Sparkling Letters Monthly Recap: February 2017

Hello everyone! ♥

Welcome to another recap post! Another month has passed, though it wasn’t so surprising  this time considering February only has 28 days 😛 It was a generally good month, but a lot of things happened this month. The good, the bad, the in between, and I’ll tell you everything about it!

• After being ‘forced’ to make a tough decision last month, I started a new job at a psychological consultant. I love it. It’s so in line with my major, which means I get to put my knowledge and skills into practice while still having the chance to learn something new. But the best thing about this job is that it is in my city! My previous job (and all the other potential ones) is always located in Jakarta, the capital. The commute is HELL. I’m not exaggerating, the traffic is always bad and the public transportation is always jam packed. It’s exhausting. My current office is only 30 minutes bus ride away, give or take 😀
• At the beginning of the month one of my kitten, Jack, was sick. He didn’t want to eat for a few days. He didn’t even want to drink the medicine 😦 once he was all better, we took him and Dory to get vaccinated to the vet and now they’re healthy and happy 😀
• I started bullet journal ♥ I’ve been thinking about it for a while but haven’t really done it. At the beginning of the month, I had this urge to just start it… so I did! It was fun, though I don’t journal everyday, hehe 😛 here are some shots from my journal.

• I just realized how messy my life is! So I created a monthly tracker on my journal and it shows that I have suuuuch an unhealthy lifestyle </3 I almost never ate 3 times a day, I ate junk food and instant noodles like 3 days a week, I skipped vitamin every so often, and I didn’t work out like at all :’)
• My mom’s birthday was on February 19th! Her work friends come to our house at 6 in the morning and it was so, so loud. They’re almost as loud as my friends. You wouldn’t know it was a birthday celebration for a 50 yo woman. We had family dinner and I was so stuffed.
• One of my senior from university died in an accident 😦 ugh senior sounds like she was merely an acquaintance, but she wasn’t. She was my friend. It was so sad and shocking and it hit me so deeply. She was such a pretty, nice, funny, and probably the most genuine person I ever met. It seems surreal, but maybe it’s true, God always takes the good ones first. I’m keeping her in my thoughts ♥

This month is the month I caught up with ARCs and new releases! God there’s so many great, promising books this year I’m having a hard time keeping up :’) I managed to read 8 books in total. Here they are! ♥

• By Your Side by Kasie West (3/5). My least favorite Kasie West’s book to date. The characters basically have no personality and it was boring 😦
• SMUT by Katrina Hale (4/5). One of my favorite New Adult! Relatable protagonist, swoon-worthy love interest, and fun+sassy banter.
• The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Helig (3/5). Unique and promising premise but the execution was all over the place. There’s also an unnecessary love triangle.
• The Ship Beyond Time by Heidi Helig (4/5). Better than the first book but still didn’t live up to my expectation.Full review here.
• The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Saenz (4/5). Incredible characters, beautiful writing, and heartwarming stories. Full review here.
• Empress of A Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza (4/5). Another space opera that I love ♥ diverse characters, racial profiling issues, and power struggle.
• Caraval by Stephanie Garber (4.5/5). Beautiful writing + magical vibe = enchanting read. Pulled me out of my fantasy slump ♥ Review will be up early March.
• The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (4.5/5). Such a captivating read with lyrical and rich prose. Slow paced but enchanting with characters who are so endearing. Review will be up mid March.

February Hauls

Most of my February hauls are books I purchased on January but only just arrived this month. On February, I only ordered two books which are A Conjuring of Light and The Hate U Give. They’ll probably arrive around mid March. I’m trying to save money because there are sooo many promising new releases this year!!

This month I did something wonderful on the blog! I finally decided to take the title of Diverse Book Bloggers and launched a new feature called The Diversity Corner ♦ it’s a monthly feature where I talk about diversity, representation, book recommendation, diverse blogger recommendation, and news about diversity! Here’s the introductory post where I talked about my stance as a diverse book blogger and the reasons behind my new feature.

The first edition of diversity corner is about Muslim representation in books. Other than that, I also talked about diversity news in February, introduced you to my favorite Muslim bloggers, and created a list of diverse book recommendation. You could check it out HERE ♥ (P.S. I’m going to pin this post until a week before the next edition is published so you’ll be able to see it on the top of my page)

Aside from that, I settled with the new blogging schedule, which is 3 posts a week. Here’s my schedule in case you want to keep an eye for my posts 😛

1. Tuesday : random posts (tag, meme, award, recap, personal post, lists, recommendations)
2. Thursday : book reviews. I’m probably gonna do double/mini reviews more often because I have sooo many reviews I need to post!
3. Saturday : book & blogging discussions

My favorite posts this month :

• The Diversity Corner #1 : February News, Muslim Representation, and March New Releases
• Why We Need More Positive Girls Portrayal in Books
• Authors Whose Books I’ll Buy Without Even Caring What They Are About

My most popular posts this month :

• Why We Need More Positive Girls Portrayal in Books
• My Stance as A Diverse Book Blogger & Introducing New Feature : The Diversity Corner
• My List of Disappointment : Books I Love LESS Than I Hoped I Would

All around the blogosphere ♥ 

• Becky @ A Fool’s Ingenuity shared some tips for us who feel like our reviews are getting repetitive
• Gerri @ Corralling Books asked us whether commenting back should be compulsory, or not
• Tasya @ Literary Huntress wondered if insta love actually exists in real life
• The Bookavid talked about how to recognize ableism in books and the difference between romance with MI and romanticizing MI . Both posts are so important!
• Krysta @ Pages Unbound talked about the unspoken rules of the blogosphere. All of them are so spot on ♦
• Anisha @ Sprinkled Pages made a list of cute contemporary books that everyone should read. I spotted a lot of favorites!
• Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books talked about goals in blogging. She also got a new url AND makeover for her blog so you should definitely check it out 😀
• Molly @ Molly’s Book Nook shared 5 ways to clean out out blog. I found some really handy tips here.

Bookstagram

This past two months I’ve been so inactive on bookstagram. I barely posted anything anymore, which was weird because I had the photos. It’s just… I was too lazy and couldn’t be bothered to write a caption and plan my pictures and all that. These days all I do whenever I open my bookstagram account is like the first 10 pictures I see, watch some stories, and switch back to my personal account.

I started to ask myself this one question : should I quit bookstagram? Now before you say no (as if you’ll say no, haha) I’m gonna list down some of my reasons

1. I’ve been in bookstagram slump for 2 months and I have no desire to get out of it
2. I never interacted anymore
3. The thing is, I don’t know most of my bookstagram friends. For some reasons they’re not the same people I know through the blog & Twitter 😦 I mean, some of them are, but most aren’t. I feel like most of the people there are strangers and it’s just weird
4. My account isn’t growing. My followers never improve, if anything they’re going down, and I don’t even care. Not the way I care about my blog stats.
5. Instagram is getting weirder! I mean, have you seen the new updates? It’s turning into snapchat + facebook 😂

So… what do you think? Should I keep my account or should I just quit altogether? 😂😂

The next edition of The Diversity Corner will be about Asian representation (March 25). I’m trying to be as comprehensive as possible so I’m looking for Asian bloggers who might be interested to team up with me! I’m gonna need your input on Asian rep in books (the misconceptions, what we want to see more, how not to describe Asians in books, book recommendations, etc).

If you’re interested, let me know! Comment on this post, mention me on Twitter, e-mail me, anything! Looking forward to hear from YOU ♥

So that’s my February recap, everybody! What do you think about my new feature, The Diversity Corner? Do you love it and have any suggestions? What do you think I should do with my bookstagram account? 😂

How about your February? Anything interesting?  Link me to your own recaps or just tell me! Would love to hear your thoughts! ♥♥

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