Reading goals of 2022

 
Hi, so I guess my reading wrap up turned out the smallest ever this year? That's okay though! I honestly had planned to do more of those posts but I wasn't feeling it and that is okay! What I am feeling though, is to write and post my 2022 reading goals. Which is also what I'm going to do.

This year, my goals are both limited and kind of less defined at the same time. I shall explain what I mean by that as I dive deeper into my goals.



Goal 1: read 50 books.

This is my normal goal. I've hit it every year without a fail since 2011 so I figured I should probabyl go with this number again.


Goal 2: read books that I own.

I own too many books. Way too many books. While I haven't counted them, between the books I have on my kindle and the physical books I own, they easily amount to over 100. I've had rather long discussions about this with a friend, and we both agreed that when you have a backstock this large full of books you bought ages ago, chances are these are no longer books you're super interested in reading. Unfortuately that seems to be the case for me. Aforementioned friend has a rule set up for herself where she's not allowed to buy any books before the number of unread books she owns is below 20. This is something I feel like I really should be trying too; however, I need to actually read the books I own before I end up anywhere even close to that.

With the exception of ARCs and the library books I have leftover from this year (and any series I want to continue where I don't want to buy the books), I shall be reading the books that I own. 

This means of course that I can choose any book of my liking that I already own, but if I can't choose (and to make things a bit exciting for myself) a book or am slumping, I have also written down the names of all books I own on pieces of paper and put them in a mug. Right now I'm making a goal for myself to pull at least two pieces of paper from the mug each month, but obviously I am allowed to do that more. 


Goal 3: one shelf a month.

In order to spice my reading up a bit, I've put numbers on each shelf in my bookshelf where I keep all books I have not read (reminder to myself to actually show you guys my book setup at some point...!) (also yes, I have an entire bookshelf of books I haven't read). I've seperated the books on that shelf by genre and in total my bookshelf has six shelves, plus I'm counting all kindle books as one shelf so for seven months this year, I'll have to pick a random number from a jar which will dictate my reading for that month..I will obviously combine this reading with my aforementioned "pulling two random books from my mug" challenge, meaning I'll do both challenges the months where I do the shelf challenge.


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Puh, I think we're done. With that said, I want to wish you guys a happy 2022 with loads of happy reading!

Year in books, 2021 [2/3]: Stats, part II

 
Here's part II of my stats breakdown. Click on through if you want to find out more, you know the drill.

Year in books, 2021 [1/3]: Stats, part I

 
Hi, so if anyone's still reading my blog that was around for last year, I'm pretty sure you remember me being a bit of a stats junkie. Or, scratch the "a bit" part. I full-on love stats, and I'm not afraid to admit it. If you want to see me going through this year's stats, click on through below.

Let's start over, shall we?

 Hi everyone. My name is Ida, and I'm officially the worst book blogger of life. If you can even call me a book blogger anymore, I mean as I very rarely even blog.

See, that's what I want to talk to you guys about. I haven't posted much this year at all - I think last year I made around 40 posts, whereas this year I've only posted 11 times (this one being the 12th time). When writing this, I've read 55 books this year which means I've surpassed my goal of 50 books. The problem seems to be not that I haven't been reading, because I clearly have, but rather it seems that my will to actually put some work into this blog has disappeared. At first, I couldn't bring myself to actually write anything and I got anxiety just thinking about doing blog work. As the months went by, however, I actually stopped even thinking about this blog and it just disappeared from my mind? I didn't really miss it, nor did its existence really cross my mind until my mind just went "oh, shouldn't I be working on my yearly wrapup now?" earlier today (and yes, I totally should!).

So I guess this is me saying I'm back now, hopefully? I'm not promising anything but I sure will try. I miss having an outlet for my bookish rants, kind of. So here I am. For how long, no one knows, but I am back. 

The Greatest Thing [ARC]

TITLE: The Greatest Thing
AUTHOR: Sarah Winifred Searle
RELEASE DATE: January 25 2022     
RATING: 3/5 ★

REP:  bi (not explicitly stated) MC, bi love interest, MC with an eating disorder

TWs: disordered eating

Genre: young adult graphic novel

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What this is is a slice-of-life tale of a 10th grader in the early 2000s just trying to fit in at her school. It basically deals with things that are very central to life if you're 15-16 years old. I did like the art style and the story was very likable as well. It was a good little story in my opinion!

 

Read in July

 Hi guys,

firstly I have to apologize for being away from the blog for such a long time. I have no other excuses than that my mind simply hasn't been in this in a long time. This whole year has been a struggle for me, reading and blogging-wise (okay maybe not reading wise but definitely blog-wise!). Here I am, with my first monthly summary since God knows how long. Thing is, I have not read that much this month. Nowhere near as much as I'd hoped for (also, can we talk about the that tomorrow is August?! How on earth did that happen?). But, I am going to soldier through this anyway.

Hopefully this will be the start of me actually using this blog more. In roughly a week, I'll go back to work meaning updates very frequently will be hard for me. However, I'm going to try to blog at least once a week, hopefully more. I'm not promising anything; rather, I am hoping. 

Anyways, here's the books I've read in July:

- Familjen by Johanna Lerneby Bäckström (5 July - 15 July, 3 stars)
- The Love Song of Ivy K. Hawlovwe by Hannah Moskowitz (June 29 - July 16, 5 stars)
- Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas (July 16 - July 22, 4 stars)

This month was a solid 4/5 when it comes to the books I chose. I also started another book that I unfortunately haven't had time to finish. Quality-wise, this month was good but not really quantity-wise. Onto August!

Review: The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe [ARC]

TITLE: The Love Song of Ivy K. Harlowe
AUTHOR: Hannah Moskowitz
RELEASE DATE: June 1 2021     
RATING: 5/5 ★

REP: Lesbian main character, sapphic side character, Vietnamese side character, side character with chronic illness, side characters in an open relationship.

TWs: drug use, drug over dose, alcohol use, graphic mentions of sex

Genre: new adult contemporary with a sapphic cast

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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Review: Give In To Me

 

TITLE: Give In To Me
AUTHOR: Elle Spencer
RELEASE DATE: May 1 2021     
RATING: 2/5 ★

REP: Lesbian main characters.

TWs: jokes about pedophilia, jokes about incest, jokes about suicide, mention of injuries/medical situations

Genre: adult lesbian romance

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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Review. Before. After. Always. [ARC]

 

TITLE: Before. After. Always.
AUTHOR: Morgan Lee Miller
RELEASE DATE: May 11 2021     
RATING: 3/5 ★

REP: Lesbian main + side characters, Mexican main character.

TWs: death, grief, (mentions of) war, descriptions of injuries.

Genre: adult lesbian romance

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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Read in March and April

 Hi everyone,

Very long time and no see. The reason for this? I am a very shitty book blogger and literally, honest to God forgot to post when March turned into April. Anyhow, another month has passed since then and I guess I'm going to do two months in one post because yes, I am. 

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# of books read: 12

- Kärleken (Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar #1) by Jonas Gardell
- Sjukdomen (Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar #2) by Jonas Gardell
- Döden (Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar #3) by Jonas Gardell
- Sommarplåga by Hanna Jedvik
- På andra sidan bron by Hanna Jedvik
- The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo 
- Jag händer jämt by Emma Rävås
- Ganska nära sanningen by Anna Ahlund 
- Things That Grow by Meredith Goldstein
- Jag är inte död by Erik Engelv 
- Himlabrand by Moa Åstot Backe
- Åsneprinsen by Caroline Hainer

Best book of the month: I don't want to count the Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar trilogy because I reread that one for literally the tenth time or something similar, which means I'll have to go with Himlabrand. It was honestly very beatifully written and just overall very touching.

Worst book of the month: Jag är inte död. Not because it was bad, necessarily, but because it was just sooooooo long (I listened to it as an audio book and the way it was recorded had me almost falling asleep at times).

Review: Things That Grow [ARC]

 

TITLE: Things That Grow
AUTHOR: Meredith Goldstein
RELEASE DATE: March 9 2021     
RATING: 3/5 ★

 

REP: Jewish MC, Jewish side characters, gay side characters, Black love interest.

TWs: mentions of death

Genre: young adult contemporary

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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"And then I realized that this might be why I'm not crying, at least not right this second. One of the things about grandparents is that even if they're on the younger side, you know they're not designed to be part of your life forever. You don't get to have them for a chunk of your life, because you weren't around for a chunk of theirs. It's a relationship with a clear end; even if everyone lives to be a hundred, you still get only a window."



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Read in February

Hi everyone,

Here's finally my monthly wrap up! I had plans to write this last night but that obviously didn't happen so here we are. Anyway, this month I'm going to start a new feature! I'm going to call it rating my reading month in which I'll obviously give my month of read and explain why.

February in books, rating: 6/10

Explanation: I only read three books, hence the low-ish rating. I honestly probably should go even lower but I did enjoy the majority of the books I read, and I'm in charge of this post because it is my blog afterall, so 6/10 it is. Honestly I had a really fun time reading this month, mainly because I finally decided to start my reread of The Raven Cycle.

Anyway, the reason why I only read three books is most likely that I sort of rediscovered my love of watching TV and I ended up binging a lot of Netflix, which happens, sometimes. But such is life I guess!

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# of books read: 3

-  The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1) by Maggie Stiefvater
- The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2) by Maggie Stiefvater
- Låt mig bara vara din by Peter Sundberg

Best book of the month: The Raven Boys - mainly because it made me remember how fun this series is and how much I used to like it! It's not perfect and I've seen some critique saying it's a pretty basic fantasy story but I did like it.

Worst book of the month: Låt mig bara vara din. It's a Swedish gay hockey romance but honestly, it was all flavors of bad. Unfortunately, because I did go into it hoping I'd like it. If you're interested in reading my ranty review, it's up here (in Swedish though!).


Happy reading! xx

Review: Fine [ARC]

TITLE: Fine
AUTHOR: Amylea Murphy
RELEASE DATE: November 17 2020     
RATING: 2/5 ★

 

REP: - (don’t really recall if there was any specific rep but as far as I remember there wasn’t any?)

TWs: sexism  

Genre: young adult contemporary

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

 

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“I was only twelve. Being an adolescent in the grips of hormones and social anxiety is hard enough when all you have to worry about is what outfit to wear and whether the cute guy in science class likes you or not. Being twelve when the worst tragedy you can imagine rips through your family – well, that just sucks.”

 

 

Review: Down Comes The Night [ARC]

 

TITLE: Down Comes The Night
AUTHOR: Allison Saft

RELEASE DATE: March 2nd 2021          

RATING: 4/5 ★

 

 

REP: bi MC, WLW side character

TWs: murder, gore, torture  

Genre: young adult fantasy.

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

 

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“Wren wasn’t a girl made to be alone; solitude armed her with too much to worry about.”

 

Read in January

 Hi everyone,

here's a very belated January wrap up/what I read in January post...I normally aim to post these kinds of things on the first day of the month and, if you look at the date, you can tell this didn't happen..I would like to blame this on something legit like work being busy or something, but while work *has* been busy, the reason why I haven't been updating my blog is that I basically have been busy living life. I've been watching a lot of TV lately, which is something I used to love doing as a teenager so I'm glad I'm getting back into that!, and also reading, clearly.

Anyways, I hope you're all doing okay. I had wished and I still wish obviously, that I'd been more active on here but now, thinking back on the month I've had, I don't really regret not blogging more. I try to take the days as they come presently and I must say, at the moment, I actually kind of succeed in doing so.

I read 5 books this month which was pretty much what I'd hoped to read so I'm satisfied with this. I have also read books that I actually straight up enjoyed - most of them were four or five stars, meaning I read no books that were actually bad (and no books that were mediocre either!).

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# of books read: 5

-  Ditt livs affär by Fredrik Backman
- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
- These Violent Delightsby Mica Nemerever
- Down Comes The Night by Allison Saft
- En katts resedagbok by Hiro Arikawa

Best book of the month: The Great Believers - a beautiful, sad and haunting tale of friendship and love during a pandemic (not this current one, no, - the AIDS pandemic during the 1980s). This book was slow and I sometimes felt myself being...not bored, but like, wishing the tempo of it was higher. Having actually finished it, I have to say I absolutely adored it. 

Worst book of the month: Ditt livs affär. Not because it was bad - it wasn't, it was heartbreaking, but I think it's mainly because it was a short story focused on a topic I'd love to have seen developed more in the story. I mean, I think I would have liked this better had it been a full-length book.


Happy reading! xx