you read that right! i read less than 10 books last month, which i literally have not done in over a year. i'll tell you all about the books i read, my new rating system for books, and why i'm so proud of myself for having read far less books than i have in a while. are you okay?this was the common sentiment for pretty much everyone with whom i shared the news that, yes, i had only read 9 books in the month of january (and it would've been 8 if i hadn't binge-read a book at the beach). thankfully, my partner understood what i was going for and sighed in relief when i reported my final numbers. y'all? i was reading way too many books for my own good before. this month was finally the month i fixed my relationship with reading. i've also pretty much been in a constant background funk, wherein there's a little gray storm cloud in the back of my mind all the time. most of the time i can keep it at bay, but sometimes it kind of consumes me and dumps rain to the point where i drown my brain in mindless tasks, like social media scrolling and phone games. so while i think it was extremely healthy to have put that bar between myself and high-pressure reading goals, i was also just having a bad month and i simply could not have picked up as many books as before if i tried. but i'm not beating myself up for it this year. no, 2021 is the year we look at things in a different light, and celebrate where necessary. so here's to january being over with and february being a new month, to each friday being the end to another work week, to every day being a chance to start fresh and be great!! my new rating systemi think that as a scientist at heart, putting numbers to books felt wrong. to my mind, it was putting something quantitative to something that is purely quantitative. that is to say that numbers are discrete and have distinct meaning, but the way someone feels about a book is subjective, nuanced, and can mean a thousand different things. i don't know why but i felt like there was this really weird social stigma when my five stars was the equivalent to someone else's four stars, or when my one star was equivalent to someone else's three stars. so! i have done away with this completely, both in my digital reading tracker and my analog reading tracker. here's the gist: i use really broad categories mostly due to the fact that i don't really want to defend my opinions or ratings anymore *cough cough* I MEAN for a number of reasons. anyway, here are the categories!
from now on, i'll do my wrap-ups based on these categories! i think it'll be a neat and easy way to sum up what i read. so without further ado... let's wrap up the books i read in january!loved it (ft. all the completed duologies!)
liked it
liked it but
not for me
thank you to everyone on twitter who helped convince me that doing a wrap-up on my blog was something everyone would be interested in. i filmed a wrap-up, but i finished another book after filming and i wasn't feeling in the right headspace to edit a video. i hope you all enjoyed, and that you also had as much of a good reading month in january as i did! feel free to reach out to me on instagram or twitter if you'd like to chat about any of these books. thanks for reading!!
1 Comment
2/3/2021 02:58:28 am
nine books is still so impressive! i'm glad that they averaged out to be ones that you loved. mirage and crier's war are both on my tbr for this year and i can't wait to get started! sending you all the happy vibes for a lovely february 💕
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hi, i'm mari, and i'm a STEM grad student, i watch baseball, and i read... a lot of books. i hope you learn some-thing new while you're here!
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