January ’20 wrap up and February TBR

Good morning bookworms! It’s time for the monthly wrap-up for January!

During January I read 9 books. Which was totally fine, unless you look at my reading pattern, which was kind of a joke!! (Week 1: nothing, week 2: 7 ebooks, week 3: 1 audiobook, week 4: nothing, last 4 days of month: 1 physical book.) I was kind of all over the place with our renovations and family stuff and we had a big BBQ at our place and the fires – I mean, the fires are still going… Australia has been on fire (literally, not figuratively) for like 3 months now. Parts of my city have been evacuated in the last week as they get closer… (I’m ok though!) But we’re finally in the last month of summer so hopefully this will end soon!

Book	Author	Series	Format	Rating (/5)	Cover
Pucked Up	Hunting, Helena	Pucked #2	eBook	3
Pucked Over	Hunting, Helena	Pucked #3	eBook	4
Forever Pucked	Hunting, Helena	Pucked #4	eBook	3.5
Area 51: Pucked short stories	Hunting, Helena	Pucked #4.5	eBook	2.5
Pucked Under	Hunting, Helena	Pucked #5	eBook	3
Pucked Off	Hunting, Helena	Pucked #6	eBook	3
Pucked Love	Hunting, Helena	Pucked #7	eBook	4
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow	Townsend, Jessica	Nevermoor #1	Audiobook	5
A Darker Shade of Magic	V. E. Schwab	Shades of Magic #1	Paperback	3.5

I can’t talk about favourite books this month. I mean, obviously it was my reread of Nevermoor, but I never pick rereads because that’s not fair to new books. I know that the best written book I read was A Darker Shade of Magic, but I legit hated the story for the first 260 pages and it was honestly an effort to force myself to read it. It came back at the end, and if I had have rated it based on how I felt at the end it would have been higher, but I can’t dismiss the first 2 thirds where I just wanted to DNF it so badly. So, no faves this month.

Well, my 5 books + 1 of your picks didn’t go quite so planned for January… but I DID read your pick for the month, so it wasn’t all bad. (Also, if you want to pick a book for me for a future month, let me know!!) We’re doing to same for February and hoping it sticks this time!!

The Of Wonderland Book Club theme for February is Badass Females, and I think I’ve got a couple lined up!!

📖 physical book | 📱 ebook | 🎧 audiobook
💥 comic / graphic novel | 👯‍♀️ buddy read | ✳️ reread
⚔️ fantasy | ⛱ contemporary | ☄️ sci-fi | 🏰 historical fiction
❤️ romance | 🔍 crime / mystery | 🤡 horror / thriller
📚 Beat the Backlist | ⏰ ARC / review copy | 🧁 Of Wonderland
🐨 Aussie Authors / #LoveOzYA | 🥰 Friend pick

• The Seafarer’s Kiss – Julie Ember  📖 ⚔️ 📚 🥰 (thanks for the pick Luna @ Bookish Luna)
• Get a Life, Chloe Brown – Talia Hibbert  📖 ⛱ 📚
• The Long Distance Playlist – Tara Eglington  📖 👯‍♀️ ⛱ 📚 🐨
• The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy – Mackenzi Lee  📖 🏰 📚 🧁
• Ice Wolves – Amie Kaufman  📖 👯‍♀️ ⚔️ 📚 🐨
• An Ember in the Ashes – Sabaa Tahir  📖 👯‍♀️ ⚔️ 📚 🧁

Plus I’ll be finishing these two that I started in January (… or December…?)

• Red Glove – Holly Black  📖 👯‍♀️ ⚔️ 📚
• The Night Country – Melissa Albert  📖 ⚔️ ⏰ 🧁

Uhh… I was on hiatus… buuuut, a lot of people seemed to like my 2019 wrap-up post, which is great news because I do love doing my annual wrap-up. Graphs are so much fun!!

Uhhhh… the hiatus accidentally extended to blog hopping as well… as of this second I have 723 blog posts to catch up on… So, I expect this section to be bigger for February!!

Well… January was a time! Things I did in January:

• my brother got married (I wasn’t involved except to help look after my nephew and to help set up/clean up)
• we painted the kitchen/dining room/lounge room and downstairs hall, plus the laundry upstairs of the apartment* (also, the paint colour is called Thunder Paws and it’s amazing)
• I put together a bunch of new furniture for the entry hall and lounge room and we got actual outdoor furniture for the balcony
• my handyman didn’t show up so there’s still other things I need to do
• I hosted a weekend-long readathon on Instagram with Stephani @ Stephani Michelle (and only read 1 book…) #ReadALotAthon (or a little…)
• we had our housewarming BBQ (only like 7 months after we moved in!)
• we watched the second season of Sex Education on Netflix
• I caught up on Riverdale on Netflix
• I (finally) watched season 8 of Hawaii Five-0 (only like 4,000 more seasons to go before I’m caught up!)
• we started a new D&D game (I’m playing a Kobold named Tikke and she’s really little and it’s fun)
• I played A LOT of The Sims 4 (and found this little gem!!)

Plans for February include:

• a bunch of medical tests on Monday (so I’ll be doing all sorts of fun dietary/fasting things today 😳)
• back to work on Tuesday
• and I’m planning some collaborations for the blog, so keep an eye out!! While Jan wasn’t very ‘blog writing’ heavy, I had a lot of random ideas about readathons and collaborations so I’m kind of excited!!

* I say apartment, because we’re in an apartment complex, but it’s a 2 story, 4 bedroom apartment, that has a bigger floor square meterage than a lot of houses.

How was your January?