Down the TBR Hole #20

Current TBR shelf: 3912

Last week's TBR shelf: 3920

The rules   

1. Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
2. Order on ascending date added.
3. Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
4. Read the synopses of the books
5. Decide: keep it or should it go?

February 2021 TBR

January wasn't my best start to the year, I had a bit of a slumpy start at the beginning of the month but overall I'm happy with what I read. I've lessened the amount of books on my TBR this month by a significant amount as having too many books on there makes me feel super unaccomplished if I don't manage to get to them all. I'm taking part in a readathon this month and that's my main focus as well as getting to some of my old Netgalley ARC's as well.  

I'm taking part in the next round of Pixarthon which is focusing on Toy Story and is aptly named Woody's Roundup Readathon hosted by @literarylily1. I'm joining #TeamAlsToyBarn for this and I love how much work has gone into creating this readathon, from creating the teams to how you participate. Each team has to collect a certain group of toys (each toy has a different prompt) and you can also steal toys from other teams by reading a book from someone's elses TBR. It's a lot clearer in the PDF so I'll just link that here!   

Team Book • Strange the Dreamer by Lainie Taylor

Buzz • Read a Sci-Fi Book 🚀 An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Tourguide Barbie • A Book Set In a Place You Would Like To Visit ✈ The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Emperor Zurg • A Book That Features a Villain 👿 I'm going to be using my free pass from reading Strange the Dreamer to collect this toy!

Jessie • A Book with a Strong Female Lead 💪 Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Bullseye • A Book with an Animal On the Cover 🦊 Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston

Stinky Pete • A Book With Gold Foiling 🌟 The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahearn

Some other books i'm hoping to get to this month are:

• Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

• Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid

• The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed

• Once Upon an Eid by S.K. Ali et al

I think this could be quite manageable so here's to a good reading month! Happy Reading!

Owlcrate December 2020 Unboxing | Love Is A Battlefield

This might be my last Owlcrate unboxing for a while as I decided to skip my renewals for January and February as the books just didn't interest me enough to justify the cost. We shall see what March's theme is and then I'll make a final decision about whether to cancel it completely or not. Anyway, this is super late going up as it took almost two months for the box to get to me because of the whole UK borders closing debacle. It eventually arrived and even though most people will have already seen what's in it, I still wanted to get my post up. 

December's theme was Love Is A Battlefield and the book included this month was super highly anticipated by just about everybody. I've been so excited for this box so let's dive in to what we got...  

My Five Star Predictions for 2021

I'm always hoping that the next book I read is going to be a five star/a new favourite because as readers we always want to enjoy every single book to the max. Saying that, I'm a fickle being and therefore I very rarely give out five stars because there's nearly always something holding me back. Out of the 78 books that I read in 2020, around 15 of them I gave 5 stars and I really want to read as many as I can in 2021. I've put together a list of ten books that I think could become new favourites and that I've been wanting to read for so long, I have no idea if I'll even get to them all this year but we'll give it a shot!

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab       

Because I lost my blogging mojo for a while and therefore this post is going up later then I wanted it to, I have actually already read two of the books on this list. Luckily, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was a five star read! 🥰 I actually started this one in late December and then finished it at the beginning of the month but my god, this book is so beautiful. V. E. Schwab's writing is stunning, there are so many quotable sentences in here that I must have bookmarked about 50 of them. I already want to reread it but I'm very happy it lived up to the hype and ended up as a new favourite.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn 

This is my current read at the time of writing this and I'm about 180 pages in and really, really liking it so far. I got this in the October Owlcrate box without knowing too much about it but then everyone seemed to be reading it and completely loving it. I think it could be a five star because although fantasy isn't my go to genre I do find myself more and more intrigued by a lot of books that fall into that category. The fact that it's got elements of the King Arthur legend is also a massive pull as I just really like Arthurian legend and anything that is inspired by it. So far it's looking promising but obviously I won't know for sure until I'm done!

 

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig    

This is the other book on this list that I've already read but unfortunately this one didn't get the full five start treatment from me. I did really enjoy and it came out as a high five star read for me on my tracking spreadsheet but something was stopping me from adoring it. I think maybe it was the pacing that left me a little underwhelmed as this book follows a young women being able to enter multiple lives she could of lived and when reading it there were time where I wanted some sections to be more detailed or just more in depth. I did love the message though and the main character was really relatable too. 

 

City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty         

Like I said fantasy isn't what I usually read but I have a kind of gut feeling about this series. So much that I already own the first two books. A lot of people rave about this series and I really want to jump on the hype train! This book follows a young woman in 18th century Cairo who accidentally summons a djinn and is swept up in magic and politics. I'm excited about this one but I think it's a case of having to be in the right mood to pick it up. 

 

Emma by Jane Austen 

I've read two Jane Austen novels so far, Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice although I do own her entire works. Both of those were four stars for me and I know a lot of people like Emma so I'm crossing my fingers that this one could be the first to get five stars. I've seen a few adaptations of this novel and again, I just have that gut feeling that I'm going to end up enjoying reading the source material. I'm hoping I'll be able to squeeze this book into a future TBR. 

 

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow       

Magical realism, sprawling mansions and strange books with secret doors?? I still don't know why I haven't picked this one up yet. I do this a lot with books I'm highly anticipating, I delay reading them because I'm scared that my feelings are going to be disappointed. How many times can I say I have a good feeling in this post? This is recommended for those whole loved Addie LaRue, The Night Circus and The Midnight Library so I probably shouldn't be that worried. 

 

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

It's pretty much a crime at this point that I haven't read anything by this author, yep not even Evelyn Hugo which is like the book community's darling. I know that there is a mini series in the works though with Riley Keogh and Sam Claflin so I definitely want to get it read sooner rather than later. I feel like I'm going to like the format as well because apparently it's told through interviews and the like, which I always really enjoy. 

 

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff          

I'm sat here laughing because I still can't believe this is still sitting on my shelf unread. I mean I own the whole trilogy already because I think I'm going to adore these books but it's another case of putting it off so I can keep that anticipatory feeling a little longer. Everyone loves the books so I somone just tell me to pick them up already please!

 

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin   

The premise of this one sounds so bizarre and yet so intriguing and wonderful at the same time. Cities with souls and protectors? I love New York City (I've never been but I just know, ok!), if I could choose any city in the world to visit right now, New York would be it. This book is described as a love letter to the city so that's all I really need to know plus there's fantastical, speculative stuff going on too so I'm already there.

Threadneedle by Cari Thomas 

The noise that came out of me when I found out that I got approved for an ARC of this on netgalley was not human 😂 but seriously I am so excited to get to this book, it unreal. I love anything, witchy and magical so I have seriously high hopes for this. Plus I can't put if off for much longer as the ARC needs to be read before May!  

So, those are the ten books I have slighly too high expectations for!  I'm going to do my absolute best to get to them all this year and I'm keeping everything crossed that I love them as much as I think i'm going to! Happy Reading!

Down the TBR Hole #19

Current TBR shelf: 3920

Last week's TBR shelf: 3926

The rules   

1. Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
2. Order on ascending date added.
3. Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
4. Read the synopses of the books
5. Decide: keep it or should it go?

Down the TBR Hole #18

Current TBR shelf: 3926

Last week's TBR shelf: 3933

The rules   

1. Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
2. Order on ascending date added.
3. Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
4. Read the synopses of the books
5. Decide: keep it or should it go?

Top Ten Tuesday | 2021 Goals

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that highlights ten books that all relate to a certain topic and is  hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. 

This Weeks Topic Is...

2021 Resolutions/Hopes and to be honest, I've never been particularly good at sticking to the types of things. I have a lot of motivation at the beginning but by February I've pretty much abandoned them. There are a few goals that I'd like to reach and some things I'd like to stick with but I'm not going to beat myself up to much if I don't because life. 

#5OnMyTBR | Graphic Novels

This meme was created by E. @ Local Bee Hunter's Nook and you can find the announcement post here. Also, side note, these aren't necessarily books that I own physically but they're all on my Goodreads TBR and they'll mostly be the five most recently added.  

This Week's Prompt is...

Graphic Novels and I'll admit that graphic novels and comics are probably some of my least read formats. I find them difficult to read in ebook form but then they're also crazy expensive to buy physically so I never seem to be able to get to any that I want to. Hopefully this will change in the future but for now here's five of them that I will be buying as soon as I have the funds to!