October Reading Wrap-up and November Reading List

Past Month’s Reading:

October felt like a return to regular reading habits , even though other things fell off the wagon with the end of semester and associated pressures looming. I managed to tick a whole five books off my official TBR, as well as cram in a few other things not listed.

^^ I’ll get it all ticked off by the end of the year, right?

The  things I read and reviewed were:

• The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells (4 stars – not reviewed)
• The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (3.5 stars – review)
• Fake Geek Girl by Tansy Rayner Roberts (4 stars – review)
• Unmagical Boy Story by Tansy Rayner Roberts (4 stars – not reviewed)
• The Foretelling of Georgie Spider by Ambelin Kwaymullina (3 stars – review)
• The Asylum by Johan Theorin (2.5 stars – review)
• Rise of the Sparrows by Sarina Langer (4 stars – review)
• See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt (2 stars – review)
• Begin, End, Begin: a #LoveOzYA Anthology edited by Danielle Binks (4 stars – review to come)
• The Bromancers by Tansy Rayner Roberts (4* stars – review to come)

Currently reading:

Physical book: Not Your Sidekick by C. B. Lee. This is really diverse superhero story. The diversity gets a 5/5 , though the writing style is more 3.5/5. Still, I am really enjoying it and unless it does something to really disappoint me in the second half, will probably grab the sequel when I can.

Audio book: The Little Teashop of Lost and Found by Trisha Ashley. I’m about a quarter of the way through this, and going slowly, since I’m really only listening to it when I’m driving on my own, and that’s not all that often at the moment. And sometimes I listen to music instead. It is cute enough for me to want to keep going, but it does have some pacing issues and the main character is naive to the next level. But she has purchased the titular teashop now, so I’m hoping things will start moving forward properly.

Planning to read next:

On Friday, I am going on holidays for a few days, and I intend to read quite a lot… though I am also doing an escape room and going to markets and doing some hiking… but still. I am planning to take the last three Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket and finally see that series through. I also have three other books from the library, and Nyxia by Scott Reintgen will be the first of those that I read.

Then it’s back to the books on the above TBR graphic, though I haven’t quite worked out which order I’ll read those in.

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September Reading Wrap-up and October Reading List

Past Month’s Reading:

After a couple of dismal months in July and August, September was a bit of a return to regular reading habits. For the most part. I finished six books, have reviewed three and have the review for a fourth scheduled. That being said, not many of them were on my current TBR:

The other things I read and reviewed were:

• Miss Muriel Matters by Rupert Wrainwright (biography – 3.5 stars- not reviewed)
• A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares by Krystal Sutherland (YA magical realism – 4 stars – review)
• The Disappearance of Ember Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina (YA dystopian – 3 stars – review)
• Frogkisser! by Garth Nix (middle-grade fantasy – 2.5 stars – review to come)
• A Dangerous Language by Sulari Gentill (historical fiction – 3 stars – review)
• Life is Like a Musical by Tim Federle (memoir/self-help – 4 stars – review)

My hope is at the end of October, there will be far more ticks on that graphic than there are now. There will be at least two more.

Currently reading:

Ebook:  The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I’m currently at 15%. I think Nina is a total sweetheart, and I’m looking foward to seeing how the romance plays out, since her love interest has some dubious motives and quite a lot to hide.

Audio book: The Asylum by Johan Theorin. Currently at 27%. The protagonist seems naive but there have been some genuinely creepy moments and I think the last chapter was the catalyst for things to really start happening.

Planning to read next:

I have actually read the first chapter or two of The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas (I had left my Kindle at work) and I am very interested, so I will continue with that next. I have The Foretelling of Georgie Spider (The Tribe #3) by Ambelin Kwaymullina out from the library, so I definitely want to read that and finish up the series (it’s nice to actually complete a series). I also want to read Blood Guilt by Lindy Cameron, to ensure that I complete my personal diversity challenge for the Australian Women Writers Challenge. After that, it will depend what mood I am in!

July to … erm, December TBR? Maybe?

So earlier this year, I thought making three-monthly TBRs rather than monthly would be a great idea. It worked pretty well for March – June. Then in July I was mentally exhausted and ended up in a reading slump, and in August I got bogged down with one single book that I needed to read for uni (plus all the other class readings), so this is as much as I managed to tick off this list over the past two months:

… Yikes.

I’ve been debating how much of this to stick with over the next few months. The top row is currently pending ARCs, most of which are publishing in October, so I shouldn’t ignore them. The second row is the titles for the Australian Women Writers challenge that I drew out of my TBR jar. I’ve already met the number of books I aimed for this year, however, I have not yet met my challenge within a challenge to read two books by LGBTI* women and two books by Indigenous Australian authors. Blood Guilt is by an LGBTI author, but I think I should also prioritise another Indigenous author as well in the coming weeks.

The bottom two rows are for the Beat the Backlist challenge, though I’m honestly debating whether or not to actually continue with this, since I haven’t linked up with the challenge at all during the year, and I’m kind of failing dismally at both the goals I set for myself. I think I would like to prioritise books I own (the bottom row) over books that I added to my TBR more than a year ago (second row from the bottom). I’ve also acquired a lot of new books lately that I want to read sooner rather than later.

With that in mind, here is my revised TBR, that I will aim to finish by the end of the year, along with a myriad of other books I am sure I will get distracted by.

Silly ARCs with your inconsistent cover sizes messing up my graphic. Ah well. I know that some of the titles aren’t all that readable in the condensed version, but I’m kind of tired and can’t be bothered listing all of them? I will link to them in my monthly wrap-up posts and you can see more about them as I get to them… or you can ask if you really want to know now! 😛

So there we have it. Twenty books to have read by the end of December. How hard can it be? 😉