February flew by. I was sick with COVID for half of it, including my birthday. It was definitely a bummer, but I’m grateful to be feeling much better now and getting back into the swing of things. On the bright side, all the time laid up gave me plenty of time to read. So, the month wasn’t a total loss.

Books I’ve Read

I set a goal of reading 8 books this month, which you can see below. I finished 6 of them. One was a DNF, Prince of the Sorrows. The writing was just not for me. So, I gave up at approximately 25% of the book. I also haven’t finished These Violent Delights, but it is my current read as of March 1. These are the 8 books from my TBR (the ratings link to my review, if available):

• Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett (4.75⭐)
• A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas (4.5⭐)
• The Luminaries by Susan Dennard (3.5⭐)
• Spare by Prince Harry (4.5⭐)
• Prince of the Sorrows by Kellen Graves (DNF)
• The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten (4⭐)
• The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (5⭐)
• These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong (still reading as of 3/1)

I also set out to read three ARCs this month in addition to my regular TBR. I managed to read and review two of them. The three books I’d hoped to read are listed below (the ratings link to my review, if available):

• The Pledge by Cale Dietrich (2.75⭐)
• The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles (4.75⭐)
• A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon (haven’t started as of 3/1)

Finally, I did quite a bit of mood reading this month. It actually pushed my total of books read to 17. Here’s all the other books I read this month (the ratings link to my review, if available):

• A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (4.5⭐)
• Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert (5⭐)
• The Tyranny of Faith by Richard Swan (4.5⭐)
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (4⭐)
• Glitterland by Alexis Hall (4.75⭐)
• The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso (3.75⭐)
• Him by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy (5⭐)
• Chain of Thorns by Cassandra Clare (3.5⭐)
• Crescentville Haunting by MN Bennet (4.5⭐)

Progress On My 2023 Reading Goals

Goodreads Challenge

I’ve set my annual reading goal at 100 books for the year. I read 17 books in February, which is a little less than last month but still fantastic progress. This brings me to 39 books for the year so far!

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 February, I completed 2 reviews for NetGalley, which brings my total up to 107 reviews. My ratio was holding steady at 81%! I definitely need to pick up the pace on these reviews if I’m going to meet my goal, but I don’t think it will be a problem given how many ARCs I need to read over the next few months.

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 February, I read 7 books from my shelves, which was a whopping 41%. This brings books from my shelves to 28% of my total reads for the year. This was a huge improvement from last month and probably explains why there were so few NetGalley reviews. lol. I think these goals are going to be at major odds with each other.

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 February.

Participate in Challenges

I’ve got a few different challenges going this year. Here’s a quick update on each one of them! I still haven’t made graphics for these… maybe it’ll happen before the end of the year. Maybe.

POPSUGAR Challenge

I’ve completed 21 out of the 40 main prompts and finished 30% of the bonus prompts, as well. As predicted, I completed much fewer prompts this month because the pickings have gotten slimmer. I think I’ll definitely be able to finish off this challenge by the end of the year.

12 Months, 12 Books, 12 Friends Challenge

For this challenge, I read Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. So, I’m still 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 25 out of the 31 prompts! So, I’m still making good progress. 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

I’m going to be honest. I completely forgot about this challenge in February. 😬 Luckily a couple of my books did fit the prompts. So, I still unknowingly completed the challenge. This month my character had the choice of going to the forest (trees on cover) or going towards a lake (water on cover). Even though I fulfilled both those prompts, my character, Padwin, is going to choose to go to the forest and use The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen to fill that prompt. He was tempted by the lake, but being the solitary type, he decided to go off on a solo hike instead. He also prefers the cover of the trees because he grew up underground. Being out in the open makes him nervous.

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 made a little progress on this goal. I finished the second ACOTAR book in February, A Court of Mist and Fury.

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 Priory of the Orange Tree, but there were so many this month that I loved. What was your favorite book from February? 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 March!