Her Royal Pinkness, Elizabeth I: 2021 Quarter One TBR: Updated Jan 10, 2021

Welcome to my 2021 Quarter One TBR. This list covers the months of January, February, and March 2021.

The Quarter's Goals are to read one book from each of the following:

January 10, 2021 Update: I found myself struggling to get into a reading mood during week one of January. I realized that picking up a physical book and devoting myself wholly to the reading experience just was not going to work for me right now. As a result, I am canceling Jane Austen for this quarter; Dracula doubles as my Classic selection. As I have started to read/listen to my #MonthlyMotifGXO selection, The Girl in Red, I quickly realized that although it is a Fairytale retelling fitting it into Fantasy: Fairytale, it also fits a couple other Genre: Subgenre classifications. Fairytale is a sub I often read, and thus why I won’t count it towards my Fantasy Quarter Read slot, but it slides into Horror: Quiet Horror and Science Fiction: Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalyptic quite well. Because I have already selected Dracula because it doubles for two challenge slots, I’m going to count this towards my Science Fiction selection instead. This means I can cancel Divergent as well for this quarter.

This sounds like I’m quitting to me, or not challenging myself enough. But I’m reminding myself that my goal is not to read quantities, but quality. Intentional reading is more important to me this year than the numbers.

In addition, my Goodreads shelf had close to 1,050 books on it as of October 2020. I keep adding more to it. I started weeding out in October and quickly realized that weeding through it was a task unto itself. Look for an upcoming post on how I plan to tackle that!

Until next time, Keep Reading!!

January 1, 2021 Initial Plans: After selecting the quarter's 9 challenge books, only 3 of my genre goals were satisfied, Nonfiction, Romance: Suspense, and Fantasy: Magical Realism. There are 5 remaining genre goals to be split up amongst the months. With an out-of-state couple's vacation currently set for June, it looks like I need to find a way to include Horror during this quarter as well.

I have selected the following books, although I don't know yet which months they will be read in.

Classic - I've touched on this various places: The MC in this classic and I share a name. Like not just given name and nickname. As in first and last, although mine is spelled differently, but I am one of the 1,000+ women in the US with the famous lady's name. No, my parents didn't hate me to give me that name. It was all my fault for saying "I Do." Needless to say, I have never actually read Austen's work, although I have seen most of its adaptations. I f I can't get to it, I will use it for another quarter's goal as there are 3 other books in this list that double as a classic.

Horror - Imagine my relief when I realized that the Classic Dracula counts as Horror, although it is quite tame by our standards today. I can get through that.

Mystery - I really do love a mystery and I know I said that I wanted to pick books this year from my favorite genres that aren't my usual subgenre for my quarterly goals, but come on. My Goodreads TBR shelf has over 1,000 books on it. I need to knock some of these out at some point before I am no longer interested. Sherlock Holmes it is.

SciFi - Instead of searching down other SciFi books that I might be interested in reading, I went to the dystopian YA Divergent series. I've already seen the movies. Let's see if I prefer the book to the movies.

Thriller - I read quite a few Thriller & Suspense last year, getting back into the world of Brad Thor and related works, so I definitely wanted to hit a subgenre I rarely read. In this case, I selected Medical and remembered a Dollar Spin Rack book I had picked up years ago and never read so I pulled it out of the attic.

Western - Another book I had on hand, one of the Westerns of my grandmother's I couldn't bear to get rid of. I mean, it's Wyatt Earp for crying out loud.

Links to My Challenges

Uncorked Reading 2021 | Uncorked Reading 2020 | Monthly Motif GXO 2021

January

You Can't Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson

Goals: #UncorkedReading2021 - Truth Bomb Nonfiction, Genre - Nonfiction

Pre-read thoughts: After googling summaries of the January book suggestions, this title jumped out at me. I'm not good at nonfiction. I have said this multiple times, but if it's set up as a funny piece rather than dry, I have a better chance of getting through. I've never heard of Phoebe Robinson, so I was intrigued by reading someone new, she's a comedian so there's the funny, and it's slated to be about some issues I want to know more about and have a better understanding. Looking forward to it.

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Beloved by Toni Morrison

Goals: #UncorkedReading2020 - Book That Changes Your World Perspective, Genre - Fantasy: Magical Realism

Pre-read Thoughts: Toni Morrison is a name I recognize, if not for why I do. Completing a quick googling to determine if I would be interested, OH! It's Oprah's fault the name sounds familiar. Also, since Morrison passed away in 2019, I felt as though I should actually read something of hers in memoriam. Additionally, the premise sounds promising as does the time frame of post Civil War. I don't typically go for Magical Realism, I'm more of a Sword & Sorcery or Urban junkie, but I could get behind a family trying to cope with a malevolent spirit. I'm not sure if this truly qualifies as "changing world perspective"; the supernatural has been on my radar for years.

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The Girl in Red by Christina Henry

Goals: #MonthlyMotifGXO - Once Upon A Time

Pre-read Thoughts:The theme for this challenge reads as follows: Read a book from the Fantasy, Fairytale, Mythology, or Folklore Sub Genres. This is really not a stretch for me, so I narrowed down my googling to retellings in the Fairy Tale subgenre because I really, really enjoyed The Lunar Chronicles (Marissa Meyer) I read in 2020. My original choice for this theme was unfortunately not published at the time of the challenge like initially advertised which had set my heart on a Red Riding Hood retelling. I found something else that looks just as promising.

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February

Pre-read thoughts: Of the suggested reads, this one looked the most promising. Others included books by the esteemed Former First Lady Michelle Obama and the comedic genius of Trevor Noah, but I wasn't looking for a second Nonfiction in the same quarter. Since it's so hard for me to stay engaged with the genre, I figured I would try to save them for the other quarter.

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Pre-read Thoughts: I'm intrigued that TUL is a little obsessed with Iceland, while I've recently become obsessed with all things Viking, expanding to learn everything I can about Scandinavian and descended cultures. A match made in literary heaven. Looking forward to this retelling of one of their myths.

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Pre-read Thoughts: GXOXO doesn't have book lists up for their monthly motifs yet, although looking through old pages for their 2020 challenge it is part of their habit to do so. I had to instead rely on the theme explanation: Read a relationship story, romance, comedy, or feel good contemporary. This led me to google the most obscure wording and came across several lists related to relationships and romance that included this title. Reading that Moriarty is the author of Big Little Lies, now a critically acclaimed HBO TV show with freaking movie stars in the lead roles. If that doesn't say a lot, I don't know what will. I personally couldn't get into it, but I think that was due to its premise and setting which were both foreign concepts to me. I am not a PTA mom.

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March

Pre-read thoughts: After reading Pam Jenoff's The Lost Girls of Paris in 2020, I also came across a Stana Katic flick (one of my favorite under-recognized actors) A Call to Spy based in the same time period, French Resistance locations, and even still taking place within the purview of Special Operations Executive. After so many years of hearing the stories of men during and post-WWII, I am finding myself gravitating towards the courageous women who fought for freedom in their own way during that time frame. I've also been a little nostalgic about the time period because Diana, our amazing Wonder Woman, experienced her original coming of age time during WWII. (The Patty Jenkins/Gal Gadot version from 2017 shared a WWI setting for that introduction to the world of man and the reasoning for doing so was quite sound. I'm okay with that change.)

Post-read Thoughts:

Pre-read Thoughts: This theme was selected because of the live action Disney film Mulan that was released in March of 2020. Now, I'm obviously doing this challenge in 2021 and so it doesn't really connect with the month of March this year, but yet it kind of does. March is Women's History Month for starters, Mulan is one of my favorite Disney "Princess" tales, and it's my birthday month. Reason enough for me. It's also book 9 in Dickerson's Hagenheim series, but based on the titles, I'm pretty sure these do not need to be read in order. There may be references to previous tales, much like Jennifer Trethewey's Highlanders of Balforrs, but each can easily be read as standalones. I chose to classify this under Fantasy: Fairy Tale rather than Romance since it is a Mulan retelling and the rest of the series appears to be other retellings.

Post-read Thoughts:

Pre-read Thoughts: Again, GXO doesn't have book suggestions up yet for 2021, so my best friend Google came to my rescue. I noticed a lot of books related to India when searching for cultural novels, a place I haven't had much curiosity about honestly. Then I came across this one by including culture clash in my search and voila! I found my book. I think I also have been gravitating towards French based stories as well. One of my dreams is to go to the Louvre. Tracing my family tree back to Rollo the Viking in Normandy, the Wonder Woman connection, and tracking my purest line of French ancestry back to the Berthoulier and Sauvanet families in mid-1800s Montigny lѐs Cherlieu might have something to do with that too.

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Her Royal Pinkness, Elizabeth I

Pages

13 December 2020

2021 Quarter One TBR: Updated Jan 10, 2021

Links to My Challenges

January

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February

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March

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