For the last year I've become very picky about what I choose to read. I believe I'm very sure about my likes and dislikes at this point. I'm a Literary Fiction and Historical Gal. I really want to read my own books, but have bitten off more than I can chew, in past years, in requests. 

Going forward, perusing book websites to acquire more books will be in my past. I want to concentrate on reading what I've already obtained. My concentration will be put on the social media sites that are more of my lane and those are Goodreads and Booklikes. I'm a recovering Instagram scroller and Youtube time waster. This year I will have more focus and drive for what inspires me and allows me to thrive.

January 1

Flights of Fancy by Jen Turano

January 8

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozi Obioma

The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benendict

The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden

Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother and Widow by Lucy Worsley

January 22

Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia

The Wartime Sisters by Lynda Cohen Loigman

The Orphan Sisters by Shirley Dickson

January 29

We Cast A Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

House of Stone by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

This week I read Wishing Lake by Regina Hart (my favorite in the Finding Home series...so far), After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry, and The Spirit of '76 by David Browne. I hope to get to reviewing those books over the weekend.

Something is screwy with USAFE's e-lending system, so I had to put One in a Million on the backburner until the system is working again.

This weekend I want to get Trevor Noah's Born a Crime (borrowed a physical copy from library) and Café Au Lait by Liane Spicer (PRIME lending library borrow) read. I need to write my personal essay and resume for my grad school applications. Transcripts have been ordered (I swear the Air Force loves to make easy, mundane tasks HELLA complicated via the Internet....). Waiting on my mentor/friend for the recommendation letter. Oh man....it's really happening!!!!

Next week I want to get to Welcome to Last Chance (Last Chance #1) by Cathleen Armstrong, If Ever I Would Leave You (Montana Rescue #0.5) by Susan May Warren, and Submerged (Alaskan Courage #1) by Dani Petry. The first and last book are Prime lending library reads and it is my hope I can be done with these books and cancel my Prime membership by the end of the month. As if I don't have enough series to keep track of, now I am starting new ones.

Happy Reading!

Kyoko learns the rest of her mother's story. Mr. Misonoi

Despite this revelation, Kyoko leaves with a lighter heart and a desire to do her mom proud. Meanwhile, everyone else is still worried about her. Kyoko checks in with Moko, Ren checks up on Kyoko, and Kyoko even stops by to see Sho. Kyoko decides to audition for a role in a drama called Lotus in the Mud. (A funny moment:

I was hoping for a larger chunk of this volume to be devoted to the rest of Saena's story, but it's nice to know that Kyoko could potentially run into her dad in a future volume (even if she never realizes it!). The last part of Saena's story was a bit frustrating. If she had truly suspected Mr. Misonoi, she should have brought home fake disks that last time. Why bring home the real ones?

I was a little surprised at how positively Nakamura wrote Saena's revelation that

Some visual problems I ran into while reading this volume: Moko looks an awful lot like Saena. Also, I was a bit taken aback by Sho's new haircut. He looks younger and more vulnerable. Weird.

This volume felt a bit scattered and anticlimactic after the awesomeness of the previous volume, but not bad. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Lotus in the Mud stuff goes. But doesn't Kyoko still have her school bully drama to do? I suppose it could be that there's room in her schedule for more.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Kyoko's talk with Ren gives her the level of positive energy she needs to decide to approach her mother - because approaching her without warning is likely the only thing that'll work. Kyoko almost chickens out but is forced to go through with it by Mr. Todoh, Saena's colleague. It's then that we get glimpses of Saena's past through her eyes. She

Ohh, this volume was good. After an entire series of only catching glimpses of Kyoko's relationship with her mother, and only from Kyoko's perspective, we finally get to see things from her mother's perspective. I still think she was overly cruel when she said that she didn't have a daughter, but here we at least got some kind of explanation: she thought that Kyoko had quit school and run off to elope with Sho (which she kind of did, only Sho ended up just using her instead). Saena's decision to completely cut Kyoko off was due to

It was nice to learn a little about Saena's past. I'm looking forward to seeing more about how things worked out with Mr. Misonoi. Was he

And, oh man, it turns out that Saena has resting angry face.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Kyoko fills in as Chiori Amamiya's manager. She and Chiori share the belief that everything in their lives could potentially be useful to their acting, but it still comes as a shock to Kyoko later on when Moko says Kyoko's Natsu character is very similar to Kyoko's mom, who Moko has just met. Kyoko

Watching Ren fret over Kyoko was nice. A perfect opportunity for him to have kept his natural hair color, but oops, he got it dyed because he had no idea what was going to happen.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)