Another month, another stack of reading goals

April was a pretty good mental health month (aside from the everyday stresses of bringing a new rescue dog into the house), but it was a terrible reading month! I hit another slump, I decided to DNF almost half of what I picked up, and I barely touched my April TBR. But hey, May is a new month and I’m hopeful it will be better! Of course, our summer busy season with family outings starts this week, so time will tell. 😂

April goal check-in: 

• read 20 books ✅
  • If you include DNF titles (I do), I read 22 books!
• 3+ blog posts per week ❌
  • Nope, failed this one! I did succeed for the first few weeks, but I didn’t blog at all last week other than a weekly check-in.
• catch up on at least half of my unwritten reviews ❌
  • Didn’t even touch them 🤡

My goals for May are: 

• catch up on at least half of my unwritten reviews (yep, I’m repeating this one! I’m currently sitting at 98 in my Goodreads “RTC”/Review-to-Come shelf)
• finish setting up my new “fun” journal spreads (see journal section below for info)
• start/read at least 25% of every book on my May TBR

monthly checklist:

I’m going to move this checklist to my wrap-up posts, so this update section will be in my April recap later this week!

May’s picks:

• Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff: Misty and I meant to read this in April but didn’t get to it yet, so we rolled it over to May.
• Blood Bonds by J. Bree: Malli, Misty, and I are working through the series (though Malli has read them before). I’m only on book 2 right now, but planning to finish it this week so we can move on to book 3 soon!
• Winter & Stars Above by Marissa Meyer: Misty and I have been planning to finish this series together for ages and we’re finally going to do it!
• Murder Road by Simone St. James: I’m buddy reading this one with Ashley!
• Funny Story by Emily Henry: This was the May BOTM choice for my Discord server and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve loved all of the EH books I’ve read so far!
• Bluejay by Megan Stockton: This is one of the Dead Readers Society picks for May. I don’t think I’ll be joining the other group reads for that group this month, but I’ve had this on my kindle for ages.
• Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana: Like I said, one of my new goals is to start picking 1-2 very recent hauls for each month’s TBR, and this was in the Fairyloot Romantasy box for April!
• Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin: I’ve been waiting for this for EVER! I backed the kickstarter ages ago and I’m so freaking excited it’s finally here! 🥳
• The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields: This is on my Spring TBR, it releases in May, and it’s one of my most anticipated 2024 releases. I hope it lives up to my own personal hype for it!

May’s reading journal spreads:

I started using a Happy Planner last week to plan out my everyday/non-bookish stuff, so I’ve decided to overhaul my reading journal a little into something that is exclusively geared towards “fun”: books, video games, movies, and other hobbies, basically. It’s very much a work in progress right now, so I don’t have much to show yet, but I did finish my May TBR page and really liked how it turned out, plus this blooper pic of Ella biting my journal was too cute not to share. 😂

What are you reading this month?

— destiny ♥

 BOOKSTAGRAM | booktok | goodreads | LETTERBOXD | THREADS