2022 Reading Goals

How is this the last day of 2021? But, here I am setting my goals for the new year and looking back on this year's goals. By the skin of my teeth, I made my Goodreads goal this year. For the last couple of days, I thought I might not be able to do it, but then I remembered I had some sort of books on my TBR. So thanks to that I managed it. I was about a thousand pages away from the page count goal, which is closer than I thought it'd be. So yay!!

2022 READING GOALS:

BOOKS TO READ: 65

PAGES TO READ: 15,000

BLOG GOALS: Be better about IG postings!

Since my goals were so on the nose this year I've decided to keep them the same through this year as well. In theory this will year I'll actually get to work the whole year without any shutdowns or lockdowns or hopefully any kind of disaster. So I'd love to see if I can reach these goals in a "normal" year. 

However, my blog goals are changing for next year. Nothing on the main page is going to change, I really liked how things flowed here over the last year. Instagram however still needs some love. I need to be better at taking photos, posting, and interacting. This year I've let myself go several days in a stretch without posts. So, while I don't think I post every day, I need to be more consistent about posting.

So that's it, that is the general reading plan for this year. Oh! Book BINGO will also be happening, I'm finishing up the new card. I got behind on that as well with the traveling, snow, and work. So that'll also be happening hopefully in the next couple of days!

Anyone else setting in reading goals for 2022? 

HAPPY READING!!

Basket Full of Heads - Review

Author: Joe Hill

Genre: Horror

Format: Paperback

Pages: 184

This, this, is what I wanted from this series of comics! I wished I would have started here because so far I've enjoyed everything that Joe Hill has written. Basket Full of Heads was a great way to kick off this series, and a wild ride.

Basket Full of Heads had my attention right from the start. One of my favorite horror tropes is the trapped on an island with no way off. No phones, no cellphones, nothing. It's a trope that is harder to do these days with just how reliable cellphones are. Add to that trope a mystical ax and a badass Final Girl and you can have money.

Bonus points when the plot delivers. Which Basket Full of Heads did in my opinion.

Joe Hill solves the cellphone issue by setting this story in the 1980s. Plus who doesn't love a scary story set in the peak Final Girl era? But, putting the story back this fair helps isolate our main character more, add on the fact she's never been to this island before, and a storm rages through. Perfect combination.

Add on the fact that I like June. I wasn't sold on her in the beginning, and I was worried she was going to be the main character that just keeps getting lucky. The ones that never have to grow a spine and do something, but everything sort of falls into their favor. June isn't like that. She takes one blow after another and keeps getting up. She just wants to survive. As the story goes she starts to trust herself more and more. Forgive herself for the things she has to do to make sure she sees the other side.

My favorite bit about Basket Full of Heads is the bad guys. They all have a reason for why they did what they did, all afraid of something getting out into the public. All because they were doing a bad thing and were paranoid about getting caught. Only for all of them to be wrong in the end, and all of this was a wild goose chase.

There is also a couple of really good twist toward the end of the book. One I sort was expecting, the other I was not. I also felt the story wrapped nicely. All of the important questions were answered and tied up with a bow, and June got to ride off the island safe and sound. I do have a few questions that didn't get answered, but none that revolve around the main plot of the story itself.

It's one question... Who were those people in the water when June overboard? They were there going after her, but why were they down there? The answers wouldn't affect the main story at all, I was just confused about what was going on with them. Kind of seemed out of place...

We do get the story behind the ax as well at the end because doesn't like a bad guy monologue where that was brought up. I like that June had to carry around the heads as she sorted out what was going on and how both she and her boyfriend were involved. Each head had a role to play in trying to slow down and break June, except for Hank. I would have loved to of killed him twice. Such a baby.

Lastly, I like the artwork that Leomacs created for this story. This is the first Graphic Novel I've read where they've done the artwork, and I thought it fit well with the kind of story Joe Hill was telling. The panels were easy to follow and each character was unique and easy to place at a glance. There were a lot of little details throughout the book, and I'm in love with all the variant covers that came out. Also the title page with the basket of heads. I loved that it changed with each volume after a new kill.

So wish I would have started with this one instead of jumping into the middle with the third book. While each book is a stand-alone, that book didn't grab my attention as this one did. Basket Full of Heads makes you want to keep reading this series just to see if each book holds up to the bar Joe Hill set.

I'm excited to pick up the next book in this series to see if it's just as good.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

Two women. A history of witchcraft. And a deep-rooted female power that sings across the centuries.

Once there was a young woman from a well-to-do New England family who never quite fit with the drawing rooms and parlors of her kin.

Called instead to the tangled woods and wild cliffs surrounding her family’s estate, Margaret Harlowe grew both stranger and more beautiful as she cultivated her uncanny power. Soon, whispers of “witch” dogged her footsteps, and Margaret’s power began to wind itself with the tendrils of something darker.

One hundred and fifty years later, Augusta Podos takes a dream job at Harlowe House, the historic home of a wealthy New England family that has been turned into a small museum in Tynemouth, Massachusetts. When Augusta stumbles across an oblique reference to a daughter of the Harlowes who has nearly been expunged from the historical record, the mystery is too intriguing to ignore.

But as she digs deeper, something sinister unfurls from its sleep, a dark power that binds one woman to the other across lines of blood and time. If Augusta can’t resist its allure, everything she knows and loves—including her very life—could be lost forever.

Why I'm Waiting: I really like Hester Fox's other books, so I'm pretty excited about this one as well!

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Lucas Vega is obsessed with the death of Candace Swain, who left a sorority party one night and never came back. Her body was found after two weeks, but the case has grown cold. Three years later while interning at the medical examiner's, Lucas discovers new information, but the police are not interested.

Lucas knows he has several credible pieces of the puzzle. He just isn't sure how they fit together. So he creates a podcast to revisit Candace's last hours. Then he encourages listeners to crowdsource what they remember and invites guest lecturer Regan Merritt, a former US marshal, to come on and share her expertise.

New tips come in that convince Lucas and Regan they are onto something. Then shockingly one of the podcast callers turns up dead. Another hints at Candace's secret life, a much darker picture than Lucas imagined—and one that implicates other sorority sisters. Regan uses her own resources to bolster their theory and learns that Lucas is hiding his own secret. The pressure is on to solve the murder, but first Lucas must come clean about his real motives in pursuing this podcast—before the killer silences him forever.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

 

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

Arek hadn’t thought much about what would happen after he completed the prophecy that said he was destined to save the Kingdom of Ere from its evil ruler. So now that he’s finally managed to (somewhat clumsily) behead the evil king (turns out magical swords yanked from bogs don’t come pre-sharpened), he and his rag-tag group of quest companions are at a bit of a loss for what to do next.

As a temporary safeguard, Arek’s best friend and mage, Matt, convinces him to assume the throne until the true heir can be rescued from her tower. Except that she’s dead. Now Arek is stuck as king, a role that comes with a magical catch: choose a spouse by your eighteenth birthday, or wither away into nothing.

With his eighteenth birthday only three months away, and only Matt in on the secret, Arek embarks on a desperate bid to find a spouse to save his life—starting with his quest companions. But his attempts at wooing his friends go painfully and hilariously wrong…until he discovers that love might have been in front of him all along.

HAPPY READING!!

The Resurrectionist - Review

Author: E.B. Hudspeth

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Hardback

Pages: 208

This has been on my TBR for too long. I've even picked it up a couple of times, started it, and never finished. I've come to be a big believer in putting books down if I'm not feeling them, or in the mood. This is a book where there doing that did me a favor. I'm also really glad I waited for a physical copy. There are so many little details I feel might have gotten lost in an e-reader format.

What originally drew me to this book is the mad scientist aspect of the story. I'm such a sucker for this trope that it always grabs my attention. The other piece that artwork that is attached to the story. I always love when books get to add sketches of the characters and creatures between the pages. While I have a great imagination. It's always nice to see what all those pieces look like from the author's perspective. 

The story itself is told years after the events occur as a sort of unofficial biography of Dr. Black and his descent into madness. This story is told through letters and journal entries, as well as newspaper clippings and word of mouth from those that knew Dr. Black or saw his shows. It's a quick short story of this man's life and brilliance, but it does leave a lot of questions unanswered. And, while that is annoying I didn't feel unsatisfied at the end of the book. Most of these questions could be answered but by Dr. Black himself, and since he went missing it makes sense these holes in the story will be there. So plot holes, but with purpose.

The Resurrectionist is also a book inside of the book. Not only does it contain the history of Dr. Black, but it includes the book he was working on about these mythical creatures he supposedly encountered on his travels. This is where the artwork comes into play because Dr. Black sketched all of these creatures and their musculature, as well as wrote a little about each creature how it came to be. 

As a whole, this is a fun and quick read. The biography at the start of the book is a wild ride, and it's not hard to fit a man like Dr. Black in that period of the Freak Shows and Circus Acts. I devoured the first half of the story watching this man slowly lose himself into madness. Hoping to see how and why all of this came to be.

The art attached to the second half of the book was brilliant. I went through each page slowly to take in each page and all the work the author put on each page. The time it took for each of these pages blows my mind. Which why I'm glad I read the physical copy of this, to be able to take in the details.

All-in-all I enjoyed this book and I'm glad I finally got around to reading this one!

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

A GHOST SHIP.
A SALVAGE CREW.
UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS.

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.

What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.

Why I'm Waiting: Because in space no one can hear you scream.

HAPPY READING!!

Holiday TBR

Hello out there! We are right in the middle of the Holidays, but my personal Holiday is officially kicking off today. For the first time in six years, I'm going to be able to go home and see my family. It's a lot of mixed feelings after losing a very important member of our family, but I'm excited to see everyone. Now, of course, I'm not going on any kind of trip empty-handed. I've gone back and forth about do I bring two books just in case I finish one or do I bring just one big one. Because I've got some monsters that I've put of reading because they are quite large. In the end, I decided on the latter. One big book, knowing I won't have a tone of reading time between being with family, but also because nine times out of ten I sleep on the plane. So what book did a bring?

The answer is I'm taking my entire NetGalley shelf with me. Over the summer I took a step back from that shelf because I was feeling overwhelmed with everything. Being sick, work being busy, etc, so I decided to let the books I had expired. Early this month I logged in for the first time in months finally filling alright added more to my TBR. 

I'm also taking home a book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, which feels like the perfect thing to read on the flight in to see my family!

I hope everyone has a good Holiday Season! 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Cover Runway Sunday

 

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

Mary Kate Castellani at Bloomsbury has bought Jamar J. Perry's debut novel, tentatively titled Cameron Battle and the Legend of the Chidani. The middle grade fantasy adventure story, inspired by West African and Igbo mythology, stars a Black boy who discovers magic in a book passed through his family over generations and realizes it may be up to him and his friends to bridge the barrier between worlds to save a hidden kingdom. Publication is scheduled for winter 2022; Rena Rossner at the Deborah Harris Agency negotiated the two-book deal for world rights.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

Kolyma Highway, otherwise known as the Road of Bones, is a 1200 mile stretch of Siberian road where winter temperatures can drop as low as sixty degrees below zero. Under Stalin, at least eighty Soviet gulags were built along the route to supply the USSR with a readily available workforce, and over time hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the midst of their labors. Their bodies were buried where they fell, plowed under the permafrost, underneath the road.

Felix Teigland, or "Teig," is a documentary producer, and when he learns about the Road of Bones, he realizes he's stumbled upon untapped potential. Accompanied by his camera operator, Teig hires a local Yakut guide to take them to Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth. Teig is fascinated by the culture along the Road of Bones, and encounters strange characters on the way to the Oymyakon, but when the team arrives, they find the village mysteriously abandoned apart from a mysterious 9-year-old girl. Then, chaos ensues.

A malignant, animistic shaman and the forest spirits he commands pursues them as they flee the abandoned town and barrel across miles of deserted permafrost. As the chase continues along this road paved with the suffering of angry ghosts, what form will the echoes of their anguish take? Teig and the others will have to find the answers if they want to survive the Road of Bones.

Why I'm Waiting: This sounds creepy as hell and hard to put down!

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

The City is the only home that Ellie has ever known. She's always been told that there is nothing to see beyond the shores of her small, salty island.

That is, until a mysterious boy washes in with the tide, trapped inside the belly of a whale.

The citizens of the City believe he's ruled by the Enemy--the legendary god who drowned the whole world--come again to cause untold chaos. Only Ellie believes that the boy is innocent.

To save him, Ellie must prove that he's not who they think he is--even if that means revealing her own dangerous secret.

HAPPY READING!!

Prosper's Demon - Review

Author: K.J. Parker

Genre: Novella

Format: Paperback

Pages: 100

I loved this more than I thought I would. This is my second book by K.J. Parker, and this is my second time picking up Prosper's Demon. The first time, I only got a couple of pages in and knew I wasn't in the mindset for the book, and I'm glad I waited. If I would have read the book the first time I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did this time. So glad I waited so I could throw myself into this book and give it my full attention. Because it needed it.

Parker throws us right into the story and builds everything around this unreliable narrator whose name we never learn. The narrator talks of people and places like the reader should know who they are, and it doesn't matter really that we don't because none of them are important to the plot. The important moments are hidden into smaller details that hardly seem worth putting on the page. I was so focused on one thing I missed the obvious answer of what was about to happen.

Which means I was picking my jaw off the ground at the end of this story. I knew that a twist was coming, I just didn't see that. Which I should have because as I flipped back a few pages, there were hints and set-up to let me know something was hinky.

I'm also impressed with just how much K.J. Parker slammed into one book that is a hundred pages long. Not just a thoroughly fleshed-out story either. The backstory to our 'hero' is there and his long run-in with the demon that goes out of its way to do harm to said 'hero'. There's even a nod to another series in this book tieing that world and this together. Not to mention the science, the math, and the world-building that also happens on these pages.

This is a book you read in once sitting because it down might mean missing a detail. I'm pretty sure it's one that if I went back and read it again I'd find moments that's I missed. All of this story was my jam. I loved that our narrator had sort of lost all ability to feel guilt or remorse. What he was born to do sort of beat it out of him. The hard choices and no respect. It doesn't make what he does right, but you sort of understanding was he's cold-hearted. 

This is why the ending shouldn't have shocked me much as it did...

Anyway, I loved this and will be picking up the sequel Inside Man after the holidays. I really like K.J. Parker's writing style and I need to read more of his books.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

 

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

No matter how different best friends Adelle and Connie are, one thing they’ve always had in common is their love of a little-known gothic romance novel called Moira. So when the girls are tempted by a mysterious stranger to enter the world of the book, they hardly suspect it will work. But suddenly they are in the world of Moira, living among characters they’ve obsessed about for years.

Except…all is not how they remembered it. The world has been turned upside down: The lavish balls and star-crossed love affairs are now interlaced with unspeakable horrors. The girls realize that something dark is lurking behind their foray into fiction—and they will have to rewrite their own arcs if they hope to escape this nightmare with their lives.

HAPPY READING!!

Daphne Byrne - Review

Author: Laura Marks

Genre: Graphic Novel

Format: Paperback

Pages: 144

This was my first jump into the Hill House series. I'm a huge fan of Joe Hill's and I was excited for this series, especially this book because I love Victorian Gothic. I was drawn to this one because it's set in New York instead of London which is a twist from the norm. 

I don't want to say I was disappointed in this one because it was okay, but I expected more from the story. I kept waiting for the story to get good, to expand on what was happening to Daphne. There were these little hints that kept me thinking there was going to be more to this story. There was the mysterious death of Daphne's father, her mother's obsession, and the voice that Daphne keeps hearing. All of it seemed like a great mix, but I was left wanting through the whole story.

Daphne had the potential to be a great main character. I'd loved her pluck and determination to save her mother. The way she fought to even save herself. But, I feel like she was almost waisted. There was one good scene of her using her "powers", and we don't even know they were if they were her's or her father's power. She's a great character though and wished she would have a longer story arc.

Like a said I felt like when I kept waiting for the story to happen. There was a lot of setup for a great story, but then everything from the climax to the end felt very rushed. I was also not super happy with the ending. Not only was it rushed, but really it's weird and a little gross. The demon thing keeps telling you to call him brother and you're kissing him. Really? 

I will say I really liked the artwork that Kelley Jones did for this story. I found Brother super creepy at times in that way that the old-style dolls are creepy. Their style of art fits the story really well. It's almost a bit like the old newspaper cartoons. Everything had a hard edge and a lot of shadows around it, and only certain panels and pieces that had full detail. Everything was vague and shadow. It worked well with the story I wanted this to be. 

Daphne Byrne was okay. Personally, I think only having one book hurt this story. There was potential to be drawn out through two or three volumes. One book rushed Laura Marks story and I was personally left a little wanting.

HAPPY READING!!

December Spotlight (take two)

If you're asking yourself didn't we just do this? Then you would be correct and rest assured this isn't some weird time loop. I did already send out a spotlight book this month just a few days ago but, I was informed by the author of The Montague Twins: the Devil's Music that due to supplier problems the release date has been pushed back until January! While I'm bummed to have to wait another month to get this book in my hands, I appreciate him reaching out to let me know so I support his release next month!

This does mean I'm picking another book for this month, and I didn't even have to think twice about it. Another series I love is getting a new book and I'm excited for that one as well. Sarah Scribbles is getting a fourth installment, a fourth one! This series is amazing and I'm excited about a new book in this series!

The fourth book in the enormously popular graphic novel series, the latest collection of Sarah's Scribbles comics explores the evils of procrastination, the trials of the creative process, the cuteness of kittens, and the beauty of not caring about your appearance as much as you did when you were younger. When it comes to humorous illustrations of the awkwardness and hilarity of millennial life, Sarah's Scribbles is without peer.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.

Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren't really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?

Why I'm Waiting: This sounds like a book I'm going to have pace as I read, or walk away from because it's stressing me right out. So you know, I'm pretty excited about it!

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

The fourth book in the enormously popular graphic novel series, the latest collection of Sarah's Scribbles comics explores the evils of procrastination, the trials of the creative process, the cuteness of kittens, and the beauty of not caring about your appearance as much as you did when you were younger. When it comes to humorous illustrations of the awkwardness and hilarity of millennial life, Sarah's Scribbles is without peer.

HAPPY READING!!

Most Anticipated Releases of 2022 pt.1

I cannot believe that I'm working on 2022 anything right now. Where has the time gone? The days have disappeared, and I'm still thinking it's the first half of the year. But, here I am thinking about what books I'm excited to see released in the coming new year. The list is already long, but I've managed to narrow it down to the twelve books. These are the books I can't wait to read and add to my ever-growing library. So in no particular order here are those books!

What is everyone else looking forward to reading during the first half of 2022? And, does anyone know where this year actually went? Because I swear I lost time at some point. Oh, and if you click each image you can learn more about the book via Goodreads!

HAPPY READING!!