Okay, so I said in a previous post that was going to challenge myself to read more in 2025, but in a gentle way so that I don’t get overwhelmed.  Lol.

One of the rules I put in place for myself was to create a monthly TBR, even if i don’t complete it in the month.

So I’ve thought of a few different ways that I want to pick books for my TBR. I’ve tried making my own TBR board game before,  but I don’t think I can present it well in a blog. So I’ve got some alternatives.

One book will be picked by choosing a piece of paper from a bag which will give me the title of a specific book to read. The second book will be chosen by picking from a list of prompts that I have on my phone. These prompts are all numbered, and I’ going to roll a D20 dice to pick one (there are more than twenty prompts, I’ll just renumber them from where I left off the previous month).

Then I wanted to do a buddy read with my brother every couple of months,  so we’ll  choose that book together. The fourth book I was thinking could be a re-read, but I’ll only choose one every third month (January,  April,  July,  October) otherwise I’ll read nothing but re-reads. Lol.

I’d also like to choose an eBook or an audiobook each month. I think I’m going to alternate.

And finally,  where possible, I want to continue series that I’m in the middle of reading.

This makes it sounds abit complicated. Haha.

Book 1 will be picking a title at random from a TBR bag, book 2 will be a random prompt, book 3 will be a buddy read, book 4 will be a re-read, and book 5 will be either an eBook or an audiobook.

So now it’s time to pick the TBR!

The title I picked from the bag was The Hawkweed Prophecy by Irena Brignull.

This is a fantasy book, I think it might even be a romantasy, but I’m not 100% sure on that. It’s YA fiction though, so it should be a fairly easy read.

I’ve had this book for years, and I’m quite glad that I’m finally going to pick it up. I don’t know if it’s going to be quite to my interest anymore – I have been losing interest in YA books over the past few years. But, again, it will be a gentle wasy to start the year, so hopefully I’ll at least be able toget through it quickly, even if it’s not hugely interesting to me.

Then I rolled my D20 to find my prompt. I rolled a 14 which got me Contemporary. For this prompt I chose The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson.

This is the second book in the Truly Devious trilogy (although I feel like there are more books out now – but that might just be a spin-off.

Anyway, I read the first Truly Devious book last year, and it was okay. Again, I’m not super fond of YA books these days, but I had been curious about it after hearing all the hype. And clearly I liked the first book enought to buy the second one. Haha.

For my buddy read book, my brother and I decided to read Caliban’s War by James S. A. Corey. This is the second book in the Expanse series, which is quite a long space opera series.

We started reading this book last year, maybe in the summer. I’m enjoying it so far, it’s just taking me a while to get going with it. I’m about a quarter of the way through the book, and a lot is happening at the moment. I’m very interested in finding out what’s going to happen. But there is quite a bit of politics involved in this series, which I think it what’s making it feel slow for me – even though I’m enjoying it.

There are so many books that I want to re-read at the moment. The book I’ve chosen fo rthe beginning of this year is Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.

I first read this book in 2020, and I loved it. I got really into Liane Moriarty’s books that year, I read about three of her books, and bought a couple more which I never finished, but I haven’t read any since. So I’m really excited to read this book again, especially as it’s the kind of book where you’re told a murder has happened, thent he whole thing is a flash back and you’re trying to work out exactly what happened to get them to that murder.

So I’m quite intrigued to read it again knowing the ending (not that I remember it too well). But these kinds of stories are always fun to read more than once.

The final book on my list is my eBook. I decided this month to read one that I already had on my eReader. After looking through my Kindle Library, I’ve realised that I don’t have many really good books on there, so I might get more eBooks, or just use the Libby app sometimes. I’ve used the Libby app before, but I find that my local library doesn’t have a lot of good books available on there, which is super disappointing.

But the book I chose was Hollywood Witch Hunter by Valerie Tejeda. I don’t really know anything about this book. I think I was drawn in by the title alone. I’ve had this book on my Kindle for a few years, but never got around to reading it (I think I bought it for myself when I was about to go on holiday, but ended up reading something else instead).

So those are my five books for January. I fully don’t expect to complete them all in a month. I’m giving myself until the end of March to read Big Little Lies, and until the end of February to read Caliban’s War. So that will at least take some of the stress off for this month.

I’d love to be able to read a goof 30 to 50 pages each day, but that’s not realistic. I completely envy people who can read hundreds of pages every day, or people who can read a whole book over a weekend. I guess I’d just need to prioritise reading more.

However, I think if I can read 20 to 30 pages every day for a month then things will go well (having said that, the first day of the year I didn’t read anything at all, and the second day I read about ten pages).

I think it’s just important to create a consistent reading habit. That feels like a better plan that just forcing myself to read huge quanitities all the time.

So that’s my plan for January. What books are you reading this month? Is there anything you particularly recommend?

I’ll update you on last year’s reading wrap up soon.

Until next time,
Love, Bobbi. Xx.