A reading marathon. Meaning that reading is me running the marathon, and gaming is me stopping at the first table to munch on snacks. They give energy, and it’s good to take a break, but the marathon doesn’t run …

If my TBR numbers don’t change, am I even moving towards shortening my TBR? This very laid-back challenge has concluded its fourth year. Like, I can’t believe that 4 years ago I read 9 or 10 books in June, felt so good about it that I decided I wanted to take that energy for the rest of the year and shrink down my TBR. To be honest, I really want to repeat a month like that again. I know it was really hard and I did nothing else with my free time apart from reading, but man, it felt good afterwards to reach a milestone I never thought possible. As the kind of reader that I am, I would never have imagined I could read close to 2-digit numbers in 30 days. I’m sad the Whateveraton doesn’t happen anymore. It was really a nice fit for me and one of …

Summer has come early this year, and while I’m sweating over here, I might just sit down with some ice-cold tea and write about every book I read in May. Wrap-Up I was expecting to finish A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin in the first week, but no. I left it there on my nightstand, judging me, while I was happily doing a puzzle and listening to The Final Six by Alexandra Monir. Although the audiobook wasn’t long enough so I could finish the puzzle, and ended up listening to the sequel The Life Below as well. By then, I had completed the puzzle, and I could go back and finish GoT before doing anything else. The Final Six is a sci-fi dystopian story about a group of teenagers selected to go to space training camp. Earth is dying and Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, might be …

How is it possible that April is already over? March felt it had 365 days and April had like two weeks? What is happening? We are one month away from the middle of the year and from a new Sims 4 Expansion Pack – sorry to plug that in, but I just found out the news! But before I start to care about what is yet to come, I better take a step back and talk about everything I read last month. Wrap-up If you didn’t know, April was the month of the OWLs, part of the Magical Readathon. I’m not going to explain again what this readathon is all about, for that read my TBR post where I explain everything (or almost everything). To start the readathon in full swing, I read The Beauty volume 1 by Jeremy Haun, the shortest book of my TBR. As much as I …

In 2020, March had 365 days instead of the ordinary 31, and being at home in lockdown didn’t help. But I’m not here to talk about these bad days we are living in. No, for that you can turn on the news. In this house, sadness stays outside the door, and if it dares to come in, I’ll fight it with a movie, a game, and a book (in no particular order). For now, I’m going to stick with the books that made my March more bearable and enjoyable. I participated in two blog tours in March. The first one was for Happy Family by James Ellis. The book is set in Spain where the main protagonist, Germaine, goes to try to break out from isolation the creator of the virtual reality game Happy Family. I’ve read books about VR games in the past, but none of those can compare …

April is just around the corner, which means the Magical Readathon is about to start. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the Magical Readathon is run by G from the YouTube channel BookRoast during the entire month of April. The marathon is themed around the O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Level) and N.E.W.T.s (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests) held at Hogwarts. There is a Wizarding Career Guide with all the different careers available, and each one has different classes that you need to take to graduate. And this year, it was added a list of courses and seminars for extra credit. Despite everything about this readathon being related to Harry Potter, it’s possible to read any genre. For a muggle like me, this is the cherry on top of the cake. I’m not a Harry Potter fan, but everything was so well created that it’s a shame not to participate. I …

Two months into the new year and my reading mood are as good as ever. At this point, I’m just waiting for a reading slump to hit me hard. Meanwhile, I’m taking advantage of it as much as I can! February had one more reading day this year, and even though it still has fewer days than January, I read six books one more than the month before. For someone that was reading one to two books a month, this is pretty awesome! Wrap-Up When I was presented with the opportunity to review another book by Karl Drinkwater for a blog tour, I had to grab it. Chasing Solace is the continuation of Opal’s scavenge through the universe, and I wanted to reread the first book, Lost Solace, to refresh my memory on everything that happened. I enjoyed Chasing Solace even more, and now that I know there is a …

Finally, January is over! I don’t know about you, but it felt it took forever to end. And the proof of that is the amount of book I managed to read. Last month, I read five books total and each one of them was amazing! I had a great start on my reading year, and I’m going to tell you all about it because it’s time to wrap-up January. Wrap-Up On my last wrap-up, I say that I had already read my first book of the year and that it was a favourite. Not only that, but it also motivated the only purchase I’ve done this month. I’m talking about Missing Pieces by Carly Anne West. This middle-grade book is the prequel to the famous game Hello Neighbor, being the first book in a series with the same name. And since I love games as much as I love books, …

I’ve missed this little corner. I’ve missed writing some nonsense just because I’m in the mood. And I’ve missed talking about books! Happy New Year everyone!! So this is the new 20s, ahn? Well, I have some plans and goals to achieve one of them being to read more and to create a habit out of it. Another goal is to try and blog consistently. In the past year, I’ve taken a lot of breaks and posting whenever I feel like it, but I’ve missed my blog. To start 2020 with the right foot, I already read my first book of the new year, and it’s a favourite. I can’t even describe how great it was, and I’m continuing with the series for sure. Although I’ll leave all the details for next month. *evil laugh* November Wrap-Up The last time I did a wrap-up was in October starring all the …