December Wrap-Up: The Month of Christmas a.k.a Retail Hell

Hi all!

Wow! It’s the very last day of the year — how the hell did that happen? This year felt like it went super fast, but the beginning of the year dragged? Like, the Olympics were this year and I swear we’ve all collectively forgotten about it.

I’m kind of apprehensive about going into 2019, mainly because I’ve finished my Master’s degree and now I have to find a job. I don’t think I need to tell you how scary looking for a new job can be. Please wish me luck!

But mainly this month, I worked at my retail job, for Christmas. I hate working Christmas time because it’s always so ridiculously busy and we’re always understaffed because my work tries to save money. But thankfully it’s over now!

Books read

18 reads: 12 books (2 rereads), 3 short stories, 1 novella, 1 webcomic, 1 collection of poetry

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Books reviewed

I binge-read TJ Klune’s Tales from Verania series in a week back in October and I finally got around to review the whole series. One word: incredible. This series is now on the same level for me as Captive Prince and The Mortal Instruments, and if you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, you’ll know how much I love those books. Review.

★★★★★

Radio Silence is a beautiful novel. It was my first Alice Oseman book and as soon as I finished the novel, I went and read all of her other books. She’s a terrific writer, and is able to get into the psyche of a millennial / gen Z person so perfectly. Radio Silence is about platonic soulmates and the importance of friendship and deserves to be read. Review.

★★★★★

Shrewd Angel is the cutest Christmas novel I have ever read! Granted, I don’t usually read holiday books and I basically rate anything Anyta Sunday writes 5 stars because I adore her, but it was still so freaking cute! If you like hate to love, flirtatious banter, and chemistry that’s off the charts, then you want to read this book. Review.

★★★★★

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BOOK OF THE MONTH

★★★★★

My favourite book of December was definitely Stalking Darkness by Lynn Flewelling. It’s the second book in the Nightrunner series and I read book one way back in June or July. I always meant to read book two and the rest of the series, but for some reason, I never got the chance until now.

Anyway, book two was amazing. It’s a bit slow at the beginning but that’s because it’s leading up to something amazing: the fulfilment of the prophecy. I loved how Flewelling brought everything together, and how I was still guessing right up until the very end of the book. But the main reason I loved this book was because Seregil and Alec, the main characters, finally get together — at the very, very end, but still. I can’t wait to read book three now! And the rest of the series!

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Monthly disappointment 

★★★

Amelia Westlake wasn’t a bad book but it was still a bit of a disappointing one for me. I’m not sure if I’ll do a proper review for it yet, but let me quickly explain my problems with it: the characters. The two main characters, Will and Harriet, were so freaking annoying. I did eventually like that the two girls started dating, but individually they sucked. Harriet was so freaking naive, I could throttle her. And she was oddly reserved? She would say the most old-fashioned things, it was started to irk me. Like, I get the author wanted to show how different the characters were, but Harriet took it a little too far sometimes. Will was, for the most part, ok but occasionally she would also get on my nerves, although not as much as her best friend Nat.

Spoiler: Nat was such a hypocrite. She prints an article in her school newspaper about Will and Harriet making out, refuses to apologise to Will after Will rightfully got pissed off, and simply says she’s “a journalist” who had to follow the story; but then when Nat gets pissed off at Will for lying to her, Nat is willing to end their friendship because “you don’t do that to a friend”. So … it’s ok to print an article about your best friend kissing another girl, when the school isn’t completely aware that Will is queer, but not ok that Will lied to you? Hmmmm. Nope.

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Travel posts

From late November to early December, I was in America! I had an absolute amazing experience there and I sorely wish I were still there! I ended up writing about my trip in three blog posts, plus an extra post about the books I bought there. Check them out by clicking on each image!

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BOOK TAGS

I’m currently completing The ABC book challenge! This is a weekly tag where bloggers share memorable titles starting with a letter of the alphabet, as well as books on their TBR also starting with that letter.

This series will finish up in 2019. Check out my posts for December:

U

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EXTRA CONTENT

This month I had a whole bunch of awesome extra posts, including a massive list of my favourite books of all time, a collection of books I still want to read before the end of the year, and my best songs of 2018 from Spotify. Check them out by clicking on each image!

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Guest post

This month I was very lucky to host a blog post by a lovely friend of mine, Em. Em wrote about romance novels and mental health representation. Please check out the post below:

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Blog tours

• Release blitz: Christmas Angel by Eli Easton
• Review tour: Shrewd Angel by Anyta Sunday
• Release blitz: You. Forever. Always by K.A. Merikan

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ARCs I received 

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Books purchased

All of these are Christmas presents to myself! Because apparently after my American book haul, I needed more books.

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Non-bookish stuff

At the beginning of December, I was still in America and I really, really miss being there. As soon as I had to go back to work, I was about to cry. I think that’s the worst thing about coming back from a holiday: having to go back to work.

But a few days after I got back, I had my graduation ceremony! I am now admitted into the Master of Publishing and Communications. The ceremony was long and a little boring, but the President of my uni threw shade at Tr*mp which was fun. It was also super hot that day which sucked because three days earlier I was in the lovely cold Boston. Anyway, here’s some photos from the day:

After graduation, I only spent a week working Christmas shifts, thankfully, because I had been on holiday. I spent Christmas Eve at my aunt’s house and then Christmas Day at my uncle’s house, and it was great spending time with family. I hung out with my cousin who now lives in Sydney and who I hadn’t seen in almost six months, so that was so much fun — I miss him heaps.

This month, I started watching 3 Below on Netflix! It’s the companion show to my favourite show ever, Trollhunters. I’m really enjoying it so far — it’s about royal aliens who are on the run after a coup on their home planet and their parents are killed. They find their way to Earth and are hiding there, trying to bring back their parents. After this show, there’ll be one more companion show and it’s about wizards. I love this whole world! Please watch it too!

I hung out heaps with my friends this month, who I all adore. One night we got together to watch The Princess Switch on Netflix and it was terrible! Watch if you like hate-watching movies or enjoying watching bad films, because that’s what we ended up doing. It was super lame and I know it’s a Hallmark film so I should’t expect much, but holy crap, it was worse than I thought. Vanessa Hudgens deserves better. (Also I freaking love Vanessa Hudgens, she was one of the women who made me realise I was bi at 14 XD).

Then another night we also watched Twilight and I am now seriously considering rereading the books again. I love rereading books I read so many years ago to see my reaction to them now, as an adult. I think that would be so much fun with something like Twilight! The movie was just as cringy as I remember and I will go to my grave saying that Catherine Hardwicke never should have filmed this movie, because she made it too freaking indie when it should have been mainstream.

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Looking forward: What you can expect from me in 2019

2019 will see a few changes to this blog. I don’t think I’m going to be focusing too much on YA, although I will still definitely write YA reviews and whatnot, but I’ve found that a lot of my reading interests have changed. I’ll still always love YA but I may not read as much of it as I used to.

I’ll still be reading romance, but I’ll also be incorporating classics, non-fiction, literature, and more into my reading habits. When I was younger — from like ages 13-17 — I read a lot of adult fiction and barely any YA. So when I was in my early twenties, I started to make up for lost time by reading a lot of YA. Like, a lot. But now my reading tastes are changing again! Sorry about that.

Hopefully you guys still enjoy my content and what I have to offer! I’m very keen to see where 2019 bring me.

Tentative January TBR:

How was your December?

How many books did you read? Did you watch any shows or movies? What are your plans for New Years Eve and New Years Day? Let me know!