2023 Reading Goals and Challenges

 I'm going to link my 2022 Reading Goals and Challenges since I am pulling a lot from my goals last year since I didn't complete a single one. Last Years Goals. I am going to add and alter some of the goals, and I am going to post some Bookish goals that aren't reading specific.

READING GOALS

1. Goodreads Challenge

Read 50 books over the coarse of the year (I would like to hit 100, but I am only going to aim for 50). I don't want to put overwhelming pressure on me because when I see that I am behind, it stresses me out. I want to aim for 25 YA and Middle Grade, and 25 Adult and NA. I usually include Non-Fiction in my count for Adult books. 

2. Owlcrate Game Challenge

Using the Owlcrate game, et cetera, use the categories to pick my TBR for the month. I was going to finish out all of the categories when I planned this last year, but I am thinking of drawing four - picking four books, and then only aiming to finish one for the challenge. I'm not going to post anything ahead of time for this because there are so many categories.

3. Complete Five Series

I am so bad at finishing series, so I am picking at least five series that I what to prioritize and finish this year over other series that I have yet to complete. I am only including the full-length novels, no novellas for the completion of the challenge.

The first series is the Razorland series by Ann Aguirre. I gave the first book five stars, so I don't know why I never finished the series. If you've never heard of this series, it's a post-apocalyptic horror zombie series.

The next series is Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin. I absolutely loved the first book in this series, so I don't know why I never continued. I loved the first book so much that I read it in almost one sitting (with a slight work disruption).

The third series that I picked, is another series in which I loved the first book, and that is Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco. It is a book that I recommend a lot, so it's tragic that I haven't finished reading the series. (As a bonus, I would also love to finish her Kingdom of the Wicked series, but it won't be in the challenge).

The fourth series is Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I really enjoyed the first book, I loved the atmosphere, and the tone. I just never got around to reading the rest of the series. This is by far the longest series that I need to finish, but I was able to get through the first book in a few hours so I expected nothing less from the rest of the series. Not gonna lie, the Map of Days cover really bothers me because it stands out from the rest.

The fifth and final series that I want to finish is the Cassidy Blake series by Victoria Schwab. I loved the ghostly aspects of the story, and really can't wait to finish with Cassidy's story.

4. Read One Non-Fiction Book

I want to read at least one non-fiction book per month. I just find learning new things and "disrupting" the fiction novels I pick up healthy for me in my reading habits.

BOOKISH GOALS

1. Video Game Book Recommendations

Recommend books that I think you would like if you like playing some of my favorite games. Or if you like the books, I'm recommending, you might enjoy playing the game.

3. Finish Reorganizing My Library

I still need at least one more bookshelf for my library because there is an empty section of my wall, and then finish putting the books I have on the shelves. Finish going through my books to see if there are any that I want to unhaul.

4. Complete the Reading Planner

I am planning on doing a reading planner this year, but in years past, I would start and then as the months progressed, I would slowly stop filling it out. Since this planner is already set-up, I just need to fill in information so I feel like this will be easier than writing up my own planner.

Where Was I... Once Again?

I feel like a lot of you understand how hard it is sometimes to keep up with projects and goals (and then there are those of you who are lucky enough to not struggle with this - and I'm jealous), but the past few years since graduating college have been some of the toughest for me when it comes to reading and posting on social platforms regarding books/reading.

My job takes up a lot of time, and it's a very physically draining job at times. I work in a medical-associated field so I'm moving around a lot, moving heavy equipment, and just standing on my feet some days for the whole eight hours of work. So when I come home, I usually want to wind down by just turning on the tv and listening/watching absently.

I also have other obligations in my life that also take up a decent amount of time, and other things that I do that are very important to me like spending time with family and friends. This means that in a given week, I have a very limited amount of time to read. And I just was never really in the mood to read - I've just been so burnt out with a lot. On top of that, I have really bad anxiety and depression.

This led to probably one of the worst years for me when it comes to reading. I usually set my goal around 75-100ish. This year, I set my goal to 80 books, and I've only read 42 and the majority of those books were read in the earlier months.

So, I still really like posting reviews even if there aren't many people who read them. Just getting to put my thoughts down is cathartic for me so I will continue to do so when I am able. That being said, I will probably not post anything for the month of December because I am going to be working on my blog with pages, reviews, etc. A lot of my current posts will be turned back into drafts as I decide whether I want them to still be available as I "revamp" my blog.

But starting in January, I am wanting to post at least twice weekly that are themed and planned postings. I want to still do a monthly wrap-up and tbr. And reviews will be as I read books and decide whether I want to do a review or not on them. Sometimes, I don't have much to say - which is why three star books just end up not really having full reviews because I tend to lean toward a "meh" feeling and I have no positive or negative commentary about them.

I will probably post at the end of December, a list of goals for reading and for challenges (one of which will be my Game Recommendations idea that I wanted to do back at the beginning of last year). The way that I will probably post this will be the game review, and at the bottom a list of recommendations. Then I will probably post reviews for all of the recommendations. That one is still a work in progress because ultimately I am going to be replaying the games and then finding books that fit the game. Initially, I was planning to do a Plague Tale. This game just ended up being much more of a challenge than I was planning on it being. So I'm not going to say what game I might end up doing first or not because I don't want to struggle to find books like I did last time, and this time, I just want it to be easy and fun.

That's all the current updates I have. Hopefully (as I've said many times before), this year will turn out well when it comes to posting. On a side not, I have a reading planner this year that I am going to attempt to try out to help me stay focused on what I want to accomplish. My ultimate goal is just to just rediscover my love for reading. It's just hard when I struggle finding books that resonate in me the way so many books in the past did.

Review: City of Ghosts (Cassidy Blake #1) by Victoria Schwab

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

Pages: 272

Format: E-Book

Published By: Scholastic

Genre: MG - Paranormal, Horror
Series: Cassidy Blake

Rating:
✮✮✮✮

Review:

The first book in a series following a young girl whose parents are a ghost-hunting team traveling across the world for their new tv show, City of Ghosts was a darker Middle Grade horror novel with just the right number of paranormal spooks for a younger audience.

Cassidy Blake travels to Scotland for the first part of her parents' documentary with her best friend who happens to be a ghost. She was gifted with the ability to travel between the living world and the dead world resulting from a near death experience when she was younger.

In Scotland, things take a very dark turn when Cassidy learns that children have gone missing, and it has something to do with a lady known as the Red Raven. With the help of another girl like her named Lara and her best friend, Cassidy decides to hunt down the Red Raven.

I really liked all of our central characters: Cassidy, Lara, and Jacob. They were very lovable characters, but also very simply written with not a lot of depth to them. I look forward to seeing how they grow as characters in the next books.

Another huge hit was the legend behind the Red Raven. She is based on a Mourning Mother ghost, which is a mother whose children die along with her, and she comes back as a spirit to take children from their parents. She also reminds me of the Piped Piper of Hamelin.

Even though I really enjoyed the novel, I did find the pacing to be slow and the story to be very straight-forward, lacking any surprise twists or turns. Which were the two biggest downfalls of the book. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed this story and cannot wait to continue with the two remaining books in the series.

New Post Idea

 So, I still have a lot to catch up on for this blog - a few reviews that need to be posted - but I am still working on fixing this up. There are old posts that never were published that I am going through and decided if I still want to do that or if I want to just get rid of it. I am also going to probably change the background because I want to see some change. That's a huge reason that you haven't see me post much and hopefully once that all gets wrapped up, I will catch up on a lot of what I need to do for the actual blog.

To throw this out real quick, some reviews you can look forward to:

For my new post idea, I want to give book recommendations based on video games that I play. I have been planning on doing this for some time now, but haven't had the opportunity yet to fully dive into this. But if you like the idea, I want to give a shout-out to Hardback Hoarder over on her booktube channel because she recently also did this.

My goal is to recommend five books that I think give the same tone and vibes that I get from playing the games. I am hoping that I can look for new books to recommend, so it's not going to be a quick turnaround time for this post. I am also planning on reviewing the game so that you might decide to give it a try yourself.

The first game that I will be doing this for is:

Other games you can look forward to are: 

Review: Prom House by Chelsea Mueller

Prom House by Chelsea Mueller

What happens when the best night of your life turns into the worst? Full of menace and suspense, this is an unputdownable thriller!

Ten people share a prom house at the Jersey Shore for the weekend. Every one of them has a secret . . . and when they begin to die one by one, panic ensues. Could somebody's prom date also be . . . a killer?

Pages: 256

Format: E-Book

Published By: Underlined Publishing

Genre: YA - Horror, Mystery

Rating:
✮✮

Review:

What happens when the best night of your life turns into the worst?

Prom House is about ten friends who rent a slightly secluded house to spend their prom weekend at when someone starts to murder them. My feelings and thoughts for this book were ultimately disappointed. Where was the menace? Where was the suspense? I have never been more excited for a horror novel and let down so badly.

The synopsis for this story is very short with not a lot of detail - but the impression I was left with was more of a slasher-esque horror novel, and the book did not deliver, which might be my own fault because I drew those conclusions, but alas. I believe that this has a lot to do with the setting of the story.

The secluded aspect of the setting would have worked better - had it not been for a hurricane that was occurring throughout the novel - which had them stuck in the house, and therefore our characters, killer included, were pretty much together the majority of the book. So, our characters that live spend a good majority of the book talking.

The biggest problem is that they continuously rehash the same thing over and over, but because nothing really happens throughout the book, there isn’t information that they should continuously be talking about, but they do. So when new information gets presented, it comes off as random because why wasn’t this information already mentioned.

This leads to very annoying and frustrating characters, who are supposed to be best friends, but instead act like they don’t really like each other - there was just so much teenage drama between the characters which detracted from the actual story. They are also very stereotypical written characters. I ended this book, not really caring about any of the characters. And the killer - I had it figured out very early on in the novel. Which left the one thing that could have redeemed this book some for me in the dust.

So what we get is a horror mystery novel that has no horror, mystery, or suspense. No plot twists, no character development, no action. You're left with a book that is very drawn out and bordering on boring. The little action and teenage drama feels forced as a way to keep the novel moving and feels like it could have been left out and the story wouldn’t have changed much.

Here’s the thing, I’m more sad that this book did not live up to my expectations because if it hadn’t fallen so flat, I would have loved it. This could have been a five-star read for me, which is the most disappointing thing about this experience. If you love good horror mysteries, don’t pick this up - you’ll probably end up disappointed like I was. I definitely don’t recommend it.