2023 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge [January Check-In]

January is here! The first month of the 2023 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge. The Motif for January is “New Year, New Direction: Read a book with a directional word in the title such as North, Up, Right, In, Forward, etc.” Check in with us on Goodreads, at Instagram with the hashtag #MonthlyMotifGXO or at the bottom of this post. You can also track your progress on Storygraph.

2023 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge

Here’s what we’re planning on reading this month.

KIM – I’m going with the word “IN” and reading How to Succeed in Witchcraft, Aislinn Brophy. I’m really excited to read this one. Saphic witches and schools of magic! This is Brophy’s debut novel and I’ve been told that it’s got great characters and a rich plot. I hope it lives up to the hype.

Shay Johnson has all the makings of a successful witch. Now that she’s a junior at T.K. Anderson Magical Magnet School, she’s one step closerto winning the full-ride Brockton Scholarship–her ticket into the university of her dreams. Her main competition? Ana freaking Alvarez. The key to victory? Impressing Mr. B, drama teacher and head of the scholarship committee.

TANYA PATRICE – This was easy to pick a book for because one of the books on my “to be read list” is Carrie Soto is Back, Taylor Jenkins Reid. So my “directional” word choice is “Back“. I’ve read 2 other books by Jenkins-Reid which I loved – Daisy Jones and the Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Plus Carrie Soto is Back was the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Historical Fiction.

Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. But by the time she retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Grand Slam titles. And if you ask Carrie, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father, Javier, as her coach. A former champion himself, Javier has trained her since the age of two. But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning player named Nicki Chan. At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record

Link up with the books you read for the 2023 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge below.