December 2025 Wrap-Up

A lot of books made their way to me this month, as I tried to round out the year. I picked up Throne of Glass by Sara J. Maas because it is constantly suggested to me, over and over again. On BookTok, on Facebook, on Twitter. I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I had avoided it so far because I had a feeling that it just wasn’t for me, but I wanted to validate that feeling so that I wasn’t simply judging what might be a good book, on feeling.

Nope. I was right. This is not a book for me. It was awkward and difficult to read the first few pages, the story didn’t connect, I felt like we (the reader) was tossed into a book that was part way completed with no context. I feel good about my decision to leave this one in the DNF pile.

Along those same lines, a free book called ‘Dragon his Heels’ came to my TBR pile, and since I am a fan of romance, I figured why not.

Another DNF from me. There were some personal triggers within the first few pages that I was just not willing to see past. I’m sure this book is good for someone, it’s just not for me.

Two amazing reads for the month were ‘When Among Crows’ which is a trilogy that I hope to continue, and ‘Piranesi’ which is a stand alone novella. Piranesi in specific really caught me off guard, and I found it fascinating, I really enjoyed it (it was also a library read, yay). Automatic Noodle also came highly recommended by mutuals, and it was on sale so I picked that up (another Novella, I don’t imagine this one will take me too long to read). For Christmas I received the Art of Witch Hat Atelier, which is just absolutely gorgeous. I spent the day just lost in the images, it was so inspirational. I love the details. I did not make much progress on the Emily Wilde book, but that is not the fault of the book, I simply wasn’t in the mood this month. I hope to continue it and finish it off in January, but if not, that’s OK too.

Happy reading!

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.

2/5 Stars: Love, Furballs & Forever

Sure, it’s a book that should appeal to cat lovers everywhere, but this one just wasn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy the interactions between Juliet and Carlisle, and the story simply didn’t hook me. I found Juliet difficult to connect with, and she was borderline annoying. The editing and writing worked well enough and that’s the entire reason that I finished it even though the story left me wanting something deeper.

I picked this up during a sale, and while it wasn’t a good fit for me, it seems to have a lot of positive reviews, so I’m sure people out there are enjoying it.

2/5 stars