Hello everyone and welcome or welcome back to my blog! I know I took a bit of a hiatus, which was not intentional, but I am back and better than ever! My laptop died and then our car did. Everything is fine now and back to normal! As for my plans, I hope to still post all the rest of my Blogmas posts, they just will not be named that anymore. I will just be posting them in the coming month. I have so much planned for 2021 on top of that and will not be disappearing!
I do want to post a disclaimer that there is an affiliate link at the bottom of this post! It will be clearly labeled and is for Better World Books, a place to buy very cheap, used books.
Without further ado, this will be my January TBR. I will be participating in a few readathons and readalongs in the month of January! All links will be at the bottom for any hosts, announcements or anything else. Please comment down below and let me know what you are reading for the new year!
WINTERWEEN
Winterween is the second round of a spooky themed readathon hosted by Gabbyreads and Oliviareadsalatte. It was originally called Summerween the first go. I love the idea of a spooky readathon and I can't wait to participate once again! This readathon takes place from the 4th to the 10th.
Prompts:
read a book with 'haunt' in the title
read a book with blue on the cover
read a book with a winter setting
read a book in the dark
read a novella/short book (200-300 pages)
buddy read, the haunting of brynn wilder
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil Degrass Tyson
This one will count for a short book. I really am trying to start this year strong with as many of the books on my previous TBR posts as I can! Hopefully, this will be an amazing reading month.
Synopsis: What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.
But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
This one will fit the prompt for a winter setting and a book blue on the cover. I have been wanting to get to this series for a really, really long time and I finally need to do it. I really shouldn't be starting any series, but I do think I can finish this trilogy in 2021... hopefully.
Synopsis: Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal--including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.
Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want--but what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.
trigger warnings: absent parents, child abuse, death, emotional abuse, violence
Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell
This is my third book by Lisa Jewell. I really loved her two previous books I read by her. I thought I had both of them figured out really early in the book and I was so wrong. Plus, I can't do this readathon without reading a mystery or thriller book. I'm going to use this for a book I will be reading in the dark by reading it only at night.
Synopsis: Owen Pick’s life is falling apart.
In his thirties, a virgin, and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a geography teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct, which he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel—involuntary celibate—forums, where he meets the charismatic, mysterious, and sinister Bryn.
Across the street from Owen lives the Fours family, headed by mom Cate, a physiotherapist, and dad Roan, a child psychologist. But the Fours family have a bad feeling about their neighbor Owen. He’s a bit creepy and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night.
Meanwhile, young Saffyre Maddox spent three years as a patient of Roan Fours. Feeling abandoned when their therapy ends, she searches for other ways to maintain her connection with him, following him in the shadows and learning more than she wanted to know about Roan and his family. Then, on Valentine’s night, Saffyre Maddox disappears—and the last person to see her alive is Owen Pick.
trigger warnings: References to rape and sexual assault, drug use
Buzzwordathon
This is a readathon I haven't actually done before. However, it was created by Booktuber Books and Lala. The first week of every month, we will get a word or theme, and read books centered around that term or theme. She has created a Goodreads group where this readathon can happen every month. Everyone can suggest books for other people to read, vote on the group books, and share their own TBRs. My TBR for each month, except maybe two of them, are up on the Goodreads group now. January's word is Dream.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
This not only has the word Dream in it, it is the group book for January. I have always considered reading this book and have even checked out of the library physically before, but haven't got to it. Again, I shouldn't be reading this because it is the first in the series. However, I do think the sequel will fit for another months theme!
Synopsis: The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.
What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?
The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?
trigger warnings: descriptions of rape, emotional abuse and physical abuse, references to murdered children, self-harm
We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
This is one that was on my TBR in 2021 for Believathon. I didn't get to most of that TBR, but I still want to eventually. I love middle grade books and I know I will probably love this book.
Synopsis: Cash loves basketball, Dr. J, and a girl named Penny; he's also in danger of failing seventh grade for a second time. Fitch spends every afternoon playing Major Havoc at the arcade and wrestles with an explosive temper that he doesn't understand. And Bird, his twelve-year-old twin, dreams of being NASA's first female shuttle commander, but feels like she's disappearing.
The Nelson Thomas siblings exist in their own orbits, circling a tense, crowded, and unpredictable household, dreaming of escape, dreaming of the future, dreaming of space. They have little in common except an enthusiastic science teacher named Ms. Salonga—a failed applicant to the Teacher in Space program—who encourages her students to live vicariously through the launch. Cash and Fitch take a passive interest, but Bird builds her dreams around it.
When the fated day arrives, it changes everything.
Other TBR books:
Elantris, Hope of Elantris, and Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson
I am joining a readalong for Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere. The announcement will be linked below, of course. I started the Cosmere at Way of Kings, which may have not been the best idea. However, I am excited to read some of his shorter books. Each month, they are reading at least one book in the Cosmere. In January, the book is Elantris, but they are also reading Hope of Elantris and Emperor's Soul, which are short stories.
Synopsis: Elantris was the capital of Arelon: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities for the benefit of all. Yet each of these demigods was once an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, leper-like, powerless creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling.
Arelon's new capital, Kae, crouches in the shadow of Elantris. Princess Sarene of Teod arrives for a marriage of state with Crown Prince Raoden, hoping -- based on their correspondence -- to also find love. She finds instead that Raoden has died and she is considered his widow. Both Teod and Arelon are under threat as the last remaining holdouts against the imperial ambitions of the ruthless religious fanatics of Fjordell. So Sarene decides to use her new status to counter the machinations of Hrathen, a Fjordell high priest who has come to Kae to convert Arelon and claim it for his emperor and his god.
But neither Sarene nor Hrathen suspect the truth about Prince Raoden. Stricken by the same curse that ruined Elantris, Raoden was secretly exiled by his father to the dark city. His struggle to help the wretches trapped there begins a series of events that will bring hope to Arelon, and perhaps reveal the secret of Elantris itself.
trigger warnings: violence including violence against children, death, depression
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
I have heard really good and not-so good things about this one. It is another first in a series, of course. I'm really excited to read this and see where I sit on the spectrum of opinions.
Synopsis: In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.
But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.
Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.
trigger warnings: animal death, attempted murder, blood, death, death during childbirth, domestic abuse, famine, homophobia, misogyny, occultism, pedophelia, plague, racism, sexual abuse and assault, slut shaming, starvation, torture, violence, vomit
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Winterween announcement from gabbyreads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX9nQ0dV36Y
Winterween announcement from Oliviareadsalatte: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YOrwi2mR9Q
Buzzwordathon on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1111928-buzzwordathon
Cosmere readalong announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujy8QJbhh1A&t=183s
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