November 2017

As I created this post, I struggled with how to describe the month of November. It seems like just yesterday I was plotting out my NaNoWriMo story and writing the first chapter. Overall, I think the best way to describe it all is panicked.

Just before my big trip in September, I noticed that I had neglected my two challenges for the year quite a bit. October wasn’t much of a help because real life got in the way and November was the month of finishing up the various requests I had taken on. I have a new plan for each of those challenges so you can find that below.

I also went through my first major reading slump of the year in November but I quickly got out of that. Look for a post in the new year about my tried and true tactic.

One positive is that I created my reading plan for 2018 based on my experiences of the last 3 months so hopefully that works out!

Total for November 2017: 15 Books Read + 3 Novellas Read

Last November: 23 Books Read + 2 Novellas Read

DNF’d: 1 Books

Standout Read (★★★★★)

This novel reminded me what I love in a great adult contemporary romance: sizzling sexual tension; strong leads and just the right amount of drama to keep you interested. I found a new must read author with Alexis Daria!

Biggest Let Down (DNF’d)

I really wanted this to be the book that made me love Sophie Jordan’s works but alas, that was not the case. I DNF’d this one pretty quick and I think I’ve reached the conclusion that her books are definitely not for me.

I thought it would be fun to keep track of my reading progress on my Kobo every month (and compare it to last year’s numbers). While I do own a Kindle now, I mostly use my Kobo for everyday reading. As per my #ShelfLove Challenge, I really want to increase the Total % of Library Complete by the end of the year.

**NOTE: I finally figured out why my Kobo stats went all wonky a few months ago. For some reason books I had reopened lost their “read” status so they went away from my stats. So after going through 30 pages of books and marking them all as read again, my stats somewhat returned! It looks like my past library reads don’t count (hence the drop from 516 to 262) but now I can keep track of the books I own at the very least!**

As of:	November 30, 2017	November 30, 2016
Total % of Library Complete	22%	19%
Total # of Books Finished	262	516**
Total # of Reading Hours	2479	2082

 

Most Viewed Post   TTT: Books I Want my Kids to Read	Most Viewed Review   DNF Series Review: Starbound
View this year’s archives for more posts and reviews!

Previously posted series reviews that got updates:

You can always get the full details on all my challenges on my dedicated page but here is a quick update:

5 Year 5 Book Challenge: 9 of 25 Titles Read

New Target: Read the last 2 titles from 2012 and repeat challenge in 2018

Goodreads Challenge: Completed as of September 6
#ShelfLove Challenge: 1 TBR Item added this month

New Target: Technically, I’ve completed the challenge since I’m in my chosen range but I would like to hit 50 books by the end of 2017 and I’m currently just 5 books short

Judge By the Cover Challenge: None — what a fail of a challenge!
Classics Challenge: None

New Target: Let’s try again next year!

View my Challenge Progress Here!

In February, I brought back my Tackling the TBR feature and announced my plan to get my Goodreads TBR down to 500 books. Here are my current standings:

• Current TBR Shelf: 619 books
• TBR Shelf at end of October: 614 books
• Initial Number in February: 1205 books
• Total # of Books Removed: 0

New Target: I hope to do a purge in December of back-listed titles and get this number closer to 500.

NaNoWriMo Update

Despite starting with one story and quickly scraping it for another I was way more interest it, I had a pretty good month of writing. While I didn’t win this year, I definitely wrote more than I have in the previous years combined! So that’s a big win for me. I created a kick ass outline that I will be using moving forward. I’m hoping to make writing a weekly thing (daily just isn’t going to work with my current work schedule) but I feel really good about how I left things despite not reaching that target word count.

I have quite a few review copies to get through these first two weeks but the rest of the month is dedicated to getting those last few titles in for my challenges. I’m excited to do my Top Picks post for 2017 (it’s going to be so tough to decide and I have new category ideas!); tweak my reading plan for 2018 and create a new monthly feature I’m excited to share with you all.

What were your biggest reading or personal accomplishments of the past month?
Leave a comment below!