Hello!

Brand new year, brand new monthly TBR! I’ve been making what I call a functional TBR (not because I think anyone else’s TBR isn’t functional, but mine has a function therefore…) since about September last year and I only completed it in my first month because I don’t read fast enough to read as many books as I assign myself, but is that going to stop me? Absolutely not.

So what makes my tbr ‘functional’ is that it is a way for me to make sure I’m making the most of my subscription services and not wasting my money (or an attempt to!) – the ‘categories’ (for want of a better word), include my book club pick for the month (obvs not a subscription but still a priority), reading 2 Kindle Unlimited books, 2 Audible books, any new releases I’ve pre-ordered, my Illumicrate subscription, my Afterlight subscription and a new category for this year is reading 2 of the books from my 24 in 2024 list.

Yes, that is minimum 9 books a month. What’s my average monthly read? Between 4 and 6 but sshh.

Let’s jump right in!

Rocket Book Club pick!

TL;DR – when my husband and I got married we asked our wedding guests to gift us a copy of their favourite book and in an endeavour to read them all we take it in turns to pick one book each month that I read and he doesn’t so I call it a book club!

I managed this every month last year and this month was my husband’s choice and he chose Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens which was the choice of my then-11-year old bridesmaid, so it’s a middle grade crime book and honestly that sounds about the right reading level for me and crime because I don’t read a lot of crime.

It seems like it’s going to be funny, fast-paced and twisty which sounds fantastic so I’m really looking forward to it!

Kindle Unlimited

This year I’m trying something different with my KU books because it was undoubtedly the subscription I was getting the least use out of, so I spent a solid chunk of time searching for the books from my physical TBR that are on KU and there’s a solid list of them, so I’m using this as a tool to further get through my backlog and make sure I’m not wasting money.

So my first pick is With This Kiss by Carrie Hope Fletcher – I pre-ordered the Waterstones special edition of this book when it first came out and I never got round to reading it. Fletcher’s books can be a bit hit or miss for me so I’m going into it a bit dubiously but it’s on KU! So I’m going to read it!

And my second pick is Beastly by Alex Flinn which is a Beauty and the Beast retelling that got a movie adaptation when I was a teenager (that I never got round to watching lol) and I did read this at the time, but I want to reread it to double check I still want to have it on my shelves, y’know?

Audible

I’m currently just over 75% through Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn so I should probably put that on my TBR for ease, but it was on my December TBR so it feels like cheating. So the two books that are actually on my January TBR are The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss which is the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicles and Kulti by Mariana Zapata.

I accidentally bought a spin off novella which fits into the Kingkiller Chronicles universe without realising I needed to read two giant books in an incomplete series first, but this is the year I’m going to tackle them so I can finally read this novella! The Name of the Wind is a 28 hour audiobook but it’s sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear is over 42 hours long. I am intimidated by this series, which is why I picked my first Mariana Zapata romance as the other book for this month because I needed something lighter. Arguably Kulti isn’t that, but it’s only 16 hours so it’s definitely shorter so I’ll take it.

New Release

I only pre-ordered this book a few days ago because the Waterstones special edition is stunning (and I’d already heard incredible things, I promise I didn’t just buy it because it’s pretty…) so my new release for January is Faebound by Saara El-Arifi. I’ve heard amazing things about this author and this will be the first of their books that I’ve read and I’m really excited about it. I’m going to plan my reading so I can read this book as soon as it arrives, though I do already have a number of chunky hardbacks on my TBR for this month so I hope this doesn’t add to it too much!

Illumicrate

The way the Illumicrate and Afterlight subscriptions work is that they don’t ship until the end of the month, so generally I receive my subscription box around the 25th of the month so rather than rushing it to try and finish it in the same month, I put it on the following months TBR. So while Afterlight is now a monthly subscription, there wasn’t a December book so this month there isn’t a book for my TBR.

The December Illumicrate book is The Principle of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson (who also wrote the book adaptation of the most recent Doctor Who Christmas Special, The Church on Ruby Road which is very exciting!) – it’s an LGBT sci-fi space opera as far as I’m aware and I don’t think I’ve read a space opera before so whilst this book is chunky, I am excited to read it.

24 in 2024

And finally, the first two books from my 24 in 2024 that I’ve chosen are The Worst of Me by Kate Le Vann (which I believe I purchased as a teenager and I have no idea why I still have it, so even if it’s bad I’m hoping it’ll be a quick win for the physical tbr) and Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald which I got as a gift for my birthday last year and I’m absolutely stoked for. It’s a Greek retelling of Hades and Persephone’s story and having been wrapped up in Scarlett St Clair’s H&P retelling for most of 2023, I’m excited about diving into a different one (though mildly concerned I’ll start to get confused when I go back to Scarlett St Clair’s version when A Touch of Chaos comes out).

So that’s all 9 books that I’ve challenged myself to read this month.

I started January with a very short story by Madeline Miller called Galatea to get my new reading goal off the ground and I’m currently finishing off the audiobook that was on my December tbr… so I haven’t started reading any of these books yet but I have a blind, faithless optimism that this is the year I learn to read at a million miles an hour so at least there’s that!

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you had a fantastic reading year in 2023 and are looking forward to getting found in more stories in 2024!

Sophie xx