Books Are Jazzy

 In February, I have a quite bit of reading to do for my courses so my "fun" tbr for this month is shorter than normal. I only put in 5 books that I really want to read this month, other than my books for uni work. 

Most of the books that I have on this list are fairly new releases I want to catch up on, and one is the first book in a book series that I'm buddy reading with one of my friends, so I'm very excited about all of these books. So without further ado, here are the 5 books I definitely want to read in February:

• Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
• The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
• Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
• The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu

Have you read any of the books on this list? What are your reading plans for this month?

Until next time, 

Laura

As I mentioned in my previous post, I want to spend July trying to get caught up with my various reading goals (book club books, library books, Beat the Backlist challenges, bestsellers, and so on). So at the end of June I opened up a blank word document and started figuring out what exactly I needed to read in order to hit my goals, while also staying on top of other reading "commitments" I had signed up for such as ARCs and blog tours. The final count of books came out to be 81, which frankly I'm not sure I would be able to read during the rest of the year let alone in one month. This wildly high number was partially due to falling behind on my goals and partially due to me stupidly adding more goals for myself when I was already behind on the ones I had. Realizing that it would be impossible to get through the whole list, I went through it and chose 10 books I definitely want to read. The shortened list includes ARCs and books that fit the various goals, but also just includes books that I'm excited about and want to read sooner rather than later. Without further ado, let's get into the books!

The Damned is the sequel to The Beautiful, which came out last year and which I featured in my Best Books of 2019 post. I was overjoyed to receive and ARC of The Damned from the publisher through Netgalley and it's one of my most anticipated books this month. Keep your eye out for an ARC review of this later next week!This is another ARC that I have, but one I'm behind on as the book has already been released. From what I know, A Song Below Water is a contemporary fantasy featuring mermaids, and I am so excited to start reading it!Station Eleven is a post-apocalyptic book I have wanted to read since 2017. When I noticed it was available at my local library, I chose to pick it up for an upcoming post I have planned, so this is a high priority read for me!Where Dreams Descend is one of my most anticipated releases of the year and so I was super excited when I was invited to be a part of the blog tour for it! I won't be posting my review of it until August, but I'm hoping to read it with plenty of time to spare. 

As we are all (hopefully) spending more time at home and looking to add to our tbr piles while stuck inside, I wanted to share one of my reading goals for the year.

One of the goals that I set for myself for 2020 is to read at least one bestseller a month. I look through the different New York Times bestseller lists — Hardcover Fiction, Hardcover Nonfiction, Children's Middle Grade Hardcover, and Young Adult Hardcover — and choose a list randomly. Whichever list I decide on, I then choose the #1 book on the list at that time. If I have already read the book in that spot, I move down the list until I find a book I have not yet read. 

I wanted to do this challenge for a few reasons. Firstly, I think it is good to be aware of what books are popular at the moment and bestseller lists, while not perfect representations of this, are one of the ways to see what books people are buying and talking about at the moment. Secondly, I wanted to see how much the books on the bestseller lists change from month to month throughout the year or if by the end I would have to skip over a bunch of books before finding a new one for me. Finally, I want to see how much my reading lists are already influenced by the New York Times bestsellers lists: how many am I reading already without thinking about the fact that they're bestsellers, how many are already on my tbr, and how many are books I wouldn't have otherwise picked up. 

So, during 2020, I'll read and review at least 12 different bestselling books from the various lists, while also keeping in mind how many current bestsellers make their way into my reading piles without my conscious knowledge. I want to see if there are any similarities between the books I pick up during this challenge or if the books are diverse in some way. Bestselling lists don't show if people are actually enjoying the book, so I also want to see how well my tastes align with the books a lot of people are buying. 


What kind of reading lists is everyone making while staying at home? Any genres you're gravitating towards or steering away from?

Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura

Back in late March, I found out about the Magical Readathon hosted by Book Roast on Youtube! As a lifelong Harry Potter fan, I jumped at the opportunity to pretend to be a Hogwarts student for a month. This is the second year of the readathon and my first year taking part in it!

The Magical Readathon is based around the exams students take at Hogwarts and is hosted in two parts: the first part, which are the O.W.LS, takes place in April and the second part, the N.E.W.Ts, takes place in August. And just like Hogwarts students taking their exams, you're meant to do the O.W.Ls readathon before you take the N.E.W.Ts.

There is a list of careers to choose from and your readathon experience and challenges come from your chosen career. My chosen career for 2019 is Seer - maybe next year I'll have enough time to attempt the daunting Alchemist career, which would have been my first choice. In order to become a Seer, I needed to take three O.W.L. exams (read three books), which were for the subjects Ancient Runes, Astronomy, and Divination and each subject corresponded to a different prompt. For Ancient Runes the prompt was to read a retelling, for Astronomy it was to read a book with "star" in the title, and for Divination it was a book set in the future. The books I read for these prompts were Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer, Ctaching Stars by Cayla Keenan, and The Towering Sky by Katharine McGee, respectively.

Isn't this description of the career stunning?

While for the O.W.Ls, I only needed to read one book per subject, for the N.E.W.Ts the number of books you need to read per subject is determined by the grade you need to achieve in that subject for your career. So, for the career of Seer, I need to achieve an Outstanding so I'll need to read all three books for that subject.

If all of this sounds confusing, you can find all the information for the O.W.Ls readathon here and the info for N.E.W.Ts readathon here!

After all of that, here are the prompts for my subject followed by the book I have planned to read for that prompt for the N.E.W.Ts readathon:

• Acceptable in Divination: Read a white book
• Runousopin perusteet by Mervi Kantokorpi, Pirjo Lyytikäinen, and Auli Viikari
• Exceeds Expectations in Divination: Read a short story or a collection of short stories
• Toil and Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe
• Outstanding in Divination: Read the last book you bought / took from the library
• At the time of making my TBR this was The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen, and I'll try to keep to that unless I grab something I absolutely have to read as soon as I get it. 

ARC August is an annual readathon hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat., with the aim of helping book reviewers get through their piles and piles of unread ARC's (Advance Reader's Copies) during the month of August. This is the 6th year of the readathon, but the first time I'm taking part in it! You can read Read.Sleep.Repeat.'s original announcement for it here!

This year they have created a host of challenges to take part in during the readathon, including a word search, a crossword puzzle, and a bingo! Personally, I'm most looking forward to hopefully filling out the Bingo card as I read through some ARC's. Check out the empty card below!



I'll be posting pictures of the card on our instagram stories as I fill it out, and you can follow along here!

When I started making my TBR, I knew it would end up being way longer than what I'll actually have time to read, but I wanted to really challenge myself and see how many of these books I could read through during my last two weeks of vacation before I head back to college. And now, without further ado, my TBR list for #ARCAugust!





Are any of you taking part in #ARCAugust or any other readathons this month? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura