Tag: book blog

Posted in Chatty

2022 Year in Review, Part 2: Deep Stats from Storygraph & My Own Tracking

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! It’s a third of the way through 2023, so of course that means one thing: I should probably post the rest of my yearly review things from last year. xD I did part one already, which was looking at the wrap up stats given by Storygraph (referenced as SG through this post when I’m feeling lazy) and Goodreads, and had some of the basic things like number of books read, longest book, and so on.

This next batch is looking at the beautiful, amazing graphs that Storygraph hosts for each year, as well as information from my own tracking system that I enjoy looking at (primarily countries books are set in!)

“I’m a mood reader”

I most certainly am a mood reader, but I have managed to find ways to work with my moods and give some structure to my reading with monthly TBRs that are usually about 50% completed with the other 50% books I just decided to read during the month. xD

But what ARE my moods that I’m usually looking for? My top five are below, but note that books can have more than one mood (for example, it could be emotional and sad)

  • 51.7% of my books were emotional
  • 30.3% of my books were lighthearted
  • 29.6% of my books were adventurous
  • 27.5% of my books were funny
  • 24.8% of my books were reflective

This is pretty much the same as most years that I’ve tracked on SG. In fact, since 2019 it’s been that same order with lighthearted and adventurous sometimes switching places by a few books difference. But I’m pretty consistent it seems!

And my least commonly read book moods? Relaxing, inspiring, and challenging.

Continue reading “2022 Year in Review, Part 2: Deep Stats from Storygraph & My Own Tracking” →
The shape of two triangles pointing to the right as a "fast forward" button icon is made up of words in black text. In the middle in pink text tags "fast forward Fridays" and next to it in yellow text tags "new releases"
Posted in Fast-Forward Friday

Fast Forward Friday: Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli (5/2/23)

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! In contrast to Throwback Thursday, I like to use Fridays to look forward to an upcoming release that I’m excited about! Today’s is
Expected Release:

Why wait on this one?

  • Queer romance! Especially when set in college, I love stories that are a more positive view on queer coming out, romance, and life in general as a nice break from some of the other bleaker realities that can come along with it. This sounds like it’ll be wholesome and sweet and just make me smile a lot 😊
  • I’ve read a few other books by Becky Albertalli, and have a few others on my TBR. I think it’s safe to say that I generally enjoy her style and approach to various topics.
  • And, okay, I admit I’m already a little swoony at the base plotline of the “totally straight” girl coming into her own awareness of a friend who starts to seem like maybe more. I admit the element of Lilli telling people she and Imogen used to date seems weird, but I’m assuming it’ll be easier to get behind and suspend my disbelief when I actually start reading it.

Summary

With humor and insight, #1 New York Times bestseller Becky Albertalli explores the nuances of sexuality, identity, and friendship.

Imogen Scott may be hopelessly heterosexual, but she’s got the World’s Greatest Ally title locked down.

She’s never missed a Pride Alliance meeting. She knows more about queer media discourse than her very queer little sister. She even has two queer best friends. There’s Gretchen, a fellow high school senior, who helps keep Imogen’s biases in check. And then there’s Lili—newly out and newly thriving with a cool new squad of queer college friends.

Imogen’s thrilled for Lili. Any ally would be. And now that she’s finally visiting Lili on campus, she’s bringing her ally A game. Any support Lili needs, Imogen’s all in.

Even if that means bending the truth, just a little.

Like when Lili drops a tiny queer bombshell: she’s told all her college friends that Imogen and Lili used to date. And none of them know that Imogen is a raging hetero—not even Lili’s best friend, Tessa.

Of course, the more time Imogen spends with chaotic, freckle-faced Tessa, the more she starts to wonder if her truth was ever all that straight to begin with. . .

Posted in Challenges

Kindle Spring 2023 Reading Challenge Guide (11 badges unlocked update)

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! With the start of spring comes the end of the Kindle New Year Kindle Challenge! You can see all the achievements and badges for that here, and start preparing to move on to the new challenge: the Spring challenge! This new challenge runs from April 1, 2023 to June 31, 2023 with 15 possible achievements.

Below is a guide to the Kindle Spring Challenge for 2023. It’s following the same format as the previous challenges (you can see an FAQ here including links to past and current challenges). Prior to the reveal of the criteria for each mystery badge, the hint will be shown below. As the mystery achievements are revealed, I’ll update this page to show the criteria for each, and then the badge itself once the challenge is completed!

Kindle Achievements FAQ & all challenge guides
Kindle 2023 New Year Challenge guide

Kindle Spring Reading Challenge Achievements

This one runs from April 1 to June 31, 2023. There are 15 possible achievements.

Days Read

  • Bronze Reader: read on any 15 days during the challenge
  • Silver Reader: read on any 40 days during the challenge
  • Gold Reader: read on any 75 days during the challenge

Books Completed

  • Bookish: read one book
  • Bookworm: read two books
  • Bibliophile: read three books

Streaks

  • Head Start: read one day
  • Perfect Week: read 7 days in a row (Sunday through Saturday)
  • Perfect Month: read every day for a calendar month (ex. every day in April)

Mystery:

  • Overachiever: Unlock this achievement when you complete 8 books between now and June 30. This would place you in the top 25% of readers!
  • Voyager: Unlock this achievement when you read on World Book Day, April 23
  • Escapist: Unlock this achievement when you complete one of our can’t-miss picks for Sci-Fi and Fantasy (list here and linked in badge achievement)
  • Page to Screen: Unlock this achievement when you complete a book from our literary adaptation collection. (list here and linked in the badge achievement)
  • Hint 6/1: Best way to spend a weekend
  • Hint 6/15: Viral reads
Continue reading “Kindle Spring 2023 Reading Challenge Guide (11 badges unlocked update)” →
Posted in Chatty

Word Origins: all the football things

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! It’s about two months past the Super Bowl of American Football, and boy am I missing football. So to help curb my appetite for it, here’s a post of the origins of the word football (in both “soccer” and “American football” senses) and a whole bunch of related words that I learned are apparently just borrowed from things with COMPLETELY different meanings most of the time!

Origins of “football” (yes, both kinds)

When did it first get used?
1300s

What does it mean?
It’s first use just meant generally “an outside game where you kick a ball” and we have all really made it our own!

The reference to the ball used is like 1350s-ish so not long after it was officially named

“Soccer” as a meaning wasn’t until 1863!

And the American football meaning is in 1869.

That’s all well and good, but what I’m really interested with this is all the related-to-football words that have been dragged in from totally different words and repurposed.

What did it come from?
This is pretty unexciting. It literally came from the words foot and ball, since those were the main components of the game. 😅

All the other football words

Footer:
Used to mean: pedestrian (1600s)
but now it means: a kick at a football (1781)

Continue reading “Word Origins: all the football things” →
The shape of a coffee cup made up of black and brown words. There are steam lines coming off the top, too.
Posted in Chatty

Spot the Difference Game: Author Names on Book Covers

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! Not to get your hopes up with this title, as I do not expect this to be a common thing. xD But I saw one book cover as I was looking through NetGalley titles that stood out to me as being kind of a weird design choice. It was originally weird for a reason all it’s own, but then as I looked at all the other books on the page, it was clearly just weird overall.

So take a look at the list of books below and see if you can find the author name that stands out from the rest. Let me know your guess and why in the comments — then expand to see if we were looking at the same thing!

► Click here to see the “answer” that I was looking at!
    The book second from the left in the bottom row, titled My Darling Girl, has the author’s first name in lowercase, and second name in uppercase. That alone is weird — why mix?? — but literally every other book cover on this page has the author name in all capital letters! No wonder the lowercase caught my eye!

Posted in Chatty

My new reading goal, fueled by determined frustration!

Posted on by Jennifer

Alright y’all, I’ve abruptly gotten fed up with myself. I have all these books that I’ve been various degrees of excited about (from not at all to extremely) that are just taking up room on my shelves and NOT BEING READ! AUGH! It’s really starting to get to me — maybe as an early spring-cleaning frenzy is taking hold of me.

So my new abrupt reading goal for the foreseeable future is to read a bunch of books that I’ve actually spent money on. Then I can decide if I want to keep them, or get them off my shelves and make room for others! Gah! I’m running out of room, and if these are duds then I need them OUT!

So here begins my sudden change in TBR plans. 🙂 Although to be fair, my TBR this month is one I literally described as “slightly aimless” and I’ve completed 3 of the 4 books on that original list — AND the fourth book from that list is also on this one. xD

Book of the Month books that are gathering dust

Aardvark Book Club books that I had never heard of

Other books that I bought just to look at apparently

I’m ready to read with the fury and speed of a thousand suns!!!!

Posted in Chatty

2022 Year in Review, Part 1: Goodreads & Storygraphs Base Stats Version

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! GUESS WHAT I’M FINALLY DOING! 😀 My 2022 wrap up posts basically didn’t happen this year because I just didn’t have the energy for it (lots of formatting 😑) but now here we go!

I’m taking a look at compiling all the delicious data about my reading in 2022, starting with what Goodreads gives me and comparing those stats to what Storygraph has of the same. My main reason for that is because Goodreads has some nice simple presentations of info sometimes, BUT Storygraph is what I actually use daily so it’s more accurate. When differing numbers are given, Storygraph is the winner for sure! To be honest there’s not a ton of point in me using Goodreads when it’s data is bad, but I’m not ready to let go yet so 🤷‍♀️ Maybe next year!

Black backgrounds are from Storygraph, and white backgrounds are from Goodreads!

Books read: 145
Pages read: 51,288
Minutes listened: 7.02h

This is one of my highest years ever, somehow! According to Goodreads, I read 142 books in 2020, so by that count I made it to a new record with the book I read entirely on New Years Eve! xD BUT, according to Storygraph (which is probably more accurate since that’s the one I use daily) I read 145 this year (and 143 in 2020) so I’m actually a few over. But either way, DAMN!

Plus, hey!! I listened to a WHOLE audiobook this year! Usually I’ll dip into one but stop.

Continue reading “2022 Year in Review, Part 1: Goodreads & Storygraphs Base Stats Version” →
Posted in Chatty

March 2023 TBR: slightly aimless

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! Most of my planned reading this month is pretty unstructured, and is largely dictated by what I’m finishing from last month and books I’ve bought on a whim. Buying books itself is honestly really rare for me, as I’m usually plenty able to get what I want and need from the library, but I’ve wanted to support some of my local stores so I’ve been going and choosing one book each month from a local place. Even though I have no more shelf space…. oops.

Anyway, this month is kind of formless! I have mostly books that are in progress already below, and otherwise I have no idea what I’ll end up reading in March.

In progress!

Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni is an LGBTQ+ romance with an Armenian protagonist, and I love me a story that can teach me something about a culture I’m not very familiar with. Plus, love! Self-discovery! All about it. 🙂

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski is a peter-pan inspired story that takes it to the real world. It’s solidly okay, but I put it down a week or so ago and haven’t been really inspired to read it again so I guess it hasn’t totally sucked me in. Still, I do want to finish it and see the resolution.

Just Because

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a book that’s been on my shelf for a long time and I’m finally getting around to reading it. Prompted by the Kindle Reading Challenge, sure, but I’m glad to have some motivation to force me into this one. 🙂

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab is a book I’ve avoided for two reasons: I didn’t like Schwab’s other books I attempted, and I don’t generally enjoy France as a setting. However, this is the book I got at the bookstore yesterday and I had a method: I got a fancy special edition so if I do like it I can enjoy a really nice version, and if I DON’T like it, I might have a better chance at selling it. At the very least if I end up keeping it anyway, I can have a pretty item to decorate my shelf. 😅

So it’s a pretty short list for this month, but chances are high I won’t even finish some of these because that’s just how it goes. xD

Posted in Chatty

February 2023 Wrap Up: can you tell I was tired? xD

Posted on by Jennifer

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

I planned 3 books, AND I READ ALL THREE! WHAT A RARITY! But in total I finished 7 books this month.

The Plan:

I just went for 3 books in February, because I think even at that point I knew how the month would go. xD

The Result:

As I noted, I finished the three I had wanted to get done in February. Thank goodness I had Hero in a Halfling by William Tyler Davis as a lighthearted and fun read, because Her Name is Knight by Yasmin Angoe was WAYYYYY more brutal and violent and hard to read for the subject matter than I expected. I really needed those to counterbalance.

I also stumbled into some unexpected nonfiction this month with Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton (aka Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies) which was a lovely memoir with a good mix of behind-the-scenes fun and personal reflection from him that made me feel warm and fuzzy. This is How Your Marriage Ends by Matthew Fray was one I found from an article about a blog post he wrote years ago. I’m not married and don’t plan to be, but I found it was applicable to any long-term relationship you might have. Honestly, I even used some of the ideas in meetings with coworkers this month! I really enjoyed it overall, from both a practical standpoint of ideas for fixing (or preventing!) relationship problems, as well as from an emotional reflective point that got me thinking and considering.

The Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie probably wins for favorite book this month because of how it made me think, opened me up to new ideas, possibly showed me a spirituality I can embrace, and genuinely entertained and interested me. Super recommend!

Biggest flop of the month was definitely Really Good, Actually which is an ironic-sounding sentence. You can read my review if you want to hear about all the ways it disappointed me. 🤷‍♀️

Reviews Posted in February:

~stats

  • My reading was 29% nonfiction this month
  • My top genres were all tied at one each!!
  • I mostly read books that were reflective, funny, or emotional
  • My average rating was 3.14
  • I traveled to Canada, England, Ghana, and Russia. In the United States I went to Miami.
Continue reading “February 2023 Wrap Up: can you tell I was tired? xD” →
Posted in Chatty

January 2023 TBR: not as much from my shelf as I had planned

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! It’s the first TBR of 2023, and I’m coming in hot by having set a plan in December for how I wanted to start the new year and then immediately doing something different! Here’s to living wildly in 2023! 😅

My original intention was to read a lot of the books that are in my physical library, because I own a lot of books and it’s actually kind of annoying me. I want to read more of them so I can decide if I like them enough to keep them, or if they should be donated, sold on PangoBooks (currently 44 books listed!!), or otherwise swapped out of my collection.

Of course, then I had a few books gifted to me that I wanted to read. And I also had a few library holds come in that have had super long waits, so I don’t want to miss my chance. And then I have an ARC or two to finish in January. So that plan to read only from my shelves is out the window for the month! But that’s okay. I’ll use those as my filler books when I’m in between titles or mood-reader swerving into something different.

So with all of that in mind, here’s my first TBR for the year and what I’m hoping to read in January.

If you insist…

Each of these books has something that is kind of making me have to read it this month. None of that is bad, but it does force them onto my list!

Before The Coffee Gets Cold is the choice for my book club in January. I’m a little on the fence about that because it’s a book that I’ve looked at many times and ended up deciding that it would probably be too intellectual for what I really want. However, now that it’s a book club pick, I guess I’m giving it a shot! I really hope that my impression previously was wrong, and I end up falling in love with it.

Continue reading “January 2023 TBR: not as much from my shelf as I had planned” →