One more day and the longest month ever comes to an end. This month has been crazy. Between cancelling out honeymoon, COVID-19, self-isolating, Sadie getting surgery, and work we have been super busy this month. Even with all of that going on, I managed to get a lot of reading in, which I am so happy about. I plan to finish up my last March book today which will put me at 12 books read for the month and also put me at exactly 30% of my 2020 reading goal being completed! Yay me!
Complete List of Everything I read in March 2020
- A Good Neighborhood : Therese Anne Fowler | ★★★★★ | See my full review HERE!
- The Women in the Mirror: Rebecca James |★★★★ | See my full review HERE!
- The Holdout: Graham Moore |★★★★★ | See my full review HERE!
- Cries from the Lost Island: Kathleen O’Gear |★★★★ | See my full review HERE!
- Home Before Dark: Riley Sager |★★★★ | Full review coming closer to date of publication.
- What You Wish For: Katherine Center | ★★★★| Full review coming closer to date of publication.
- The Age of Witches: Louisa Morgan |★★★★|See my full review HERE!
- Hard Cash Valley: Brian Panowich |★★★★ | Full review coming in May
- The Familiar Dark: Amy Engel | ★★★★★ | See my full review HERE!
- Peace Talks: Jim Butcher | ★★★★| See my full review HERE!
- Little Secrets: Jennifer Hill |★★★★★ |See my full review HERE!
- The Only Good Indians: Stephen Graham Jones | In Progress
- The New Husband: D.J. Palmer | In Progress
Most books I read this month were Advanced Reader copies that were gifted to me by the publisher. Only my Book of the Month pick, The Holdout, was a personal purchase and was our pick for the Let’s Read Rant Repeat Bookclub. With that said I still had a really good reading month and have a ton of new recommendations for folks. I have a three way tie for my favorite book of the month which is between: A Good Neighborhood, Little Secrets, and The Familiar Dark. Both A Good Neighborhood and The Familiar Dark are available now. Little Secrets will be available at the end of April!.
I was extremely excited to get ARCs of both Home Before Dark and What You Wish For, both come out this summer. While I love both Riley Sager and Katherine Center, neither of these two books were my favorites of theirs. Final Girls by Riley Sager, and Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center are still my tops from each author. That’s not to say the books were not good, they were still excellent, just not my favorite. I’ll have reviews for both of these out closer to their release dates!
In addition I had two books Cries from the Lost Island and The Women in the Mirror which almost earned three stars instead of four. Since I don’t do half star ratings I decided to round up for both of them but they fall at the bottom of my recommendation list for this month.
Goal Updates
For 2020 I am attempting at keeping myself more accountable for the goals I set myself. You can see a full list of my 2020 goals HERE. Below I have highlighted some of my progress towards these goals. This is just a snapshot, but I believe that sharing it with you, my reader, helps me to stay motivated which leaves me more likely to reach them. Like I said March was a crazy month, but I did make some progress on my main goals.
- Reading Goal: 30% of my reading goal completed this month.
- I caved and bought three books this month. I was dying to get my hands on C.J. Tudor’s newest release The Other People, Peter Swanson newest release Eight Perfect Murders, and picked up Truth be Told for a buddy read in April. Three books in three months though, I’d say that is still really good.
- My Netgallery percentage is up back up to 12%. I also have two more reviews to post and I’m hoping that will push me up to 15%. However, I did request a ton more books because I have zero will power so here’s to hoping that doesn’t push me back down.
- I did basically no running in March minus the first two weeks of going to Orange Theory. We’re had some pretty nasty weather lately and with the gyms all closed because of COVID-19, I just have not had motivation to run. However, we’re adding a treadmill to our home this week and I think that is just what I need to get back to working on my half marathon pace.
- Once again I kept up with posting 3+ blog posts a week. I feel myself getting into a really good rhytum with my posts & find that I am doing so much better about writing reviews as soon as a finish a book instead of procrastinating.
- While I am nowhere near 10,000 followers on Instagram I am at 3.1K+ which is almost a 300+ follower increase for March!
March was a much better month for my emotionally however everything going on in the world has really not helped to limit my anxiety. I’m trying to just take it day by day and think on the positive side of life. Both my husband and I have our jobs. We have a roof over our heads and we can afford to stock up on food from the grocery store. We have both been healthy and thankfully COVID-19 has not hit our area too hard as of yet, and here’s to hoping it doesn’t. The biggest negative we had this month, was having to cancel our honeymoon. We had planned to spend the last two weeks of March in The Netherlands but have had to cancel with the stopping of international travel. We are completely bummed out about this but understand that it’s for the best. We hope to reschedule for later this year.
I hope you enjoyed my March Recap. What other facts and tidbits would you like to know about my reading? If you liked this recap please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof_books.