The first quarter of the year is already over, can you believe it? I had a pretty successful reading month in March, so let’s take a look at what I’ve been reading, posting and listening to!

1. Overview from the Storygraph
2. Books Read
3. Books Progressed or DNF’d
4. On the Blog
5. Around the Blogosphere
6. Song of the Month

Disclaimer: Clicking on any of the book covers will take you to their Bookshop.org UK page (if the book is available there). These are affiliate links and I earn a small commission if you buy through them – this doesn’t affect the price you pay. If you can’t purchase via Bookshop.org UK, I encourage you to use the US equivalent or purchase directly from an independent bookshop (or use your library!) Let’s keep our bookshops and libraries in business! Titles link to the Storygraph instead.

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Overview from the Storygraph

I gave five books four stars this month, so the “highest rated reads” here doesn’t necessarily represent my top three for the month – I’m not actually entirely sure what my top three would be! They’re just the three most recent 4 stars I gave.

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Books Read

I read 10 books this month, which is slightly insane, although to be fair at least half of them were very short audiobooks, so I guess that makes sense. Still, I also had a pretty high average rating, so that makes me very happy that I got to read so many good books this month.

• The Apothecary Diaries (Light Novel) Vol 1 by Natsu Hyuuga | ⭐⭐⭐.5 (Review)
• Swordheart by T. Kingfisher (Swordheart #1) | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Review)
• Two Women Living Together by Kim Hana & Hwang Sunwoo | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Review)
• Women in Imperial China by Bret Hinsch | ⭐⭐⭐.5
• The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-mi Hwang | ⭐⭐⭐.5

• Before We Collide by Kate Dylan | ⭐⭐⭐ (Review)
• Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (Murderbot Diaries #3) | ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Exit Strategy by Martha Wells (Murderbot Diaries #4) | ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Review)
• The Archer by Paulo Coelho | ⭐⭐⭐.5

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Books Progressed or DNF’d

Aside from the ten books that I finished, I also made progress in quite a few others.

Death and the Gardner is an ongoing buddy read with a friend, and we’re a third of the way through. I also finished the short story that I was reading from 이상한 나라의 스물셋 [The Strange Land of 23], so I’ve now only got three stories left until the end.

I did some reading for an essay on the soundscapes of the woman’s boudoir poem in Ming dynasty China, so I read the Ming section of Women Writers of Traditional China. I did mark some poems I want to go back and read in more detail when it comes to writing my dissertation, but I did read all the poems in the section, so I’m counting that section as complete.

Finally, I’m slowly working my way though Save the Cat! Writes A Novel when I have some creative writing time, but it’s on and off my paused list since I don’t really have a lot of time for that at the moment. I read about 3% of the book this month, so not very much, but I am taking notes whilst reading.

I did DNF or soft DNF two books this month. Fuchsia War by Gaia Kai was an ARC, but the writing style really bugged me, so in the end I decided not to continue reading. I didn’t provide a full review on the blog since I didn’t read past the first couple of chapters. The Elsewhere Express is more of a soft DNF. I don’t know whether I might pick it up again later, so I’m probably going to sit with it paused for a bit, but I’m leaning towards DNFing. I don’t think it’s a bad book but there’s just quite a few things that don’t click about it for me, and I’ve been reading other positive and negative reviews and I don’t think that’s likely to change. We’ll see though.

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On the Blog

I had a bit of a dip in the middle of the month, but otherwise I think I did a pretty good job of posting this month and I definitely got out more book reviews than I often do. One thing I do want to do next month, though, is participate in the Fantasy with Friends and Let’s Talk Bookish memes, since I keep meaning to do them and running out of time to write the posts.

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Around the Blogosphere

• Emma @Pages of Emma’s Let’s Talk Bookish: Women Who’ve Shaped My Reading Life – I keep meaning to join in with this meme and then running out of time – definitely need to learn to pre-write some of these posts!
• I really enjoyed reading so many posts from yesterday’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt, so if you haven’t checked many out yet you should definitely go and read some. I’m definitely going to continue checking out some more throughout the week.

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Song of the Month

To finish off the wrap up, here is what I’ve been listening to this month:

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What was your favourite book of the month?

If you did a wrap up post of your feel free to link it in the comments and I’ll check it out!

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Keira x