bibliophile

All the Books I Read Last Year | Reading 2024

Here it is! Part 2 of my reading wrap-up for the books I read during 2024. You can check out Part #1 here if you’re interested in the rest of my statistics from The StoryGraph and you haven’t already.

Anyway, I read 55 books which were 21,359 pages all together. So many books! Not as many as I read in 2023, but still, so many books. I’m hoping that 2025 will be just as good a year regarding reading as the last two years have been.

2024 Reading Wrap-Up

The Books I Read in 2024

How many books did you read last year? How many did you like and dislike? What was your favorite and least favorite? Did we read any of the same books?

Anyway, last year was amazing, and I did pretty well with my novel reading as well as posting on this blog. I think. I’m really happy with the amount of books I got around to reading, honestly.

But yeah, as always, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day/night!

See ya ~Mar

End of the Year Book Tag 2024

Hello all and Happy New Year’s Eve!! 🍾🎉 Since it’s the last day of the year, I thought I’d do the End of the Year Book Tag. ‘Cause it sounded interesting and fun and perfect for today, and Leslie @ Books Are the New Black tagged everybody, sooo… yeah.

The End of the Year Book Tag was created by Ariel Bissett over at YouTube. There are six questions, and the tag focuses on reflecting on the past year’s reading, as well as looking forward to future reading. I’m ludicrously late to this (I only found out about it late last night, lol), but it’s still 2024 right?

Anyway, here it is!

📖 Are there any books you started this year that you need to finish? 📖

I don’t really have hope for finishing this at this point in time, but I’m still only about 25% of the way through I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle. Oh well, haha.

🎇 Do you have an autumnal book to transition into the end of the year? 🎇

No, not really. I’ve never given any thought to autumnal types of reads, though I do definitely read seasonally sometimes. (And at this point it’s a little too late to try to look into something. I only have a few free hours today, as well.)

🕛 Is there a new release you’re still waiting for? 🕛

Since it’s the last day of the year, everything has already been released. But The Losting Fountain by Lora Senf came out literally today, and I haven’t even gotten close to reading it, so I’m counting it.

📚 What are three books you want(ed) to read by the end of the year? 📚

Two things I really wanted to read before 2024 ended were the Winterspell novella, Summerfall, and short story, Homecoming. (I actually ended up reading and finishing these last night and this morning.)

And as for the last book, well… Since one of these was a short story, I’ll say another two books I was interested in reading and finishing before this year ended: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle.

💖 Is there a book you think that could still shock you and become your favorite book of the year? 💖

Nah, at this point I’m almost positive that’s not gonna happen. ‘Cause it’s December 31st, lol.

🗒️ Have you already started making reading plans for 2025? 🗒️

Yeah, a little bit. I got several books for Christmas, so I’d like to start reading them soon. Also, Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Last Tales is coming out in January 2025 and I’m really looking forward to that, so I’ll definitely read when it comes out.

So, I guess I’ll tag everyone who wants to do this tag again, even though it’s basically too late to do this tag at this point. Unless you’ve got some time and you’re quick, lol. This was a fun little tag, though, and I’m glad I managed to squeak this out.

As always, thanks to everybody so much for reading, and I hope that you have an awesome day/night!

See ya ~Mar

First Line Friday: 7/19

Two weeks in a row! Let’s gooo!!

Anyway, First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words, but I saw it over at One Book More.

What if instead of judging a book by the cover, author or most everything else, we judged it by its content? Its first lines?

If you want to join in, all you gotta do is:

📚 Take a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open it to the first page
📝 Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
📙 Finally… reveal the book!

Here’s the first line:

Once upon a time in West Virginia, two boys went missing.

Do you know what the book is? Here’s another couple of hints if you still have no idea…

Still need some time to think about it? Here’s some lovely photos of books to admire while you think about it…

Annnd the book is… 🥁🥁 The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer!!

(Did you get it right?)

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer

LENGTH: 338 pages

GENRES: Fantasy, Romance, Fiction

PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books

RELEASE DATE: 16 July 2024

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.

As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell vanished in a West Virginia state park, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Jeremy is a famous missing persons investigator with an uncanny ability to find the lost, while Rafe is a reclusive artist unable to stop creating otherworldly paintings and sculptures he shows to no one. He bears scars inside and out from his disappearance but has no memory of what happened while they were gone. 

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth behind their time in the woods. While the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons.

But the time for burying secrets comes to an end when vet tech Emilie Wendel hires Jeremy to find her long-lost sister… the long-lost sister he and Rafe knew while living in that hidden kingdom. Now the former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories. Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy return to the enchanted world they called home for six months… for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.

What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re currently the most excited about?

As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!

See ya ~Mar

Can’t-Wait Wednesday: Dreadful

So, May is pretty stacked this year. There are quite a few interesting looking books coming out. And I’ve really got my eye on this one.

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings (and was previously hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine where it was known as Waiting on Wednesday) to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. They’re usually books that have not yet been released.

This week’s book is:

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis! 🏰🧄

It might not have been my quad-annual anticipated new books post that I did last month, but that’s just cuz I didn’t know about it yet. As soon as I read the premise, I knew I’d have to read it!

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis

LENGTH: 352 pages

GENRES: Fantasy, Fiction

PUBLISHER: Titan Books

RELEASE DATE: 28 May 2024

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

A sharp-witted, debut high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, evil wizards and a garlic festival – all at once. Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, K. J. Parker and Travis Baldree.

It’s bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard’s workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly and then turn your skull into a goblet or something.

It’s a lot worse when you realize that Dread Lord Whomever is… you.

Gav isn’t really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed. 

But as he realizes that nothing – from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess – is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he’ll have to answer the hardest question of all – who does he want to be?

A high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, an evil wizard convocation, and a garlic festival. All at once. All in all, Dread Lord Gavrax has had better weeks. 

Are you looking forward to Dreadful? What other books are coming out soon that you’re looking forward to?

As always, thank you all so much for reading and have a wonderful day/night!

See ya ~Mar