Monthly Archives: January 2018

Bout of Books 21 – Sign Up Post

Posted in 2018, Bout of Books 21, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by

cc4sUlk

So for one of my goals this year to help me focus more on reading and having concentrated time for reading, I am participating in all 3 Bout of Books reading challenges / read-a-thons this year! The first one is next week (luckily its before my busy season at work officially starts).

For those of you who don’t really know much about Bout of Books, it is basically a week-long, no pressure read-a-thon that has been going strong since 2011! Here is a description directly from the Bout of Books blog:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 8th and runs through Sunday, January 14th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 21 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

The Bout of Books Read-a-Thon was created by Amanda @ On a Book Bender on a complete whim in August 2011. It took on a life of its own and was such a hit that Amanda decided to do it again and turn it into a somewhat regular occurrence.

  • Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon, usually from 12:01am on a Monday through 11:59pm on a Sunday in whatever time zone you are in.
  • It is low pressure, meaning participants are only asked to push themselves to read more than they normally would during any given week. There is no competition between readers.
  • How much time a reader wants, and can commit, to read, tweet, or network with fellow bloggers is left to individual preference. All challenges and giveaways are optional.
  • Networking with fellow bloggers is actively encouraged, though never required.
  • Use Twitter to post updates throughout the read-a-thon. Everyone will be tweeting with the #boutofbooks hashtag.

Since I’m so behind in my reading schedule, this will be a great week to devote to reading and catch up!

Time Devoted to Reading

I plan to read at least 2 hours each day during the week, with hopefully additional hours on Friday. Also the Saturday during Bout of Books I have Goal Day planned but then I have other family plans in the evening so I’m hoping for a good 4 hours of solid reading. And then Sunday I don’t have anything planned other than house work so hopefully a solid 4 hours that day as well.

My Goals

My goals for this read-a-thon are that I’d like to participate in as much as I can: the daily posts plus reading every day.

Books to Read

 

Hopefully I’m actually able to get through all (or at least a few)of those, if so I could at least catch up with one week of books which would be great. I have a long list of backlog books that I have to catch up with still from 2016 and 2017, but hopefully those will happen over the rest of the year. I’m really looking forward to this week-long reading challenge devoted to reading ! If you do want to join make sure to add yourself to the page’s Sign Up Post by Tuesday, January 9th at 11:59pm! Happy reading!

2018 Book #1 – The Dry by Jane Harper

Posted in Book Clubs, Book reviews, Fiction, Online Book Clubs, Suspense, Thriller by

51MFa84Sb9LTitle: The Dry
Author: Jane Harper
Date finished: 1/2/18
Genre: Fiction, suspense
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: January 10, 2017
Pages in book: 326
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: BookBrowse NOTE: I received this book for free from BookBrowse in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.

After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.

Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there’s more to Luke’s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.

My rating:  4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. I was provided with this copy from BookBrowse and will be participating in an online book discussion, feel free to join us and participate in the discussion!

This book really delves deep into the darker side of humanity and how a mob mentality can twist and morph in a very dark direction. While I thought the town’s treatment of Aaron as an adult was entirely frustrating (he’s a cop and they’re still treating him like a delinquent), the characters and the plot of this book were intriguing and the author did a great job of developing the plot through the twists and turns. The ending really took me by surprise too, I did not expect it to turn out that way. I thought this was a really interesting and engaging read and I would recommend it.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2017 Recap and 2018 Goals

Posted in For the love of books by

numerologia-preparac3a7c3a3o-para-2017

Well 2017 was one hell of a year. I had a lot of new challenges at work and was pretty distracted from reading for most of the year. I did enjoy more concentrated reading time on a couple vacations but unfortunately I didn’t meet my overall reading goal this year. And I had hoped it wasn’t possible but I fell even more behind with the schedule, one of my goals next year is going to be to concentrate on getting through some of the backlog.

So! To recap on the goals I had set for 2017:

  1. Finish any ARC’s from 2016 that I missed from NetGalley – I only managed to read one off the list from 2016, plus I added an additional 30 of books I didn’t read from 2017. One of my main goals for next year is going to be concentrating on reading these and getting back on track! 
  2. Participate in 2 reading challenges:
    1. Bout of Books 19 in May 2017 – Done! I had a great time participating in the Bout of Books 19 and I was able to focus on my reading for a week
    2. ARC August in August 2017 – ARC August 2017 was pretty successful (though a tad less successful than last year)
  3. Other general goals:
    1. Writing shorter reviews – I managed this a little but this is something I’ll still  continue to work on!
    2. Continuing to establish relationships – I definitely accomplished this! I was able to establish some relationships with publishers that I’ve enjoyed working with and get notified on titles available for review that I really enjoy! I’m hoping to continue establishing my presence over the next year. 

I think I did pretty well with the goals this past year, though my work schedule did create some conflicts. Also I have to learn how to be more selective and not sign up for more reviews than I can handle. Anyways, here’s a chart for the books I read in 2017 versus 2016 and 2015.

Books Read by year 15-17

And I figured I’d share a couple of my favorites from this past year:

Top Five Books Read in 2017

5. Everything You Want Me To Be by Mindy Mejia – 4.75 stars
4. The Simplicity of Apple Cider by Amy E. Reichert – 4.5 stars
3. The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers – 4.75 stars
2. Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker – 5.0 stars
1. Fitness Junkie by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza – 5.0 stars

Favorite Cover in 2017

515qNGaUTcL

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden – I loved this cover I thought it was beautifully mysterious and intriguing and really fit with the story. I loved it and the story as well!

Happy-New-Year-Images-2018-HD-2-1-5a01f34424e35

And so we move on to the New Year! 2018 is here and this year is going to be all about getting things back on track and organized. I’ve simplified my goals this year (even more) and also have a few non-reading things I’m hoping to also focus on this year.

  1. Participate in all the Bout of Books challenges this year – I’m hoping this will help me have more concentrated reading time this year
  2. Do any available ARC challenges I can find, including my regularly scheduled ARC August
  3. Read as many off my backlog as possible (right now there’s 52!)
  4. Write shorter but also more creative blog posts – I’ve gotten stuck in a sort of outline lately for my review and it gets wordy and I think boring. Hopefully I’ll be able to branch out a little more this year
  5. Also some personal goals! Eat healthier, lose weight, spend more time at home, spend more time with my husband and finish some of the house projects we have going on (including the library!)

 

So here’s looking forward to 2018 – hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are enjoying the New Year so far!

595b467302e54170888a85ea22939135

2017 Monthly Status Update: December

Posted in For the love of books by

update

Well I did not exactly finish strong this year. December was a rough month between work, trying to get ready for the holidays and attending all our family functions and parties. I was able to take some time off after Christmas and I read for a day. But other than that I a m pretty delinquent on my schedule. I’ll be posting on this later today but I’m hoping to catch up on my backlog items during the next year (2018!). So below is my progress for December:

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 1
# pages read this month: 262
# books read year-to-date: 97
# pages read year-to-date: 28,921

Other Posts this month:

The Duke of Ice BLOG TOUR!!

Status of 2017 Reading Challenges:

  1. Finish 2016 ARC’s from NetGalley that I missed – Still have 26 more to go, plus going to have another 30ish from 2017.
  2. Participate in 2 reading challenges – During May I participated in the Bout of Books challenge and during August I participated in ARC August so this Goal is checked!
  3. Other goals:
    1. Write shorter reviews – I think I’m doing better at this, next year I’ll be trying something different with this next year too.
    2. Continue establishing relationships – I think I did a good job this year cultivating some relationships

Next Month TBR List:

I have a few that are on my hit list to definitely get to and then I’ll be filling in the list from my backlog as (or if) I have any additional time:

-The Dry by Jane Harper
-The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
-The Crown Prince’s Bride by Donna Alward
-In a Cottage In a Wood by Cass Green
-The Burial Society by Nina Sadowsky