Good morning, fellow readers! Seasonal allergies are currently kicking my butt and I’ve been busy trying to finish a chonky ARC. So I haven’t been as present on the blogosphere lately. Regardless, I squeezed in a few posts and it’s now time to do the Quarter Year Crisis book tag. Chris tagged me for this one, though it was originally created by Roisin’s Reading on YouTube.
This tag is a fun look at how the first three months of the year were with respect to reading and such. But it’s April now, so my answers include anything up through mid month. So I’m not too far ahead to complete this tag! Let’s get started.
How many books have you read so far?
I’ve read 32 books so far this year. This is above and beyond the number of books I expected to read by mid April given by 2023 goal is 52 books. This is largely in part to discovering that I can listen to nonfiction audiobooks while doing mundane house chores and still retain the bulk of the plot.
Have you already found a book you think might be a 2023 favourite?Ā If not, what was your favourite book you read that wasnāt quite five stars?
I do have a book that will likely be a 2023 favorite. But I hesitate to say it will be my top book of 2023 since there are still 8.5 months left to go in the year. Regardless, I gave FUNNY FEELINGS by Tarah DeWitt five stars recently. I absolutely adored it. I read it on Kindle Unlimited and loved it so much I bought myself a copy. It looks like it got picked up by St. Martin’s Press for re-publication in October. The cover has the some art, only the background will be blue and the palette is a bit brighter. So if you want the original cover, get it now!
Any 1-star books / least favourite book of the year?
I haven’t read any one-star books this year. In fact, never have I ever rated anything one star. However, I did give GILDED CAGE, a novella, 2.5 stars. Unfortunately, it is my least favorite read of the year so far. I even tried another one in the standalone series. While it was better, ultimately I decided to move on.
Most read genre so far?
According to StoryGraph, my most read genre is fantasy, to no one’s surprise. Romance and LGBTQIA+ follow in second and third, respectively.
A book that surprised you?
I read LAWN BOY because of its unfortunately proliferation on banned book lists. I had no expectations of it, really. But I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Reading it also confirmed my suspicions that a lot of the reasons provided for putting it on banned lists are inaccurate and lack context. Do your homework, folks.
A book thatās come out in 2023 already that you want to read but havenāt yet?
Well, this prompt is hilarious because there are so many despite feeling like a chicken running around with its head cut off as I read what feels like all the books. Here are just a few:
- EMILY WILDE’S ENCYLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett
- TO FLAME A WILD FLOWER by Sarah A. Parker
- WEYWARD by Emilia Hart
One goal you made that youāre succeeding at
I wrote a list of 2023 bookish goals here. One of the goals in which I’m succeeding is to read 52 books by the end of 2023. With 32 books read, I’m more than halfway to that goal with plenty of time left to go. I also made a goal to improve my SEO. And I think it’s working because I do get more referrals from search engines now. Most recently my book review of TO SNAP A SILVER STEM took off, I think because the third book came out at the end of March.
One goal you made that you need to focus on
I definitely need to focus more on reading from my owned, physical backlist of books. This week I made a pile of books that I plan to donate or sell once I read them. I put them on top of the fire place mantle so I reach for those first rather than something else. My percentage of backlist reads from my own collection is quite low.
New to you Bloggers/Booktubers/ Bookstagrammers/Booktokers for 2023 you recommend?
I’m tagging…
If anyone else wants to do the Quarter Year Crisis book tag, then feel free! If I tagged you and you don’t want to do it, that’s ok, too.
Thank you for mentioning me, Celeste! I’m so glad I discovered your blog as well. I’m probably going to wait and do the “Mid Year” tag I do every July instead of this one, but this is a really fun tagš
You’re welcome! I didn’t realize there’s also a mid-year tag, so I’ll keep an eye out for that on your blog. Hopefully a lot of people participate in it or I’m likely to forget haha.
This is a really fun tag! I’m definitely having a bit of a quarter-year crisis so I should probably do this one too haha.
It sounds like you’re having a pretty great reading year so far! I actually didn’t set any reading goals this year except the continuous goal to actually read the books on my physical TBR lol, I’ve been mostly listening to audiobooks so all my physical books are just sitting on my shelves (well, they’re crammed onto my shelves because I am out of space once again). You mentioned that you listened to nonfiction audiobooks, do you have any recommendations/anything you particularly enjoyed?
Ha well, as you saw in my answers above, trying to stick to a physical TBR is tough when there are so many options in the library, on NG, etc.! I hope you’re having better willpower than I with that goal, lol!
With respect to nonfiction audiobooks, I really enjoyed THE PRINCESS DIARIST by Carrie Fisher, which is read by the author; I liked it because I got to hear how funny and full of dry humor she was. If you like self help style nonfiction, I also liked FEEDING THE SOUL by Tabitha Brown–she’s so positive; she’s religious so there’s definitely an undertone of that, but if you’re not that’s ok too (I’m not) as it’s very approachable & has just good advice in general. I love her southern accent, too.
I did listen to a handful of fiction audiobooks. THE SUBTLE KNIFE (book 2 of His Dark Materials) was great. And the graphic audio productions of the ACOTAR series are phenomenal.
This is such a fun tag! I loved reading through what this year has looked like for you so far. I also adored Funny Feelings! I gobbled it up and then immediately watched Taylor Tomlinson’s latest stand-up special on Netflix. I’m 99.9% sure Farley is based on her! It’s a great book. I’m interested to see what you think of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. I read it and I feel like I haven’t seen many people share the same thoughts as me haha.
FUNNY FEELINGS ended up being one of those books I wish I could read again for the first time. Maybe I’ll try watching Taylor Tomlinson again. I got annoyed with her when watching one of her specials–the one where she just goes on and on and on about wedding stereotypes…I felt it just harped too much on women and while I’m not that sensitive when it comes to that kind of stuff, it just got on my nerves because it seemed like the only joke she was going to tell in the special. *rant over* lol.
Not sure when I’ll get to the Faeries book! I think I saw on your blog your rating was a bit lower than a lot of others I’ve seen?