I’ve been travelling for most of December, which put a dent in my reading and has resulted in a semi-hiatus as I’ve been short on both quiet minutes and wifi! Expect to be regaled with stories of my adventures in a week or two when I get round to writing them up; in the meantime, a quick recap of my December reads.

Reading Round-up

It’s been a strong end to the year, with some really enjoyable reads under my belt. The emphasis has been on shorter, faster reads as I’ve not been able to get to many pages at once, which has kept me trucking but gosh I’ve got a lot of reviews to catch up on now! I knew that whole ‘up to date’ smug feeling wasn’t going to last…

• The Owl Service – Alan Garner  ★★★★
• To Kill A Kingdom – Alexandra Christo  ★★★★☆
• Haven – Adam Roberts  ★★★☆
• Bitesize Books: The Descent of Monsters – J Y Yang  ★★★
• Bitesize Books: Void Black Shadow – Corey J White  ★★★★
• Bitesize Books: The Black God’s Drums – P Djèlí Clark  ★★★★☆
• Tremontaine:
  • A City in Crisis – Karen Lord
  • After the Flood – Liz Duffy Adams & Joel Derfner

Stacking the shelves

On the other hand, travelling has kept my acquisitions in check! I was hoping to read Static Ruin and Empire of Sand by the end of the year, but all three will make me happy in January instead.

Reading statistics

My goal – as always – is to read diversely and to love every book. I’ve put no targets on my reading this year beyond a number of books, but I’m tracking some stats for my own interest.

• 82 / 75 books or novellas + 7 DNFs
• 30 male (37%) / 45 female (55%) / 6 trans, non-binary or genderfluid (7%) + 1 group effort
• 25 (30%) – by authors of colour
• 11 (13%) – by LGBTQIA authors
• 21 ARCs / 11 off the shelf (it doesn’t count if I bought them to read them straight away)
• Game of Books score: 428 / 400

I’ll be figuring out my 2019 goals in the coming week, so I’ll share them when I get that far!

Happy new year – I hope you enjoyed your 2018 reading as much as I did.