Happy Black History month! I got a bunch of amazing BIPOC books over the last year, and since I was focused on catching up on my preorders for the last few months of 2021, I didn’t get to read anything new that wasn’t already scheduled. Thus, I’m really excited to finally be digging into these! Many of these are books that I keep “meaning to read”, but end up reading something else instead, so I’m going to do my best to stick to this TBR. Plus, these will check a lot of the books off of my Great TBR Challenge, and I’m always down for that

I’m really trying not to buy an excess of books this year, particularly because one of my goals was to not buy anything until I got the Great TBR Challenge at or below 35 books (which is a lot, let me tell you), but Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown was one of the books that I bought last year during Black History month. I’m so sad that it’s taken me this long to schedule it into my reading, but I have been really wanting to dig back into my witch books, so this is the perfect time for me to read it.

A Psalm of Storms & Silence by Roseanne A. Brown is one of the preorders that I need to read to catch up with new releases from last year, and it’s one of the last ones leftover, so I’m going to try to make this the first book that I read for this month. I’m so excited to see what happens, especially because I think this is it? I think this is just a duology, which is always my favorite way to read books, and I’m hyped to see how it all ends. (I won’t lie, a large part of me wants to reread A Song of Wraiths & Ruin, so we’ll see if that maybe happens, too.)

I cannot even tell you how mad I am that I still haven’t read Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender, particularly because Felix Ever After is one of my all-time favorite books, and I’ve been trying to read more of Callender’s backlist for ages now. And I’m definitely writing this TBR list way too soon (it’s January 16th right now) because I want to read all of these books so damn much right now, but I have such specific goals for the rest of January, and I need to focus! Soon. We’re going to read this very soon.

There are a lot of fairly old books on my TBR, and I really need to give them a fair shake, so although I’ve seen some reviews about The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna that makes me think it might not be my vibe, I am still interested in reading it, so I’m going to try to focus on getting to it in February. I’d also like a good balance of fantasy & contemporary this month, so I’m happy to put this in with everything else.

I definitely was just like, “We’re going to read all the heavy books this month.” The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed isn’t even the first heavy book on this list, nor is it the last, but it’s definitely one of the ones I’m looking forward to the most. I’ve been slowly getting back into contemporary after several months away, and I think tiptoeing back in without it being solely romantic is the way to go.

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers was on my Pride TBR for 2021, and I didn’t read it because that TBR destroyed my will to live (kind of kidding), but this book still shouts at me constantly, so I’m happy to be back in the contemporary world so I can finally read this. Here’s hoping it doesn’t end up back on my Pride TBR for 2022, though.

And yes, I know, I’m the only person in the world who hasn’t read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, I’m the worst, and I’m working on it. I have so many unread books! But this one is definitely going to be a priority for this month because I’d also like to watch the movie, as well as read Thomas’ new book, so we’re making it happen!