Dancing Out of January 2017

A month that brought me some snow. Something that I quite enjoy. But there were also bookish candles, plenty of books and a good start to getting my backlist books down.

The Reading Challenge

The Numbers

# Read 60 Books
Read this month: 8
Total: 8/60

1. The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn 1) by Renee Ahdieh – 4 stars
2. De Klauw (Magycker 1) by Adrian Stone – 3,5 stars
   Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed – DNF
3. Sorcerer to the Crown (Sorcerer Royal 1) by Zen Cho – 4,5 stars
4. Labyrinth Lost ( by Zoraida Cordova – 3,5 stars
5. The Rose and the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn 2) by Renee Ahdie – 3 stars
6. Legal Drug volume 1-3 by Clamp – 4 stars (reread)
7. Gilded Cage (Dark Wars 1) by Vic James – 4 stars
8. Calamity (The Reckoners 3) by Brandon Sanderson – 2,5 stars

I enjoyed doing the DA readathon though I wish I had been more active on social media and that I had read more books than the four. But it is what it is.

Favorite

Sorcerer to the Crown. Read it everyone!

Dissapointed

Labyrinth Lost and The Rose and the Dagger. I had expected a bit more from both of them.

The TBR and Backlist Challenge

# Unread Books
Total unread books on shelf start of 2017–  (-1 because dnf book went on unhaul pile) 144
Books read in January (that count) – 7
Books bought/received in January (no ebooks, classics or books I already read previously) – 3
Total unread books on shelf end of January – 140

This is a rather reasonable start to the year I feel. I got more ebooks this month though, haha. Shh. I read more than I bought so regardless this is a good thing.

Backlist books read in January – 6
Total – 6/50

Good start to this too. I’m hoping to keep this up. Go Ravenclaw.

How Was January for Me?

⌘ I hit over 300 wordpress followers. So thank you very much!

⌘ We had snow a few times this month and the last time it stayed partly for 3 days or so which was a lot of fun.

⌘ There was a Mad Hatter Tea Party for the release of the Dutch Cinder. I wanted to go but it was on a Sunday and in Eindhoven. The trains from my city would not get me there in time. Otherwise I would have to go to the nearby city and take the train there but even then I’d still be in the train for more than 2 hours so I decided against going. I was sad.

⌘ But at least I got this Cinder bookish candle as well as one from Six of Crows that I bought from the Dutch Letters and Lights!

⌘ Grandpa had another day with Merijn which went well. He sleeps so little then though. Trying not to worry about that, haha. But I finished a book in an afternoon and spend half the morning on the blog without having to listen whether or not Merijn was waking up. I even lazily lounged on the couch watching some tv.

⌘ Overall  I guess I didn’t feel too bad over the month. I mean, I got comments that I seemed a bit more relaxed than previous months so I suppose that is a good thing. The meds help a lot with that.

5+ Months. I love this shirt.

⌘ Merijn went from 5 to 4 bottles and now sleeps from about 19.30 to 06.00/07.00 without waking up. He also sleeps in a big boy bed as we call it. He had my old cradle, that could be rocked but with a pin in the side it couldn’t. He moved so much in the cradle that the pin came out and the cradle tipped sideways a bit. So we immediately changed beds that weekend. He has found his feet too.

What Happened on the Blog?

Reviews

⌘ A Million Worlds With You (Firebird 3) by Claudia Gray
⌘ The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury
⌘ Caraval (Untitled 1) by Stephanie Garber

Top Ten Tuesday
2016 Releases I Meant to Read // Top Hidden Gem Books I Read in 2016 // Favorite Photos From My Bookstagram in 2016 //

Other Posts
Dancing Out of December 2016 // Dancing Out of the Year -Looking Back on 2016 // 2017 Reading Goals // 2016 End of the Year Survey // Top 16 Books of 2016 // Book Buying Ban? No, a Book Buying Budget! // Reading Statistics 2016

What Did I Watch?

⌘ Game of Thrones season 5 – Episode 6 to 10 – Finished
I found the last three episodes the strongest which seems to be the case a lot with GOT to be honest. But parts I already knew were going to happen like with Cersei and I was just a bit bored waiting for it to happen.

⌘ Supernatural season 11 – Episodes 1 and 2
I felt a tad bit underwhelmed with this season starter to be honest. Feels like they took elements from previous seasons and combined them . And seriously, the Darkness? At least Crowley is being as ass again.

⌘ The BFG movie
I might have to rewatch this as when we were watching it one afternoon Merijn was not sleeping his nap well so I had to leave the movie a few times. That takes away from ones enjoyment.

Best of My Bookstagram

Best Liked

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A post shared by Annemieke (@signourney)

Others

Elsewhere

Blogs

⌘ Kristen from Metaphors and Moonlight announced her intention to create a masterlist of sci-fi/fantasy books with dissability
⌘ Have you seen Disability Diaries? Dyslexia in Ya // Trauma and Psychosis in Harry Potter // Harry Potter and the Representation of Scarring // Why do we need Disability Diaries?
⌘ Naz from Read Diverse Books has compiled a list of books with LGBTQIA Asian Protagonists
⌘ Cait from Paper Fury wrote a post about authors not being their characters and if authors should agree with everything they write
⌘ La La in the Library dedicated a sunday post to women’s march
⌘  Ava from Bookishness and Tea shared a list of if you liked this popular book, try this diverse one
⌘ The Book Satchel wrote a great review on Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. You should know how much I love that book by now. She also shared a great list of Indian books published in 2016 to check out.

Dutch Blogs

⌘ Joany from NerdyMommy is going to start a BookBlogRing. She also wrote an article about why she rarely organises giveaways.
⌘ Liesbet from Zwartraafje created various lists of her 2016. For instance what she did, bookish year in numbers, favorite fantasy books and so on.
⌘ Emmy from Zon en Maan shared her 2016 in books. She also wrote a post about how to promote your book blog.
⌘ Marcia from Oog op de Toekomst shared her 2017 bookshelf infographic
⌘ Vivian from The Book Review has 6 tips for non-review posts on the blog
⌘  I was glad to see some diversity posts this month amongst Dutch blogs like Joanny from NerdyMommyabout own voices books and Sophie from Dande Leander about writing diversely and out of your comfort zone.

Booktube

What Is Up Next Month?

⌘ Reviews have started back up at the middle of January and each week there should now be at least one review going up on Thursday and/or Friday. I am going to try that the reviews of books I read during the month will be up the month after that. Otherwise it feels too long before a review goes up since I read it. In the same month will most often not happen as I don’t have the chance to write reviews right away.

Possible TBR for Februari

⌘ February feels like a busy month for me though I guess that shows how much I am used to, haha. My parents came at the end of January and will stay for a week. After that I will have weekly visits from a volunteer that is going to help me out sort through things in my head and so on from the post partum depression. I am going to an author evening at bookstore Westerhof and after that we will go on a little vacation with Maarten’s parents. In the Netherlands. but still… Do you know what all I have to pack for Merijn???

⌘ Considering the above I am not expecting to read a whole lot. Not the amount in January in any case. But I’d still like to get through some books like a review copy and to continue on with some series. A Conjuring of Light is also coming out in February so I am hoping to get to that as well.

Linking-Up

The Sunday post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. This is a bit of a recap post of the week (or month) where you can link to the posts you made this week, share news and wrap up your reading.

Links

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