Hello,
I hope y’all are having a great week so far. I’ve been off for the last few days so I’ve mostly been catching up on Goodreads stuff and planning for the new year. I have quite a few post ideas coming up over the next couple of weeks along with some new ideas that I am thinking about trying out too. Toward the beginning of the summer I pretty much dropped off the planet and I think I only posted a couple of posts between August and December. During that time, school had started back up so I wasn’t really reading as much as I had in May, June, and July, though I did pick up a few short books that had been on my radar. My biggest accomplishment last year was finally graduating from school in December. I’ve mostly been working and trying to save up some money while I look for a better job and figure out what I want to do after college.

I’ve also been watching more shows on HBO Max which is my current addiction as they just added a whole bunch of DC movies and I have been in a HUGE batman kick lately. Recently, I finally finished titans season 2 and just started episode 1. I’m loving it since my favorite character, Jason Todd, is in it, but I never realized at how dark and intense it was going to get. It’s slightly predictable but I can’t wait to see what happens with season 2 (even though I kind of already do know some of it), and I am super excited for season 3 whenever it airs. I don’t know why I was ever skeptical about the show when it first came out. Its far from perfect, but its keeping my attention at the moment. I also watched the first Wonder Woman movie and loved it but WW1984 was kind of a mess for me so I was a bit disappointed since they really hyped it up. I also really want to watch Constantine, one of the rare Keanu Reeves movies I haven’t seen yet and I want to go back and watch some of the animated movies that I haven’t seen. I thought about posting some of the movies that I watched last year and what is on my list to watch for the first half of the year (mostly backlist movies), so if that is something that sounds interesting let me know. Now that I don’t have school to worry about anymore, January seems like it’s going to be a quiet month so I’m mostly playing catch up on reading, blogging, and movies along with working.

December Wrap-up:

Back in November, right around Thanksgiving actually, I discovered this readathon and thought it was the most hilarious thing that I’d seen and knew I had to sign up. The readathon itself is called Clear Your Shit Readathon and ran from November-December 26. The creators came up with a whole story background and a narrator that had a sense of humor that I appreciated. Basically the premise of the story is that there are these books that are falling on a fictional town and a wizard has hired us to get to the witch who is supposedly the one who caused all of the ruckus. It’s basically a readathon to help you clear some books off your shelves before the end of the year and I loved it so much that I definitely plan to participate in next year’s readathon. I’ll have the name linked up to it’s twitter page since it described the readathon much better than I did.

Anyways, there were 24 prompts, along with a side quest that I wasn’t able to do, but I read a grand total of 21 books in December which made December my best reading month of the entire year both with pages and the amount of books that I enjoyed.

  1. Your Journey Begins – Read your shortest book: An elderly Lady is up to no Good by Helene Tursten – I had a couple of other books above this one that seemed smaller but they didn’t have page numbers on my Goodreads list so I chose this one. It was definitely an interesting one (3.5-4 stars).
  2. You need supplies, duh – on shelf the longest – Salvage (#1) by Alexandra Duncan – This one was a reread and took me about as long as the first time to finish (4 stars).
  3. You can’t go alone – Book about found family/heist/group of people – Relative Strangers by Paula Garner – Picked this one up on a whim when I saw it at the library…Wasn’t a big fan unfortunately (2 stars).
  4. You’re probably late – Read a book with an animal in – Nocturne (#2) by Christine Johnson – I read Claire de Lune waay back in high school, a decade ago, and remember really enjoying it. I could not for the life of me remember if I had read this one and since it worked for a spell-it-out challenge I picked up on Goodreads I decided to get it. This one portrays werewolves so I figured it would work for the prompt. It was also meh (2 stars).
  5. There’s an Ogre blocking your path – Intimidating book – Tess of the Road (#1) by Rachel Hartman – I received an arc of this on Netgalley two years ago and it has been staring at me ever since. I was pretty proud of myself for being able to finish it (3 stars).
  6. First night Camping, Fun – Scary book – Asylum (#1) by Madeleine Roux – I’m not quite sure what made me want to pick this one up but I do know that I want to finish up this trilogy and it is also a reread for me since it’s been ages from the first time I read it. It was as intense as I remember it and I thoroughly enjoyed it (4 stars).
  7. Aww Shit, its a mini Boss battle – If You’re Oh…You didn’t like my options? – Least anticipated book – Uglies (#1) by Scott Westerfeld – This one was a little better than I thought it would be, but it was kind of meh. It was another one of those that had been on my TBR shelf for ages so I was glad to have finally read it (3 stars).
  8. You lived? – Free space – The love interest by Cale Dietrich – Another book that has been on my shelf for a long time and a surprising one as I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy it. Would recommend it (4 stars).
  9. Local Pubs are cool, I guess – Read a fantasy book – Ash princess (#1) by Laura Sebastian – I moved a couple of books around the list so this one did not get added to my collage of pictures, but I thought I would choose this one which is also another reread. It was a bit slow and kind of repetitive a few times, but I still thought it was interesting and would highly recommend it (4 stars).
  10. Supplies are expensive? Read your most expensive book – The time of contempt (#2) by Andrzej Sapkowksi – I really didn’t want to read this one at the time but I am glad I did since I decided later in the month to read my current favorite in the series, baptism of fire. I bought this one as a boxed set with the first 3 but was still pretty cheap from what I remember (4 stars).
  11. We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of…I mean witch – Pretty book cover – Truly Devious (#1) by Maureen Johnson – This was a fun read and a nice break from all of the fantasy and science fiction that I had been reading for the moment (4.5-5 stars).
  12. A witch approaches – Read a magical book – The kingdom of back by Marie Lu – This one was also a bit different than what I normally read and while its gotten a lot of praise lately, I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I wanted to. Still a good read though (4 stars).
  13. Hope you know how to swim – A water-themed book/blue cover – Everything that I thought I knew by Shannon Takaoka – Also another short book that took me longer to read than normal (2.5-3 stars).
  14. The wizard approaches – Read a book with a character you’d want to fight – Contagion (#1) by Erin Bowman – This one was a surprising read and I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I thought, but it actually got pretty intense there for the most part (4 stars).
  15. Friends suck sometimes – Read a book someone gifted/recommended to you – House of dragons (#1) by Jessica Cluess – I cheated just a little bit with this one since I don’t really have people at home recommend books often, but it would have probably taken me longer to pick this one up or I might not have if I hadn’t seen Elliot from Elliot Brooks raving about it and it definitely lived up to the hype.
  16. Elves? Read a book you forgot about (what’s it about or the book entirely) – Dreamfall (#1) by Amy Plum – It’s been so long that I’d read this that I had forgotten certain scenes throughout the story. It was okay, a bit predictable, but still interesting (3.5-4 stars).
  17. Another mini boss battle? Read a book you keep putting off – Batman: Nightwalker (#2) by Marie Lu – I’ve been enjoying the DC icon’s series so far though the first one was okay. It helps that I have been in a big Batman phase (I might as well say I have an addiction at this point thanks to Under the Red Hood) and found it more enjoyable than I might have otherwise. It was really funny to me because I could hear Alfred’s voice from the animated movies in my head as I was reading it. I’m also officially almost caught up with Marie Lu’s backlist so that is nice as well (4 stars).
  18. Free space – An ember in the ashes (#1) by Sabaa Tahir – I still need to read the fourth book in the series so I decided to do a reread of this one since its been so long since the first time I picked it up. It was just as good as the first time and would highly recommend (4.5 stars).
  19. The wizard…again? Read a book with a map in it – Children of Blood and Bone (#1) by Tomi Adeyemi – Sidenote, Its’ weird how only a couple of books in my December TBR had a map in them but now in my January TBR I have multiple books with maps in them. I was skeptical about this one at first, but enjoyed it a bit more than I thought I would (4 stars).
  20. Tavern rest – Oldest book by publication date – The Haunting of hill House by Shirley Jackson – The only DNF of this month and one that I actually thought I would enjoy. I thought the story itself was interesting but about halfway through it still hadn’t really started for a 178 page book, and the main characters irritated me to no end. Not one I would recommend, sadly (1.5 stars).
  21. The witches castle – Read a pre-order or library reservation – A Good Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (#1) by Holly Jackson – I read two mystery novels back-to-back that were kind of similar to each other but still ended up enjoying this one over the other one for some reason (4.5-5 stars).
  22. Mirror, Mirror – Read a book with a shiny cover/ magical item in it – Neverwake (#2) by Amy Plum – While Dreamfall took me much longer to read, this one took me an afternoon or two to complete though I enjoyed it about the same as the first one. It was ok. I also really hate that cover, but it worked for the shiny cover prompt at least (3 stars).
  23. No one takes my payment – Free book space – Baptism of Fire (#3) by Andrzej Sapkowski – I have no idea what compelled me to pick this one up but I completed it in two days so that’s a plus. Spoiler alert…It also made my Top Favorite books of the year and is my favorite witcher book to date. Now I just need to go find four and five (5 stars).
  24. Final boss battle – Sword guild – Read a fantasy – Lady Smoke (#2) by Laura Sebastian – I enjoyed this one a lot more than book one though there were still some times where it dragged a bit in the middle. That ending though…it’s why I’m currently reading the third one and am excited to see how it ends (4.5-5 stars).
  25. Your Journey Ends – ” Oh dear. Oh no. You…all died? How am I supposed to get paid now? What am I supposed to do? The wizard escaped and now you’re all dead?? Well…Thank you for participating in the first #clearyourshitreadathon…I gotta go search how to revive dead witness for my claims court situation…XOXO. Narrator.”

Overall, this was a very fun and hilarious readathon and one I highly recommend if you’re looking for one in November-December. I’m going to definitely try and do the second one this year. It looks just as exciting as the first one. This is is for my Nov-Dec wrap-up. Next is my January-Mid February TBR for a readathon that I have planned to participate in.

Hope you have a good day!

Marybeth