January 2021 Reading Wrap Up

Hi and welcome to the reading world!

2021 kicked off with a month that had quite a bit of grad school work, but given the global circumstances and wanting to social distance, what free time I had was pretty much dedicated to reading at home and getting rest. 

If you want to see every book I’m reading throughout the month, check out my Goodreads (still figuring out how to best use Storygraph but loving it so far) for those updates! For this wrap up, I’m going to be sharing my top 3 reads and catch up a little on my blogging and reading challenges for the past month! 

My Reading:

Favorite Book of the Month:

Runner Ups:

Special Mention:

Goodreads kept counting this as 2020 even though I technically finished it late on New Year’s, so I’ll mention it here and say that I loved reading this one and I’m so excited to read more of Micaiah Johnson’s work. A review of this one will be live on the blog soon!

What’s on the Blog:

My spoiler-free reviews: All Systems Red, Next Year in Havana, and The Wife Upstairs

My favorite non-review post: Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated January 2021 Releases (so many exciting books!)

Challenge and Read-a-Thon Check Ins:

I’m working my way through several challenges this year, and wanted to provide an update each month of how I’m progressing through as well as spread the word about these!

Library Savings Challenge:

This is hosted by @bylaurencapellan on Bookstagram and is a challenge to see the cost of the books you saved by going to the library! As I’m trying to read my already owned TBR or utilize my library before buying other books, this is one I’m so excited to be participating in!

January savings: 109.88

2021 total savings: 109.88

The Free Black Women’s Library Reading Challenge:

Hosted by The Free Black Women’s Library, this challenge is to read 25 books by Black women or non-binary authors with the featured prompts throughout the year of 2021.

Number of prompts read in January: 6

Total number of prompts read: 6 out of 25

Uncorked Reading Challenge:

This is a reading challenge hosted by The Uncorked Librarian and has some unique prompts. This month was “Truth Bomb Non-Fiction” and my read for this was: The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper.

Note: I’m still currently reading this one but I’ll be finishing it in early February!

Toni Morrison Read-a-Thon: 

Hosted by @ibingebooks on Bookstagram, this is a year long reading of Toni Morrison’s novels and discussion among a group. Reading Toni Morrison’s work for the first time and having a virtual community to reflect on it with has been an incredible experience so far, and I’m so excited to discuss Sula with everyone next month.

January book: The Bluest Eye

Shimmering Worlds Reading Challenge:

This is a challenge hosted by @afantasysky on Bookstagram that features prompts to complete by reading sci fi and fantasy books by BIPOC authors! I love the creativity of the prompts and getting to expand my sci fi and fantasy reading while also reading some incredible BIPOC authors.

Number of prompts read in January: 2

Total prompts read: 2 out of 13

I’m still in the process of deciding exactly how I want to share my monthly wrap ups, so if you have any thoughts on what you would want to see feel free to leave a comment on this post! What were your favorite reads this month?

Thank you so much for stopping by!

-Rae