Underwhelming reading in 2022

I was absent on making posts in 2022. for most of the year. My reading was down and without it there was no inspiration for posting at all. There was this heavy cloud of guilt weighing over my had all the time and constantly coming up with same excuses just seemed wrong. I actually know people who always explain their lack of reading this way for years now. And it used to annoy me but now it only makes me sad. For clarification, I’m talking about people who buy more books than can fit into their living spaces, go to book clubs and do bookish events and like to talk about books – BUT when it comes to actually reading books, there is always the same excuse.

I did not want to be like that so I just stopped my posting until I could get my stuff together, manage my schedule and plan my time better to read and enjoy my bookish hobby properly. I’m not saying I have it all figured out now. It is a work in progress and I am glad to report on the progress. Like that saying goes – life is what happens while you are busy making plans…

Enough with the sus intro, here is what I actually read last year:

January

This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay ★★★★

Vampire Stories by Richard Dalby ★★★

February

Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5) by Martha Wells ★★★★★

Born in Fire (Fire and Ice Trilogy, #1) by K.F. Breene ★★★★

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo ★★★★

March

Neustrašive: žene koje žive po svom by Pénélope Bagieu ★★★★★

Holes (Holes #1) by Louis Sachar ★★★★★

Dragi autore ili kako odbiti remek-djelo by Riccardo Bozzi ★★★★★

Take It As A Compliment by Maria Stoian ★★★★

April

Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega, #6) by Patricia Briggs ★★★★★

Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove #2) by Shelby Mahurin ★★★

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick ★

May

The Poison Diaries (The Poison Diaries, #1)  by Maryrose Wood ★★★

June

The First Wives Club by Olivia Goldsmith DNF

Ima jedna priča… (2nd ed) by Mauro Lacovich ★★★★

Doručak by Dinko Mihovilović ★★

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain ★★

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi ★★★

July

Book of Night (Book of Night, #1) by Holly Black ★★★★★

The October Country by Ray Bradbury ★★★★

The Martian by Andy Weir ★★★★

Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove #3) by Shelby Mahurin ★★★

August

The Pool Boy (Nashville Neighborhood, #2) by Nikki Sloane ★★★★

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe  DNF

Book Love by Debbie Tung ★★★★

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig ★★★★

Shattered (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #7) by Kevin Hearne ★★★★

Mythos: mitovi (Stephen Fry’s Great Mythology, #1) by Stephen Fry ★★★

September

The Diary of a Bookseller (The Diary of a Bookseller, #1) by Shaun Bythell ★★★

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black ★★★★

October

Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond (The Hollows, #10.1) by Kim Harrison ★★★

Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3) by Lisa Kleypas ★★★★★

November

The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl ★★★

Kraljica crne obale: i druge priče o legendarnom barbaru by Robert E. Howard ★★★

December

Donjodravska obala by Drago Hedl ★★★

Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan ★★★★

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo ★★★★

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood ★★★★★

Sword of Destiny (The Witcher, #0.7) by Andrzej Sapkowski ★★★★

House of Many Ways (Howl’s Moving Castle, #3) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★

Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle, #1) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff ★★★★★

Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle, #2) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff ★★★★

Shift (Shifters, #5) by Rachel Vincent ★★★★

My reading 2022. was slouchy at best. As expected, my most active months were August and December which corresponds to work breaks over the year and other life things I was not prepared to confront in 2022. I did some reading challeges and managed to make baby steps toward some personal reading goals. I have cut down on the number of books I read in any given moments and have only one book I am hauling over while I’m trying to finish it – it is none other than my nemesis

The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas

I am happy to report that in the first half of January I have made some progress on The Count! That is how I am going to refer to this book until I finish reading it! Instead of referring to some sexy vampire I have a 1000+ pages poop colored book to haunt me this way.

As for some numbers here is how GR summed it up for me in 2022: I read 42 books total (2 of those are DNF) and a total of 13 631pages (approximately depending on the editions). Biggest book I read was Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove #3) by Shelby Mahurin with 612 pages. Average page count on the books I’ve read in 202 was just over 300 (324) pages. This makes me wonder about all those big books I have on my shelf and how to plan for them better. I have some books I have been looking forward to that are well over 500 pages long and I don’t want them to end up like The Count.

Most popular book I’ve read in 2022 according to GR is The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I still have some reservations about jumping in on the most popular and hyped books but I am slowly considering to read some hits that have been everyone’s favorites for the last few years now – I’m talking about hopping on the late hype train for Sarah J. Mass book series and I know once I start I am probably gonna end up treating them like Pokemon and collect them all!

While the total number of books I have read in 2022 is barely the half of what I hoped to read, the average rating for the books I did read is a good 3,7 out of 5 stars rating. I’m going to think on it as a positive sign for my reading and the books I ended up reading.

Out of the 42 books read 27 were from my own collection which is a pretty good number. I am especially intrigued with the number of books from the library. It just shows that, unlike some years before, I am using the library for more than just few times a year and because of my book club books.

As life goes on, the reading follows and 2023. is already looking better.

Many great reading moments to any who read these random posts of mine and all the best in 2023!

Project Buddy Readathon 2022-2023

We are entering into a third year of our Buddy reading challenge my friend Vivone and I started at the beginning of 2021. We started by choosing 10 books we would both read trough the year. You can check out my initial post on it and the 2021-2022 overview HERE.

We started with ten books and since some of them were part of the series we liked, we decided to keep some extra. And in the second year our reading challenge grew to thirteen books – 10 new chosen titles and 3 books we decided to continue reading in series!

Here are the 2022 books we have chosen and my rating for them:

Buddy Reading list 2022

Holes (Holes #1) by Louis Sachar ★★★★★

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo ★★★★

The October Country by Ray Bradbury ★★★

Kraljica crne obale: i druge priče o legendarnom barbaru by Robert E. Howard ★★★★

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig ★★★★

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick ★

The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl ★★★

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain ★★

Ima jedna priča… (2nd ed) by Mauro Lacovich ★★★★

This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay ★★★★

Sequels from 2021. list:

House of Many Ways (Howl’s Moving Castle #3) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★

Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove #2) by Shelby Mahurin ★★★

Sword of Destiny (The Witcher #0.7) by Andrzej Sapkowski ★★★★

I managed to read all the books we chosen even though my 2022. reading kinda sucked and I squeezed three last books in December. I was surprised at some of the books in a good way and some were not so great. My worst read book out of all of them was definitely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick. and the best one for me was Holes (Holes #1) by Louis Sachar. I am glad we finished both Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy and Serpent & Dove trilogy. I actually pushed myself to finish the Serpent & Dove trilogy and the third book of it on my one in order to get them out of my collection since I did not enjoyed them as much as I had hoped I would. We are still going with The Witcher series as you will see in the list for 2023.

The total of the pages we read was around 4192 depending on the editions we had at hand. Genres varied and this time we even had some horror which neither of us is a fan of. As opposed to the last time we had much more contemporary themed books and just like last time our love of fantastic literature can be seen in our choices. I had to point out that we went down with science fiction having only Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick to represent the genre and we both agreed we were not too thrilled with it. In 2022 our reading did not diversify much if we looked at the author origins and most of our chosen books were from English speaking authors with notable exemptions of one Croatian author and the Witcher series which is originally published in Polish but we read it in English anyway…

For our 2023 picks we did broaden our language of origin scope by adding some Japanese authors to the mix of still mostly English original works. Again most of the copies we tend to read are in English anyway with some books that have Croatian translation mixed in.

Here are our 2023 picks:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

Gallant by V. E. Schwab

The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #1) by Chris Wooding

The City & the City by China Miéville

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

The Cat who saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa

Series that we decided to continue

Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6) by Martha Wells

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers, #2) by Becky Chambers

Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1) by Andrzej Sapkowski

Hours Of The Dragon (The Weird Works Of Robert E. Howard, #8) by Robert E. Howard

Since we ended one books series with Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy there were two book series we decided to continue: The Witcher and Conan’s Adventures in the works of Robert E. Howard. Murderbot Diaries got thrown into the mix because we both read the series before and wanted to catch up on the series together.

Our expectations on the list for 2023. are different for each. By Vivone’s choice we have decided to go low with books that are part of a possible new series and that is the reason most of the books we have are standalone books. From all the standalone books almost all the authors are new and first time reading for both of us. The only two exceptions are Ursula K. Le Guin for Vivone since she read some other books by that author and Philip K. Dick which is in hindsight a strange choice for both of us since the least liked book from 2022. was his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick.

The only book on the list I was very happy to read and will be my first book of the reading challenge to get my hands on is Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6) by Martha Wells. The rest of them I don’t have very high expectations. I hope I get trough the books we picked earlier in the year and not leave as many as three for the last month of the year like I did in 2022!

Reindeer Readathon 2022

This was my third year participating in the Reindeer Readathon. I like how it’s organized and and while I don’t keep up with all activities – reading sprints, giveaways and events by the team leaders I still try my best to do my part. For those who are not familiar with this readathon HERE is a link for my original post explaining how everything works. Not much has changed in that regard, Readathon still lasts trough the whole month of December and there are four teams for people to be a part of. Readers are all put into teams randomly so that each team has a nice spread of all types of readers and participants. Team laeders or hosts are different each year.

This year I was put into Team Stocking and my team host was Kristin from Kristin Kraves Books and you can check out her YouTube videos HERE to find some interesting bookish content and show her some appreciation.

Each year there are some great prompts and some extra ways to get your team more points trough reading. Here are the prompts this time.

Since my reading this past year has been sporadic at best I got all my choices but did not try to get the extras at all. All nine books I’ve chosen were from my own bookshelf and I had fun trying to fit them into the prompts. I did not manage to read trough all nine books for the challenge but did in the end read six books and finished the seventh one just past the deadline on January the first. In order to be fair towards the other teams I did not submit my score for that one.

Here are the possible bonuses

And here are the books I fitted to the prompts:

Dasher – 15 Pts

Finish A Series Or Pick Up A Book That You Started And Put Down. If Neither Of These Are Options, A Short Story/Novella.

Finish A Series: House of Many Ways (Howl’s Moving Castle, #3) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★

Dancer – 10 Pts

A Book With A Cursive/Flowy/Elegant Font On The Cover.

Cursive On The Cover: Holidays Are Hell By Kim Harrison Et. All. – DID NOT READ

Prancer – 20 Pts

A Book With Your Favorite Season On The Cover Or The Book Cover Has Colors From Your Favorite Season On It.

Cover Has Colors Of Favorite Season: Daughter Of The Deep By Rick Riordan ★★★★

Vixen 15 Pts

A Book You Want To Read But Think It Might Be Overhyped.

Might Be Overhyped: The Love Hypothesis By Ali Hazelwood ★★★★★

Comet – 25pts

A Book With An Astronomical Word In The Title (Sun, Moon, Star, Sky Etc.)

Astronomical Word In The Title: Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2) By Amie Kaufman And Jay Kristoff ★★★★

Cupid – 15 Pts

A Book With A Favorite Trope In It.

Favorite Trope: Shift (Shifters #5) By Rachel Vincent ★★★★ – FINISHED A DAY LATE

Donner – 20 Pts

A Book That You Want To Read But Are Not A Fan Of The Cover.

Not A Fan Of The Cover: Sword Of Destiny (The Witcher #0.7) By Andrzej Sapkowski ★★★★

Blitzen – 20 Pts

Use A Random Number Generator To Find A Number Between 0 And 9 And Find A Book That Ends In That Page Number.

Random Number Generator – 0: Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1) By Amie Kaufman And Jay Kristoff ★★★★★

Rudolph – 15 Pts

Start A New Series.

New Series: Desperate Measures (Wicked Villains #1) By Katee Robert DID NOT READ

Thoughts on the reading challenge

I liked participating in Reindeer Readathon. It helped me get back on my feet in reading more and assisted in ending the year on a high note. Thank you Erik from Breakeven Books!

You can show support for his content HERE

I did not read all I wanted and planned but I don’t see it as complete fail. If I want to read more I will need to take care of myself better and concentrate on the positive things in life. This type of attitude will help me to create more bookish content and plan better for the future challenges.

Challenge yourself but give yourself the love and support you deserve 🙂

So many books – December 2022

Books I’ve read in December 2022

Donjodravska obala by Drago Hedl ★★★

Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan ★★★★

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo ★★★★

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood ★★★★★

Sword of Destiny (The Witcher #0.7) by Andrzej Sapkowski ★★★★

House of Many Ways (Howl’s Moving Castle, #3) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★

Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle, #1) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff ★★★★★

Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle, #2) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff ★★★★

Shift (Shifters, #5) by Rachel Vincent ★★★★

1. How many books have you read last month? Are you happy with the amount you read?

2022 in general has been a rough year for me. I have been reading sporadically at best and the December was the month with most books read for me – a total of 9 books. I am happy with the amount but did not really reach my goal for December (more on that at the question number 4)

2. What was the best of all the books you’ve read in December? Any scenes or characters that made a lasting impression?

There were two books that helped keep my spirits up and get my reading modjo back. First was The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. While there were often some cringey moments while I was reading the comic situations did help with my mood and I have enjoyed reading it quite a bit too. Second five star book for me in December was Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle, #1) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. I got the first two books totally unplanned on a book fair Interliber in Zagreb in October 2022. I was a bit worried about the space theme and it was actually a test to see if I would like Jay Kristoff’s writing style. It turns out as just what I needed: variety of lovable characters, enough drama between them to launch into space and enough action to keep me reading the second book right after it!

3. Were there any not so good books for you last month? What made it hard or not enjoyable to read?

The two books I enjoyed reading the least in December were (AGAIN) my book club pick for December – Donjodravska obala by Drago Hedl and House of Many Ways (Howl’s Moving Castle, #3) by Diana Wynne Jones. The first one was a bit of a downer with a historical theme and more than one character that were victims to a time and politics of the world they lived in. The hardest part about reading it was the setting of the story is just a few houses down from the place I live in now and the book had some historically accurate portrayals that hit too close to home for me. Not a bad book or story just not something I would read for pleasure. The second book should have been a total opposite of that since its is a teen book with magical setting and the last book in the Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy. For some reason the main character was not really endearing to me and not even Howl and Sophie could not help with my impression of the book. It just felt too childish at times while some parts of the book seemed culturaly foreign to me – like if I grew up in Great Britain I would have a better understanding of the motivation of the characters and some parts of the book. I just could not bridge that gap…

Again, three star does not make these bad books at all just the ones I liked reading the least in December!

4. How did the books you were reading last month fit in your reading plans if you had any?

I challenged myself for a total of 9 books for the Reindeer Readathon in December and since 2 of the books I’ve read were actually not part of the Reindeer Readathon Challenge 2022. I did not read all the books I’ve wanted to read in December. 2 have been totally left out and the third one was only finished on the first day of January – but I’m still counting it here for a more positive outcome on my reading experience.

5. Any updates on the series you are reading or are you starting any new series?

There were quite a bit updates on the books series for me in December! Starting a new book series and reading trough two thirds of it right away with The Aurora Cycle by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. I even ordered the third book right after I finished reading the second one. Shifters #5 by Rachel Vincent has come down to only one book in the series left to finish the whole series which is a bittersweet experience. The book reminded me how much I enjoy my urban fantasy book series with lots of action and good female protagonist! I have finished the Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy by Diana Wynne Jones and while it was not a bad book series I will hold off on acquiring new books by the same author since I could not get into the setting anymore. And the last book series update was for The Witcher #0.7 by Andrzej Sapkowski. This book series I am progressing on a one book a year slow pace since it is a part of a Buddy readathon with a friend – more on that in the next update post (there will be several to note on the books I’ve read in 2022 and the reading challenges in general because while I have not been making posts for a whole year I have been reading and participating in creative bookish things through the year)

6. Would you like to recommend any books or authors you’ve been reading this last month?

My two five star reads in December I have been very skeptical about before starting to read them. The Aurora Cycle by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff I started on as a part of getting the feel to read The Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff which is a really big book I got a while ago and I really wanted to like it. I am much more confident about liking it and hope to get into it this year!

In that regard my recommendation is to give an author a try by learning more about the writing style and more than one book they have out there, if unsure, explore further.

Second read was a book I actually thought I would not like since it had a printed on sticker to label it as The TikTok Sensation. That kind of promo did not really sit well with me but I liked the them and I was in need of a feel good book with a nice ending. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood gave me more than I expected in that. So again my recommendation is that you sometimes need to give authors and stories a chance in spite the marketing that is attached to them.

Final thoughts on December 2022 reading

My reading December 2022 has helped me end the year on a high note and while I still have some regrets and some books I would have loved to squeeze in, I think I did well. Most of the books I read in December 2022 I rated very high and enjoyed reading more than I expected it to. As a whole this month gave me the push I needed to continue with posting about books and bookish things, my reading experiences and sharing the things I enjoy trough this platform.

I am making plans for more updates and sharing of books I’ve read in 2022 and I feel good about reading again which makes December 2022 a good month!