So it’s been over a month since I last posted on here.

I have had a busy January. I had the flu twice (one of them might have been covid, because the rest of my household had covid at the time, but I was testing negative). I’ve had trouble with my mental health due to a mix up with my prescription medication. And at the end of the month I woke up to find one of my windows had been smashed over night. So that was eventful.

I just feel like January went past in a blur, a lot happened, but it didn’t feel like much time passed.

Anyway, about my reading…

Right at the beginning of January I finally managed to finish the second par of Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. It was about time, really. I had been hoping to finish that book before the new year, but clearly it wasn’t meant to be.

After that things went a bit downhill. Two weeks of flu meant I didn’t have much energy to read anything. I managed to start a few books, but haven’t even reached page 100 of any of them.

First of all I started reading The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. This is a fantasy book set in Russia, and it’s inspired by Russian folklore.

I’ve only read about 60 pages so far, so I don’t know much about the story. It starts out with a family living through the winter in Russia. A woman gives birth to a little girl, but the mother doesn’t survive the birth. The daughter becomes our protagonist, and she had some weird experience as a young child where she meets some unusual creatures in the woods, but no-one else can see them.

So far I am enjoying this book, I’m looking forward to finding out more about the magic and the creatures in the woods. At the moment everyone just seems to be arranging marriages for each other. Lol.

When I get further I can give you a better idea of how I feel about it, but so far it seems just okay, nothing special.

The next book I started was Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson. This is a young adult mystery book set in an elite boarding school. It follows Stevie as she starts at this school, with a strong passion for detective work, and she investigates a decades old mystery about a mother and daughter who went missing from the school grounds.

I’ve heard so many great things about this series. I know it’s incredibly popular. My one concern about this book is that I don’t know if I’ve outgrown YA books. I think the hype of it had been putting me off as well, as I’ve had it on my shelves for a few years now.

I’m about 40 pages into this book and I’m enjoying it so far. I do love boarding school books. I don’t know why, but I’ve always enjoyed them. Lol.

This book has intrigued me for a while. I hope to get through it soon. I like the little flashbacks to the time when the mother and daughter disappeared. I’m curious to find out more about all of the characters, and the history of the school. It’s really fun.

The third book I started is technically a re-read, although the first time I read it was by audiobook, so this kind of feels like a different experience.

The book I’m talking about is Keeper of the Lost Cities: Exile. I don’t remember a lot about this book, but it’s the second book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series. I think there are about eight or ten books in this series now, but I own the first five books which I got in a boxset years ago.

This series follows a girl called Sophie. At the beginning of the first book she discovers that she is an elf, and is taken into the elven world where she begins school and starts learning to use her telepathic powers.

This is a really fun middle grade series, I’ve heard good things about it, so I’d really like to get through this book in order to continue the series.

I’m enjoying this re-read, even though I’m finding the writing style quite simplistic. It’s quite long for a children’s book, it’s over 500 pages. So it’s still quite intimidating.

And finally today I started reading Caraval. This is also a re-read. I haven’t read this book in years. I never finished the series, and lots of people are talking about it at the moment. I’d like to be able to finish the trilogy this year, so we’ll see how that goes.

This follows a pair of sisters called Scarlett and Donatella who travel to a magical carnival-type place called Caraval, which leads them on a mission to complete quests, but nothing in Caraval is every truly what it appears. This book has a lot of similar vibes to The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

Again, this book is aimed at young adults, so I don’t know how much I’ll enjoy it this time. But I remember the magic being quite intriguing, so I’m hoping I can get invested in the story and the characters again.

I’m not too far into any of these books, I’m really hoping to change that in February. I’m still trying to have a relaxed reading year, I don’t want to put any pressure on myself, I’m just reading whatever feels right at the time. However I’m also in such a habit of tracking what I read that it feels weird to not be making a lot of progress with any of my books.

I guess it’s not a problem. Again, I don’t want to pressure myself into reading, I just want it to be fun. I have lots of other books I want to get into, but I don’t know if it’s worth starting any more books until I’ve got further with these ones. We’ll just have to see how I feel the next time I’m ready to pick up a book.

What have you been reading recently? Do you have multiple books on the go at any one time, or are you a monogynous reader?

Until next time,

Love, Bobbi. Xx.