Wrap Up | January 2019

Thanks to January’s late-a-thon, 2019 is off to a pretty good start. Although I’ve been horrifically busy with my PhD application and starting a new job I was able to get a fair few overdue ARCs finished up as well as (finally) posting to a reasonably consistent level. Thank you to all of you who have been cheering me along my PhD application journey and leaving such ace comments on my posts this month 💚

Read

→ The Poppy War by R.F Kuang – ★★★★★ ←
→ Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray – ★★★★☆ ←
→ Brave New Girls: Tales of Heroines Who Hack edited by Paige Daniels and Mary Fan– ★★★★☆ ←
→ Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce – ★★★★★ ←
→ Moonstruck: Volume 1 by Grace Ellis & Shae Beagle – ★★★★☆ ←

I’m pretty happy with the number of books I read this month, especially as 3 of them were overdue ARCs that I’ve had since mid-2018, although I am also a bit disappointed that I had to DNF 2 ARCs (Free Chocolate by Amber Royer and The Science of Science Fiction by Mark Brake). I had hoped to have read a few more ARCs to get myself back on track a bit more but I’ve been trying to be patient with myself given that I have so much going on at the moment. My book of the month is The Poppy War which absolutely blew me away but Tempests and Slaughter which is definitely a close second!

Games

Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee

Given everything that’s going on, I’m majorly impressed that I found so much time to spend playing video games this month but pouring most of my leisure time into playing games (rather than just reading) turned out to be a godsend for my mental health. Whenever things get busy in my life, I always put video games aside and pile pressure on myself to be more productive which, of course, results in my feeling more stressed and depressed. However, as “playing more video games” was one of my 2019 goals, I effectively tricked myself into playing games without feeling guilty haha.

The first part of January was 100% devoted to playing Far Cry 5 and I am in love with that game. It is incredible. I love the story, the companions and the world itself. I loved it so much that me and my partner spent many nights playing it until 4/5 in the morning!

Far Cry 5 got put on the back burner a bit though during the latter part of the month as I (finally) got a Nintendo Switch and have been having so much fun playing on it. I’ve wanted one for ages and it was 100% worth the wait. Most of my time has been spent playing Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee! as well as starting a new game of Stardew Valley. If you have a Switch and want to add me then leave a comment below/DM me ❤

On the Blog

If there’s one thing that I’m the happiest with this month it’s definitely the amount of content I posted and the consistency I managed to achieve. Being able to organize myself enough to post new content on a regular basis has always been a huge struggle for me, but the combination of having a weekly routine from my job and Kaleena’s spreadsheet have helped me to be on point with my organization. I even managed to take part in a few meme – WWW Wednesday – so you can keep up to date with my latest reads!

Here’s a quick round-up of all the content from January ICYMI:

January TBR | #late-a-thon edition
Book Tag | Musical Shuffle
Down the TBR Hole | #2
ARC Review: Green Jay and Crow
Games I want to play in 2019
TTT | 2019 Most Anticipated Releases
Book Tag | The Last 10
Discussion | How to Hype Your Favourite Reads
TTT | New-to-me Authors for 2019
WWW Wednesday | 16th January 2019
ARC Review: Brave New Girls
Down the TBR Hole | #3
TTT | Lesser Known Books I Meant to Read in 2018
WWW Wednesday | 22nd January 2019
Series Review: Constellations #1 and #2
University Reading List | The Undergraduate Edition
TTT | Recent TBR Additions
WWW Wednesday | 30th January 2019
State of the ARC | #6 Late-a-Thon

As I said, I’m super pleased with how January turned out for me and I couldn’t think of a better way to start off 2019. I’m looking forward to seeing what February brings me although as it’s already the 4th and I’m only just posting up my January Wrap Up I have a feeling I might find it harder to balance everything this month!

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