Where do I begin with September? This was a bit of a crazy month honestly. I was kinder to myself on my TBR – I had a prompt that I was worried about so I gave myself options and told myself it was okay and in fact encouraged to read only one of them. It took quite a lot of pressure off me, I’m hoping to carry forward that realisation into the rest of my TBRs.
I also chose to do a 24 hour reading challenge, which I haven’t done in a couple years! I used to do it for my birthday, but I’ve just not been able to last year and this year – so I thought why not! I picked a weekend in September and I made it happen! I am really glad I did because I liked dedicating a weekend to simply reading! I will probably aim to do this more often…
Here is what I read in September
I really felt good about my reading this month. I definitely think being kinder to myself in my TBR made a lot of the difference. I do need to become more aware of this when I create my TBR because there will always be another book I want to read more or instead and the goal of my TBR isn’t to restrict what I’m reading but rather help me avoid decision paralysis.
So step one was be kinder to myself and not punish myself (nor the books chosen) if I don’t read them all.
Step two will be to accept that it’s just an idea! If I don’t read anything on it, then that’s fine too! It’s okay to abandon it to read something else.
Reading Stats for September
Stats about the types books I read
| # Physical Books off TBR | # of Days Read | # of Pages Read | # of Kindle Books | # of Audio Books | # of Books Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 30 | 4,335 | 4 | 1 | 9 |
Stats about the Spice level in the books I read (a 🌶 in the review list indicates it’s at least an Open Door spice level)
| Explicit & Plentiful | Explicit Open Door | Open Door | Behind Closed Doors | Glimpses & Kisses | None |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
Stats about the Ratings I gave the books I read
| Joined 6⭐Club | 5⭐ | 4.5 ⭐ | 4 ⭐ | 3.5 ⭐ | 3 ⭐ | Less than 3⭐ | DNF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Book Bracket Entry – Favourite Book of the Month
book of the month
Heavenly bodies by imani erriu
I hoped I’d love this, and I’m so glad I finally picked it up because I did in fact love it. I really had a great time with our main characters, I thought they had a great relationship and the yearning was impeccable. I liked Imani’s writing also, I found it easy to read and that paired with the great characters and interesting plot meant that I had a great time – this was my only 5 star rating of September!
Runner up
The Imrati trials by lizzy gayle
I’ll be honest I almost made this the book of the month because it was completely unexpected both in picking up and in loving. I’m writing this on the 30th September and I am STILL in awe of that ending and need book two. Lizzy if you see this, please think of me when book 2 is ready for ARCs! This may have gotten a 4.5 but it was excellent!
Biggest Surprise of the Month
anathema by keri lake
This is one of those sad months where the biggest surprise is so because I was really let down by it. After loving Nocticadia and seeing so many people love Anathema I truly thought there was no way I wouldn’t love it. Sadly, I barely liked it… Despite the fact that I DNF’d a book this month, this is still the biggest surprise to me…
General Reflection
September was an odd month. It started out really strong! I was having a great time, then I cleared a weekend and scheduled in a 24 hour reading challenge (first one in a while!!) and then after that I just wasn’t able to finish anything! Genuinely, I’m so surprised by this and low key worried… I finally decided to increase my reading goal for the year to 120 books and typically the month I do that I hit some kind of brick wall where I’m unable to finish anything!! I hope October is different…
Also as I was pulling together the stats for September I came to the realisation that it was a very 4 star month! Despite the issue I faced in the second half of the month where I just couldn’t seem to finish a book (and even DNF’d one!) a lot of the books I did read were great! And that’s always really nice – because ultimately every book I pick up I’m hoping will be a 5 star read, and so a successful month in terms of the ratings brings a big smile to my face!
Reading With Tyler 
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