February Wrap-Up and March TBR

Hey all, Dani here.

Welcome to the first day of March, which means that it is time to wrap up everything that happened in February. Also, Damian and I are now two weeks away from the closing date on our house, and then it’ll be a mad dash to get everything moved in the final two weeks of the month. Thankfully I’ve already made a lot of progress when it comes to packing. I have roughly 2/3 of the library packed up, and we have about half of the living room and bedroom packed up. Our shelves are starting to look very sad and empty. The walls will too as soon as we take down all of our posters.

Anyway, let’s start by doing a quick rundown of where I am with my 2019 goals, and then we can talk specifics on books read and books purchased.

• Reading: Well, according to Goodreads, I am currently at 39 books read for the year. With my overall goal currently set at 75 books, I am doing remarkably well. As for my personal challenge of tackling some bigger books this year, in the month of February I read Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor and I started The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell. Again, not a whole lot of progress, but still, I guess if I take on two longer books each month then I’ll end the year having read at least 24 big books, which is great.
• Blogging: Together, Damian and I published 27 posts in February and there was only one weekend where posts weren’t published. I only wrote 2 reviews for books I read in February, but I did manage to make a very nice dent in my backlog of reviews. It was also a massively productive month for visitors, views, and likes/comments. I am so grateful for every last one of you who checks out this blog. Oh, and I even had some other bloggers decide to join me for Middle Grade March and share their TBRs. Damian will attest that I actually got a tiny bit emotional at feeling cool enough to have people join in on a thing I created.
• Writing: I actually set out time in my schedule on one day to work on creative writing. That’s it, just one day. Honestly, I mark this up as a failure on my part. But I have written a lot of words on the blog, so I suppose that’s something. Also, we have been dealing with a lot of stuff when it comes to the house buying and planning the move and all of that. I do want to get back to writing, and hope to make that a priority once we’ve moved.
• Conventions: We made the decision that we’re going to do a bunch of seminars and panels and such this year at Gen Con, because with the need to do some small repairs on the house and the need to furnish it with appliances and furniture, our money for spending on board games and game accessories will be quite limited. But that’s as far as our convention prep went in February.

Next, let’s wrap up the books I read in February. As always, if I have a review up already, I will link to it. However, since a majority of my reads were volumes of manga, those reviews will still slowly be rolling out on Manga Mondays.

Noragami: Stray God Vol 1 by Adachitoka – 4 stars

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo – 5 stars

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor – 4.5 stars

Onyx & Ivory by Mindee Arnett – 4 stars

Akame Ga Kill! Vol 1 by Takahiro and Tetsuya Tashiro – 4 stars

My Hero Academia Vol 17 by Kohei Horikoshi – 5 stars

How to Treat Magical Beasts Vol 2 by Kaziya – 5 stars

Noragami: Stray God Vol 2 by Adachitoka – 4 stars

Akame Ga Kill! Vol 2 by Takahiro and Tetsuya Tashiro – 4 stars

Black Clover Vol 9 by Yuki Tabata – 5 stars

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner – 4 stars

Warrior of the Wild by Tricia Levenseller – 5 stars

Black Clover Vol 10 by Yuki Tabata – 5 stars

Akame Ga Kill! Vol 3 by Tashahiro and Tetsuya Tashiro – 4 stars

Our watch list for the month is actually pretty short. Monsters, Inc (5 stars)–we had to watch this on 2/3/19 because of the importance of Code 2319 in the movie, Incredibles 2 (again 5 stars), Wynonna Earp Season One (5 stars), and Black Clover Season One (5 stars). Damian and I are also currently in the middle of our continuing watch of Critical Role Campaign Two, and are in the early stages of Wynonna Earp Season Two and Black Clover Season Two. On my own I am in the beginning stages of a rewatch of The Originals. I’m only about halfway through the first season at the moment, but I still really love the show, and rank it above The Vampire Diaries honestly.

So I guess this means that it is time for the book haul portion of this post. I actually did pretty good this month. Two of the books (KoS and The Inheritance Trilogy) were late January buys that arrived at the beginning of February, and two of the books were gifts from Damian as we try to finish off my UK paperback set of The Wheel of Time series. Then, Damian and I decided to do another trip to The Book Loft of German Village and I managed to keep my purchasing restrained, only picking up three books. Finally I had my approved purchases for myself in February (though I threw in Monster of Selkirk Book III, because I am slightly obsessed with the series at the moment). So, overall, we didn’t do that bad.

Finally, it’s time to talk TBR. Now I already posted my TBR for Middle Grade March, which I created/am hosting, but I was also talked into joining Kathy at Books & Munches’ March reading challenge, Monstrous March. The technical theme of Monstrous March is to read horror/thriller books, but when I talked about skipping out on the month, some of my bookish friends were quick to offer other suggestions and interpretations of the theme: read monstrously long books, read books with monsters as characters, etc. So, though I know that I already have an over-ambitious TBR, I’m going to add a few more to it, knowing that March is already insanely busy due to the move.

Well, I suppose if I manage to get to these, then I’ll be keeping up with my two big books each month thing, as both The Eye of the World and Muse of Nightmares are on my list for The Year of Big Books.

All right, well there it all is. Now I guess I need to go read, because this TBR isn’t going to get any smaller unless I make more time for books in my life. How was your reading in February? What plans do you have for March? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll be back soon with more bookish content.