Tag: reading plans

March TBR | Reading Plans

DeAnneLeave a comment

How is it already the end of February?! I know it’s the shortest month, but it went by SUPER fast. Still, I find that when I get towards the end of the month I’m really excited to draw my cards to figure out my stack of six books that I put on my TBR. As a refresher I did take inspiration for this from others, but made the rules my own. If I don’t complete the books I don’t punish myself, I’m simply using this as a fun way to try and tackle my (mostly) physical TBR. Any books not finished do get carried over and I can pick them up in following months if I am in the mood to.

With that, here’s how March’s cards came out:

2 of Spades – Kindle + YA
9 of Clubs – Anthologies
5 of Diamonds – YA
10 of Hearts – Historical
9 of Spades – YA + Color
7 of Clubs – Contemporary

For the first challenge I browsed my Kindle for something that was calling to me and decided to finally finish A Tyranny of Petticoats, which has been on my currently reading shelf longer than I would like to admit. The anthology I grabbed from my stack is Color Between the Lines which I’m super excited for.

Next I decided to go with Pet for my YA pick since it’s something I picked up recently and want to pick up sooner rather than later. Historical is a hard category with me and I’ve pretty much decided I’m going to switch out the Historical prompts for something else in the future – I just don’t have enough books to choose from for this prompt. My pick is definitely stretching it, The Saturday Night Ghost Club – but I decided it counted since it’s set in the 80s.

For YA + Color I turned to the random color generator and came up with a very unique mustard yellow/gold color. For this one I had some difficulties, but my boyfriend agreed that the balloons on 10 Blind Dates were close enough to count.

Again, the last choice was a stretch – when I pick Contemporary I don’t necessarily need contemporary to be the main focus, I just consider it something set in the contemporary setting, so because I wanted something a bit spooky in my TBR I went with The Haunted since people do have it shelved as contemporary on Goodreads (hey! my game, my rules haha).

So those are my plans for March (besides review books and mood reading) and I’m excited. Hopefully I’ll make my way through them!

Happy reading!

February TBR | Reading Plans

DeAnneLeave a comment

Hey everyone! Well, another month has pretty much passed us by. Where did January go? It’s been a pretty good reading month and with a couple more reads I’m trying to get a couple more reads in, but I’ll discuss that in my wrap up (yes, wrap ups are coming back!). As of writing this post I have read four of the six books that I picked for January and I’m hoping to finish at least one more before the month ends. As a reminder I’m not punishing myself if any are unfinished – I am carrying them over and picking them up as I can, but I’m not pressuring myself with any punishments or anything. My wrap up will come in a few days, but for now let’s get to what the cards determined for February.

4 of Diamonds – Netgalley
2 of Spades – Kindle + YA
Jack of Clubs – Under 300 Pages
King of Clubs – Rich’s Stack of 5
10 of Hearts – Historical
2 of Clubs – Classic

Most of these made me sigh with relief as I was hoping for a slightly lighter month – especially since I’m always playing catch up due to the century that was 2020. For the most part I was really happy with what the cards revealed.

For my NetGalley pick I went with the next blog tour I have scheduled, so This Golden Flame will be covering that card pick. For the Kindle + YA I have a collection on my kindle that is just YA, so I decided to be kind to myself and chose a short story/novella, which was The Automaton’s Treasure.

Under 300 pages did make me cheer just a bit and I was super excited to grab Kiki’s Delivery Service right off my book cart. Rich got it for me for Christmas and I have been dying to read it ever since, so I jumped at the chance to squeeze it into the TBR.

I groaned just slightly when that king card came up, just because most of the books Rich chose when I started this challenge are a bit on the larger size and I had already had one of the stack of 5 on January’s TBR. For this one I ended up going with Kill Creek.

Historical is one that will probably be removed from the board at some point just because I don’t have a ton of historical books – but for this category I’m including other genres that may have a historical setting, so I went with Stalking Jack the Ripper since I really need to get to that series.

Finally we landed on classic and I won’t lie, I was cringing just because I haven’t been in the mood for classics, but then I remembered that I still have some Shirley Jackson that I haven’t read so I leapt at the chance to pick up Let Me Tell You by her. Even though it was released only a few years ago, it’s previously unreleased work by her, so I’m counting it.

So there we have it! I think this months picks will be mostly easy to handle and if nothing else, fun to read!

Happy reading!

December TBR and Reading Plans

DeAnne4 Comments

I’ve taken a break from doing monthly reading plans and TBRs because 2020 has not been conducive to my reading habits. I had a number of months where my anxiety and stress were so bad that it threw me into a major slump.

Well, I’ve decided it’s time for them to come back! This is for a number of reasons – firstly because I like having some kind of plans, but also because I really want to tackle my ‘backlist’ and have something outside of review books.

I’ve been seeing a ton of TBR games floating around on booktube and thought some of them looked so fun and I decided that the best one for me to try would be using a deck of cards to determine my TBR. This is in no way an original idea, I saw versions of this on both Maddi’s and April’s channels. So using the same premise I came up with my own version.

On my board I have 36 total prompts which may get re-organized after a while but for now will be kept the same. There are 15 genre specific prompts, 13 more random or combo prompts and then 8 duplicates (4 from genres and 4 from random).

I then picked out prompts for what would happen if I drew the face cards or an ace. For Jack I have to read a book under 300 pages, Queens result in Calypso picking a book, King would be a book selected from a stack of 5 books that Rich has pre-selected (you can see post-its for these on the bottom right of the board) and an Ace would be a book over 500 pages. Rich and I mutually agreed that I can only draw one Ace per month. I also decided to start with selecting six – if it’s more than I can handle I will decrease it, but otherwise I’m going to stick with it. I’m also not going to give myself a punishment if I don’t complete everything (maybe in the future, but for now I want to enjoy the experience).

After helping me figure out everything and helping me make my board, Rich was just as excited as I was to select things for my December TBR – so we did it right away – here’s what happened!

  • 7 of hearts – Mom pick
  • 4 of hearts – Random Color Generator
  • 2 of diamonds – Middle Grade
  • 5 of diamonds – YA
  • Queen of clubs – Calypso pick
  • 7 of clubs – Contemporary

Hilariously, right after I called my mom and asked her if she was alright with there being a ‘mom pick’ it was the first one I ended up drawing – I read her the titles of five books and she picked Harrow Lake.

For random color I did a random color generator and got a pinkish tone, this one took me a while to find one that fitted, but finally I came up with Throne of Fire having a very similar color throughout its cover.

For middle grade I immediately pulled Dead Voices off of the stack sitting right behind me because I need to read it. For YA I selected one I already have a bookmark in, which is The Silence of Bones.

For Calypso’s pick I presented her with three options and let her see me putting a treat on each of them. Her decision was swift and final, The Last Final Girl it is.

And finally I came to contemporary, this one was another easy pick of one I already have a bookmark in and desperately want to get to – I Believe in a Thing Called Love.

So there you have it, this is my December TBR (besides review books) and we’ll see how I like this new TBR game that I’m trying – I’m super excited! What do you think of TBR games or the rules I have set myself?

Happy reading!

Reading and Writing Plans | September

DeAnneLeave a comment

I don’t know how it happened, but it’s already September! August was a better reading month for me, so I’m hoping that trend continues.

I definitely am still clearing my half read books, though I got really excited with how much I cleaned up my ‘currently reading’ shelf on Goodreads, but I have a stack that wasn’t listed on Goodreads – so those are next. Beyond that getting caught up on review books is always a priority and I have some great blog tours coming this month.

As for writing, it’s actually been going pretty well. It seems that maybe, just maybe, my muse has returned. Hopefully it will stay through November so I can crush NaNoWriMo this year.

Fingers crossed!

Weekend Reading Plans

DeAnneLeave a comment

So where I am it’s already around 3 p.m. in the afternoon on Saturday, but I still thought I would discuss my reading plans for the weekend. I’ve got a lot of ARCs to read and it is ARC August so I’m hoping to make good progress. Since this weekend is projected to be some of the hottest days of the year in my neck of the woods, camping on the couch with a stack of books near the AC is not a bad thing to do.

I’m in the middle of a few different books, so those are definitely top priority on my list. I would really like to tackle my review books because there are so many books I have wanted to request, but haven’t allowed myself to because I want to get more caught up, so the weekends of August will hopefully be devoted to those books (as well as others in my half finished pile).

With that said, wish me luck and it things do well I’ll do an update post to catch up tomorrow evening (fingers crossed)!

Happy reading!