Month In Review: September 2019

September turned out to be quite a stressful month reading wise, mostly my own fault as I seem to be drowning in a pile of ARCs right now… It’s probably the reason I’m once again feeling that reading/blogging slump and I really need to take a break ASAP, although I’m too excited about #Orentober so it will have to wait until November. xD September also means Spring has arrived again, and I’ve been working a lot prepping the garden and doing some DIY around the house… And of course a lot of baking/cooking as well, including Dutch ‘sprits’ cookies, apple crumble, pineapple/coconut cupcakes with buttercream decoration and my famous paella valenciana. ❤

Now to the bookish numbers:

• Number of books read in September: 18
• Total number of books read this year: 199
• Total number of pages read in September: 5.775
• Total number of pages read this year: 66.425

September wasn’t my best month numbers wise, mostly because I’ve been feeling slumpy these last few weeks and it was affected my reading speed. That said, the books I did read were almost all winners. Not only did I find THREE new 5 star ratings, but I also had FIVE other other fantastic titles with an almost perfect rating… And only three titles had a rating below 4 stars. Oh yes, I definitely got lucky last month.

January-August 2019: The Numbers

Call me a nerd, but I do love my graphics posts! I first started properly keeping track of my reads in Excel back in 2016, making it possible to finally put together some graphics. I’ve done a bunch of ‘The Numbers’ posts over time, including my 2016, 2017 and 2018 posts, and it has been revealing interesting things about my reading habits. So why stop? 😉 This post will be all about the first eight months of 2019 (I did a post about the first four months back in May). Let’s talk nerdy and see what my numbers were like, shall we?

First of all some quick facts. In the first eight months of 2019 I have read no less than 181 books with a total page count of 60.650 pages; an average of about 335 pages per book. This is way more than I expected and and if I keep it up I will actually break my 2018 record… The average rating is 3,62 stars, which is slightly higher than in 2018 so I guess not too bad. No less than 50 books had a 4,5 or 5 star rating and 55 books received a rating 3 stars or below… Which means I enjoyed reading about 69,6% of the books during the year. Not that bad at all! Another fun fact: 68 of the 181 books I’ve read so far were actually ARCs; about 37,6% of the total. This means I’m keeping my promise to get the ARC ratio below 40%, so I’m definitely happy with that!

And now some graphics for those who like them as much as I do. 😉

Month In Review: August 2019

August turned out to be a busy reading month and despite trying to take a break from blogging, I can’t say I was able to relax much… I blame the #NEWTsReadathon2019 haha. August was the month of a fantastic buddy read with Nicki (The Willow Woman), lots of baking, enjoying the winter sunshine and garden preparations. I’m hoping next month will be more relaxed though! And I’m more than ready to welcome the Spring season…

Now to the bookish numbers:

• Number of books read in August: 24
• Total number of books read this year: 181
• Total number of pages read in August: 8.403
• Total number of pages read this year: 60.650

August turned out to be another excellent reading month and I read way more books than expected, mostly thanks to the NEWTs Readathon. I also found myself not one, not two, but THREE new 5 star reads! On top of that, FIVE other fantastic titles were given the almost perfect rating… Oh yes, I definitely got lucky last month.

Month In Review: July 2019

July turned out to be an uneventful month and with the cold winter weather I’ve been spending lots of time cooped up instead in the company of a steaming cup of tea or coffee, a purring cat and of course the obligatory book or my kindle. With the result I managed to read a LOT! More about that below… I was also lucky enough to receive a copy of the children’s book Física Hasta En La Sopa by Hernán Grecco early July through the Masa Crítica Argentina program at Babelio, and I had a lot of fun reading it! As it’s not on Goodreads I won’t count it toward my read books this year, but in case you are interested, you can find a full review (in Spanish) here.

I also enjoyed my time baking (featured below my fruit-custard pie and ‘sunset swirl’ lemon bites), preparing homemade stuffed pasta (sorrentinos!) to freeze and other kitchen related things… My second-favorite thing to do after reading. 😉 And some of the bulbs in our garden are having flowers early this year and I love the little touch of Spring in the air! ❤

Now to the bookish numbers:

• Number of books read in July: 21
• Total number of books read this year: 156
• Total number of pages read in July: 7.970
• Total number of pages read this year: 52.114

July turned out to be an excellent reading month despite another DNF, and I found myself not one, not two, but THREE new 5 star reads! On top of that, FOUR other fantastic titles were given the almost perfect rating… Oh yes, I definitely got lucky last month.

Month In Review: June 2019

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June turned out to be a cold, but busy month and I’m surprised I was able to read the amount I did. I guess being cooped up inside because of the cold winter weather does help me read more! I posted two weeks ago I was going light for the season, but so far I’ve still be able to post almost daily… You might have seen me around less on social media though and I’ve been bloghopping less as well, but I promise I’ll still be around! Here’s a photo of frenemies Delilah Bard and Jasmine to make up for my absence. 😉 ❤

I also had to scratch that creative bug last month, and I made myself a paperback booksleeve and crocheted two pairs of fingerless gloves as my hands are starting to freeze when I read or blog otherwise. xD I especially love how the gloves came out!

Now to the bookish numbers:

• Number of books read in June: 22
• Total number of books read this year: 135
• Total number of pages read in June: 6.960
• Total number of pages read this year: 44.144

June turned out to be a pretty good reading month. I didn’t get a new 5 star rating, but a whopping EIGHT books received an almost perfect rating. It’s going to be hard to pick just one favorite for the month! Sadly I did have another DNF and a few books received a lower rating, but overall I’m definitely happy with the books I was able to read.

5 Star Favorites @bookouture @kimlslater @aharmon_author @paperfury @orendabooks @louisewriter

With the first six months of 2019 coming to an end, it’s time to talk favorites! I think some of you know by now that I hardly ever hand out the full five stars… And that a 4,5 star rating for me is basically what most would already consider a full 5 stars. I had a fantastic start of the year with no less than 28!! titles that received a 4,5 star rating. I’ll be showing them in the bottom of this post (except for one, as it was a Harry Potter reread); they all deserve the mention and are all excellent reads which I can highly recommend. But first things first. Because this post is about those magical books that simply blew me away. Stories that touched my heart, left me with a giant book hangover and made me wonder if I would ever recover. Yes, we are talking about the mythical 5 star reads, books that basically deserve all the stars and more and have earned its place in my hall of fame of all time favorites.

I had a total of five new titles that received the full 5 star rating in the first six months of 2019. They belong to a variety of genres and blew me away for different reasons, but what they all have in common is that they are absolutely fantastic titles and I cannot recommend them enough. Ready to see which titles made it to this list? In the order I’ve read them, as you won’t be able to make me pick favorites between these… 😉

Best of… May 2019 @Orendabooks @nholten

I had originally decided to include this new feature in my monthly wrap ups, but I just felt there were too many facts squeezed into one little post and the whole purpose of putting my favorite reads in the spotlight was lost. So this is me giving those favorites their well deserved extra attention! I had a LOT of fantastic reads in May, all worth mentioning so brace yourself for a long post. But there was one title that stood out above the rest, an easy choice for this month’s favorite. Did you guess already which one? Without further delay, May 2019’s favorite is… *drumroll*

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Call Me Star Girl by Louise Beech!! I can’t believe this is only my first experience with her work, but it most definitely won’t be my last. What an absolutely fantastic read!

What I said in my review:

“The writing style is absolutely wonderful of course, but it is the characters who steal the show in Call Me Star Girl. Louise Beech should receive an award for being able to create such fascinating characters that are both flawed, strong and essentially unlikeable, but are able to win over your heart anyway.”

“Subtle twists and turns are incorporated in such a way that builds the tension and suspense without even realizing it; throwing new shocking information at you before you are getting comfortable with what you already know.”

Click here for my full review