End of Month Reading Update

 I will have three more review posts up today, and another three tomorrow, but I wanted to stop and share my stats for January, as I think they're mostly set in stone now. I might add one more book to the pile, but it can probably wait for Monday to finish, so here's what I've got for the first month of 2021:

I read a total of 24 books, plus one I did not finish, and managed to finish off three series on my backlog. My top three genres were Romance, Fantasy, and YA, but it feels odd to have YA in there as a genre, so my third could also be seen as Myth, Folklore and Fairy Tale stories. The formats I got for these books were Audio Books (21), E-Book (2), and Physical (1). Of those books, 19 of the Authors were female, and 5 were male. The books were split almost evenly between male (15) and female (18) characters, in part because a lot of books had multiple or at least dual pov. 12 of the books I read had LGBTQIA content, and 11 had non-white characters.

The newest book I read was The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, which was published in 2020. It was an interesting follow-up to the original Hunger Games Trilogy, but I will leave my specific thoughts for when I review that. My oldest book of the month was The Invisible Ring by Anne Bishop, which was published in 2000, and is the fourth book in her Blood Jewels series, of which I have only read the first three until this reading. Short version review: I loved it. See below.

That's all the stats I'm currently tracking, but that may change. I'm still debating this, but I may start tracking the age-range of each book, so YA will end up in that section if I do. I'm still debating the categories, but I will probably track: Middle Grade, YA, New Adult, and Adult. I don't really read any kids books these days, but if that changes (unlikely), I will add that as well.

Best book of the month: The Invisible Ring by Anne Bishop. Again, I will leave my specific review for that post, but seriously, if you haven't read these books yet, definitely give them a try. I won't say they're for everyone, but if you like fantasy with magic and a dark twist, you may very well really enjoy these books. You should definitely give them a look. Oh, and I just have to say Daemon Sadi is one of my all-time favorite characters ever, and I am so glad he was in this book to remind me why.

Runners up for best book:

• The Gentleman's Guide to Getting Lucky by Mackenzi Lee
• Fire by Kristin Cashore
• Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik

So there's my wrap-up.

Currently, I am reading:

• Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Coronation book 3 by Simon Spurrier (unknown, maybe a third of the way through?)
• The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12) by JR Ward (40%)
• Straight on Till Morning (Twisted Tales #8) by Liz Braswell (44%)

I also have two audiobooks on loan from the library right now to follow up Straight on Till Morning:

• So This Is Love (Twisted Tales #9) by Elizabeth Lim
• Dreams Made Flesh (Black Jewels #5) by Anne Bishop

So I will definitely be starting February off right, book-wise. 

And my next five on hold, according to the King County Library System:

• Extras (Uglies #4) by Scott Westerfeld
• The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials #2) by Philip Pullman (I've already pushed this off several times, so we'll see if I actually get it and listen to it)
• Kushiel's Justice (Imriel's Saga #2) by Jacqueline Carey
• The Empire of Gold (Daevabad Trilogy #3) by SA Chakraborty
• Bitterblue (Graceling #3) by Kristin Cashore

If I finish both Twisted Tales books, I'll be caught up with that series, though they seem to be coming out fast and furious, so I'm sure there will be more. Bitterblue will also catch me up on that series, though there is a new one coming out this year, so I definitely won't be done. Extras and Empire of Gold should be the ends of both of those series, so that will be two more finished series, though I don't think I'm done with either author. I really enjoyed Uglies, and want to pick up Leviathan, which I have the hardback of. And SA Chakraborty is an amazing author, and I can't wait to see what she does next.

So that's all for this post! If you've read any of these books, I'd love to hear your opinions on them! I'm having so much fun reading through my series this year. It's going better than when I did it a few years ago, because I wasn't nearly as organized, and I didn't have my library card at the time. Hope everyone out there is finding lots of great books to read!