This post will be a little different. Usually, I keep my updates of the project TBR Zero separate from the monthly update of HRCYED. However, since I’m changing my approach to the readathon and don’t have much of an update for January, I believe it’s best to join the two. Firstly, time to look back on my progress on the TBR Zero project.

October 2024

With Becca and The Books announcing the last Spookoplathon (not set in stone), I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to join. I can’t resist a readathon. I’ve been over this. Readathon exists. I join. On my first roll, the dice were in my favour and gave me The Stranger by Harlan Coben to read. I didn’t waste much time with it and quickly finished the book. I was familiar with the story since I saw the mini-series on Netflix. And while I prefer the adaptation, it’s nice to know Coben’s stories are incredibly fast-paced, making his books great for readathons or weekend reads. I have a review with a more in-depth explanation of my reading experience if you want to know more.

Then I rolled again without much luck and landed on a Murakami book, A Wild Sheep Chase. It was my second novel by him, although it wasn’t capturing me as much as After Dark did. After a few days, I gave up and placed it back on the shelf. But I took too long to realise that. And consequently, I gave up on the readathon entirely. Forcing myself to read that book when I wasn’t feeling didn’t do me any favour. So, it was best to let go and read whatever I craved.

Since October is my birthday month, I couldn’t avoid a little treat for myself. I bought Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson and almost the entire Stalking Jack the Ripper series by Kerri Maniscalco. And I say almost because I’m missing the third book. It wasn’t available when I placed my order. This means I have to rectify that another time. What a hassle! I’ll have to go book shopping again. *irony intensifies*

Then I read Blasfamous by Mirka Andolfo and finished Sentience Hazard by Alexandru Czimbor, both new releases for the HRCYED. I have to confess neither of them helped with my reading motivation. That only came around towards the end of the month. I then continued with Good Girl Bad Blood by Holly Jackson. A series I’ve been meaning to continue for a long time. The first book was so much fun to play along, and sadly, this one was different. So different that the final book will be the make-it-or-break-it for the series as a whole. Although I’m still excited.

Then the angel, the saviour, Tress of the Emerald Sea. My first ever Sanderson and a fantasy nonetheless. I keep saying fantasy isn’t for me, and yet I keep surprising myself by how much I can enjoy it. The story was so heart-warming and precious. A true comfort place. And I want more. Give me more pirates. I think I’m ready for my pirate phase.

I also did start The Cruise Ship Lost My Daughter by Morgan Mayer, but I’ve yet to finish it for over 3 months now… I believe I’ll have to start over again. But that is the life of a reader. Some books you DNF, others you save for another time or pause the reading for months and claim you are still “reading it”.

November 2024

The first week of November was filled with more Trees of The Emerald Sea. Despite loving the book, it wasn’t a quick read. Quite a strange phenomenon how Sanderson can somehow make a page have more text than it should. Then I did a little bit more shopping, especially for HRCYED, Blindness by José Saramago, which is a book published in my birth year, and Nem Todas as Baleias Voam (Not All Whales Can Fly) by Afonso Cruz.

As I was trying to read the books shortly after buying them, I moved on to Nem Todas as Baleias Voam. One of the strangest books I’ve ever read, and obviously, it had to be by a Portuguese author. The story mixes a desperate musician in search of his wife, who suddenly disappeared, with his son being followed by a strange woman who isn’t there, who’s supposedly death personified. The story has a plot, but you only know it at the end. It was very strange.

Then I read a webcomic series that stole my heart. Hungry Heart by Jem Milton left me in love. The series is now being published in volumes, and I can’t wait for the next one. It was funny, inclusive and lovely. From now on, I’ll scale my enjoyment of other comic books, graphic novels and manga in comparison with this webcomic.

December 2024

Such a full month, and yet it doesn’t feel like it. I started the month with The Other Wife by Claire McGowan. It has a strong start, and I could see it becoming an easy 5-star. Although the story changes from that initial idea. While it’s a thriller, it’s not much of a mysterious one. Many mysteries are revealed early on and never become full plot twists. Still, it’s a nice story of revenge and sisterhood. Just not what I was expecting.

For the HRCYED, I finally attempted the 3 books in 24 hours. I read only Portuguese authors, and I swear it wasn’t planned. It just happened. É urgente amar (it’s urgent to love) by Pedro Chagas Freitas, O Colar (The Necklace) by Sophia de Mello Breyner Anderson, and Catarina e a Beleza de Matar Fascistas (Catherine and the Beauty of Killing Fascists) by Tiago Rodrigues. Only the last one was my favourite. The other two just weren’t for me. While Freitas still had a few messages that stayed with me after closing the book, I didn’t like it. If you want to know more about my thoughts, I go in-depth on the HRCYED update for December.

Meanwhile, I took the whole month to read Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco. My reading habit has consisted of a few minutes before bed, and at that point, I’m so tired I can’t read more than a handful of pages. This means some books take me ages to read. And it kills the mood. I still loved the book. I just wish it didn’t take me that long. The new year has to come with some changes to my reading habits.

And what is a month without a little book haul? I was gifted for Christmas The Cinnamon Bun Book Store by Laurie Gilmore. Quite a surprise and not a book or a series I was ever thinking of reading. I also bought Beartown by Fredrik Backman and The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. I’m very excited about both books since they have been on my list to read for a long time.

January 2025

I started the month by finishing Back to Bainbridge by Norah Lally, and with it, making a decision that affects HRCYED. If you’ve read my last post, then you’d know I’m stopping to actively pursue finishing the challenge. December was a really low-spirited month, and I realised that taking part in this readathon while fun was removing some of my enjoyment of reading. And at that point, I don’t see the point in continuing.

So now I’m back to mood reading. I began with The Cinnamon Bun Book Store while the excitement was fresh in my mind. It was a shiny new book, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Going in, my expectations were very low. Since this is a popular TikTok romance, I just wanted to have fun. The girlies are all gushing about it, but they are just after the steamy scenes. And so am I. When those arrived, I read over 200 pages in 2 days. The book was so entertaining. Plotwise and writingwise not worth the hype, but it was so much fun.

With my mood restored, I tackled A Song of Ice and Fire again with A Storm of Swords by George R R Martin. Despite being big books, it doesn’t help that I’m also annotating it, decreasing my reading speed to snail levels. But I love to get lost in the world. Whenever I pick it up, it’s like coming home. So easy to dive in. However, I want to dedicate more time to reading it because 15 to 20 minutes a day is too little for this book. I need at least an hour, preferably uninterrupted.

Then I read Grapefruit Moon by Tomo Serizawa. Using Hungry Heart as a metric, this story really didn’t blow me away. It was quite average. The ending sort of took away the sweets of the story while, at the same time, putting it back on. It’s an age-gap gay romance, and those can walk a fine line between cute and creepy. If you’ve read any BL (Boys Love) or age-gap manga, you know how it can be a little icky to a Western reader. Although, the best part about this book is that it’s translated from Japanese to Spanish. I read my first Spanish book! And I’ll tell you why that’s so exciting.

I’ve never studied Spanish in my life. Although I grew up watching anime in Spanish. Nowadays, that doesn’t happen anymore, but back in the early 2000s, voicing characters in Portuguese was reserved for big movies for movie theatres, while TV would get only subtitles. Since Portugal and Spain are so close together in the corner of Europe, usually, entertainment would arrive in Spain first and then come to Portugal. So anime like Doraemon was dubbed in Spanish and then had Portuguese subtitles. Meaning I grew up listening to a lot of Spanish. And now, I know my Spanish vocabulary is large enough to read. I still have some gaps. I encountered words I had no idea what they meant, but at the same time, the writing was so familiar. Manga is nothing more than the literary form of anime, and the language transported me back in time to the many episodes of Doraemon that I watched. It brought back so much nostalgia.

While Grapefruit Moon isn’t my favourite, it now has a tiny corner in my heart for being the first, and I hope not the last, Spanish book I read. And who knows? Maybe I’ll go study Spanish to fill in those gaps and then say I can speak Spanish. It would be cool to know at least three languages.

Year 3 2nd Quarter	TBR	Read	Free	Increase	TBR Left
October	77	2	2	3	78
November	78	3	1	2	77
December	77	3	1	3	77
January	77	2	1	0	75
Total:		10	5	8

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HRCYED January update

From the books I read, Back to Bainbridge is part of last month’s update, and only Grapefruit Moon counts for a single prompt. In September, I was indecisive about where to count Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw for the other country setting/author or for the lowest-rated book on my TBR. I chose the latter, so now I can count Grapefruit Moon as the fourth book set outside of the US and the UK since both the author and the story are set in Japan.

Sadly, I have nothing else to update on, and I knew this was likely going to happen. Once I stopped directing my reading towards the challenges, my mood reading would take me places that weren’t going to serve the readathon. And that’s fine. I still have some books I bought for the readathon. At least I’ll have those to count when the time comes.