Hello Fiction Dwellers!
January was a hectic month for me filled with anticipation, excitement, anxiety, and everything in between. In December I did a lot of prep for my big move to Canada on January, 29th 2022 so for the whole of January I was mostly waiting with excitement and spending time with my family. Hence, I didn’t do a lot of reading or interacting in general. Preparing myself mentally was quite hard as it is and in all honesty I’m struggling. Right now, as I am writing this wrap up, I am still adjusting to the life here especially the weather and the shift in lifestyle. The good thing is even though I’m still homesick I can finally be with my boyfriend after being separated for 2 years. Here is a picture of us being reunited .. YAY!
Books
As you can see my stats are plummeted mostly because of life being in the way of reading. Even though I was distracted the whole month I could still fit in four books that were all good. I even got a couple of five stars in there with This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar & Max Gladstone and The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali. I didn’t include in the list but there were a couple of DNFs, they are : Red Rising by Pierce Brown and The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea. For Red Rising by Pierce Brown I was just not in the mood for it at all and I think I will need to be in a very specific to pick it up again which I will definitely do in the future. For The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh I read 20% of it and I came to the conclusion to DNF it because I didn’t like the writing and pacing. I had expectations that it would be better than Axie Oh’s young adult contemporary book XOXO (which I rated 2 stars) but off the bat I found the same issues I found in XOXO. I will likely not continue reading it since I’m very sure that I will probably rate it low again.
❁ The Ninth Rain (The Winnowing Flames #1) by Jen Williams ❁
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Release Date : February 23rd 2017
The Ninth Rain is an epic fantasy with an interesting twist that constantly surprises me. A promising start to my reading year!
❁ This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone ❁
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Release Date : July 16th 2019
This Is How You Lose the Time War is a book that is deserving of it’s title as the Best Novella of 2019.
❁ The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno Garcia ❁
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Release Date : April 27th 2021
The Beautiful Ones is a dramatic historical romance-fantasy that got my emotions levitating with delight and slamming on jagged rocks of pain.
❁ The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali ❁
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Release Date : June 18th 2019
The Stationery Shop is a story about separation and reunion spanning decades filled with heart wrenching moments that will surely wreck you to pieces.
Blogging
In January I posted seven times which is quite amazing considering my brain was stressed out beyond belief. I managed to post three reviews of books that impressed me and I highly recommend for everyone to check out. I also posted the first ever post of a new feature here on An Ode to Fiction which is Fiction Digest, it is an author interview I did with C. L. Clark the author of The Unbroken. I have to confess that I have one outstanding post that was suppose to go up on January but didn’t make the cut. It’s the my favorite books of 2021 post that contains 50 books that I haven’t finished writing a small blurbs for. I hope I can post it in February best case scenario. There is also the 2022 goals post that I am planning on writing even though it is already February I still want to share my goals with all of y’all. Thankfully though I managed to post my 2021 Summary in January. I am very happy with that post since it is a lot of work and I am glad seeing the positive engagement from everyone <3
Bookish Content Creator Shout Out!
Unfortunately, I haven’t been present lately on social media or in the blogging community so for this section I am going to leave it blank in this wrap up. It breaks my heart to do this since it is my favorite thing to do in my wrap ups to shout out all my favorite posts by my friends and new creators I have found throughout the month. Hopefully in February I will be in a better mental state to be more present.
February ?
I don’t have high expectations for myself since I am in my adjustment period living here. It is tough and hard experience that has been draining my mental health these past few days. I’ve been here for only 4 days and I’m already discovering a lot of things that I need to handle before I can continue doing this hobby again. I do still want to go back to reading but I am doing it very slowly. So, my goal for February will be one book. I don’t know what that book is but. . . I hope it’s a good one.
Thank you for reading!
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yay! so glad you could meet your boyfriend, hope you have a great time! i really need to read The Stationary Shop, it sounds like such a great book 😍💓
Congrats on the move and reuniting with your boyfriend! Do take care of yourself and settle in. Hobbies can definitely take a pause for a while.
I am going to be moving countries in a few months as well, so I saw a lot of myy own feeling in what you said, eventhough I’m still not doing the actual thing, but the anxiety is real. I hope the rest of your adjustement period goes as smoothly as possible
I’ve been meaning to read This Is How You Lose the Time War forever! Loved the posts you did this month, Lia!
Also especially love the cute graphics on your blog! 😍
Ahh, congrats on getting to reunite with your boyfriend!! I can’t wait to see your favorite books of 2021 post💜
good luck adjusting to all the newness, it’s lovely that you managed to reunite with your S/O and I hope everything works out well for you! ☺️