January TBR | New Year, New Book Resolutions

Happy New Year, everyone!!! 2020 was quite the year – terrible in many ways, but still filled with little silver-linings that made it bearable. One of the things that made it so bearable, for me, was the many books I got to lose myself in over the course of the year. I met all my reading goals! I also discovered some new authors whom I hope to read more from this year.

I’ve made a few promises to myself to help me feel less stressed and to be more accountable to this blog and my reviewing for 2021. So any of you readers who’ve been keeping up with me over the past year or two will notice some changes to the blog as we go forward.

I’m not committing myself to as many Reading Challenges this year. I absolutely loved doing Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge (click here if you’re curious about their 2021 challenge!) and Reading Women last year. I also have found a new favorite in Year of the Asian Reading Challenge (YARC), which I hope to continue participating in this coming year. The 2020 Diversity Reading Challenge was another fun one I tried out. Definitely give them a look if you like to keep your reading diverse (in many ways!).

As much as I love them all, I recognize my own stress-triggers and I was digging myself into quite a hole last year. I don’t want reading to become a chore or not fun, so I have limited myself to just two solid reading challenges to complete (Reading Women and YARC), leaving the rest of my book reading choices up to myself. This way, I feel I’ll get to explore more of my TBR options and try new books as they come out that look appealing to me.

I also plan to focus more on books I personally own, which means I will be participating, loosely, in #startonyourshelfathon. I plan to hit at least one book I personally own a month, like last year. So, still pretty open, but I hope to take on even more with this than just once a month.

Anyway, that’s a lot, so on to the fun bit, what I’m reading this month!

Check Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones by Ngozi Ukazu

I thought the first book was alright. I do love anything hockey, so I was excited to read it. It was okay. I thought I’d still read the second book because I’m curious enough about the story to want to see where it goes.

I’ve already started reading it and I can say that I definitely like it better than the first book! I don’t know what it is, since it’s the same characters and everything, but maybe the new storyline is more appealing to me? Anyway, I’m happy with it so far!

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The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks

This is an ARC I picked up last year, but the deadline is fast approaching for its publication, so I want to hopefully finish this within the next day or two so I can get my review out. I can honestly say that I think I’ll be able to make that deadline, since I’m really, really enjoying this book so far!

The writing is super good, the characters are interesting, the math is…well, it’s math, but luckily the author writes enough around the math for me to not really feel like I’m missing something by not really knowing much at this level of mathematics. I feel like this book might even end up being my first 5-Star review of the year! Stay tuned.

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When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

This book was just published in 2020. It’s Book #2 of the Singing Hills Cycle, the first of which was also published in 2020! Like, what happened that two books in the same series got published in the same year!? They are novellas, so there is that. Anyway, I liked the first and I wanted to pick this book up as soon as I saw my library had purchased it.

I’ve already started it and it is proving to be quite exciting! The first book was much more calm and storytelling-oriented. This book appears to be much closer to action-adventure. So we’ll see how it ends up, but I’m enjoying it so far!

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Red Rising by Pierce Brown

This is a re-read, which I’m doing in anticipation of reading the rest of the series this year. It’s just been too long since I last read it to start the second book. A lot happens in this story and I know I’ve forgotten almost all of it, so I would not be prepared to read the next book without doing this re-read.

The good news is, this book is really good! I’m happy to read it again because I’m pretty confident that this will be my new favorite series. I don’t usually get ahead of myself with this kind of thing, but I have confidence based on my own enjoyment of the first and from knowing many others who have read and liked this series. Fingers crossed!

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Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko

This book has been on my TBR for while. I was happy that I could fit it into one of the Reading Women Challenge prompts, “an author from Eastern Europe.” The authors are Ukrainian. While it is co-written between a husband/wife duo, I’m still counting it because there’s still a woman author.

It’s a science-fiction/fantasy involving magic. I’d say it looks like it would fit comfortably under the “dark academia” subgenre. I’m starting to realize that I am gravitating toward that genre more often. I read a couple “dark academia” books last year, both of which I really liked. I’m hoping that this book also ends up being good. I might listen to the audiobook for this one. It’ll take a bit, because it’s long, but I’m here for it!

What books are you reading this month?

If you’ve read any books from my list, let me know what you thought of them. Do you have any of these selections on your TBR? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to chat with you.

Stay tuned for reviews. Thanks for stopping by!