December 2019 Book Haul

#1: Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston – Of all the books that were available for December's Book of the Month club, I chose this one because it looked the most interesting, and I remembered hearing people talk about it during the earlier part of the year. I don't really remember what they had said about it, but I figured I would give it a shot. It can't be that bad....right?

#2: Charm School Outcasts by Jamie Hawke – I love My Hero Academia, and anime in general. This looks like the epic sort of read that I would enjoy. Plus, it was free. Who would turn down a free book that looks like something right up their alley? I want to get to this one sooner rather than later to really sink my teeth into the idea of super hero school and figure out what exactly it is that makes them outcasts and why is that one in the middle pink?

#3: Winter Cottage by Mary Ellen Taylor – I bought this entirely by accident. I had some index cards in my binder, and apparently that screws with the touch screen if the Kindle is in my pocket? Or something. I don't know how or when I actually managed to purchase it, but I did. It's sort of in line with a few other books I've purchased and I figure I will keep it and just hold on to it in case I need a read with winter in the title.

#4: Saint Bob Day by K.C. Wilson – The other book I purchased quite by accident. I didn't mean to. I know that I will probably sail right through this book, it's like 180 pages at best, but I don't remember actively touching the Kindle in order to buy it. The synopsis isn't helpful to tell me whatsoever with what it is about...we will take a leap and hope for the best.

#5: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Peterson – I've seen the movie, it was sad. I still remember the bad scene and I hear it's worse than in the book. I hope that I can make it through this one quickly and not have to worry about what is going on.

#6: The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Rhett McLaughlin - I've been watching Good Mythical Morning for a long time and I have been enjoying it a lot. When I saw they had a book come out, I had to have it. It is a take on their own lives (sort of) growing up with a bit of a fantastical twist. I cannot wait to get into it.

#7: Dragonslayer by Duncan M. Hamilton - This was on the recommendation of a reader friend of mine, SV. I figured since it was cheap and I had a gift card to spend, I would pick this up. I have no idea what's it is about beyond probably dragons.

#8: A Mortal Song by Megan Crewe - She wrote another series that I read some of and was pretty okay with, but I'm obsessed with Asian culture and history so when I saw this one pretty cheap online I couldn't help myself and picked it up. I can't wait to see if it's as good as I think it will be. 

#9: The Dream Diaries by Becca C. Smith - Literally only bought it because I could afford it. It was one of the books in my wish list. This is about a woman (teen, I think? I can't recall) that has dreams about serial killers and helps the police with her dreams. Do not hold me to that, it's the best I can remember from the synopsis.

#10: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - I couldn't resist. I don't know why. We got gift cards for a Christmas "bonus" of sorts, and I immediately went and bought this. I finally (I think?) got over my hang-up about buying print books from Amazon. Now then, we shall see where in the neighborhood they leave it.

#11: A Bookshop in Berlin by Françoise Frenkel - My friends and I do a round robin Jolabokaflod where one of us will get for another, and then we keep it going in a chain. I got for EH, EH got for KS, and KS got for me (one day our clan may be bigger...). This was a lot of fun. This was the book that I was gifted. Ironic since Jolabokaflod itself came about during WWII when paper was a commodity.

#12: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad by Dennis Hopeless - KS gave me this when they finished with it. I'm assuming it wasn't that impressive to them, but I also assume it's a comic book based on a Disney theme park ride? I have no idea. It's a single issue comic book.

#13: Dracula by Bram Stoker - I had a copy of this many moons ago. It was an old mass market paperback version. Black and white with red font and Bella Lugosi on the cover. I'm pretty sure it also had movie photos in it. When I moved my room back upstairs to where it belongs, that particular edition went missing, so I bought it again.

#14: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs - I've already read this. I loved it. However, the copy I read was my uncle's. It was one of the few (very few) books he owned. I believe he owned/read a grand total of five books. I wanted to re-read these in preparation for acquiring and reading volumes four and five in the series.

#15: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin - I don't really recall why I wanted this. Only that it was on my bookish wish list. I was giving myself a last hurrah of 2019 before the book buying restriction went into full effect for 2020. So we let ourselves have this book from our list.

#16: Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell - I heard this was just super adorable. I saw it pretty cheap and figured I would give it a go. We will hope that we like it. It's going to be a lot of fun, I think. Maybe I'll save it for fall 2020 when it would be most seasonally appropriate.

#17: Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw - I have already purchased and read her other novel, The Wicked Deep, and I absolutely loved it. When I heard that she announced a new book, I knew I would need to get my hands on it. The second I saw it, I bought it. I cannot wait to get to it. I feel it may end up on the January 2020 To be Read list.

#18: Dear Girls by Ali Wong - I thought I would broaden my reading horizons and pick up a memoir or two. Really ought to start adding more nonfiction to my reading list in 2020. Decided I am going to start with memoirs from the Goodreads Best of 2019 list. There's a reason they were voted the best in their categories.

#19: Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis - This falls in the same category as the book before it on this list. Memoir from Goodreads Best of 2019. Do I recall offhand which category this one was in? Of course not. Will that stop me from reading it and hopefully gleaning some useful information from it? Nope!

#20: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black - The 2019 Best YA book was The Wicked King, so I grabbed this because I haven't read any of the series yet. Everyone is talking about the series finale, The Queen of Nothing, and I'm only just now buying the first book. I get let down a lot by overhyped books, so I'm hoping that this one doesn't do that to me.

#21: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides - No idea. Thought it looked interesting and it was another from the best of list. I don't remember what category it was in, thriller I think. I know people were talking about it a lot recently, so I will give it a try.

#22: The Institute by Stephen King - The winner for the horror section. I remember this much. My mom loves Stephen King and I've been fascinated by the books of his I did read. I'm looking forward to reading this one and seeing what all the hype is about.

#23: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo - It's got magic, secret societies, and I may have been influenced by the fact the snake on the cover looks like Crowley's face tattoo thing in Good Omens...I really want to read it, but it's my first Bardugo book, and I am justifiably nervous about it. If I don't like this, when she's had time to perfect her craft, I really won't want to go back and read her other books.

#24: Supernova by Marissa Meyer - Finally completed the series in ownership. Now I just have to read the second and third books. I read Renegades a while ago and have Archenemies on my bookcase ready to be read. Let's see if we can finish the series in 2020. 

December 2019 Wrap Up

This December started a fantastic reading month! I finished two books in a row before the first week was even up, both of them 5-star. I am excited about my reading in the end of the year. Total, I read 6 books in December.

#1: The Weight of a Soul by Tammi Elizabeth

When Lena's younger sister Fressa is found dead, their whole Viking clan mourns—but it is Lena alone who never recovers. Fressa is the sister that should've lived, and Lena cannot rest until she knows exactly what killed Fressa and why—and how to bring her back. She strikes a dark deal with Hela, the Norse goddess of death, and begins a new double life to save her sister. But as Lena gets closer to bringing Fressa back, she dredges up dangerous discoveries about her own family, and finds herself in the middle of a devastating plan to spur Ragnarök –a deadly chain of events leading to total world destruction. Still, with her sister's life in the balance, Lena is willing to risk it all. She's willing to kill. How far will she go before the darkness consumes her?

It was amazing! I loved every minute of it. The book had a lot to say about family and not always knowing what was around the corner. I can't wait to pick up the next book in the series by Tammi Elizabeth, and find out what happens and if they manage to actually start or stop Ragnarok. It will be an interesting look into a pretty well researched Viking community and society. Check out the blog for a more in-depth review. 

#2: Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales? When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through?

I was so angry, elated, frustrated....I don't even know, throughout the majority of this book. The “outsider's perspective” drove me up the walls. I was watching them unfold like a very demented flower, constantly yelling at the book for them to just pull their heads out of their arses and kiss each other. Then it happened and it was like the entire world spiraled out of control for these poor teens. I'm sort of glad I will never know what it is like to grow up in a spotlight.


#3: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written an adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf explores the fundamentals of truths, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all.

I rated this book a 3/5 stars. Not even because I didn't like it. I barely followed what was happening. The bits that I did know what it meant were mostly curse words and rather graphic descriptions of intercourse or genitalia. There were a good number of variant names for women's and men's genitals floating around. I did like when the story would follow a relatively straight line that I could keep track of, but it would lose me when Tracker would delve back and forth between present time past as he told the story. I kept forgetting that what we were reading was actually him talking about what happened and not actually what happened. It was a challenge to get through and I'm not sure really if I want to continue in the Dark Star Trilogy with Moon Witch, Night Devil when it comes out. I will continue to think about it. Right now, I would have cared if we had stayed with Tracker and Mossi, but that didn't work out.


#4: The Book Fix by Marydale Stewart

In this tale of modern resistance, a man and a woman are caught up in bitter post-2016 cultural and political conflicts. Both are librarians; she is an activist brought up in an historic and tumultuous Chicago neighborhood and he is a classical music lover and idealist devoted to improving lives. As their stories unfold, he risks his livelihood as he chooses resistance over security and she risks losing him. This is a down-to-earth look at censorship, homophobia, and the definition of freedom in a workplace that’s not your mother’s public library.

It was interesting. I liked it. It wasn't a long read and it was well worth it. This novel is an important one these days, showing the spine librarians have for not backing down even in the face of adversity. It warmed my heart that Adam would much rather have lost his job than bowed the nonsensical whims of a board of trustees that were refusing to abide by the American Library Association. I rather enjoyed reading about the lives of these people and it was a good little reminder that people are still good at heart, even when faced with opposition.


#5: Fate of the Fallen by Kel Kade

The Shroud of Prophecy tests fate to discover what happens when the path of good and right, the triumph of light over darkness, the only path to salvation...fails. Everyone loves Mathias. So naturally, when he discovers it’s his destiny to save the world, he dives in head first, pulling his best friend Aaslo along for the ride. Mathias is thrilled for the adventure! There’s nothing better than a road beneath his feet and adventure in the air. Aaslo, on the other hand, has never cared for the world beyond the borders of his sleepy village and would be much happier alone and in the woods. But, someone has to keep the Chosen One’s head on his shoulders and his feet on the ground. It turns out saving the world isn’t as easy, or exciting, as it sounds in the stories. Mathias is more than willing to place his life on the line, but Aaslo would love nothing more than to forget about all the talk of arcane bloodlines and magical fae creatures. When the going gets rough, folks start to believe their only chance for survival is to surrender to the forces of evil, which isn’t how the stories go. At all. To make matters worse Aaslo is beginning to fear that he may have lost his mind…

What if the chosen one fails? The whole book was based on the idea that the chosen one fails in their mission right out of the gate. The poor guy quite literally loses his head within hours of beginning his grand hero's journey. His best friend decides to take up the banner and continue the quest in his friend's name. The only problem? Of the millions, and I do mean millions, of prophetic lines that could come about from this quest...only one, the one where the Chosen One lives, is the one where they win. This was that thread. I loved the story and how Aaslo refused to believe that they were cursed, even though the High Sorceress herself told him so. The person who was in charge of everyone else. It was a great read and I'm looking forward to the next volume.


#6: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic. Across the dark sea, Tané has trained to be a dragonrider since she was a child, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel. Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.


This is...I wanna say the fourth Samantha Shannon book I've read. I've been through most of the Dreamer series. This book was definitely more complex than that entire series, since she built an entire world from scratch based on Asian and Indian history, with a little English thrown in there because we can? I enjoyed what I read. It took me a while to get through and I doubt I will read it again, but Samantha Shannon solidly put herself on my list of favorite authors. 

Currently Reading: 01 - 31 December 2019

Currently Reading

- A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel (27%)
- The Magicians by Lev Grossman (02%)
- The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal (07%)
- The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro (14%)
- Brimstone by Justine Rosenberg (15%)
-  IT by Stephen King (40%)

- Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en (29%)
- The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (59%)

* * *

So, I'm proud of myself for having finished two books on my December TBR before December even started. That brings down my list to 16 books. I know it's very unlikely that I will get to all of them, I haven't even started 7 of them, but that's fine. If I manage more of the books actively on my Currently Reading list I will take it.

I found a few bookish bingo cards I'm going to attempt to fill in. I have two of them. I figure I can start filling them in this month. See how long it takes me to get a bingo. What would I do if I even get one? Buy myself an expensive book? Buy myself a prize of some other nature?

I got a $25 gift card for Amazon from my Nana for Christmas and decided that I was going to spend it all on books. I ended up buying 4 new eBooks. The first one that I bought, that I didn't even think twice about acquiring was a book by Rhett and Link from Good Mythical Morning. I'm part way through it now and I am enjoying it a lot. 

I realized now that my 2020 Reading Goals list has....disappeared? Well, here we go. I will post them again here and hope that they stick...

1. Meet/exceed my Goodreads goal for the year – This year I decided to keep it somewhat simple and set my goal for only 50 books. Something I'm sure I can reach and I will feel great when I read over the goal. Anything more is almost beyond my capabilities as a reader at the level I currently am at.

2. Review all of the books that I read – I had this same goal last year and I think I nearly got 100% completion on it. I realized that I didn't actually post my review for a few books, but it was in my own personal blog, so I count it.

3. Read IT by Stephen King – I sorted it out, in a comment to be seen later on in the entry, that if I read 288.25 pages per quarter from 1 January forward, I should finish the book on or near 31 December.

4. Read Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en - This is a 2300 page novel split into four volumes. I want to make it through a single volume per quarter and hopefully finish it in 2020. 

5. Enter and win Camp NaNo and NaNoWriMo – Yeah this is a difficult challenge to meet since I will have a job by then and my time set to write will be going down. That's okay, we can still do it if we actually plan it out a little bit.

6. Stick to My Book Buying….Restriction – It's not so much a “ban” on book buying, I know I won't be able to really contain myself, but I do think a restriction is in order. I can only buy one (1) book for every five (5) books that I read. That way I reduce the total number of books I bring into the house. I know I would never be able to not bring in books...so yeah. (I don't count Book of the Month Club).


I'm proud of myself for managing to finish six books during the month of Christmas. It's not so much December any more, since the holiday craze starts in like, October. It's just the month of Christmas. Anyway, I hope I can finish as many if not more books in January. It will give me one new purchase for the month. 

Ended up doing Jolabokaflod with my friends. We each bought one book for a friend and circled it so we each got a new book. I'm very happy with what I ended up with from KS. She got me a copy of A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel. It's a memoir from Ms. Frenkel about her time owning and operating a bookshop exclusively dealing in French books in Berlin, Germany from 1921 to 1938. Then we follow her through her life as she moves from place to place during WWII. I'm enjoying what I've read so far. It seems that we are to follow her through until she starts up another bookshop? I don't know.

I joined a Discord for a bookish readathon for the start of the year. From 15 January to 15 February is the Backlist Bookathon. It's to help people clear off their backlist (unread) books from their shelves. From what I gathered, you accrue points and at the end the person(s) with the most points win a gift card? I mean, I'll give it a go. Perhaps I'll generate enough points to earn another few books from Amazon. Technically that wouldn't be buying new books with my own money because I wouldn't be. I came up with my TBR list to fit the prompts. I think if we read more than one book for a given prompt, the first book meets the prompt point value, then the next book is 10-20 points? I will look again at the list and find out.

Here's hoping 2020 is as nice as 2019 was for me. I will see you all next year~!!