Getting my #AlwaysFullyBooked reading planner set up for 2025. Irrationally pleased with my star rating system legend. This is the first year I‘ve used quotes!

My list AND I are ready for 2025 #BookSpin.

I‘m taking a bit of a different approach this year and including some of my other reading projects in my list. This should help me make steady progress on those projects AND see more Book Spin Bingo success.

Woo hoo!! First roll of the year! Bring it on, #Roll100. I am ready for you (she says over optimistically)

Between the holidays and some health struggles with our senior pup, my reading has not gone the way I‘d hoped this month. I have a tonne of half-finished books and a stack of library books languishing. So my goal is just to read! Ideally, I‘ll get two of my three library books read and finish up a couple of my in-progress reads. And as always, I want to read something I‘m super excited about on New Year‘s Day.

Thanks for hosting, @Andrew65

I didn‘t make great progress on the series I‘m trying to get through in 2024 so most of these are not new series I‘m wanting to dive into. Here‘s to better progress in the new year for #SeriesLove2025!

I‘m ready for #Roll100 in 2025!

I have four chunks with 25 titles in each - gifts, BOTM/Aardvark, eBooks and paper. I had a really hard time whittling the list down so I‘m pretty excited for the upcoming year!!

I‘m not usually a short story fan but if Amor Towles is writing it, I‘m reading it. Some were excellent. Some were pretty good. Definitely one of the better short story collections I‘ve read and it was great to visit Eve again.

It‘s no Thursday Murder Club but it‘s not bad. The characters all felt a little one-dimensional with the same character trait being brought up over and over, which is what made this a so-so for me. It‘s zanier than TMC, which will work for some people but didn‘t pull me in enough to keep going with the series.

I expected more of a traditional mystery/thriller but I don‘t think that‘s a good representation. It‘s a bit dense and can get quite heavy (a child dies - we learn that very early on and the book unravels how we got there.) It feels more about class and agency than what happens to the child. It‘s interesting just not what I expected.

This was an interesting story but I was irked that Michael referred to Stéphane Breitwieser as Breitwieser and everyone else, including his mother, got the last name treatment but Breitwieser's girlfriend & coconspirator was referred to only by her first name. It's so disrespectful and shows such disdain for a woman when she gets the first name treatment but men do not.

I‘m ready to not read a single book from my #BookSpin list in December!

Utterly predictable but fun to see Molly and friends at Christmastime.

This is a good book but not a good book for me. It explores some really heavy topics - medically assisted dying (known as MAID in Canada) along with depression - and with all the heaviness of the real world these last few months, I need light in my fiction. It did lead to some good conversation in #mummydaughterbookclub, though.

@Andrew65 is back and hosting a #20in4 readathon this weekend! I won‘t get anywhere near 20 hours done but I‘m terribly behind on my #RandomClassics reading for Three Musketeers so I think I‘m going to aim high and try to get through 20 chapters of it. Thanks for hosting, Andrew, and welcome back!!

Do I speak a lick of Spanish? No. Did I let that stop me from buying this beautiful Spanish edition when we were in Argentina? Also no. Maybe this is how I‘ll learn the language!!

The last #Roll100 of the year 😭

I‘ve already read 2 of the 3 rolls (yay!) but I‘m so far behind on previous months that I‘m not subbing anything in.

A thousand enormous thank yous to @PuddleJumper for organizing this and the encouragement over the year!!

We just got back from the most amazing trip to Argentina a few days ago and one of the highlights was visiting this stunning bookstore that used to be a theatre. I would have stayed for hours but browsing for books in a language you don‘t speak isn‘t quite as satisfying as if you could read all the books.

I would like to petition the courts to return to May, please? I am not ready for November in any way, shape or form. I have, as a show of good faith, made a #BookSpin list but I respectfully request we rewind to before the summer started. Thank you for your time.

Abbi Waxman has been one of my favourite authors since I picked up the Bookish Life of Nina Hill. Going back to her early work has been on my list for years and I am so happy I finally got to this one. It‘s just lovely - sweet and funny and a little irreverent… It‘s everything I want and more.

My June #BookSpin and Roll 66 for #Roll100 that I actually read in June!

Did we need a sequel to Brooklyn? No. Did this really need to pick back up with the same characters versus creating a new cast of characters? Also no. I didn‘t care so much about Eilis in this but I was captivated by Jim and Nancy. I would have happily taken just their story.

It‘s a #RandomClassics miracle! I finished Evelina!
I ended up restarting it a couple of weeks ago on a long hike with a different narrator and that made all the difference! I quite enjoyed this and I think I‘ll probably pick up a little print version sometime in the future.

My unread #Roll100 books are really starting to pile up - so I‘m not subbing anything in for the roll I‘ve already read. Hopefully, I can pick these up at some point. They are both on my kobo which is perfect because we‘re travelling this month but I never end up reading as much as I hope.

This might be my favourite Hallett yet? She‘s such a master at constructing an interesting mystery and then presenting it in just the most imaginative way!

We played a fun little game before the silent reading part of Silent Book Club this month. People LOVED the stickers and it made the game pretty lively when it was time to steal from each other!

Just the kind of book I love for October and while it had some good twists, I called the who pretty early on. The how and why was fun to see unravel, though.

Another of my #trappedinaspookyhouse reads, chosen for me by @GHABI4ROSES and organized by @PuddleJumper

Mostly I got this because I love The Lazy Genius Podcast and I wanted to support Kendra. But as with anything, there were a few gems to take away.

My July #BookSpin that I actually read in July and has been sitting in a pile of books to post to Litsy since then.

This took me an oddly long time to get into but it did pick up and I really liked the direction Connally took the story. I don‘t think I‘ll continue with the series, though.

One of my #trappedinaspookyhouse reads - thanks for picking it for me, @GHABI4ROSES and to @PuddleJumper for organizing!

Is it just me or was the big twist pretty obvious? It was still a good page turner, though!

Happily, I found this one less predictable than The Plot but also, it‘s incredibly far fetched. But there were a couple of real laugh-out-loud moments and overall, I enjoyed it!

I‘m settling in for the #CozyReads readathon @Bookwormjillk is hosting this weekend. I have an ambitious stack but it‘s a long weekend so hopefully I make some good progress!

💔💔💔

What was this book trying to be? If it wanted to be a psychological thriller, it didn‘t need about 50% of the pop star stuff. And if it wanted to be an insider‘s glimpse at a pop star‘s rise, the mystery was distracting. And ultimately, the “secret” and its fallout got zero attention (and frankly, completely unbelievable)

Thank you @Bookwormjillk for hosting the #CatsAndDogs readathon this weekend! My devil dog had surgery on Thursday so we are camped out on the sofa all weekend while she recuperates so I‘m hoping to get through this stack plus my Three Musketeers chapters for #RandomClassics

(Also, I can‘t believe my dog didn‘t wake up while I was balancing books on her!)

I would have liked to spend more time with the passengers. I just didn‘t really like Cherry or her story for the first half of the book! So I could have done with less Cherry and more with Allegra, Paula, and Leo in particular.

Look at me with my #BookSpin list ready to go before the numbers are pulled! Not sure how we got to October so quickly but at least I‘m ready for something.

Ah, October. One of the best months of the year to have a beautiful stack of #roll100 books that I‘m super excited about that I won‘t pick up because I‘ve put too many books on hold at the library.

Jumped into one of my #trappedinaspookyhouse books a bit early.

Happy to have this one off my shelf. It was a perfectly fine story with the humour you expect from the Ferguson brothers but it wasn‘t enough for me to keep going with the series.

If you were sucked into the Rogers family drama with Martha‘s infamous tweets, you need to grab this impeccably researched story on the complete and utter disaster that has become the Rogers family. This absolute train wreck of a story is fascinating - though the tail end with the Competition Bureau gets a little dry.

#audiohiking as we continue to prepare for our Mont Blanc Trek next fall

Sutanto is just so good at making you just keep turning those pages. It's easy to figure out early on that the timelines don't quite match up so you just want to see where they come together. And then when you hit the 50% point and things really shift? Well, just make sure your afternoon is clear.

A bit slow in the beginning and a bit fast at the end but Morris comes through with another winner. She does such a great job with character building, even the side characters you don't spend much time with. Add that on to a really bizarre situation and you've got a page turner!

This was not the Elin Hilderbrand for me. Turns out, I do not like books where the focus is an affair. I did like the parts about the gala, Claire‘s glass blowing, Gavin, and Siobhan but really did not like the Claire/Lock storyline. I would have DNFed if it wasn‘t for the Elin H project.

Uh oh, @wanderinglynn … You‘re out for a hike & take a wrong turn! You stumble on an old ramshackle house and the door creaks open as you approach. You poke your head inside but just as you do, a gust of winds comes, pushes you inside and slams the door shut. You can‘t get it open again! There‘s a carrier pigeon that you send for help but you‘ll be here a while. Happily, there‘s a stack of books to read while you wait.

#trappedinaspookyhouse

Oh, I wanted to love this. It‘s Flavia, after all! But it was only okay. A lot of filler, a weak story line, and one particular event that has got to be pandering to readers versus what Bradley actually wanted to do with the overarching story.

But I loved seeing Flavia and Dogger and even Mrs Mullet again so it gets a pick!

Well, the good news is I followed this instalment MUCH better than the last one. The other good news is it‘s funny and ridiculous and entertaining. The other other good news is another body shows up at the end, setting us up for Book 5. Or… is a body supposed to be bad news? I think it‘s bad news for Finlay, good news for her fans.

I‘m not sure I understood the why of this enough? Was there backstory I missed on why lifting was a thing? It felt like the world was maybe just different enough from ours that I needed a bit more. But that being said, like always, Ishiguro created this world that was familiar enough to understand but different enough to freak me out about the future, putting me a bit off kilter, which is so wonderfully disturbing.

#audiohiking

I feel like I figured out the first twist really early on but the second was one you couldn't see coming - because Vaughn plops this event down into the book and there's just a major plot hole in how it's possible it could even have happened.

Roll 14 for #Roll100

It took me a minute to figure out what was going on and I liked the balance of the unravelling of Ady and her mother‘s history, the fight against the Confederates, and the relationship between Ady and Lenore. Such great characters in a really compelling story!

A slow burn that‘s more about the characters than the situation at hand.

How incredibly fascinating! I love that Benedict partnered with a Murray to bring this story to life, it was a better book because of her perspective & expertise.

Enthralling and infuriating