City of Deja

Happy July! We’re halfway into the year now, which means that it’s time for a mid-year check-in. I wrote a post on my 2023 Reading Projects back in January, so I also wanted to give a few updates on how I’m faring with those and chat about other books I’ve read during this first stretch of the year.

Quick Stats

2023 has been quite the year so far. I graduated from undergrad back in December 2022, so I’ve had lots of adjusting to do in my life as well as in my reading. I set my reading goal to 12 books, and as of writing this post I’ve read 11 (according to Goodreads, I’m 5 books ahead of schedule, so that feels like a win). I’ve been very intentional about setting down books that I’m not actively enjoying or in the mood for, and while it’s slowed down my reading quite a bit, it’s also led me toward lots of great reads. While I have written a few lower-rated reviews so far this year (read: Alone With You in the Ether), the good have definitely outweighed the bad, which I’m grateful for.

2023 Favorites List Contenders

Despite Alone With You in the Ether not working for me, Olivie Blake still seems to be making her way onto my yearly favorites list yet again with The Atlas Paradox (read my *spoiler-filled* review here) and One for My Enemy (read my spoiler-free review here). I also have high hopes for, Blake’s next release, Masters of Death, which releases in August.

My other anticipated read is the third volume of the Fangirl manga adaptation, which also hits shelves in August. Fangirl has remained one of my favorite young adult contemporary novels, so it’s been fun to read the manga version and see the visuals of a story I’m so familiar with.

2023 Reading Projects Check-In

My 2023 reading projects were quite short and simple: read The Count of Monte Cristo, read a novel by Jane Austen, and continue or complete one of my many unfinished series. And, so far, I’ve only made progress in that final project by reading Queen of Shadows (the fourth Throne of Glass book) and The Kingdom of Copper (the second book in the Daevabad trilogy) but, hey, that’s better than nothing! Lol. I have to be in the perfect reading mood to binge-read a series, so I’ve been hopping around a lot instead of completing any. I’ll get there, hopefully!

The Count of Monte Cristo is still sitting unread (I think I read the first 30 or so pages back in January but I’d need to restart it anyway to remember all the characters). So that project is one still very much on the drawing board. I did recently acquire a new paperback copy so that the Penguin Clothbound edition would remain only on my shelves, but that’s the only progress I’ve made so far. I still have six months to go, so fingers crossed!

As for my annual Austen read, I recently learned of a read-a-thon called Jane Austen July hosted over on BookTube, and it’s all about reading Austen’s works. I’d actually just recently began reading Mansfield Park on July 1, so now I’m even more motivated to finish it within the timeframe of this read-a-thon, and maybe read other Austen-adjacent works while I’m at it.

And that’s where I am with my 2023 reading. I’m excited to see what this final stretch of the year will bring 🙂