Faith, Hope, and Love

January marks the start of a new year and is all about follow-through on resolutions, so it only felt right that most of the books I read were either new releases or books that have been on my TBR for way to long! Here's what I've been reading lately... 1. Denton Little's Deathdate : This is a book I bought in the Spring of 2017, and it had been sitting on one of my side tables for months. So, on January 1st, I was resolved to get through that stack before the end of the month. I have not  be successful in getting through all the books (especially because a few more keep getting added), but Denton Little got me started! I thought this book was funny and super engaging. Imagine if we lived in a word where we knew the day we would die from the day we were born. That's the world Denton Little lives in. This books takes us through the 48 hours before he is supposed to die. I won't say much more, except that secrets are revealed and surprises abound. And... ...

A new year means a new reading challenge! And the blog behind one of my favorite podcasts, What Should I Read Next? , has the perfect list to tackle. It's short and simple. Twelve categories (so you could say one per month), with good variety (to ensure you push yourself in your reading habits). I first heard of the Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge back in 2016 from my dear friend and fellow reader, Erica. However, I didn't actually complete the challenge until last year (and MMD had TWO lists , so I felt pretty accomplished to finish both). Because of the 2017 MMD Reading Challenge, I ... Finally  Little Women (it was a book that was more than 600 pages). While I have seem the movies plenty of times, and have read the sequel Little Men  more than I can count, I realized that I never actually finished Little Women  after I once tried to read it when I was around 8 years old. I only got through Book 1 and never came back to it. Well, finally did in 2017! Got...

Every so often, people ask me, "How many books to do you read?" It's a question I never knew the answer to because I had never thought about keeping track. Reading wasn't a competition, nor was I attempting to attain a medal for it. I never set reading goals. I just read . However, the question got asked more and more often, and so last summer, I decided to keep track. I wrote down how many books I'd read the summer of 2016 and kept at it once school began in the fall. And between June 2016 and December 2016, I had read 88 books. Close to 100 books, and that was missing 5 months! So for 2017, I decided to keep track for the whole year. Each month, I would jot down the title of each book as I finished it. On average, I read about 10 books a month. Some months I read more, some less. Length and genre varied, although I did try to push myself to read one non-fiction book a month  (and didn't always succeed). And... I ended 2017 with 152 books under m...