[Monthly Wrap-Up] February Favourites + Reading Challenges + Life Update

This month sped by faster than I imagined it could have. If I sound intimidated, you are right, I totally am. Like could Time take a moment to breathe?

February Favourites

My favourite reads are all from new-to-me authors AND are the author’s debut novel which shows that it pays to take risks *wink* Ragdoll by Daniel Cole is about controversial detective, William Fawkes or Wolf. This particular case involves “dismembered parts of six victims, sewn together like a puppet—a corpse that becomes known as “The Ragdoll.” Now if you think that’s creepy, wait till you reach the end! While The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin  is literary fiction revolving around four siblings who’ve been told their death day and the impact of this knowledge on their lives. Benjamin’s writing is beautiful and sharp; in spite of knowing what would happen, this book got me raveled up in the siblings’ lives. And finally, No Sad Songs by Frank Morelli. This a beautiful book about a young caretaker and his grandfather who has Alzheimer’s. The story is a balance between humour and deep emotions.

 

 

Other Reads

 

The Tides series by Alex Lidell is one of my favourite YA Fantasy. It deals with a princess who serves as a naval officer, but forced to marry Nile Greysik runs away. The protagonist is a character full of spunk and is very career driven. The latter is one of the reasons why I love this book!

 

 

Bring Her Home by David Bell was an okay read. I don’t really have much to say about this book because it wasn’t really striking. With Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman though, I was sorely disappointed because I had such a HIGH expectation for this book. It dealt with heavy issues and the writing was top notch but sadly, the book was lacking.

 

State of the ARC is a monthly meme created by Evelina from Avalinahs Books. You can find information about the meme here. February’s theme was love for which I read two books! No Sad Songs and The Immortalists are also 2018 releases, so that helps knock off book from my 2018 reads.

Excluding Tess of the Road, the rest of the books contributed to my Beat the Backlist challenge.

The 2018 Beat the Backlist is hosted by Austine from NovelKnight. It’s just as the name suggests, the goal is to reduce your TBR of books from before 2018.

 

 

I’m really happy with how well my posts for Cam’s Bookish Tales have been doing! People have comment about how much they’ve related to these discussions and have shared their own stories. I’m up to 300 followers now, which is BIG accomplishment for me! Another 200 and I’ll be reaching my quarterly goal. If you haven’t checked out February’s discussions yet, I’ve linked them below for you.

• The Social Media & The Introvert
• Fitting Your Blogging Voice to the Crowd: Good or Bad?
• Reading As An Act of Self-Love
• Things Bookworms Do That I Don’t
• Titan of the TBR Pile aka Book Reviewers Who Influence My Reading

Personal Life

I’m close to finishing this semester at university and I cannot wait for the end to get here.

I’ve found that a Criminal Minds marathon is easy pick me up whenever I fall into a slump. I can’t believe grisly murders are what brightens my mindset. Odd.

400 followers on Instagram, you guys! Seeing that number is so exciting, it’s like, yes, I’m doing something right! One of the things that helped me with this is interaction, keeping an eye on your statistics, and asking generic questions in your captions. Below are my two top posts on IG, so I’m sensing a trend here. I’ve been loving the creative photography I’ve been doing for IG. There are so many ideas and inspiration!

 

I want to read more poetry this month since I’m failing terribly at my goal of submitting poetry to journals. Woops. So expect to see a few reviews for poem anthologies.

I believe I mentioned in my last weekly update that I’ll be getting off my meds soon. So, yeah, that’s happening. Because of this, I was wondering if you would be interested in reading posts related to mental health? I could post it once or twice a month

Another question I have is regarding Instagram. If you follow me there, would you like me to post mini reviews on my IG stories? These reviews will be my “first thoughts” before posting a proper one on my blog. If so, written or with audio? I don’t want want to post these mini-reviews without first knowing if there’s be an interest in it.

Now tell me about your February. Which book is your favourite for the month? Share one of your happy days with me! 

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Disclaimer: Text dividers provided by Freepik. Header from Inkstruck Studio.