December Wrap-Up

This is where I talk about how the month went for me when it came to reading and some events that maybe sparked me to read more (or stopped me from reading as much as I wanted to). I also link all the reviews I did in the month, talk about any books I DNFed, discuss my plans for the following month, and give updates of my life.

This month my goal was to focus on reading, since November was focused on writing because of NaNoWriMo. And I think I accomplished this goal! I knew it would be a bit hard because I had to get myself back into a reading schedule, but for what I read  I am really proud of myself.

Book Reviews

The Christmas Town by Donna VanLiere
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
1225 Christmas Tree Lane by Debbie Macomber
The 13th Gift by Joanne Huist Smith
Cloaked in Shadow by Ben Alderson
A Dog Named Christmas by Greg Kincaid
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab 

DNFed Books 

Hiddensee by Gregory Maguire
Twelve Days of Christmas by Debbie Macomber

With Hiddensee, I wasn't a huge fan of the writing. I really disliked the writing which made it hard for me to not only know what is going on, but to care. So after about half way through I put it down to save myself from getting stuck in a reading rut. And then with Twelve Days of Christmas, I had heard amazing things about Debbie Macomber's holiday books. I had previously picked up 1225 Christmas Tree Lane just a week or two ago and I really disliked it, but i wanted to give her a second chance. Unfortunately I don't think she's a very good writer. The dialogue and characters are stiff and unnatural.

Blog-ish Updates 

So, recently I wrote a blog post titled Quitting Goodreads? Where I discuss how I am going to be transferring from Goodreads to other sites (mostly BookThinkers and Litsy) because  I don't feel comfortable with the way they're treating authors. This got a lot of traffic where I got pretty awful comments (which I deleted)  and some really great comments. I think the conversation opened by this was great and because of it, I learned about BookThinkers.

I have decided, in the new year, 2018 will be a year where things change when it comes to my monthly updates. One being, I am not going to discuss the books I've DNFed. If I end up DNFing a book I'll either put it back on my "want to read" list if I feel like giving it another go in the future or completely delete and forget about it. Another thing is my plan is to not worry so much about numbers. I don't like that I feel disappointed if I don't read a certain amount each month. It's ridiculous and forces me not to pick up the big books I want to read. So I am going to focus solely on just reading books I want to read. I am not doing a year reading challenge, which will also help. Besides using BookThinkers, I will be using both a reading journal and I will have a journal where  I write down all the books I've read to document my reading progress. I want to just read books I am interested in, and stop worrying about the size or even the pacing because I'll have less time to speed through other books. I hate that for me reading has become a competitive thing instead of just a fun thing I love to do to relax. I have large books I haven't even read because of their length, books that have been on my shelves for years and I have been pushing them aside because I knew it would affect my monthly or yearly book count.

Non-Book Updates 

I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and I hope you had a fantastic new year. The month of December was pretty uneventful for me, other than traveling for the holidays. My fiancé went to see The Last Jedi, and loved it so much. We also watched a lot of holiday movies to stay in the holiday spirit. I haven't been playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp as much as I wish I have, because I have been either focusing on reading or obsessively watching Dance Moms, which is one of my favorite shows, while doing word searches, which I tend to do for my anxiety.

Overall, I am really pleased with my reading month of December. I am really excited to start the new year with reading books I have had on my TBR for far too long that I keep putting off because of their size or reputation for being slow paced stories.

Keep your eye out for a few end of year/beginning of a new year posts like my top best/worst books of 2017 and my reading goals for 2018!

Thanks for reading!