Small Great Things Paperback Giveaway

I'm so excited to announce that I'm hosting another giveaway for Jodi Picoult's Small Great Things. It was just released on paperback and the publisher was kind enough to give away three books to my lucky blog readers and members of the Jodi Picoult goodreads group.

All Tasks will be verified that you completed them and this giveaway is open to US residents only.

I read Small Great Things when it was originally released and I loved this book. I think it was such an eye opener for me. I think that this is a book that everybody should read to see that racism is still a very real thing in the US. I highly recommend it.

I will say that I will allow you to enter this giveaway if you have read the book, but do not own a copy, but if you already own a copy of Small Great Things please refrain from entering the giveaway and let people that haven't read this book a higher chance of winning.

The giveaway will end on March 4th at Midnight and I will pick winners the following day. They will be announced here on the blog. 

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Number of Books I Read Per Month 2013-2017

If you love stats this is the post for you. I got this idea from Lauren @ BookmarkLit who got the idea for Christina @ Girl in the Pages. I'm comparing my stats over the past 5 years that I have been blogging. I'm comparing the number of books I read by month and the release dates that I read by year. I'm super excited to share this post and analyze all the stats.

2013:
A lot of things have changed since I started blogging in 2013. In 2013 for the first half of the year I was a high school senior and I read a lot of books in my last 5 months of high school, but I slowed down throughout the rest of the year especially as I started college and finding a reading routine during my first year of college.
Total Read: 66

2014:
This was easily my best year of reading. I read a lot of novellas and some shorter books. I read a lot of 2014 releases, but also caught up on 2013 releases during this year. I read a lot of books throuhgout 2014.
Total Read: 71

2015:
This year was my worst year out of the 5. I was in a reading slump for most of the year and I just didn't read a lot overall this year. I wasn't motivated to read, but I did read a few books I really loved during 2015.
Total Read: 38

2016:
2016 was a good year of reading. I was pretty consistent throughout 2016. I did have some months where I read more and some where I read less, but overall I really enjoyed my reading year in 2016. I started student teaching in fall of 2016.
Total Read: 46

2017:
I finished up student teaching in May of 2017 and started my teaching job in August of 2017. My reading took a nose dive at the beginning of the school year, but it is picking up now that it is January. 2017 was a great year of reading and I read so many amazing books.
Total Read: 52

Most Read:
The three months where I read the most are June 2013, April 2014, and May 2014
June 2013:
I don't really remember why I read so many books this month. I know it was the month before I started my summer classes that I was taking in 4 weeks on campus, so I probably was trying to sneak in as much reading as I could. I ended up reading 11 books

April and May 2014:
April 2014 was my third Dewey's readathon and I had a chance to just read all day and really just enjoy the readathon. I think that kind of put me on a reading high that carried right over into May 2014. I end up reading 11 books both months.

January Over the years seems to be pretty consistent where I read 6-7 books and my reading usually picks up at the beginning of the year.

April always seems to be a good month for me and I think that is because of Dewey's readathon.

September-November are usually the months where I read the least. I usually only finish 2-3 books during those months. September 2016 broke this tread and I would have to give this to a team challenge I was involved in called WOBBLE. This challenge really motivated me to keep reading even when the school year started.

December usually picks up my reading a little bit since I'm reading Christmas books which are usually short and I can get a few done.

Overall I think it is so much fun to compare how many books I read over a year. There are not a whole lot of treads in my reading, but there are some consistencies over the years.

Overall I don't read many books published before 2000, but I do usually read a few every year. The number of pre-2010 reads has decreased as those books have got older.


As of right now 2013 is my most read release date with 49 books, 2014 I read 37, 2015 I have read 19, 2016 I have read 16, and 2017 I have read 10.

There isn't as much to analysis with this one. 2014 was a high year for new releases. I focused a lot on 2013 and 2014 releases that year. It is more evenly split with 5-10 books for each year from 2010-2017 the rest of the years.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I so enjoyed making it and seeing my stats over the past 5 years.

My To Be Read: February Winner

And the winner is... Enchanted by Alethea Kontis. I'm excited to start this series. 

January Wrap Up and February TBR

January was a great start to my reading year. I read four books for my Deal me In Challenge. I'm super proud to start the year out strong. I continued on with the Anne of Green Gables series, and I loved the latest book in the series. Otherworld took my least favorite for the month. It wasn't my type of book I usually read. Catching Jordan was my favorite of the month. I love Miranda Kenneally's writing. I also did a great job with my TBR. I read 5/6 books I put on my list as I'm writing this post because I finished Destiny Rewritten in February it won't make it on here until next month. 

I'm hoping I can stick to my TBR this month and do a great job on my TBR once again. I added some Kasie West books I'm excited to read and I love all of these authors. 

To Be Read List Let's Vote February

Hosted by Because Reading

It is always a continual goal for me to read books on my goodreads TBR list. I started 2016 with 335 books on my TBR and I started 2017 with 368 books on my TBR list. I'm starting 2017 with 394 books on my TBR list. The list is endless as authors continue to write and there is a million good books out there. This year I'm doing the My To Be Read List differently. I'm always going to choose three books from my deal me in/fill in the gaps person challenge. I'm hoping this will help me to knock off more books for that challenge.

I'm interested to see which one you guys pick. I'm excited to read all of these books.

A warm June evening, a local tradition: the students of Nantucket High have gathered for a bonfire on the beach. What begins as a graduation night celebration ends in tragedy after a horrible car crash leaves the driver, Penny Alistair, dead, and her twin brother in a coma. The other passengers, Penny's boyfriend, Jake, and her friend Demeter, are physically unhurt--but the emotional damage is overwhelming. Questions linger about what happened before Penny took the wheel.

 As summer unfolds, startling truths are revealed about the survivors and their parents--secrets kept, promises broken, hearts betrayed. Elin Hilderbrand explores the power of community, family, and honesty, and proves that even from the ashes of sorrow new love can take flight.

"Blessed" or "cursed" with an ability to understand animals, the Lass (as she's known to her family) has always been an oddball. And when an isbjorn (polar bear) seeks her out, and promises that her family will become rich if only the Lass will accompany him to his castle, she doesn't hesitate. But the bear is not what he seems, nor is his castle, which is made of ice and inhabited by a silent staff of servants. Only a grueling journey on the backs of the four winds will reveal the truth: the bear is really a prince who's been enchanted by a troll queen, and the Lass must come up with a way to free him before he's forced to marry a troll princess.

It isn't easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.

 When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.

 The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past—and hers?

2018 Spreads to Track Books in My Bullet Journal

I have been bullet journaling for a little over a year now. I started in November 2016. I was so excited to set up my spreads for 2017 and now I have had a year to try out those yearly spreads and I have figured out what works and what I wanted to change for the New Year. Let's face it there just isn't enough bookish bullet journal spreads on the internet. I'm always making new spreads throughout the year. I will try to do another bullet journal post further on in the year.

Here's one of my first posts. Every year I take a picture of all the books I own. I post the picture in my bullet journal to look at throughout the year and see which books I have read. 

This is one of my favorite spreads. I found it on pinterest. It is all the series I'm in the middle of. I just make a box for each book in the series and then cross off the books as I read them. I love how simple this page is and I left enough room to add new series that I start. 

The next few pages are dedicated to a reading challenge I join through goodreads. This is a repeat spread because it worked last year to complete the tasks for the challenge. What I do is when I finish a book and log it I go check if there are any tasks in the challenge it can qualify for. 

I absolutely love how this page turned out. If you are a long time follower of my blog you would know that I have been doing my personal deal me in challenge since 2015. I have 2 years left of the challenge, so I really need to buckle down and read these books. I have the list sorted and wrote on a deck of cards. I was just going to write down all the hearts, but then I decided to color code it, so I shuffled the deck and wrote down the cards in a random order based on the color code. I love how it turned out. The only problem is I don't want to cross books off, which is the point of the page. I haven't got it in my heart yet and I may have to start another page for the books I read. 

This page is simple just a list of books I read from the library. I did decide I needed two pages this year since I rand out of room on my list last year. 

Owned books is also just a list of books I have read that I own. I also include the date I bought them and the date I read them. My challenge key is very important to how I log books. I make a list of all the challenges I'm participating in and then come up with a symbol for each challenge to use on my log. 

This page is probably the most useful and the most used. This is all the stats I want to keep about the books I read. As you can see I have already filled out a couple books for the start of the year. Since it is in a linear fashion it makes it really easy to do stats at the end of the year. This also where those challenge symbols come into play because I don't have to rewrite the name of the challenge over and over again. I just put the symbol for each challenge. This year I color coded, so this is a pink page and I always like to make a design at the top. My first page is summer theme and the second one is a winter theme. I left a page blank if I need to make another books read page. 

Here is my last yearly spread I want to show you. If you have been a long time blog follower you know that every January I do an update to the releases I missed from the previous year. I made a spread in my bullet journal to have a place to cross off those books and like everything else this year I color coded it. The bottom of the page with 2017 I'm either planning to put the 2018 books I want to read or the 2018 releases I have read. I haven't decided yet, so I left it blank for now. 

Overall my Bullet Journal makes my list heart happy and  I make a lot of lists in my bullet journal. I'm super excited for all of these spreads. I hope these give you some new ideas for your bullet journal and I will try to share more bookish spreads as I create them throughout the year.