A Look Back At My Reading For 2022

Hello everyone, and happy new year! A new year is upon us and the pages, they keep a-turning! I hope that you are all happy with your reading progress and are excited for 2023. Here is a look at what my entire reading history for 2022 looked like:

First of all, let’s just establish that I hit my Goodreads goal of 35 books for the year. 🎉 I actually surpassed the goal and made it to 73. That is huge for me. I set my goal low because 2021 was a major slump of a year for me (sadly, I read 30 that year, which was my lowest recorded number since I started “reading” again). I wanted to aim higher than that but I had no idea what the next year would hold. Fortunately, I did well! 2022 was a very eventful year in my life (we moved states, big changes in my job, and some health issues) but I am proud to say I nailed this challenge!

Here’s a breakdown of my reading month-to-month. I can pinpoint exactly where my issues for the year were. February and March were stressful work months coupled with “house hunting.” April I had time off work due to health issues so there’s a spike in reading, which makes sense. July was the big move so I read almost nothing. October is my favorite month to read, followed by December so I pick up the slack there.

Lastly is my genre breakdown. Just for comparison, here are my top genre stats broken down over the past 2 years: in 2022 I read 25 romances, 24 YA, and 14 Fantasy. In 2021 I read 11 YA, 10 Fantasy, and 8 romance. So as of this year romance is taking over a bit, but I am still reading a lot of YA, just not as much Fantasy. We’ll see how 2023 goes!

What goal(s) do you have for 2021–reading or otherwise?

Cozy Christmas Booktag

1. twinkling lights – what is the most beautiful book you own?
There are so many beautiful editions of books, but I think that Laura E Weymouth has the most beautiful book covers just on their own.

2. the perfect tree – will you pay more to get the prettiest edition of a book?
I admit it – if its a book I like and the edition is beautiful, I just may buy it! (bonus points if its signed!)

3. build a snowman – make a Christmas book stack (colour or theme)

4. crackling fire – what book makes you feel warm and cozy?
Familiar reads like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis and cozy, witchy mysteries are always fun.

5. knee high socks – what is the longest book you’ve read?
For this year it was From Blood and Ash, 622 pages. Hoping to read more ‘tomes’ next year!

6. ugly sweaters – what’s the ugliest book you own?

I think P.S. I Love You is the ugliest book I own. Which is sad because I really want to read it but its just. so. ugly.!

7. blizzards – a book set in winter, or a book that gives you the chills/has dark themes
Two books I recently added to my TBR and tagged “Dark Romance” : Corrupt by Penelope Douglas and Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton

8. home for the holidays – for the rereaders out there, are there any books that feel like “going home”?
The Outlander series always feels like going home, even though I’m not done with the series yet. Its the characters who are home for me. Also The Hunger Games trilogy.

This tag was originally posted (as far as I know) by CallMeAfter Coffee here. If you’d like to do this tag I would love to see it so please feel free to link me on yours!

🎵 Currently listening: Hallelujah by Carrie Underwood and John Legend

Quarter 2 2022 – Reading Summary

My, how time flies when you are reading great books and listening to amazing music! Many life changes have occurred over these three months and I am so proud to share my progress. As always I tried to read a good variety of genres, be attentive to some banned books, and keep my media mixed. So without further ado, here is what I read over the past quarter:

📖 Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith – 4/2/22 ⭐️⭐️
📖Fangirl, Vol. 1: The Manga by Sam Maggs/Rainbow Rowell – 4/4/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻 The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould – 4/6/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé – 4/13/22 ⭐️⭐️
💻Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren – 4/13/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
📖Bunny by Mona Awad – 4/16/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris – 4/27/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnussen – 4/28/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻A Score to Kettle by Eryn Scott – 4/28/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo – 4/30/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella – 5/12/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James – 5/22/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons… by Hilarie Burton Morgan – 5/27/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout – 5/31/22 ⭐️⭐️
💻Stay Awake by Megan Goldin – 6/7/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📖 Shipped by Angie Hockman – 6/7/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧Happily Ever Island by Crystal Cestari- 6/22/22 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

To sum it up, I read 4 physical books, 6 ebooks, and 6 audiobooks for a total of 16 finished books in Q2 which is more than Q1! I have lots planned for my TBR for the remainder of the year and can’t wait to see what my next wrap up will show!

Review: Happily Ever Island by Crystal Cestari

Title: Happily Ever Island
Author: Crystal Cestari
Page Count: 336 pages
Release Date: June 7, 2022
Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Synopsis: Welcome to Happily Ever Island, the most pixie-dusted vacation a Disney fan could ever imagine. Head-in-the-clouds romantic Madison and driven pragmatist Lanie are unlikely best friends, but the two would do anything for each other. So when Madison’s life starts to fall apart, Lanie agrees to join Madison for the test run of Disney’s newest resort experience during their first college spring break: Happily Ever Island—an immersive vacation destination, where guests can become their favorite Disney character for a week. Madison decides to go as the iconic princess herself, Cinderella, with Lanie as bow-wielding Merida. It’s not Lanie’s idea of fun, but she knows Madison needs her, and besides, she could use the break from her strenuous courseload anyway. Plus, maybe she’ll get to shoot things. But once on the island, Lanie and Madison begin to drift apart. Madison finds herself either missing out or messing up all the enchanting moments she has dreamt her whole life about, and is forever running into their annoyingly perfect (and distractingly cute) vacation’s coordinator, Val. Meanwhile, Lanie unexpectedly finds herself swept up in the magic of it all. She strikes up a secret romance with Prince Charming—but there’s no telling whether he’s just playing a part. In this delightful YA rom-com inspired by Disney fandom, get swept up in a whirlwind of laughter, tears, and more than just a touch of Disney magic.

My personal thoughts: Why did I love this book so much??? I guess because I saw so much of myself in Madison’s personality and how she portrays her love of Disney, it was just so heartwarming and fun! I loved every single character and every single reference. This was a great summer read and was a great mix of fantasy role playing and romcom. Overall I would say that I loved just about every minute of this book. Happily Ever Island was great f/f rep, a great friendship story, and a sweet m/f romance as well. Reading this I was thinking of a Renaissance Faire meets a Disney Island. I would love an opportunity like the main characters got–to basically live in the lives of any character of their choice. Singing, dancing, and romance included! I listened to the audiobook and it was a chirpy, charming read.

🎧 Book soundtrack: That’s How You Know from Enchanted by Amy Adams

Review: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Title: Between Shades of Gray
Author: Ruta Sepetys
Page Count: 356 pages (Kindle Edition)
Release Date: March 22, 2011
Publisher: Speak

Synopsis: Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

Personal Views: If you have read this book, good on ya! If you have not read this book, you should!
If you are like me and you are on the fence about historical fiction, or maybe historical fiction is just not your go-to genre, Between Shades of Gray is an impactful, quick read that you won’t regret picking up. I found that the chapters were short, the characters were easy to keep straight, and the world was immersive.

The book is about 15 year-old Lina, who is taken away from her home in Lithuania and charged as a criminal. For what? She does not know. She and her 10 year-old brother and their mother are forced onto a packed train car with forty-six other people, most of whom are women and children, and they spend eight weeks travelling to a labor camp. Their journey does not end here, as several months later they are moved again to the Arctic Circle. Author Ruta Sepetys describes this book as a romance, and while there is a main male character Lena’s age, I found any ‘romance’ to be quite light. Really the love we see is in every person who held on to hope and showed a capacity of love in the face of fear.

Overall: the writing is simple. The chapters are short. The message is clear. This is a lost and forgotten piece of history so I definitely recommend reading this book, as the author absolutely did her research and it is very personal to her. Give this book a shot.

🎧 Book soundtrack: I’ll Be Seeing You by Vera Lynn (2016 Remaster)

Review: People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry

Title: The People We Meet on Vacation
Author: Emily Henry
Page Count: 364 pages
Release Date: May 11, 2021
Publisher: Berkley Books

Synopsis: Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
 
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
 
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
 
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

What I liked: -The BANTER! -The SARCASM! -The SWOONS! -Friends to Lovers. It is honestly NOT my favorite trope, but this book was really sweet! I think the distance between Poppy and Alex worked for me. 100% Alex worked for me. He was a great character. What I didn’t like: -The past summers were too choppy for me. At first I was trying to keep track of what order they were supposed to be in–does it even matter? Of course, the book wouldn’t be the same without it but I found it distracting. -The love rants/confessions at the key points in the book were soooooo long. I listened to the audiobook at 1.4x speed and they dragged on, if I was reading the words with my eyes I think I would have been bored. Fortunately the voice actress for the book is great and I loved the reading but wow. Those paragraphs are long.  In the end, I gave the book 4 stars and would recommend this to romance lovers with a taste for wanderlust. So tell me…

Are you a romance/romcom reader? What was your last romance read and did you enjoy it?

🎧 Book soundtrack: “Summer On You” by PRETTYMUCH

WWW Wednesday … 4/6/2022

Its been a while so I’d like to bring my blog up to speed with a WWW Wednesday post–a meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words. I love this post and getting to update the 3 W’s:

The 3 W’s are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

~ The Currents –

One thing that has gotten me into trouble over the past 6 months or so is starting books and not finishing them. I don’t know if this is my anxiety, my stress at home, or what the exact issue is but it is definitely an issue. I am trying to make it a goal to swing back around and finish “the unfinished” of the past 6 months to a year of my life. I just was at a point where I didn’t want books to end. I would start things, get to exciting or tense parts, and then stop. So books that I am actively reading and will soon finish are: Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould. Books I am about halfway through which I am resolving to finish soon now that I am in a better headspace: Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo.

~ The Recents ~

My most recent finishes have been Fangirl, Vol. 1: The Manga which I loved. This was no surprise since I also loved the book. I thought the story and the characters came across just as well in the manga and Volume 2 is set to release May 10th! I also finished All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Hermann. This book–woo! It was dark magic and tournament games and forbidden romance and twisty mystery…I loved it. I went in not knowing there was going to be a sequel so I was pretty shocked at where the end left off but I can’t wait for book 2!

~ The Upcoming ~

This month I am doing some reads with the TBR and Beyond Book Club on Facebook. I picked up Only a Monster by Vanessa Len (note to self, this is book 1 in a planned trilogy!) as well as The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James. Also, Literally Dead Book Club is reading All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris. I also have a haul of library books to try to get through but we’ll see about those for now.

What are you currently reading? Have you read any of the books that I mentioned above?

Quarter 1 2022- Reading Summary

Hey, hi, hello! We are into April and its time to do a quarterly summary of reads so far! I set my reading goal relatively low for this year after being a little slow last year. However, so far this year I’m doing pretty well! That being said, I have plans to move this summer and we have a long way to go for 2022 so we’ll see. Now on to the books!

💻 Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson – 1/1/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻 The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson – 1/17/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧 People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry – 1/21/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻 The Deep by Nick Cutter – 1/31/22 – ⭐️⭐️
💻 Chef’s Kiss by Jarrett Melendez – 2/6/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📖 Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack – 2/8/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – 2/12/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻 Matcha Do About Murder by Eryn Scott – 2/19/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📖 Drama by Raina Telgeleier – 2/27/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧 Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson – 3/6/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
💻 Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys – 3/23/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧 The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley – 3/27/22 – ⭐️⭐️
📖 All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman – 3/31/22 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I read 3 physical books, 7 ebooks, and listened to 3 audiobooks for a total of thirteen books in the first three months of the year. I am pretty happy with the mix of genres I have been reading and I hope to continue with this. I also plan to keep my stack of galleys in check, as well as trying to reading from my backlist!

How has your reading been going so far in 2022? Have you discovered any new favorites?

Review: House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

Title: House of Hollow
Author: Krystal Sutherland
Page Count: 304 pages
Release Date: April 26, 2021
Publisher: Penguin Teen

B&N | Amazon | Bookshop.org

House of Hollow was so beautifully and horrifyingly written. It has been a while since I have finished a book, but this one was incredibly captivating. I recommend this book for the characters and the chilling story. This was YA horror at its finest. Definitely read this if you’re craving a creepy YA standalone with modern, fairy tale vibes!

What have you read this month?

🎵 Book soundtrack: “Jenny of the Oldstones” by Florence + the Machine

Review: These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling

Title: These Witches Don’t Burn
Author: Isabel Sterling
Page Count: 366
Release Date: May 28, 2019
Publisher: Razorbill

Amazon | B&N | Book Depository |

From reading the synopsis and looking at the cutesy illustrated cover, These Witches Don’t Burn sounded a bit like a cozy, YA paranormal F/F mystery. I was SO excited to read this book! Turned out to be just ‘ok’ in my opinion. Maybe I set the bar too high, maybe I should have read the actual book in stead of listening to the audiobook, who knows. Either way, let’s spill the tea.

Set in Salem, These Witches Don’t Burn follows an elemental witch named Hannah who is looking forward to spending her summer avoiding her ex-girlfriend–not! Veronica (the ex) is extremely toxic and is clearly not over Hannah. Things are bearable until signs of dark magic begin to surface around town. Juggling hangouts with friends, a new crush, her family, and her coven, Hannah’s story had its share of twists and turns. I have to say that Hannah was not my favorite main character ever but I really liked the side characters in the story. Hannah’s best friend Gemma was tide and true, and a new co-worker and friend named Cal who was pretty quirky also. As for the central mystery of the book (the “which witch is which?” if you will), there were maybe three or four different people who I suspected before I figured it out.

What I disliked most about the book was that it felt choppy. In the beginning of the book, the author alluded to a situation that Veronica and Hannah encountered together in New York City several months ago. Honestly, is was referenced in such a way that I had to look up whether I was actually reading book 2 and I missed something in a different book that I should know about because this entire plot seemed to be building up around it! I also felt that for reading a book about witches in the title, there was a disappointing amount of magic. Magic is not really a hyped up thing in this book. Plus, as I mentioned, Hannah is an elemental witch and after reading this book, I still need to look up what an elemental witch really is! I mean, I sort of know, but it would have been fun to learn more, all things considered.

So that’s my take. I thought it was pretty light, I thought it was kind of fun, but I wanted more. Perhaps the sequel This Coven Won’t Break will be just what the doctor ordered? Either way, it was a good summer read and its worth a shot if you’re looking for something in this vein.

Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?

Book soundtrack: “Magic City Hippies” by Robby Hunter Band