Back in mid-September, my reading mojo just completely disappeared. I finished reading one book on 9/10, and didn’t finish another until 10/5. For most of that time, I wasn’t reading at all. Then, the rest of October, I only managed to finish four total books, and one of those was a 2-hour audio novella! In November, I literally read a single book. So far, December is going better – mostly because I’ve forced myself to finish a few audiobooks – but my TBR stack, kept under control for most of 2022, is skyrocketing at an alarming rate.

A big cause of this? Book of the Month. My physical non-library books are stacking up. I’ve been grabbing a lot more books from BotM, including add-ons, for the last few months. I mostly read books from the library or on audio, so these physical, owned books tend to fall to the wayside a bit unless I’m particularly excited for them the second they arrive. Result being that I now have more than half a dozen owned physical unread books sitting on my shelf. While it’s an unusual thing in the book world, I don’t usually have unread books on my shelf. These I have now equal more unread, owned books on my shelf than I’ve had since spring of 2011.

Additionally, I have a whole pile of books on hold from the library that are all starting to come in after months of being on the waiting list. Beyond that, my virtual TBR is starting to stack up. Normally, I take that opportunity to order the 20-30 books on the virtual list from the library in order to preview and determine which of them to cull, but with so many currently at home, I don’t want to add more to my plate. However, this does mean that I probably need to have a little personal readathon to clear my shelves out a little. Probably with less ruthlessness than usual, however, since I actually did spend money on these.

In good news, two of the long-time library holds I received this week both ended up being culled from my list after a little preview-reading and some spoilery reviews on GoodReads. (Spoilery reviews are the absolute best for helping me to determine if something is worth continuing when I’m not sure!!) One of those books (As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow) is one I might return to in the future as it seems to be a very well-written book, just too gruesome/heavy for my current mental health. On the other hand, I’m soooo happy I abandoned The Family Game before I got to the more, shall we say, over-the-top sections. (Seriously, if you have no interest in this book, check out the spoilery reviews. It’s like Mystery Science Theatre for books! I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.)

Normally, December is a very quiet, non-bookish month for me. It’s not unusual for me to finish only 1-2 books. This year, there will be four audiobooks in addition to whatever I finish in print, unless I choose to put off the one that releases on the 27th (Nine Liars!!!!!!!) and start the new year with it. I’m going to have to annoy myself by posting 2022 reviews all the way into 2023, long after my end-of-year book wrap-up, which I despise doing! I like to end the year full-stop before the 1st, but I also can’t stomach not reviewing most of the books that I read. Who knows? Maybe after months and months of barely getting a post or two out each week, I’ll start posting 5-6 times a week just in time for everyone to be too busy with holidays to read blogs anyway. Heh.