Somehow we’re already at the end of January! How crazy is that?
I’ve gone into 2026 with a couple of desires and you can read more about the goals over on my Instagram or TikTok, but one of the main ones for these wrap up posts is “Breathing before Rating” because I had some serious rating regrets in 2025! So, I’ve convinced myself to start with a clean slate in 2026, not compare these reads to reads from last year and instead start comparing books just to ones I’ve read this year and my rating guide. I am hopeful this will help prevent me from suffering with reading regret again this year!
2026 kicked off with a bang! However, do my January reads refelect that?
Here is what I read in January
I am pretty surprised that I didn’t find any 5 star reads in January, despite that I had 3 books that, in advance, I thought would probably be a 5 star read! And a lot of the books I read this month didn’t meet expectations which is pretty surprising to me! I was trying a new ‘breathe before rating’ tactic in order to avoid having rating regrets throughout the year. I have really liked this tactic honestly, and I think it has resulted in a more varied and a more honest rating for these books. I have been less scared of rating a book lower than the ‘norm’ for popular books as well, as that was one of the big reasons I ended up with rating regrets!
Reading Stats for January
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 31 | 4,298 | 7 | 2 | 11 |
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 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
Book Bracket Entry – Favourite Book of the Month
Glow of the Everflame by Penn Cole
This was the closest to a 5 star that I had read in January! I really like this story and I’m so intrigued as to where it is going. But I am so scared to read Heat with no news about Burn! I do love Diem, I don’t understand peoples hatred of her – but you know, each to their own!
We Who Will Die by Stacia Stark
This was one of the book club reads I wanted to read this month, but also it was going to scratch an itch I didn’t realise I had! I miss vampires! So, I hoped I’d love this and I did! It was slow to start, and that’s unfortunate, but I liked the resillience of our FMC and the MMCs (because there are multiple)
Biggest Surprise of the Month
Golden Son by Pierce Brown
EVERY ONE talks about how good the second book is – that if you weren’t sold by the ending of Red Rising, you would be by the end of Golden Son. And I just struggled SO much with Golden Son that I’m annoyed that the ending WAS enough for me to want to read Morning Star. It took me almost a whole month to read this one, which is pretty disappointing.
Any 2026 Challenge progress?
26 in 2026
Of the 26 books on this list, I only had one on my TBR for January and that meant that I only read 1 book towards the list!
The Second Death of Locke by V.L. Bovalino has been ticked off!
BINGO!
I ticked off three squares in January!
- Continue a Series – Glow of the Everflame
- Read a Science Fiction / Fantasy – Thrum (but it’s a novella) so also, Golden Son
- Read a book in one sitting – Ready Player Two
Read 120 books in 2026
This works out at 10 books a month and honestly I thought that would be really quite easy to get to – especially earlier in the year. But my 2025 ended with a lot of stress and just not much down time at all, and as a result I’m still feeling pretty exhausted and in need of a break… So, I really didn’t think I was going to make it to 10. Luckily we made it to 11!
11/120
Read a shelf on the TBR Cart
This is also a BINGO challenge square, but it really will take a while to complete, So I’m including the progress here!
I’ve read 3 books from the second shelf in January, so small progress, but progress!
Reading With Tyler 
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