January Wrap-Up and February TBR – Black History month edition! 🥰📚🥳💕

Happy February everyone! 🥰

“Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”

― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

February is my birthday month and Black History Month so I feel very happy, content and excited right now! I hope February treats you kindly and that you manage to reach your goals, whatever they may be!

Books Read

I read 10 books this month and really enjoyed ALL of them! I have even found new all-time favourites among the list, so this was a pretty good start to the year.

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas. 4 stars 🌟 At first, the similarities to The Hating Game kept me from really enjoying this book but halfway through the book found its own voice and as soon as they set foot in Spain, I was hooked. 

The Vampire Stayed for Breakfast by Juna Ratnam. [gifted] 3 stars 🌟 This was a cute and enjoyable romance fantasy with a funny and unique plot. I love how diverse this was and wished it were a little longer so we could have had a proper, developed story. 

Glint by Raven Kennedy. 4 stars 🌟 The fact that I gave the first book in the series and this book nearly 5 stars should be telling of how much I enjoyed this. The character development was incredible and one of the best I have ever read. The intrigue and stakes also became more complex and had more depths and I didn't manage to finish book 3 in January but it's just as good so far.

Neon Gods by Katee Robert. 3.5 stars 🌟 I think this was the most disappointing book of January for me. This was my fourth Hades and Persephone retelling and seeing how much I love them and Katee Robert's writing, I thought this would be a favourite. I still enjoyed the romance and overall plot but the spice wasn't nearly as good as I had hoped.

All the Feels by Olivia Dade. 5 stars 🌟 This is one of my favourite romances ever. This was an ode to fanfiction, the characters were flawed but worked on themselves, it had the grump and sunshine dynamic (the male interest was actually the sunshine!!), accurate fat representation and I just loved it so so so much.

 The inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. 5 stars 🌟I never and I mean never annotate my books usually but this book had me picking up my highlighters, color pens, sticky notes and tabs because I had so much fun reading it! Here's my full review. 

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. No rating. I have been reading this book since August and finally found it in me to finish it. This book was so different from what I expected but I loved the autism representation, being on the spectrum myself as well as the reverse Pretty Woman dynamic this book had going on.

To Sir Philip With Love by Julia Quinn. 3.5 🌟 stars. I am so torn over this book. I honestly have no idea how I felt about this book. I enjoyed the story but it felt so different from the previous ones. I think it was a little too fast and unlikely for me. There was something that disturbed me in the dynamic even if I liked both characters. Oh well.

The Love Hypothesis By Ali Hazelwood. 5 stars 🌟 I finished the month with a bang because I have now read one of my favourite romances ever ever ever. This book deserves all the hype and the stars and more. Full review to come!

To Be Read

Since it’s Black History Month, I decided to only read books written by Black authors, so here are a few of the books on my list!

February book releases

(click on the covers to be redirected to the Goodreads page for each of these books.)

Posts from this month

2022 support book bloggers challenge

I only discovered the 2022 “support book bloggers” created by Pages Unbound yesterday (see the post here!) and the first prompt is:  FIND 10 BOOK BLOGGERS YOU’VE ENJOYED READING IN THE PAST AND GIVE THEM A SHOUT OUT.

So here you go:

• Meghan @Whimsically Meghan
• Alienor @ a fox’s wanderings
• Cherelle @ A Bolt out of the Book
• Phoenix @Books With Wings
• Kristin @ Kristin Kraves Books
• Anne @bookbakeblog
• Christy and Claire @I’m All Booked Up
• Kashvi @ Misty Realms
• Hundreds&Thousands
• Jayati @ It’s Just A Coffee Addicted Bibliophile
• Sofi @ A Book. A Thought

This is such a wonderful challenge, and if you don’t follow these blogs yet, I highly recommend them! 🥰 I love getting the notification that their is a new post up on their blog and I always have an amazing time reading their creative and well-written posts!

As I said, February is my birthday month (Feb, 13th!!!) so I’m very excited to see what the month has in store for me. I’m going to try to be more present on my platforms and slowly get rid of my shyness and self-cringe to show my face more.

I’m going to Germany tomorrow to see my family! (Fun fact, I was born there and have dual citizenship). I haven’t since them since 2018 and the pandemic has made our absence longer. I’m more free this semester as I am supposed to work on my master’s thesis so I’m really enjoying the rest. I realized that I was burned out and unhappy and I’m slowly gaining control over myself and my life and it gives me hope for the new year. Since my birthday is on a Sunday this year, I’m hoping I will get to brunch with my loved ones and just enjoy the day.

I’m also very happy about my Black history month challenge and I’ve already started reading some of the books on my TBR and the representation is both painful because of how accurate it is and much-needed because of how good it feels (does it make sense?).

What are your plans for this wonderful month? Let me know in the comments! 🥰

Karla xxx