Hi and welcome to the reading world!
As I mentioned in last month’s wrap up, 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 5 reads and catch up a little on my blogging and reading challenges for the past month!
My Reading:
My Favorite Read of the Month: Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Runner Ups: With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo, Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
I ended up reading a ton of absolutely incredible books, but I realized that I’m still in the process of rating and writing reviews for them. Let me know in the comments if there’s any you’d want to see my thoughts on first!
What’s on the Blog:
My Reviews: Beach Read, The Space Between Worlds, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
My Favorite Non-Review Post: Love at First Page: My 5 Star Predictions (so far off of this list, I’ve read Kindred and The Vanishing Half)
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! For notes on the read-a-thons and challenges I did specifically in the month of February, you can see my February Read-a-Thon Spotlight!
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!
February Savings: 146.85
2021 total savings: 256.73
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 February: 8
Total number of prompts read: 14 out of 25
Uncorked Reading Challenge:
This is a reading challenge hosted by The Uncorked Librarian and has some unique prompts. This month was “Book by a Contemporary Black Author” and I finished up a few reads I’m counting for “Truth Bomb Non-Fiction” for January. I wanted to share some of these here to give some extra recommendations for reading more incredible stories by Black authors throughout the year!
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo, Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo, Binti: Home of the Binti Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay, The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. , Sister Outsider by Audre Lord, Wow No Thank You by Samantha Irby, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn, Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi, A Dead Djinn in Cairo of the Fatma el-Sha’arawi series by P. Djèlí Clark, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull
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 Song of Solomon with everyone next month as I’ve heard it’s an incredible novel.
February book: Sula
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 February: 6
Total prompts read: 8 out of 13
As I mentioned, I’m still trying to figure out the best way to format these wrap ups so it’s a good snapshot of some reads I’ve wanted to share, a little bit of a blog recap, and a look into my year long challenge progression so I can stay on top of those as well! Let me know in the comments how you like these wrap ups! I would also love to hear what your favorite read was this month, and if you have any challenges you’re participating in as well on your blog to let me know too!
Thank you so much for stopping by!
-Rae
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