Hey y’all, it’s the end of the month and you know what that means! Get cozy and let’s chat about March!
It’s been a bit of a slower reading month, which makes sense because it’s been a busy life month. Audiobooks have really gotten me through this month — of my 12 reads, 6 of them were audiobooks, with 1 read being a hybrid physical/audiobook combo. Thank you, audiobooks, for saving my reading month.
As for the books I’ve read this month, it was a pretty good mix! Nothing was rated under 3 stars, with three new 5-star reads, and three 4-4.5 star reads, so I would call this a pretty successful reading month!
Books read this month:
- The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett (5 stars)
- The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James (4.5 stars)
- What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez (3 stars)
- Cut Loose! by Ali Stroker & Stacy Davidowitz (4 stars)
- How I’ll Kill You by Ren DeStefano (4 stars)
- The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson (ARC, 5 stars)
- When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole (3.5 stars)
- Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It Out by Gracie Gold (unrated)
- Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (reread, 4 stars)
- The Family Plot by Megan Collins (3.5 stars)
- If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (reread, 5 stars)
- Alone with You in the Ether by Olivie Blake (5 stars)
One of my goals this year was to do a better job of keeping track of certain reading stats. Some of the things that I wanted to track were pages read and hours listened per month, distribution of reading methods (physical, audio, ebook, multiple formats), how I got the book (tbr, library, etc.), etc. and this year it’s been so easy for me to do so thanks to the CAWPILE spreadsheet (here’s the link to the 2023 CAWPILE video, which is the spreadsheet that I’m using). Since we’re now done with the first quarter of 2024 (…let’s not think too hard about that) I wanted to also include some quarterly reading stats in this month’s wrap up! As I’m posting this on the 28th and there are still a few days left of the month, there’s a possibility that I’ll finish another book or two and these stats could change, but these are my stats at the moment.
As you can see, I started off strong in January by reading 20 books, read 19 in February, and then 12 in March. This month has been busier life wise than the first two months of the year, so that has definitely impacted my reading stats. On the upside, I haven’t had any DNFs so far this year!
In January, 11 of my 20 reads were physical, with 3 of them being a hybrid audio and physical read and then 3 ebooks, so my pages read count was very high. In February I had 14 of 19 books read either physically or as ebooks, but a few of them were short stories, or romances that were on the shorter side so the page count is smaller. March was a bigger audiobook month, and that is really reflected in my pages read count. As for audiobooks, in January I read 3 books via audio (not including the hybrid reads), February was 5 audiobooks, all of them under 7 hours on at minimum 2x speed, and March saw me reading 6 books via audio plus the one audio and physical hybrid.
And here are a few other reading stats that I wanted to include!
Blog posts and vlogs I loved this month:
- I loved Kayla’s (BooksandLala) video Choosing My Next Read 🔮 Scavenger Hunt Decides My TBR In fact, this is the vlog that inspired my last blog post this month. I think this is such a fun way to pick a book off your tbr, and I love watching this video of Kayla’s every year!
- Truthfully, Sophie Gonzales’ books are usually hit or miss for me, but I’m definitely intrigued by her next release, The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist. I really loved Helena’s review, and it’s definitely made me more excited to pick this one up!
My posts this month:
- Recent Mystery Reads Mini Reviews
- Books That Define My Reading Taste
- Scavenger Hunt Decides My Next Read
Oh, what a month March was! March is usually a pretty busy month for me, and March 2024 was no exception. As always, work is super busy — the musical we’re working on at one of the local private schools is next month, and I’ve been spending a lot of time working on summer prep and interviewing teachers and interns.
My birthday was this month, and since I was working on my birthday, I kind of extended the birthday celebrations to the rest of the month. My actual birthday was great; we had rehearsal for the musical and the kids sang happy birthday to me multiple times and kept saying “Happy birthday, Caitlyn!” throughout the day, which was very sweet. I got some great gifts (including books), and had a delicious dinner and the cake I made turned out really well. I went to a sushi birthday dinner with my dad and sister the following night — as we like to do for our birthdays and holidays — did some book shopping that weekend and this past weekend I saw the National Tour of Mean Girls.
I started a rewatch of the CW’s Nancy Drew and am loving revisiting this show that I adore so much; I also rewatched all the seasons of The Great British Baking Show that are available on Netflix, because really, who am I if I’m not obsessing over Bake Off? I listened to the new Kacey Musgraves album Deeper Well, and am really enjoying it, so I anticipate that album being on repeat for a while. I’m trying to be better about listening to albums from artists whose singles I really like, so I’m working my way through Dua Lipa’s albums since I love literally every single she’s released and am really looking forward to her new album in May. Of course, I’m obsessively following Niall Horan’s tour The Show Live on Tour and have all his albums on repeat while I count down the days until my concert (as of today, I’ve got xx days until I see Niall again), and the & Juliet cast album is always on repeat in my house.
March was a much better mental health month than January and February (well, with the expectation of a few days) and I’m very glad for that! Though it’s been raining the last few days, the weather overall has been a lot sunnier and with it staying sunnier longer every day, my mood has vastly improved! As I like to say, I’m like a houseplant with slightly more complex emotions — I need lots of water and sunlight to thrive. However, toward the end of the month my allergies just started going crazy, so I’m suffering slightly, but am being so brave about it.
How was March for you? What were your highlights and what did you read this month? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time 💜