#January reading

[ya-world-challenge]

Alright, I made a challenge! If anyone wants to read globally with me, I made a little list of prompts, neatly divisible by 12 months, plus a bonus. If you want to track your progress, I set it up on Storygraph, too - the link is below.

Tag your posts with "#ya world challenge" ! You don't have to read YA, but I want to see all your posts. :D Also please reblog to spread the word.

YA World Challenge 2023 prompts

By a Caribbean author

Features a religion not your own

Historical/contemporary fiction in a country not your own

Set in Latin America

European book in translation

Features a minority group in your country

Desi lead character, or set on the Indian subcontinent

By an Australian or New Zealand author

A non-Western sci-fi or fantasy world

Set in Asia

By an African author

Minority or non-US disabled character

LGBTQIA+ book in translation

About immigrants or refugees

Set in the Middle East

By an indigenous author

Diversity jackpot! Team of characters of varying cultures

By a Pacific Islander author

Set somewhere you'd like to travel

Non-Western mythology or fairy tale

Memoir of someone outside your cultural group

A country you heard about on the news

Focus on environment or climate

Eastern European or Slavic book

Bonus! Roll a random number and read a book for that country (my personal method, see instructions below)

Storygraph challenge link is here

Roll a random number and read a book for that country

Go to random.org and generate a number from 8 to 215.

Go to my spreadsheet here, and find your number. Use my picks or find your own!

Goodreads lists or this group are helpful for finding books. (If I'm having trouble, I'll allow myself a culturally relevant fantasy world as substitute. Or you can reroll if you get a particularly difficult country!)

If you don't want to include the territories from my list, an "official" list of 195 is here, enter 1 to 195 in the randomizer.

[sixofravens-reads]

January Wrap-Up!

A good start to the year! 6 books read, 2 in progress, and just 1 DNF. I knocked a couple oldies off my TBR, and that's always a good feeling!

Read:

The Unspoken Name - A. K. Larkwood

The Tensorate Series - Neon Yang

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - J. R. R. Tolkien

The Thousand Eyes - A. K. Larkwood

Biting the Sun - Tanith Lee

The Bedlam Stacks - Natasha Pulley

Currently Reading:

Foundryside - Robert Jackson Bennett (page 56)

Woodsqueer - Gretchen Legler (page 116)

DNF:

The Apollo Murders - Chris Hadfield (just not sure if it interests me as much as I expected, might return to it later.)

[ngisi]

My two reads for this month. So far, I'm really enjoying Daisy Jones & The Six!

Has anyone read it before? Did you like it?

[bookishfarmer]

10.02.2023

My January reads! A bit belated but here we are.

The Rosewood Chronicles are rereads, I needed something gentle to read. I haven't read the fourth and fifth ones before so l'll probably do that this month :)

I LOVED Little Thieves. Can't believe it took me a year after getting it to actually read it! But then maybe I had to be in the right mindset to enjoy it.

Are you a mood or tbr reader? I'm definitely a mood reader and I reread a lot of the time

[brightbeautifulthings]

January

reviews Begin Again by Emma Lord (4/5) Burn the Negative by Josh Winning (4/5) Shades of Rust and Ruin by A.G. Howard (4/5) Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider, Vol. 2: Impossible Year by Seanan McGuire (4/5) Such Pretty Flowers by K.L. Cerra (3/5) The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix (3/5) Little Eve by Catriona Ward (2/5) Five Survive by Holly Jackson (2/5)

rereads The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (5/5) The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (4/5)

etcetera Readalikes: The VVitch (2015) & In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt TMST: Reading & Blogging Goals Aesthetics: The Goblins of Bellwater by Molly Ringle

[everwhovian]

Started my reading journal for 2023!

Only four days in and I already read two books...

I started wird "The Book Eaters" by Sunyi Dean. A dark fantasy horror.

It deals with human-like creatures called book eaters who, like the same suggests, eat books instead of food. The story follows a young book eater called Devon, who is on the run from her family for protecting her five years old son, Cai. Cai is a mind eater, a creature that eats minds instead of books, and in Devon's world mind eaters are a danger to society.

It's really intriguing, especially because the story shifts back from present to past, showing Devon's childhood, having her son to being on the run.

Then I went on and picked up "The Luminaries" by Susan Dennard. A fantasy and kinda also horror fiction.

The story takes place in a town called Hemlock Falls, surrounded by a deathly forest in which nightmares appear every night.

The Luminary hunters fight those monsters, protecting the town and the world beyond the forest.

Winnie Wednesday is 16 years old and wants nothing more than to join the Luminaries, but her family was shunned years ago - after her father was exposed as a witch and traitor.

The story follows Winnie trying to restore her family name and trying to survive the deadly Luminary hunters trials - for no one can be prepared for the danger lurking in the forest.

Not all monsters can be slain, and not all nightmares are confined to the dark.

If you are looking for a book to add onto your to-be-read pile, I can really recommend either of those books.

[historyofshipping]

January reading redux. 24 books. Mostly fantasy (urban fantasy is my favorite). Most were audio books.

Favorite book: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Favorite series: The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Special mention: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna if you need a cozy read

[kuro-kitsune]

I’ll admit that I’ve been watching Ginny & Georgia before going to bed 😅 I’ve finished the first season within the span of a week. BUT I have put in my book time for sure which can be seen on my StoryGraph chart!!

[bigolscrewup]

only took me 24 years to read this...

[justbunnyisokay]

Starting a new book, first new read of the year, let's see how it goes.

Love the cover of it so much I can't wait to read it.

[chaosslibrarian]

My January reads was a very good time. Only sharing them now because I’ve been knocked out and miserable with a cold.

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black was a really fun read. The whole “TCP is not a romance tiktok lied the romance is background” is weird because romance was front row and center. What are people on about? ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Metamorphrosis by Franz Kafka is difficult to explain. I liked it, but… yeah idk. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt is a beautiful book and it just made it feel like a warm hug. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bröd och Mjölk by Karolina Ramqvist was one of my ”I need to read more swedish authors” reads and no thank you. I must’ve confused it with Kaffe med Mjölk. It was a repetitive mess with no actual message and unbelievably boring. ⭐️⭐️ (a generous two star)

Jackal by Erin E Adams was a book I picked up last year and finished this year. I picked it up thinking it was horror, but it was more mystery/thriller and that’s not really my cup of tea. It did have horror elements but not as much as I want. Still a superbly crafted book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair was a book I’ve waited for the right moment to read. My complaint about the book is that I saw the twist coming immediately. It was still an adventure of a book that I enjoyed despite that. Was such a fun read ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Light Years From Home by Mike Chen is everything I love in a book. I just love it so much. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The End of Everything by Katie Mack… can only say yes, read it! So much fun and interesting.

[wiltkingart]

Asche and Vindt from Ocean's Blood by Thelma Mantey

[xnicowritesx]

January 2023 Wrap-Up

Okay, so I saw that some other people are doing things like this, so I guess I will as well. Here are all the books I finished in January 2023!

(Books I started in January but did not finish are not included on this list.)

Lost Stars (Warriors: The Broken Code #1) by Erin Hunter/Cherith Baldry [Jan 3]

Queen of Air and Darkness (The Shadowhunter Chronicles: The Dark Artifices) by Cassandra Clare [Jan 7]

Squirrelflight's Hope (Warriors: Super Editions #12) by Erin Hunter/Kate Cary [Jan 16]

4. The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Shadowhunter Chronicles: The Eldest Curses #1) by Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu [Jan 19] 5. Ghosts of the Shadow Market (The Shadowhunter Chronicles: Companion Books #3) by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, Kelly Link, and Robin Wasserman [Jan 23]

6. The Silent Thaw (Warriors: The Broken Code #2) by Erin Hunter/Kate Cary [Jan 25] 7. The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon #2) by Dan Brown [Jan 25]

That's all for January! I'll see if I can do something like this for later months too.

[stuckinabooksworld]

JANUARY READING

•Where the crawdads sing - Delia Owens

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

• Cilka's Journey - Heather Morris

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25

• Only the pretty lies - Rebekah Crane

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Her Perfect family - Teresa Driscoll

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

• You've reached Sam - Dustin Thao

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25

• The love hypothesis - Ali Hazelwood

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 (🌶🌶)

• Love on the brain - Ali Hazelwood

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (🌶)

• The song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25

• Circe - Madeline Miller

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[peaceliliesandtea]

what i read: january 2023

i'll be honest, we're off to a slow start this year reading-wise. two of the novels were degree related rather than for leisure. here we go:

The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit Our Wives Under The Sea by Julie Armfield Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey Peter Pan by J.M Barrie Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys

my main takeaway this month is that the publishing industry must stop telling the public that writers are the next nora ephron.

i'm still plugging away at great expectations. reading a novel with plot is a rarity nowadays (i'm looking at you, sad girl genre) and so i'm savouring every page of dickens.

when i was younger, i hated the classics. i remember how i'd come away from them feeling like i was missing something; i didn't get it. that feeling has since passed. a turning point was reading vanity fair and realising it is laugh out loud funny. when i was eighteen i wrote about it for my epq and i don't think i picked up on the humour once! i remember in my first year of uni, a long time ago now, my shakespeare lecturer said that often he'd read a text and only realise on re-reading that the author was actually trying their hand at humour. at least i'm not the only one.

february goal: ideally i'd like to finish great expectations. we'll see!

[akayeh1]

January Reading Wrap Up

Gone Missing—Linda Castillo

Neverwhere—Neil Gaiman

Americanos, Apple Pies, and Art Thieves—Harper Lin

Lore—Alexandra Bracken

The Fifth Assassin—Brad Meltzer

Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty—Anderson Cooper

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets—J.K. Rowling

Wizard and Glass—Stephen King

Fantastic Mr. Fox and Other Animal Stories: Esio Trot/The Enormous Crocodile/The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me—Roald Dahl

Rogue Lawyer—John Grisham

The Fort—Gordon Korman

Books: 11 completed; three in progress

Pages: (of the completed) 4,313

Most enjoyed: Wizard and Glass

Least enjoyed: Lore (but still enjoyed a good deal!)

Every one was wait listed so not surprised they hit the 4 star standard.