Hi everyone! Today I’m doing something a little different. Normally, this would just be a TBR post, but since I’ve really been slacking with posting on this blog for the past couple of months, I wanted to talk a little about what my goals are for both posting and reading this month—plus, this month, I definitely need to get back on top of both my blogging and reading game, because I’m participating in my first ever blog tour!
I was chosen to be one of the stops for the blog tour for The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang, hosted by Karina from Afire Pages! The author kindly provided me with a free review copy, which I am incredibly grateful for. I’m so excited to finally get around to reading and reviewing this book! If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a standalone (!!), Japanese-inspired military fantasy that has been described as a cross between The Poppy War and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I haven’t yet read The Poppy War (though I want to), but if you’ve been around this blog for a while, you probably know about my undying love for Avatar: The Last Airbender, so that comparison immediately sold me on this book. I mean, who doesn’t love elemental magic? And standalone fantasy books?? This book sounds like it’ll be right up my alley.
With all that being said, I suppose it’s pretty obvious that one of the books on my TBR for this month is The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang, since I’ll be reviewing it later this month. I do, however, have a couple other books I want to read, so let’s get into that now.
Like last month, I’m keeping my TBR pretty small in November. Other than The Sword of Kaigen, I’m only giving myself the goal of reading two books. If I end up reading more, that’ll be great, but I’m not going to get my hopes up.
Of the two I’m aiming for, the only book I know for sure I want to read is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling. I was supposed to read it last month, but I didn’t get around to it, and now it’s looking less and less likely that I’ll meet my goal of completing the Harry Potter series by the end of the year. If I finish that book, I might just move on to The Half-Blood Prince immediately, but I also have several other options I’m interested in, such as:
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan. I’m still in a Percy Jackson kind of mood, and since last month, the only book I completed was The Titan’s Curse, I figure I might as well continue with my reread of this series.
The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. In-keeping with the rereading spirit, I started reading this book last month, and I’m loving it, so I’m hoping I might be able to finish it this month, and maybe even move on to the other two books in the trilogy (though of course I really should be reading new books).
Starsight by Brandon Sanderson. This is the sequel to Skyward, which I read and loved last year, and it’s coming out at the end of November. I’d love to read it as soon as it comes out.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin.
Rebel by Marie Lu. When I first heard there was going to be a continuation of the Legend trilogy, I was excited—but now I feel a little iffy. I think I still want to read this book (and I bought a physical copy, so it would kind of be a waste of money if I didn’t), but I’m a little apprehensive.
Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake.
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks.
I have others I’m interested in reading, too, but I don’t think going through my whole TBR is going to be helpful. Those are some of the books that are the most intriguing to me at this moment. By the time I get to a point where I’m ready to read my third book this month, though, I might not feel like reading any of the books I just listed. Who knows?
Anyway, as you can see, I have a lot of options to choose from. I’m really hoping this month will turn out better than the last few did—and not just with reading. Like I said above, I also wanted to talk a little about my goals for blogging this month.
Really, I only have one, and it’s the same one I’ve had since the beginning of the year: post once per week. Since I haven’t been sticking to that the past few months, though, I thought that maybe by setting that as my goal in a public blog post, I might actually be motivated to follow through with it.
I’m the kind of person who has trouble following through with goals when I’m the only one it affects, but as soon as I have someone else counting on me, my productivity really goes up. So I’m hoping that knowing I’ve said I’m going to post once a week will actually get me to do it. We’ll see.
Anyway, thanks for reading! I’ll see you soon with another post!
Question of the day: What are you planning to read this month? Or, if you’re not into monthly TBRs, what’s your current read? Let me know down in the comments!
-Ariel