unread shelf project

2019 Monthly TBR Challenge & Happy New Year

~ megs14malloy ~ 2 Comments

Happy New Year’s Eve bookworms! Cheers to a festive and happy new year! I am so ready for 2019~

Inspired by a recent video that I watched on the channel, Hailey in Bookland ((click on the channel name to view her January TBR)), I have decided I am going to institute a monthly TBR challenge.

Basically, this involves 5 challenges I need to complete every month. This will be in addition to any ARCs I will be reading for a particular month. The 5 challenges are as follows:

  1. Read a book that was released in 2018
  2. Read a new release from the current month
  3. Read a new release from the next month (I can use any ARC for this)
  4. Read a sequel to a series you have started but haven’t finished
  5. TBR Jar picks

*A note on the TBR Jar picks: Today I created my first ever TBR jar. I wrote down on scrapes of paper pretty much all the books that I own on my ‘unread’ shelf ((over 250)) and put them into a decorative box. Every month I will be pulling 3 random slips from the box and trying to read two out of the three. I just selected my three books to choose from in January and they are as follows:

  • An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson- YA Fantasy released in September 2017.
  • A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston- YA Fantasy Retelling released in October 2015.
  • The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin- YA Paranormal Romance/Horror released in September 2011.

I haven’t quite decided yet which 2 of the 3 selected I am going to read yet but I am leaning towards, An Enchantment of Ravens and The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I will certainly keep you posted on that. Every month I am going to try to complete all of the challenges listed above and I am hoping this will help me keep focused, as well as helping to clean up my backlist a little bit.

Thank you so much for sticking with me over the course of 2018! I completed 139-books this year and am absolutely blown away by that number. Looking forward to seeing what I can accomplish in 2019. Best wishes to you all and happy reading~

 

Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

~ megs14malloy

Author: Ransom Riggs    |    Publication Date: June 7, 2011    |    Rating: 4-stars!

What a wonderful time this was! I decided to read this book as part of my Unread Shelf Project 2018 – basically I am working backwards through my virtual GR ‘to be read’ list and picking one book per month to read off the backlist. I added this book to my tbr in November of 2015. I have no excuse really for not getting to it before now. Sometimes I do end up avoiding hyped books subconsciously; it’s a problem. I did attempt to watch the movie adaptation of this book but didn’t make it through.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this! I listened to the audio in conjuncture with also reading a hard copy so I moved through it really, really fast. I loved the unique storyline and the characters. Jacob, our MC, is so funny – I laughed out loud several times in regards to his dialogue or observations. Another aspect of this I really enjoyed was the use of so many antique (ahem, creepy) photographs that tie right in to the storyline. I have never seen that done in quite this way before and it was really refreshing. I am sure I am probably one of the very few middle grade readers left on the planet to not have read this one, so I am beyond the moon to be crossing it off my list. There are two other books in this trilogy and initially I was thinking I would stop with this one, but after completing it, I do think I will move on with the series. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a fun, middle grade read – it was quite an adventure!

So, I mentioned a while back a bit about my Unread Shelf Project – just a quick update, the first book I selected for that official project was ‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote, which I had added to my tbr in October of 2015. I am currently reading that and absolutely loving it. I had read this book in high school, or shortly after high school, but really didn’t remember anything about it besides that it is a classic true crime narrative. I am so glad that I am rereading it because Capote’s writing is just so brilliant and I don’t think I was really able to appreciate that the first time around since I was so young. Now, as an old goat, I can really take my time and enjoy the dramatic way he constructs this horrific American crime.

Next up for this project is a book I added to my tbr in December of 2015: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This is a fairly well loved post-apocalyptic novel that I am actually buddy reading with some friends from Bookstagram; so really looking forward to that! As luck with have it, my copy arrived in the mail today, so I should be starting it this week!

What are some books you are looking forward to checking off your tbr? I want to know! Leave a comment below or reach out to me through my contact links.

Cheers~