March turned out to be busier than expected! Overtime at work carried through to the end of the month. I think I ended up doing something like 35 hours of OT in March. I have also been visiting my Grandpa a lot while my parents are away on vacation. Overtime is finished now, my parents return in a few days, and I have adjusted my work schedule so I frequently have Fridays off. Perhaps I’ll be able to return to eight posts/month for April… at least March saw me reading better books than in February!
Books Finished
- Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
- The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
- When Fragments Make a Whole: A Personal Journey through Healing Stories in the Bible by Lory Widmer Hess
- Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes
- The Winter Garden by Alexandra Bell
- Tidal Creatures (Alchemical Journeys #3) by Seanan McGuire
Books Reviewed
- As part of 2024 Review Round Up #1:
- Mislaidn in Parts Half-Known (Wayward Children #9) by Seanan McGuire (adult portal fantasy)
- Long Lost by Jacqueline West (MG speculative fiction)
- The Stone Child (Misewa Saga #3) by David A. Robertson (MG speculative fiction)
- Skating on Mars by Caroline Huntoon (MG contemporary fiction)
- Hidden Truths by Elly Swartz (MG contemporary fiction)
- Gently to Nagasaki by Joy Kogawa (memoir)
Posts Written
- Described the process of updating my review archive
- Discussed The Winter Garden with my Mom for Family Reads
Challenges Check-In
This section tallies up my annual goals. (Posts and views are the only two metrics which are per month.)
- 4/30 middle grade fiction novels (excluding rereads)
- 3/9 Family Reads
- 1/6 “I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read that Yet”
- 21/81 books read
- Reviewed 52%/40% of what I read (that’s 11/21)
- I’m counting two of the five ‘reviews’ I wrote in my Round Up post for this stat
- Reread The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings – have not started but I’m getting the itch! I may pick up LotR this month.
- 5/8 posts in March
- The OT made this challenging, so I’m pleased that I even got 5 posts done!
- 2,323/2,200 views in March
- Pleased to see this number back up after the February drop, even though I posted the same amount of times as in February.
- 1/12 books for 2024 Booktempter’s TBR Challenge
- I made a graphic for this which I forgot to include in my January wrap up. However, I didn’t make progress on this challenge in
FebruaryMarch so I guess I’ll save it for another month 😛
- I made a graphic for this which I forgot to include in my January wrap up. However, I didn’t make progress on this challenge in
On My Radar in April
Representation indicated below AFAIK (I haven’t read these books). Please notify me of any errors or places where I can be more specific.
- 9 April – Release date of Keeping Pace by Laurie Morrison (MG contemporary), The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo (historical fantasy) and A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland (sapphic historical fantasy)
- 13 April – Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon
- 16 April – Release date of Earthflown by Wren Frances (queer scifi dystopia)
How was your March? What new books, or bookish events, are you looking forward to this month?
I’ve pre-ordered The Familiar and I’m very excited to get my copy next week. And Earth Flown looks interesting, I’ll have to check it out. It does sound like March was extra busy for you, hopefully you’ll get a break this month😁
Oh my that’s a lot of overtime!! I’m glad to see your stats popped back up this month. Hopefully that continues in April!
How did you like Warm Hands. I’ve had my eye on that one and I’ve enjoyed Arden’s writing in the past. Hopefully you have more downtime in April. Happy spring!
Looks like you’ve had a pretty good month of reading, even with all that overtime and the family visits. OT can provide a nice little paycheck boost, but it can also be super tiring; hopefully you get some time to relax (and maybe crack open Tolkien) in April!
I hope you won’t have to do so much OT throughout April, unless you want to of course hahah Glad to see you’ve checked out Arden’s latest novel and plan on checking out Bardugo’s new book! Happy reading, Jenna! 😀