Everything I Read in March 2024
If you follow me on Instagram or TikTok, you may know that I've become quite the bookworm over the past few years.
While I loved reading as a kid, I fell off the reading bandwagon as a young adult thanks to college and self-help sucking all the fun out of reading. In late 2021, I discovered I loved romance novels and it reignited my love for reading all over again. In 2022 I read over 40 books, last year I read over 30 books, and this year I'm hoping to hit the 50 book mark.
I started sharing my reads on my Instagram stories and saving the books I finished to my Instagram highlights, but realized it wasn't the most efficient system. So I decided to better utilize this blog of mine to also document my reads here.
Introducing: my first monthly book round-up! In March I finished seven books which I'm pretty proud of. My favorite fiction read was A Love Song for Ricki Wilde and my favorite non-fiction read was The Alter Ego Effect. It was a solid month of reading! Here's the low-down on everything I read.
What I Read in March 2024
Fiction Books
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
@balancedles Shoutout to Tia Williams for giving us yet another fictional man to thirst over. 📚🫣 Have you read this one yet? #blackbooktok #blackbooktoker #romancebooktok ♬ original sound - Les
As I mentioned above, this was my favorite book I read last month. Williams' Seven Days in June is the book that got me back into reading in 2021, and I loved The Perfect Find as well. I dove into this book expecting a story that was similar to those two books, and was pleasantly surprised that this story was completely different. Ricki Wilde is a quirky, creative young woman from Atlanta who wants to prove herself to her business-savvy, over-achieving family. After meeting a generous grandmother figure, she moves to Harlem on a whim to follow her dream of opening a floral shop. As soon as she arrives in Harlem, she falls into a series of events that were aligned by fate helping her find love, purpose, and a sense of belonging she never had.
What I thought would be a run-of-the-mill romance combined elements of fantasy and historical fiction beautifully combining present-day and the Harlem Renaissance. It was an intoxicating, unexpected read.
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When You Are Mine by Kennedy Ryan
As I was preparing to interview Kennedy Ryan on the podcast, I wanted to dig into some of her older work to get a feel for how her art has evolved. I decided to start at the beginning, and read the first series she ever published, The Bennett Series, starting with this book. Walsh Bennett has everything a young man could ever want -- he's rich, handsome, and does work he's passionate about. When Walsh meets Kerris, the woman of his dreams, he's finally confronted with the one thing he can't have because Kerris is engaged to Walsh's best friend Cam. This book was an emotional roller coaster and as soon as you finish you'll want to head to the next book in the series.
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Loving You Always by Kennedy Ryan
Loving You Always begins right where When You Are Mine left off, so I won't get too deep into the plot description because I don't want to spoil the first book for you. All I'll say, is things continue to get messy before we get our happy ending.
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Watch my interview with Kennedy Ryan on Balanced Black Girl
Be Mine Forever by Kennedy Ryan
The Bennett Series continues with Be Mine Forever. In this installment, Walsh's cousin Jo gets her chance at love when she learns the unrequited love she's had since she was young wasn't so unrequited after all. This book was intense and dives into deep trauma and healing, but comes together beautifully in the end.
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Until I'm Yours by Kennedy Ryan
The fourth and final book of the Bennett series centers around Sofie, who we meet in the first book of the series. While Sofie was initially portrayed as the resident bad girl, this book dives into why she is the way she is, and is a beautiful story showing how this character finds love and her power simultaneously. Like Be Mine Forever, it's an intense read centered on a character healing from previous abuse, but in my opinion was the best love story of the series.
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Non-fiction Books
The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman
@balancedles If you’re in your successful era, you beed need to read The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman. #bookreview #bookrecommendations #successfulera ♬ original sound - Les
This is a must-read for anyone in their Successful Era. In this book, Herman explores a phenomenon used by some of the world's most successful people: they develop alter egos to turn their weaknesses into strengths. In this book, Herman essentially walks us through a step-by-step process to create the Sasha Fierce to our Beyonce. It was a really encouraging, engaging read that was more enjoyable than your typical boring self-help book.
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Get Smart! by Brian Tracy
I'm fascinated by successful people and how they think, so I was drawn to this book for that reason. It gets a bit into the Law of Assumption and some common thought processes of successful people. I found some of the concepts a bit outdated and old-school and didn't feel like I walked away with a ton of new info. The goal-setting and entrepreneurial thinking sections did have some good nuggets of information though.
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What were your favorite books in the month of March? Let me know in the comments!
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