Monthly-Wrap Up Post! January 2024

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Hello to the readers who somehow stumbled upon this blog, I'm Paige, and this welcome to my very first wrap-up post! Well, technically, I did one back in May when I first started blogging, but it was weirdly formatted and tedious to read. Hopefully this one will be better.

I'll be covering the books I read this month, reading statistics, posts I wrote, my favorite posts from other book blogs, and non-reading stuff at the end. Let's get started!

books I read

I read 15 books this month! I'm pretty surprised, but almost half of them were novellas. I'd never read a novella before in my whole life, but this month I really ended up liking them and read seven! Here are micro-reviews of the the ten most intriguing ones.

"The Inmate" by Freida McFadden

Three stars. Here's the thing: I love plot twists, I really do, but the ending was too random. Ideally, the conclusion should be connected to the storyline and make everything feel full circle. Not in this book.

"Resting Scrooge Face" by Meghan Quinn

This is my first Meghan Quinn book and I can already tell she's such a slay author. I loved this book sooo much! It's the very first novella I've ever read, and I loved it. Five stars.

"A Night at the Tropicana" By Chanel Cleeton

After "Resting Scrooge Face," I wanted to try another novella. "A Night at the Tropicana" is a historical romance about Cuba, different from what I usually read, but I wanted to try something new. 4/5!

"The Reunion" by Meghan Quinn

"The Reunion" was amazing! I loved it so much! This book is definitely five out of five stars, because I loved the dynamic between the siblings. The sweet stories were so heartwarming. To be honest, I could gush about this book all day.

"Capsule" by Mel Torrefranca

Capsule by Mel Torrefranca is a great book, but I may have forgotten to write a review for it. While I know it immersed me so much I read it all in one sitting, I don't exactly remember what it was about.

"The Rise" by Ian Rankin

Nothing much to say about this novella. There was a murder in a high-rise and everyone was trying to figure out who was the killer. Predictable ending, 3/5.

"10:59" by N. R. Baker

5/5. 10:59 was my first ARC of this year, and it's an amazing book that I love so much. This unique, mind-mending sci-fi/dystopian novel will change your perspective on the world. Full review coming soon!

"Buzz Books 2024"

BuzzBooks is a annual edition that features excerpts from 6o different novels, sorted into four sections: Fiction, Debut, Nonfiction, and YA. I was so surprised by how interesting all the books were!

"Why Would I Lie?" by Adi Rule

This book is literally amazing. I wasn't going to pick it at first, because I thought it would be too action-packed or cliche, but it was perfect. I highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys YA fiction, particularly thrillers.

"Signal Moon" by Kate Quinn

Also amazing, this book was about Lily Baines, a girl from 1943 who picks up a transmission from 2023. Across an eighty-year gap, Lily and Matt must find a way to save the world. Five stars, I loved it!

reading statistics

I'm using this Lazy Reader Spreadsheet from Shut Up, Shealea because all the other spreadsheets have like 25 rows for each book and I read too often to fill that out for each book. This spreadsheet, though, has only ten, which is a lot more manageable. Another cool thing is that it gives me monthly statistics, so I'll share those with you!

Books Read: 15

Pages Read: 3,830

Average Rating: 4.11

The reason I have 3830 pages read even though I read novellas is because BuzzBooks 2024 was 10,000 pages long.

posts I published

So remember in my 2024 conclusion post I said "I didn't really have a posting schedule last year, but I'm preparing my January posting schedule to ensure I'll publish reviews weekly. This isn't an empty promise." Well... it may have turned out to be an empty promise. 

That being said, I'm actually pretty happy with the content I posted this month. I know it wasn't weekly, but what I did end up posting wasn't bad.

Thank you, everyone, and happy new year!

On January 1st, I started off by taking a minute to appreciate you guys and writing down 3 things to celebrate in 2024, 3 upcoming changes on this blog, and 3 reading challenges I'm doing this year. It was a nice reflection (although it was a bit more like a ramble~)

my review of Percy Jackson and the Olympians

This is probably my favorite post of this month! I reviewed the very first episode of the new Percy Jackson TV show and included mini-rants I wrote while watching the show. I really wasn't expecting the episode to be that good.

January 2024 Reading Challenges Updates

I was planning to do three reading challenges, but that quickly turned into five: She Reads Romance Books Reading Challenge, Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge, Bookish Books Reading Challenge, 2024 Classics Reading Challenge, and Choose Your Own Adventure: Year in Aeldia 2024. I did surprising well in all of them. Check it out if you want to spend more time with me!

favorite posts from other blogs

Some of the other book blogs out there are really good!

And those are only five of the many amazing blogs who posted this month!

non-reading related stuff

I will be honest, I'm not sure what to write here. January was a pretty uneventful month. I think it still feels like 2023 because I'm easing into my goals, starting small, and February is usually when I start to focus more on things. That's my excuse for procrastinating, at least.

School has been pretty easy. Last quarter, I got all A+'s but in this one class I got an A. I really don't wan't to sound like a perfectionist (believe me, I'm not) but that was so sad! I have a habit of letting my grades drop near the middle of the quarter and rushing to pull it back up in the end.

I also did a debate tournament! It went surprisingly well, and I'm competing in another debate comp on February 11th. The thing is, this new one is supposed to be more prestigious, and I'm woefully unprepared. I'll let you know how it turns out.

See you next month!

paige c, signing off

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