November 2025 Wrap-Up

November was a pretty good month as far as reading went, and it tends to be that way as we approach the end of the year and I look for ways to relax and ‘get back to my roots’ as it were. I managed to complete 5 books this month, though some were very long reads that I had been working through for quite some time. I will do a more in-depth look at each of these books and they’ll be post dated to the day that I completed them on.

The best read of the month was discovering Witch Hat Atelier. This is a manga, and I dove into it head first – reading a few chapters for the first volume, and then promptly buying a box set of the physical books to begin my new collection. The manga does currently go to volume 13, but I couldn’t find an english box set for the volumes after 6, yet. I hope they release it in the future.

I am having a difficult time getting through Primal of Blood and Bone even though I devoured the first 6 books in the series. I’ll talk about this in depth once I complete the book but it’s taking a back seat right now so I have no idea when that might be. Maybe December, if I give it a push. I’m about half way through it at the time of this post.

I can’t believe we’re almost to the end of 2025! That means new goals starting for 2026, and I’m pretty excited about it.

October 2025 Wrap Up

Another month passes where there wasn’t all that much reading going on – well, not exactly true, but looking at my stats, I only completed one book. Still, I did manage to get some reading done each day, even if it wasn’t much. What I tend to do is head to bed with my kobo for a few pages each night, instead of bringing my phone. That way I don’t spend the night scrolling. I do often fall asleep while reading, but that’s not a big deal.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls was a fantastic choice for my October read, and I’ve got some great books by friends on the go right now, including Midwinter’s Heart, and The First Sin. I’m hoping to finish those up in November, but it will depend on how real life is going. Look here for reviews on all of these reads in the future!

August 2025 Wrap Up

There were some FANTASTIC reads for the month of August, mixed in with some not-so-great (for me) reads. I know I might take a little heat for my views on The Enchanted Greenhouse, but maybe I’ll give it another go in a few months, I’m a big mood reader, and it just wasn’t doing it for me.

Of course we see my usual favourites, there was some Dungeon Crawler Carl (I’m finally on book 7) along with some T. Kingfisher (a huge favourite of mine) and I finally stepped back in to Melissa Caruso’s worlds. Plus, a new to me author that was apparently a big thing on tiktok a few years back that came highly recommended by a good friend. I was also looking for a casual cozy book in the middle of the month that popped up at my library (finally) because sometimes that’s just exactly what we’re looking for.

July 2025 Wrap Up

It doesn’t look like I got a lot of reading done this month, but the books I did read were fantastic – plus I have a few more on the go that are amazing.

July is the month where I realized that the book club I was participating in was just not for me. Out of 7 months of reads, I only completed two, and I had missed out on a bunch of the in-person discord chats about some of the books, too. I’d like to continue looking for a book club that will appeal to me a bit more. I love reading outside of my preferred genre, but I’d like one that at least leans in the general direction. We’ll see how that search goes.

So my DNF (did not finish) for the month was “The Dose Effect” and that was a book club read. Honestly I just had such an issue trying to find this book in a non-Amazon location. For those unfamiliar, I stopped purchasing books from Amazon and using my kindle earlier this year, and I swapped over to Kobo, where I’ve been ever since.

I finished the audio book to the next Dungeon Crawler Carl book, and started the next one. I love Princess Donut, what can I say.

May 2025 Wrap Up

I did NOT get a lot of reading done this month. The Butcher’s Masquerade was almost completed as I went into the month, and then I had a really difficult time finding a book that would stick. I ended up starting Foxglove King but I had to put it on hold as it was all a bit ‘too much’ for me at the time. I’m sure I will pick that one up again at a later date. The book is a physical one I own on my shelf, so at least I can easily come back to it.

The BBBC read was another huge disappointment. I’m thinking of joining another book club where I might find books that actually resonate with me, the net is just too wide on this one and they promote a lot of books from Amazon which I’d like to avoid since swapping over to my Kobo. Onyx Storm has also yet to reel me in, for some reason I’m just not that interested in the story this time around. It’s probably also because I’m reading the physical book and my hands have a hard time holding it. Weird thing to mention, I know, but it is what it is.

At least some reading was had. Maybe June will be a better month, we’ll just have to see.

February Reading Wrap Up

It’s that time of the month where I go over how I did in my reading stats! That’s right, a new feature because I’ve never actually done a reading wrap-up before. Why not start now?!

The graphics are from TheStoryGraph which is my book tracking site of choice these days. If you’re into statistics, this is where you want to be. They even include a calendar of all your reading updates. Looking at February, I see it was another big month for books and I really hope that carries over into March, but if it doesn’t that’s alright too. I read a total of 7 books (29% of those were audio books, the rest were physical & ebooks) and my average rating was 3.57 – I only had one 5 star read, and that was ‘What I ate in One Year’ by Stanley Tucci.

I’ve decided moving forward I’d like to devote an entire spread to any 5 star books I read, mostly because I don’t often have a lot of 5 star reads, and I think it would be a neat little bit of creativity I could toss into my reading journal. I’m not 100% pleased with how the journal went this year, but I am determined to keep with it (as best I can) and then next year I can implement changes like moving to a square journal and organizing some things better. Right now the journal is a lot of statistics, and while I do love stats, I’d like a little more creativity to flow.

In January I read 6 books (I may actually backdate a post to represent this) which I also thought was a lot for me, but hey maybe this is the year for massive reading (so I can protect my mental health with all of the crazy that is going on in the world these days). I certainly have no complaints – and I really hope that March involves just as many (if not more) amazing reads.