Last year, I set a goal of reading 52 books. I ended up reading 58 books — and of course I ran some data on it. I was mainly interested in what the breakdown of genres was.

  • Romance — 43.10% (I honestly expected this to be higher! It was a year of rom-coms for me.)
  • Fantasy — 24.14%
  • Nonfiction — 24.14% (Mainly psychology or business related)
  • Poetry — 1.72%
  • Classics — 6.90%

I decided it’d be fun. I currently set the same goal for this year as last year, 52 books if you’re following along, however… January was a great reading month and I doubt it’ll slow down. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up bumping it up. Dare I be daring enough to set a goal of 100? We will see.

First up, my 5 star favorites.

  1. The Wizard of Earthsea — A book that’s been on my list for a long time that I finally got around to reading. A totally interesting writing style, very prose driven and not so much dialogue as I’m used to in a lot of high fantasy novels. I can’t wait to read the next books in the series!
  2. The Kingpin of Camelot  — Midas meets Arthurian legend in this fantasy-romance. It hits a ton of my favorite tropes on the head and was a generally fun read with a charming, fiery female main character and a lack of the common plot points like miscommunication that tend to be annoying while reading in this genre.
  3. Parenting from the Inside Out — Science-heavy development psychology pretty much sums it up! A starter guide to self-reflection especially when it comes to how your own past affects your parenting. I’m not a parent and still found it super interesting and useful.

Some more of my favorites of the month:

Broken Records was one of the dark horses of the month for me. I read it on a whim from a Reddit recommendation and it was great! I particularly enjoy books that show neurodivergent main characters and this was hit the bill. Storm Front, the first book in the well-loved Dresden Files series, was a little bit of a letdown as I expected to love it more. Harry Dresden is a private investigator slash wizard in this urban fantasy. I love John Constantine (more on that later), Jessica Jones, and The Devil’s Detective, but in particular, the inconsistency in the world-building left a little to be desired. The Whole-Brain Child is another book by Daniel Siegel that I really enjoyed.

And finally, the end. The most noteworthy thing for me, outside of some more trashy romance novels of which some were awful and one was great, is that I started reading the Hellblazer comic series aka the John Constantine comics. I’ve wanted to get into comics for a while, but what sold me was how my Kindle makes reading comics so cinematic. My thoughts so far (three books in) is that art style is very unsettling, the writing is incredible, and the coloring is amazing. I will be curious to see if this foray into a new format of reading continues to be something I’m interested in.

So that’s it! January: 9 books read with an average rating of 3.6/5.

In February, I have hopes to read some classics and more fantasy, which I’ve been on a little bit of a kick on. Who knows what will actually strike my fancy!

Till next time,
Sarah