Thank you again to Sam @ Taking on a World of Words for hosting this weekly meme. I’m pretty sure you all know the drill by now, but in case you don’t and you want to join, here are the three questions we always answer:

1. What are you currently reading?
2. What did you recently finish reading?
3. What do you think you will read next?

• Witch of Wild Things – Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
• One Dark Window – Rachel Gillig

I’m really excited with the books that I’m reading right now. I haven’t had any books that I am carrying over from 2023 since earlier this month, so I’m starting fresh. One of these is a “just for me” book that I had seen show up a few times on my feed and wanted to check it out. So far it’s interesting, so we will see from there. The other one was for my Diverse Baseline challenge. I am realizing that I won’t be able to read all three prompts in a month so I’m sticking with one, and I at least accomplished that for January. It’s my second Vasquez Gilliland book, and it’s really good. It’s also so sad at some points but I have a feeling it’s going to be a 5-star read for me.

• Red Thread of Fate – Lyn Liao Butler
• Deathless Divide – Justina Ireland
• Black Girls Must Die Exhausted – Jayne Allen
• Black Girl, Call Home – Jasmine Mans

Look at me finishing four more books before the end of the month! I know I won’t get a 10th book in before it hits midnight, so that’s okay. I think 9 is a good amount to start the year off. Especially since there were a few that I never thought I would read. I’m not much of a poetry person, but I knew I wanted to give Black Girl, Call Home a chance since I had seen it before and it fit the prompt perfectly. It was a really quick read. I don’t normally rate non-fiction novels either, so this one is going to stay unrated from me. Still a powerful and thoughtful book to digest.

I’m debating on whether I want to listen to more poems throughout the year or not. Maybe not a whole book of poems but maybe finding one poem a month or whenever I get the urge to read something, and just sit with what I end up finding. I’m not sure yet.

• Fake Dates and Mooncakes – Sher Lee
• An Ember in the Ashes – Sabaa Tahir

I ended up falling behind on bookclub, so I have two books to read next month to catch up. I’m surprised that I didn’t end up getting to Fake Dates and Mooncakes since it’s shorter than a lot of the other books that I read, but it didn’t happen that way. At least I can start February with something short and sweet before diving into Ember. That one would be a reread for me and that one was a bit of a beast if I remember correctly.

I’m also debating on whether I’m going to slow down on my reading. Instead of trying to speed through books at 1.50x speed (I know that’s not the fastest, but that’s a comfortable speed that’s also fast enough for me to get through books quickly while still retaining what I read) I’m slowing it down to 1.25x or even regular speed! It may not seem like much of a difference, but I feel like I’m able to immerse myself in the book more when it’s a bit slower, but not too slow that I start to fall asleep. There’s that special speed where it’s just right, you know? I think 1.25x is that speed for me. What about yours?

Cheers to the end of January! Let’s see how February goes.