January has been an absolute whirlwind. Between my parents’ six eye surgeries, several vet visits, and ending the month being sick with COVID, it is a wonder I got any reading done at all. I was super motivated this month, though, and read a lot of great stuff. I participated in my first buddy reads this month and had so much fun with it. All in all, it has been a pretty good month despite ending it being sick.

Books I’ve Read

I set a goal of reading 8 books this month, which you can see below. I finished all 8 with one substitution for my 12 books challenge pick. These are the 8 books I read from my TBR (the ratings link to my review, if available):

• The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic by F.T. Lukens (5⭐)
• Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake (5⭐)
• The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (5⭐)
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (3.5⭐)
• Chain of Iron by Cassandra Clare (3.5⭐)
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (5⭐)
• Timekeeper by Tara Sim (4⭐)
• The Battle of Jedha by George Mann (???⭐)

I also set out to read four ARCs this month in addition to my regular TBR. I managed to read and review them all. These four books are listed below (the ratings link to my review, if available):

• The Sapphire Altar by David Dalglish (3⭐)
• Bisexual Men Exist by Vaneet Mehta (5⭐)
• Broken Valley by Owen Lach (4.25⭐)
• Seven Faceless Saints by M. K. Lobb (4⭐)

Finally, I did quite a bit of mood reading this month. It actually pushed my total of books read to 22, which is the most I’ve ever read in one month. Here’s all the other books I read this month (the ratings link to my review, if available):

• Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman (4⭐)
• Olympic Enemies by Rebecca J Caffery (3⭐)
• Monster of the Week by F.T. Lukens (5⭐)
• A Tale of Two Princes by Eric Geron (3⭐)
• Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson (4⭐)
• Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (4⭐)
• Mysteries of Thorn Manner by Margaret Rogerson (5⭐)
• Chainbreaker by Tara Sim (5⭐)
• Firestarter by Tara Sim (4.75⭐)
• Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo (4.25⭐)

Progress On My 2023 Reading Goals

Goodreads Challenge

I’ve set my annual reading goal at 100 books for the year. I read 22 books in January, which is a phenomenal start to this goal. I never expected to get through so many books so quickly, and I’m still feeling very motivated. So, I may be hitting the goal quite a bit sooner than I expected. We’ll see.

NetGalley Progress

I want to end the year with at least 150 reviews completed for NetGalley and a feedback ratio of at least 81%. In January, I completed 5 reviews for NetGalley, which brings my total up to 105 reviews. My ratio was holding steady at 81%! So far… so good.

Make Some Progress On My Backlog

This year I’ve set the goal of having at least 25% of my reading be from my owned TBR purchased prior to 2023. This could include books on my physical or digital shelves, excluding ARCs. In January, I read 4 books from my shelves, which was a respectable 18%. I’ll need to pick it up a bit if I want to reach my goal, though.

Re-Read More Books

Last year, I didn’t get to re-read much of anything. This year I’d really like to return to some of my favorites. So, I’ve set the goal of re-reading at least six books. Unfortunately, I didn’t make any progress on this goal in January.

Participate in Challenges

I’ve got a few different challenges going this year. Here’s a quick update on each one of them! I hope to have some graphics for these in future updates, but I just didn’t have the time to get them ready for this month…

POPSUGAR Challenge

I’ve completed 14 out of the 40 main prompts and finished 20% of the bonus prompts, as well. I’m sure it will get harder and harder to fill in prompts as the year goes on, but many of the books I read in January fit at least one of them.

12 Months, 12 Books, 12 Friends Challenge

For this challenge, I read The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic by F.T. Lukens. So, I’m on track with this challenge for the time being. Hopefully I can keep up with it as the year goes on.

The Year-Long Scavenger Hunt

This scavenger hunt is being hosted by Jordyn @ Birdie’s Book Nook. So far, I’ve found 19 out of the 31 prompts! I’m curious to see how many times this year I can find them all. NOTE: I’m only counting each book for one prompt, but I plan to add a book to whichever prompt fits, as in counting a prompt found for the second round, regardless of whether I’ve found them all yet or not. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I hope it does. lol.

Magical Readathon: Adventure in Aeldia

This month is the first step in this adventure with the choice of turning left (start a series) or turning right (finish a series). Even though I fulfilled both those prompts this month, my character, Padwin, is going to choose to turn left and use The Poppy War to fill that prompt.

Finish Five Series

I plan to finish or catch up on the following 5 series by the end of this year:

• A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons
• Timekeeper by Tara Sim
• The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman

I’ve made quite a bit of progress on this goal already. I started and finished the Timekeeper series by Tara Sim. I also read the first books in The Poppy War and A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Final Thoughts

I did a few blog and meme posts in addition to my reviews, and you can find those in my blog archives if you are interested in checking them out.

Overall, this has been another good month of reading. My favorite was probably The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic, but there were quite a few this month that I really, really loved. What was your favorite book from January? Let me know down in the comments!

Thank you to everyone who has visited the blog and engaged with comments and/or likes! I appreciate all of you and always enjoy reading your input in the comments. I hope everyone is having a great February!