I read a lot of romance in November, partially because it was easy to focus on in the midst of a heavy work month and partially because I just wanted some fluff to balance out The Death of Jane Lawrence (which is very much Crimson Peak-inspired) and Palestinian author Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail. The Star Wars anthology was interesting! It was the first Star Wars film told from other perspectives and the stories are in the same order of the film, and I liked seeing the familiar story from other POVs.
I started the Sophie Jordan The Rogue Files series in the middle (read the 3rd and 7th I think??) without having realized it, so I am going back and reading the ones I haven’t read in series order! Do Your Worst was cute, but it’s one I can’t think about too much without it all falling apart and not really making much logical sense… The Nanny was overwritten, and it wasn’t until after I read it that it was Reylo-inspired, which is not my preferred contemporary romance genre but the shelves are overrun with them!! Nettle & Bone draws on fairy tales and is one of my favorite reads of the year!
💖 Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, by various authors 💖 While the Duke Was Sleeping, by Sophie Jordan 🔮 Do Your Worst, by Rosie Danan 💖 The Death of Jane Lawrence, by Caitlin Starling 💖 The Duke Buys a Bride, by Sophie Jordan 💖 Her Band of Rakes, by R.A. Steffan 💖 This Scot of Mine, by Sophie Jordan 🌠 Minor Detail, by Adania Shibli 🌠 The Nanny, by Lana Ferguson 💖 Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher
I am an irregular blogger, and I accept this about myself. Without further delay, here is what I read last four months of 2021! January’s wrap-up is in the works!
FINISHED READING
Each month is separated!
I read six books in September! This was the shortest reading month of the year, partially due to a start of a new semester at work that ate away at my brain space and being in a reading slump. My favorite of the month was The Hacienda, and my least favorite of the month was And Then There Were None. I think I may enjoy watching Agatha Christie adaptations more than reading them.
⌛️ Act of Service – Lillian Fishman 📚The Ghost Bride – Yangsze Choo
⌛️The Hacienda – Isabel Cañas
📚💞 Twenty-Five Books That Shaped America – Thomas C. Foster
📚 And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
🎧💞 Lirael – Garth Nix, read by Tim Curry
I read eleven books in October, a lot of manga to try to catch up on my reading goal for the year! This was a solid reading month with no real duds for me!
📚 I’m Glad My Mom Died – Jennette McCurdy ⌛️ Small Favors – Erin A. Craig 📚 The Year of the Witching – Alexis Henderson 📱 Duke Gone Rogue – Christy Carlyle (Thank you, Avon!) 📱 Tsubaki-Chou Lonely Planet, vol 1 – Mika Yamamori (Thank you, Yen Press!) 📚 Foreigner – C.J. Cherryh ⌛️ The Savior’s Book Cafe Story in Another World, vol 1 – Kyouka Izumi, Oumiya, Reiko Sakurada ⌛️ The Savior’s Book Cafe Story in Another World, vol 2 – Kyouka Izumi, Oumiya, Reiko Sakurada ⌛️ Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman 📚 Nights With a Cat, vol 1– KyuryuZ 📚 Nights With a Cat, vol 2– KyuryuZ
I read thirteen books in November. A lot of them were novellas, but I still count them! I also enjoyed the experience of listening to all of the novellas in the Into Shadow collection.
📚 Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured – Kathryn Harrison 📱 Happy Place – Emily Henry (thank you, Berkley!) 🎧 The Six Deaths of the Saint – Alix E. Harrow 📚 Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor – Xiran Jay Zhao ⌛️ The Savior’s Book Cafe Story in Another World – Kyouka Izumi, Oumiya, Reiko Sakurada 🎧 The Garden – Tomi Adeymei 🎧 The Candles are Burning – Veronica G. Henry 🎧 Persephone – Lev Grossman 🎧 What the Dead Know – Nghi Vo ⌛️ Castles in Their Bones – Laura Sebastian 📚 No Longer Human – Osamu Dozai 🎧 Out of the Mirror, Darkness – Garth Nix 📱 Maeve Fly – C.J. Leede (thank you, Tor Nightfire!)
I read eight books in December! The Book of Gothel was a great fictional historical history of the Rapunzel fairy tale from the mother’s point of view. Undercover only made me want to read more by Tamsyn Muir and revisit The Locked Tomb series. I liked The Queen of the Tearling but I hadn’t realized when I started it that it’s set in the FUTURE, yet it feels very… traditional fantasy sort of thing. I’m interested to see where the rest of the trilogy goes.
⌛️ The Book of Gothel – Mary McMyne 🎧 Undercover – Tamsyn Muir 📚 Star Wars X-Wing: Rogue Squadron – Michael A. Stackpole 📱 Burning Roses – S.L. Huang (Thank you, tordotcom!) ⌛️ How to Keep House While Drowning – K.C. Davis ⌛️ The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman 📓 Egypt’s Golden Couple – John Darnell and Colleen Darnell (Thank you, St. Martin’s Press!)
CLOSING OUT
2022 was a weird reading year. I wasn’t motivated to read certain things I’d picked out for myself, for review and for myself, and I came to the conclusion that I’m going to be focusing less on chasing review copies and more about reading for myself and going back to what it was like when I started this blog. I was reading and posting stuff for me, not for obligation and internet points or whatever. I want to maintain the relationships I currently have with a few publishers and contacts, and I still will request things if they come through my inbox, and I’m able to get to them in a timely manner. I also have Edelweiss and Netgalley at my leisure. Posts will be likely infrequent and sporadic, with a few changes here and there in formatting and approach, but I think having less external pressure to have things submitted and put up and done will help with the pressure I put on myself, too.
⌛️ A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – Holly Jackson (4/5 stars) 🎧 The King of Crows – Libba Bray (4/5 stars) 📓 A Spindle Splintered – Alix E. Harrow (5/5 stars) 💾 Because Internet – Gretchen McCulloch (3.5/5 stars) 📱 My Heart is a Chainsaw – Stephen Graham Jones (DNF) 💾 Gild – Raven Kennedy (3/5 stars) 💾 The Lady From the Black Lagoon – Mallory O’Meara (3.5/5 stars) ⌛️ These Hollow Vows – Lexi Ryan (4/5 stars) ⌛️ Matrix – Lauren Groff (4/5 stars) 📓 Yours Cruelly, Elvira – Cassandra Peterson (4/5 stars) 💾 Glint – Raven Kennedy (3/5 stars) ⌛️ A Tip for the Hangman – Allison Epstein (5/5 stars)
📚 The Ex Hex – Erin Sterling (4/5 stars) 📱 What Moves the Dead – T. Kingfisher (5/5 stars) ⌛️ House of Salt and Sorrows – Erin A. Craig (4/5 stars) 📚 Ninth House – Leigh Bardugo (2/5 stars) 📱 Nothing But Blackened Teeth – Cassandra Khaw (3.5/5 stars) ⌛️ The Wolf and the Woodsman – Ava Reid (3.5/5 stars) ⌛️ Witch Hat Atelier, vol 1 – Kamoma Shirahama (4/5 stars)
📚 The Duke Goes Down – Sophie Jordan (2/5 stars) ⌛️ The Heroine with 1001 Faces – Maria Tatar (2.5/5 stars) ⌛️ The Last Thing He Told Me – Laura Dave (3/5 stars) 💾 Gleam – Raven Kennedy (3/5 stars) ⌛️ Kingdom of the Wicked – Kerri Maniscalco (DNF) 📚💞 Zel – Donna Jo Napoli (5/5 stars) ⌛️ Medieval Bodies – Jack Hartnell (4.5/5 stars) 💾💞 Sabriel – Garth Nix (5/5 stars)
ON THE HORIZON
I will be updating this for January’s reads to keep things more organized!
The end of the year while working in retail in the middle of a pandemic is not the best time to try to bring back a blog and instagram with any regular frequency, but HERE I AM. I’m TRYING. And that’s all that we can do, really. I read a little bit more in November than I did in October, but I didn’t really write any posts, so I’m making up for it now.
CURRENTLY READING
I’m still picking at A People’s History of the United States and The Big Book of Science Fiction (because they’re stuck under a stack of books and I’m too lazy to dig them out), and I’m reading a few prose poems a week out of The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem. They make me think about writing and prose poetry’s space in it all, so I’m enjoying savoring it. I also have a problem with waiting until the last minute to read my digital library loans, so I’m working my way through the next Lady Darby mystery, Mortal Arts. Angry Robot sent me a copy of The Rush’s Edge which I’m enjoying! And Scribner’s rerelease of One Writer’s Beginnings is a perfect winter read about writing.
The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem – ed. Jeremy Noel-Tod
📚 A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn (29%)
📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (15%)
📚 The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem: From Baudelaire to Anne Carson – edited by Jeremy Noel-Tod (8%)
⌛️ Mortal Arts – Anna Lee Huber (25%)
📓 One Writer’sBeginnings – Eudora Welty (10%)
📓 The Rush’s Edge – Ginger Smith (17%)
FINISHED READING
I read nine books in November! Most were okay, but some felt like a slog to get through. ACOWAR took the longest for me to read, and I feel like up until the 400th page or so, it was just the same cycle of action and inaction, really, that could have been condensed into a much smaller book. Wuthering Heights was one I’ve struggled with for years, and I just decided at the end of the month to read it and be done with it. The atmosphere was great, but I wasn’t expecting that level of emotional and physical violence and also why people consider it a love story. I’ve been in a nonfiction mood because I don’t really have to use my brain power to follow a linear story, and The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs and Time Travel: A History were great science reads.
📚 Nooks & Crannies – Jessica Lawson (4/5 stars)
📚 The Breakthrough – Daphne du Maurier (3.5/5 stars)
📚 A Court of Wings and Ruin – Sarah J. Maas (3.5/5 stars)
📚 A Duke of Her Own – Eloisa James (2/5 stars)
⌛️ Flyaway – Kathleen Jennings (3/5 stars)
📚 Lady Bridget’s Diary – Maya Rodale (3/5 stars)
⌛️ The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs – Stephen Brusatte (4/5 stars)
⌛️ Time Travel: A History – James Gleick (4/5 stars)
📚 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte (3/5 stars)
ON THE HORIZON
I’m keeping this short and to the point because setting lofty TBR goals has never been one of my strong suits, but I really, really, need to read Real Life, I can’t resist rereading The Princess Diaries after seeing these new covers, and I want to start picking away at my neverending digital galley pile and Ruinsong is calling out to me the most.
📚 Real Life – Brandon Taylor
📚 The Princess Diaries – Meg Cabot
📱 Ruinsong – Julia Ember (thank you, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR))
WHAT I ACQUIRED
I am putting myself on a book buying ban from like… now until the end of 2021, because as I was sorting through my shelves this week and weeding a few titles out, I have too many unread books. I will still make a few requests here and there to publishers and check out books from the library, but I have to stop accumulating so much stuff. The first three books in Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive were on a really good deal, and I couldn’t pass them up. I’ve been holding off on starting this series, but I am also kind of in the mood for fantasy like this. Orbit Books had a great ebook sale over Black Friday weekend, so I picked up The Bone Shard Daughter, Nophek Gloss, and We Ride the Storm as they’re all books I’ve been anticipating reading! (And I also need to get back in the habit of reading things on my kindle/phone, so…) From Atria, I received Astrid Seeds All and To Love and to Loathe (I loved Waters’ debut! So I am excited for this one), and from Hachette, I received Culture Warlords. I’ve been following Talia Lavin on Twitter for a while now, and I enjoy her online presence and the work she’s done, so I’m curious to read her book now.
📚 The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson
📚 Words of Radiance – Brandon Sanderson
📚 Oathbringer – Brandon Sanderson
💾 The Bone Shard Daughter – Andrea Stewart
💾 Nophek Gloss – Essa Hansen
💾 We Ride the Storm – Devin Madson
📓 Astrid Sees All – Natalie Standiford (thank you, Atria Books!)
📓 Culture Warlords – Talia Lavin (thank you, Hachette Books!)
📓 To Love and to Loathe – Martha Waters (thank you, Atria Books!)
ON SCREEN
GAMING: I just hit 60 in Shadowlands on my main, and I think I’m going to give tanking a try with the new Death Knight I rolled on the Alliance side.
TV: I finished The Golden Girls, and I kind of don’t know what to watch next. I’m still keeping up with The Mandalorian, and I’m enjoying where that series is going!
MOVIES: Disney’s live-action Mulan was entertaining but it fell flat in a lot of places for me. I also rewatched Trainwreck because it’s one of those movies I watch to cheer myself up.
PERSONAL
Life has been busy with work, adjusting to new policies and enforcing them with customers, and just carrying on with life when it’s so… weird and all up in the air. I know it won’t immediately get better in 2021, but for the first time in a long time, I have hope.
