Well, I am going to be honest, I thought I wrote this post weeks ago when I actually read the book but February clearly got very away from me in total and that is really unfortunate.
I liked the book, there should be no secret that I like books and I love a good rom-com with a grumpy/sunshine relationship dynamic and this for sure was a very grumpy/sunshine dynamic even though the main female is not sunshine all the time.
The story starts out with Georgie having to return home because her boss decides that she’s going to take some time away and change career paths and that means that Georgie has to find somewhere else to be. Her best friend is having a baby and that seems to be a project that she wants to tackle.
They find a “bucket list” friend fic from middle school before they got into high school and it’s all the stuff they wanted to do around town, I kind of loved that idea.
Well, there is only one problem, the former town bad boy was invited by her parents, who are out of town, to stay at their place and they didn’t mention the other to either of them.
His dog is my favorite, seriously, I read this a good three or so weeks ago and I have read so many books since then. Though I really liked that holding onto tradition ideal with the necessity and understanding that times change.
The whole narrative with Levi’s family was so interesting and his dad was kind of the worst. I can understand why he acted out.
This whole book was about understanding that you don’t have to have all the answers all the time and sometimes the answers that you get are not the right ones for you no matter how much you want them to be.
Everyone should also know how much I hate the third act break up, that hasn’t changed, that is such a cliché in romance novels, the third act break up. I have a vow in my own personal writing to never actually have a third act break up because I don’t personally like them.
Overall, it was a quick, easy read that I really enjoyed and only took a few days to read. I have never read any other books by Kate Clayborn but this one for sure made me want to read other novels by her. It also really left me craving a strawberry milkshake even though I would need to pop a lactaid before or risk getting very sick in the process because your girl can’t process milk.
Of course there were moments that I didn’t really like, her best friend can be a little over bearing and while I understand that there were still moments where that struck me the wrong way.
It had a happen ending and did leave the epilogue open to the future which is one of the better ways to end an epilogue in my opinion.
I want to have more clarity, I promise that I do, but I read this weeks ago and I don’t remember all of the details, I remember a lot because I enjoyed the book but there are pieces that I don’t remember whatsoever that I feel like I should. It was a touch spicy but so much fun to read.
I would say that if you are looking for a not too serious rom-com beach read this one for sure is for you.
Super short, sorry, I just don’t have a lot of words on this one, though I wish I could go back to middle and high school me and tell her that yea it takes a while and you never really have it together like you hope but that’s life, roll with the punches, you will be okay.
If you want to check out what I read in January you totally can because that has been up for a while and I am enough of an idiot that I forgot to write this, seriously, told myself I was going to write it and then…I forgot.
Alright, until next time I hope everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy!
Here we are in month two of the year, January flew right by, but I started full time teaching again instead of interventions so here we are with me teaching again and that meant that I was a little more stressed than normal, but I read 13 books in January. I am hoping to read like 10 in February.
I am already halfway through my first book of the month and it is a slog, I already know I am unhauling it and we can have that conversation when I actually write the little blurb down below. I am getting this post started though so when I finish it, I can just roll through it.
There are probably going to be spoilers so if you want to read the book, cool, avoid that blurb. Also, these are my opinions, no one else’s, if you loved a book I didn’t. That’s awesome, I am super happy for you I promise.
Secrets of Nanreath Hall by Alix Rickloff (3/5)
Of course he was married, like I called so many of the twists because there is such a plot formula for fiction like this. I love historical fiction, I really do, but this one just wasn’t it for me. I liked the World War 2 bits a lot more than her mother’s story and it took me so long to get through it. I was bored, the writing was well done, but the story just didn’t grip me, it was…predictable and boring. I did almost DNF it, but I liked it enough to finish it, will I be keeping it in my collection? No, someone else will get more joy out of this than I ever will and that’s totally okay with me. It would have made so much more of an impact on me if it was told from solely Anna’s perspective with letters or a journal from her mother, not switching back and forth to her mother. It just wasn’t for me and that’s totally fine. The second half did pick up but there was just so many tropes all shoved into one book that it was a little much for me as a whole.
The Transference Engine by Julia Verne St. John (3/5)
I wanted to like it, I really did, the premise is so cool! I love steampunk, who doesn’t when it comes to fantasy lovers. This one lost the plot so early; I was confused as to what the plot actually was. It was scattered, so very scattered and while it was a cool concept it was not executed well, that made it hard to read. I expected Ada to have a much bigger role, but she just felt like a side character even though she’s for sure on the back of the book. I expected more and I feel like there was no resolution, it wrapped up so quickly that I wasn’t sure how the author was going to wrap it up and there was like 30 pages left. Drew got done dirty, that’s all I am going to say, dirty and I didn’t root for anyone in this book. It wasn’t for me and that’s totally okay.
A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett Sinclair (5/5)
The rating might be because I have unhauled the last two books I have read which is never fun, but it is what it is. I love a Hades and Persephone retelling and the modern ones are so fun. I have a few and that might be a me problem because I like them. I for sure read this in two days, I would have read it in one but I worked today so yesterday I didn’t feel like blowing through almost 400 pages. It was so good, Hades is a lot, Persephone is also a lot but they are perfect for each other, a huge mess, but perfect. The mint plant! I laughed so hard I almost cried. I loved watching Persephone own herself, own who and what she was with Hades help of course. Like it got real spicy real fast and then just all the spice, like a full spice drawer. It was so good though, it did have a trope I am not a fan of, but here we are, a happy for now and I already own the second one, the third one is on the list to buy and the fourth one comes out later this year. I am on the fence about reading the Hades Saga, but I might, I don’t know yet.
White Girl Problems by Babe Walker (2.8/5)
Okay, so here’s the deal, I have had the third one for nearly a decade so I figured I would buy and read the first one. I regret all of it. I regret buying this book. I read it, some of it was funny, some of it was confusing and made me question reality and everything else. Seriously, this book has not aged well, it came out when I was in college when this was a much more popular trope in novels, the reality-esque. It reads very much like a famous family who has had several TV shows over the years and I didn’t enjoy it. I really do hope it’s all satire and humor because otherwise this book is not okay. I need it to be satirical fiction. I am unhauling the third one because I have no interest in reading it at all.
Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn (4.4/5)
It was so cute! I really liked this book overall; it is my Book of the Month so a post will be up eventually with my actual full thoughts. I loved Georgie and Levi’s dynamic and just the treatment of family and growth and how it feels when everyone around you is seeming to have all the good things happen to them and you feel like you are standing still and stuck. I feel that on the daily so it hit me, but it was so good.
Things in Jars by Jess Kidd (4/5)
Hold onto your horses Batman. Wow, this one was intense from the first few pages. It was also a lot. I didn’t mind the shifting perspectives much but the quick flip in those and the timeline was a little jarring. I really did enjoy it though, I loved Birdie and Ruby, I mean really, who doesn’t love an outspoken Victorian woman and a dead boxer ghost who is only in his underwear and a top hat? The story was interesting, I will for sure say that, I just wish that it would have wrapped everything up a little nicer at the end. I was super confused by the last page which was jarring to say the least. I want to know what happens with Birdie and Valentine, a character named Valentine Rose, I am not kidding and he’s a cop…It was good though, so many things that I didn’t call, and some that I did.
These Vicious Masks by Turan Shanker & Kelly Zekas (3.3/5)
I wanted to like it so much, I really did and it was almost unhauled a few years ago but I figured my tastes have changed I will give it a chance. I shouldn’t have, it was like the Avengers but make it Victorian and annoying, I do mean that. It was annoying, like it was such a fun and interesting concept but the execution was lacking for me. I didn’t really feel any of the relationships that were beginning to develop throughout, the plot felt like there was so much unnecessary nonsense, and the ending made me for sure not want to pick up the next one. Like seriously, all of the searching and everything else and that was how it ended? Yea, not going to get the others in this set and this one is going to say goodbye at the end of the year.
The Wild Dark Flowers by Elizabeth Cooke (2.8/5)
Have you ever read a book that was about 75 story lines with some overlap but not enough to feel like you were actually understanding and comprehending the whole story? That was this book, I read the first one in 2016 so I remembered very little from the first one and even then, this didn’t feel like I needed the first one to actually understand it. It was busy, it was so busy and the characters were unlikable. I just didn’t enjoy it and that means that like the first one I will be unhauling this one as well. I know that I shouldn’t have skimmed, but I did because the chapters were super long and they switched perspectives so frequently it was difficult to actually keep up and remember all the characters that were being referred to.
Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood (5/5)
It’s novellas and I have wanted to read them since last year. I needed a palette cleanser to feel better about reading after having to unhaul so many in a row and just feeling like I wasn’t getting any joy out of what I was reading. I laughed so hard in so many places throughout the novella’s and I liked that they were interconnected, that was so much fun. All of the characters are a lot, though all of the mains in her books seem to be a lot. I would read whole novels with each set of characters because I loved them, I wish that there was more story for each of the pairs, I needed more story with them. I just did. I couldn’t put it down and read it in an afternoon and that should shock no one because I have not taken more than a day to read any books that I have by her.
As You Wish by Cary Elwes (4/5)
I love the Princess Bride, it is one of my favorite movies, I have read the book as well. I actually didn’t see it until I was in college because I had a professor who thought that I would be the kind of person to have a signed copy of the script, I am still trying to figure out what the heck he meant by that and it’s been like 11 years since that moment. I love reading books about things that I love and seeing that movie from behind the scenes was so fascinating. I really enjoyed the little snippets and insights from other cast members that were placed throughout the book. It was a quick read and I did skim parts of it because last night and tonight were parent/teacher conferences so I was exhausted after being at school for almost 12 hours yesterday and today. It was really good though and I really did enjoy it.
The City We Became by. N.K. Jemisin (3.5/5)
I liked it, the premise was super cool and such an interesting read. There were things that rubbed me the wrong way but I don’t want to get into those things here. I don’t and that is a personal choice. The characters for the most part were super interesting. It was really fast paced though and I didn’t feel like I had any time to actually catch my breath and catch up with the story as it quickly progressed. I did enjoy it but I don’t think I will be picking up the second in the series, maybe, but I don’t know. I love urban fantasy but sometimes it just isn’t for me and this book wasn’t 100% for me and that’s totally okay.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry (4/5)
It was super cute. I love a good super cute book. I like that it was also a reverse Hallmark kind of thing. I loved Nora and Charlie though I was not a huge fan of her sister. There was so much in this book that I loved, some things that I didn’t but that’s every book. It was a cute story where the main character thinks she cursed in love and then meets someone who is a work oriented as she is and they don’t have to give their lives up for the other one. I really like that dynamic, because there are so many stories where one person gives everything up to be with the other and I can’t imagine being happy giving everything up for someone else.
I actually wanted to get to Book Lovers, that was actually the goal this month which was crazy because I actually made it! I enjoyed some books I read but almost half of them are a goodbye for me this month, five books are being unhauled and one I didn’t own. That is the whole point of a TBR though for me, it is to weed out the books that I don’t want to have in my permanent collection anymore.
I read 13 books though and that is on the whole an unsustainable pace especially with the ammount of books that I disliked this month. I wanted to like more, I really did and I tried but some of them just weren’t for me and they will go to a home that will enjoy them more than I ever could.
If you want to check out what I read in January though, you totally can and I am hoping to read almost as many if not as many in March because I am a glutton for punishment and I am trying to get through my TBR a little faster this year.
Until next time I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy!
-MJ
Let’s Keep Track Shall We?:
General Fiction: 2/12 (Someday, Someday, Maybe, White Girl Problems, )
Sci-Fi/Fantasy: 2/12 (Howl’s Moving Castle, The Transference Engine, )
Historical: 3/12 (The Gown,Secrets of Nanreath Hall, The Wild Dark Flowers, )
Thriller: /2
Free Choice: 4/15 (A Poisoned Season, Dark Horizons, Things in Jars, The City We Became, )
Memoirs/Autobiographies: 2/2 (You Will Get Through This Night,As You Wish)
General Non-Fiction: 1/2 (Mindset, )
Book of The Month: 2/12 (Lunar Love, Georgie, All Along, )
Extras: 6/? (Cocky Roommate,Portrait of a Scotsman, A Touch of Darkness, These Vicious Masks, Loathe to Love You, Book Lovers, )
Battle of the Books (it’s for school!): 4/? (The Lightening Thief, Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, Battle of the Labyrinth, )
Part two of the books that I am unhauling in 2022, I am writing this at the beginning of November because I regret waiting until June to write the first half. I am still writing it a little late, I should write this post progressively but, I am still working through all of the nuances of writing posts like this.
Yea, I wrote the books in during November and then I forgot so here I am at the beginning of 2023 coming back and finishing this post so I can eventually, hopefully, get this posted.
I might be unhauling some of your favorite books, I’m sorry, but what you like I might not and what I loved you may have hated. I have seen a lot of my five star books this year being dragged on TikTok, but everyone is allowed to have an opinion.
I am unhauling less (so far) for the second half of the year, but there are for sure some that I am still unhauling. I lied though, I for sure unhauled more in the second half of the year than the first…I think so anyway, I have unhauled like 30 books this year so there’s always that.
This one had promise but it went from 0-60 in about the last 50 pages and the ending was weird and confusing, I liked it, but not enough to keep it in my personal permanent collection because someone else will like it more than me.
For the record, I did like this book, but I don’t understand a lot of the nuance because of the cultural barrier. I know very little about Indian mythology, part of that is the fault of my education part of it is the fault that I don’t find myself seeking it out. I sis enjoy it, but again, someone else will enjoy it more than me.
I don’t get the obsession and the hype with this one, I liked it, but I also kind of hated it, I wasn’t a huge fan of the family as a whole and their dad seemed like the worst. I wanted to like this because so many people said that it was the most amazing book they ever read, I just don’t get the hype.
I thought that the main love interest was a ghost, like a straight up ghost, she wasn’t. She was just unreachable or something, I don’t remember much of it. I liked it but the main guy like stalked her which was weird. I liked the old movie theater angle, it was so fun, but there was a lot in this book that just didn’t do it for me.
The Last Days of Magic by Mark Tompkins
This one was disappointing, I don’t mind historical more Arthurian era fantasy, I actually quite enjoy it, but this one, there was so much in this that just hit me in a place that I didn’t enjoy. The main female character did a complete 180, ritual death of infants, there was a lot of icky things for me.
Solsbury Hill by Susan M. Wyler
Emily Bronte, meets like Sex and The City? I’m not sure, the main male character’s name was ridiculous. I read it in a day just to be done with it. The story had such promise but she still talked to her cheating ex, you find out that her mother had an affair? I think, at this point I don’t actually remember because that was in July, it’s January.
I never knew Sherlock Holmes could be boring and inane, I should have DNFed this book. I was confused and concerned and there was so much about it that I hated, but I still slogged through like 500 pages. It wasn’t’ for me and that’s okay.
Small Angels by Lauren Owen
This one was slow, it was so slow, yet so fast. I would have preferred one story line instead of like fifteen. I think that’s where I get bogged down with a lot of books because they focus on so many characters and so many arcs that you don’t know what the main plot is supposed to be. Was it about the ghost, the wedding, the love story? I was confused and it just didn’t do anything for me.
They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe
Ghost stories, every mother in a family drowning because of their like ancient ancestor who was still alive? I didn’t enjoy it, I’m sorry. I know that there is a lot that I am saying negatively on this but these are being unhauled. There is a reason that every single one of these is being unhauled. I like a happy ending, nothing about this was happy.
Meet Me at the Cupcake Café by Jenny Colgan
Cute, predictable, derivative. It was cute, also incredibly predictable and I see a lot of books as a one-time read, this one was one of them. It could have been wrapped up at the end of this one but there is a Christmas version as well which I have no interest in.
Talk Bookish to Me by Kate Bromley
He was cheating on his fiancée with the main character, that was where it hit me. The story was good, it was super good and then you hit me with he has a fiancée, I don’t care if they were going to be breaking up, he still cheated and that is still not okay.
You lost me at sex cult, seriously, I don’t read a lot of thrillers, this was in a book box that I have since cancelled because the books were really hit or miss for me and this was for sure a miss. The grooming, the abuse, the crazy, all of it just hit me in the icky places. I didn’t enjoy it, it was liked by a friend of mine who read it who reads a lot more thrillers than I do, but this wasn’t for me.
The Shadow in the Glass by JJA Harwood
Gothic Cinderella retelling? Yea, fun I love that. Magic woman in a mirror who grants your wishes by killing people, okay, fine. This weird tension with the main female and the guy that she eventually ends up with, okay cool. You had me until magic abortion. Then, then I just couldn’t get through the book fast enough.
Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva
It was an alright one-time read. It reminded me of The Man Who Invented Christmas and I think that was why I bought this book in the first place, but it just didn’t resonate with me. The girl helping him was a ghost? I think, I don’t remember, that’s how I feel at the moment. If I can’t remember much, it’s not worth keeping.
I wanted to like it, I say that a lot, but I did, I truly wanted to enjoy it because it was a fun story and an interesting premise. There was just a lot that hit me the wrong way and it’s not a keeper for me.
Death on The Nile by Agatha Christie
I rooted for none of the characters, so many people died, it felt very unresolved and contrived. It’s from the 1930’s and I read it because I have read a few of her books, some of them I have enjoyed, this was not one of them.
December:
None! Seriously, this was a very mood read month and I read so many amazing books, they were a lot, but I enjoyed all of them. Are there a few that down the road I may part with? Yea, probably, but not right now.
I read 130 books in 2022, which is a number that I can’t even fathom if truth be known. I enjoyed so many of the books that I read last year, so so many, but with that there are going to be books that just don’t make it for me. Likes and dislikes are so subjective, I know that when you write and publish you open yourself up to criticism and people who don’t like your work, but there are also going to be others who love it. I am going to allow these to go and find a library in a home that will enjoy them.
Alright, I think I have rambled on enough and repeated myself enough so I will see y’all later with another post. So, until next time I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy.
Well, here we are, I have had book of the month for almost a year now which is super cool because I had read a lot of really amazing books. This was for sure one of them, it was a lot. I am going to start out by saying that.
There are going to be spoilers so if you want to read the book, stop reading this, I will see you in the next post.
A Darling, Wendy’s granddaughter, has secrets and they are starting to pile up and spill out. This book had a really slow start and then it really kicked off, you have to get through like the first 30 or so percent of the novel but after that it moves fast.
Holly is trying her best, she lost her husband and one of her twin sons and her daughter is in a coma, she’s trying to keep a company together while also trying to grow it and raise a teenage boy who is brooding and she’s trying to protect him. Her daughter’s blood has some sort of healing protein, which, cool.
Her daughter goes missing and that’s a lot because she’s been in a coma for ten years. So she goes to London, she suspects that Peter Pan, yes that Peter Pan has her because Peter is the girl’s father. There is mention of sexual assault so that is for sure a trigger warning for those of you who don’t like that. Peter is unhinged, like super unhinged. This is why heroes are overrated, well, what we know of them.
There is a lot of mentions of the original book, which I read last year and of course we have all seen the Disney film.
The twists and turns of trying to find her daughter take her to a hook handed man, and of course thanks to Once Upon a Time all I could picture was Hook from that show and well, here we are. Private detective with a motorcycle who’s a combat vet, he’s brooding and so much cooler than Peter.
It’s a lot of deception and lies, there are for sure a lot of those throughout the story, I liked Holly as a character, when you are given two impossible choices you have to pick the lesser of two evils and that’s about what it is for her.
Peter Pan has had a lot of retellings over the years, I have a few of them in my collection from the original to The Child Thief by Brom, which needs to be on my list to actually read because that book is beautiful. I started it my senior year of high school (so 2010) and it’s been on shelf ever since, but I wanted that book for such a long time and it was worth the price.
This book was great, I actually really enjoyed it once I got into it. The ending comes up quick and it leaves it open, I don’t mind the openness of it. I wish that they would have wrapped up what happened with Elliot though because I feel like that could come back and bite someone in the butt later on.
Her company was kind of secondary to the rest of the story which I was totally okay with.
There is a lot of family expectations in this novel and that’s totally cool as well, that dynamic really did spur the story forward throughout because while Holly is the main character seeing Jane, who is Wendy’s daughter and a typical London socialite grow and change throughout the story was really nice. I love a good dynamic character, but who doesn’t.
Peter in this one is kind of terrifying, like I wouldn’t want to be young forever and there is a lot of loss of innocence moments throughout, innocence in different ways mind you.
Seriously though if you are trigger by drug use or sexual assault, I would tread carefully, it’s not a big theme but they are both still there in the story.
Alright if you want to see what else I have read this year, you totally can, January, February, March, and April.
I will be back later in the week with another post, so until then I hope that everyone has a safe, happy, and healthy week.
Well, here we are, in May, how? How is it already May? Aldo how am I currently (at the time of writing this part of my post on May 3rd) at 44 books read. How? Last year I didn’t hit the 40’s until August, it’s May.
I blame BookTok and my need to read like 100 pages a night. I would probably be at 45 or 46 if I hadn’t taken some nights off…oops.
I am hoping to be done with my TBR pile by the end of the summer and then just read what I want the rest of the year, which will be super dangerous because when I get sad, I buy books. Seriously though, my love language is books, I have determined that. Just books, buying them, reading them, talking about them, writing them; that’s it, that’s me.
Well, I have my first book though and I want to talk about it!
A Study in Death by Anna Lee Huber (Lady Darby #4) (4/5)
I love this series, I picked this series up because I was in a bookstore in like 2015 this was the book on the shelf and wanted it, but this was the fourth one in the series so I had to order the first one and then I read it in like 2016, I read the second one in 2020, and the third one last year. I love the series because Kiera is amazing, but I love a strong Victorian woman in a time that women were meant to be seen not heard. This one had me guessing throughout, I didn’t guess until it was pretty much revealed and I love a mystery that keeps me completely guessing until the end. I cannot wait to read the next one, it’s on my TBR for next year already because I have very little self-control when it comes to mysteries. (All books, I’m lying, it’s all books.) If you like a strong heroine and Scotland, I would suggest this one to you.
A Not so Meet Cute by Meghan Quinn (4.8/5)
I read it in one day, this book had me in a choke hold from about chapter two. It took me a second to get into it and then, man, did it hook me. Fake dating and all of that is a trope that would not work for me in real life, but in books it always turns into real dating. Huxley. I mean…that’s it, that’s the sentence. I loved the whole book, it was so good, the ending was a little abrupt but I am totally for it. It was spicy, not as spicy as I figured it would be, this was a ‘I saw three sentences on TikTok and bought it.’ This was for sure a BookTok made me buy it book, and it was so good. He flies her to Portland for a concert! Where are these guys in real life? I mean, they exist, I hope? It was really good and the scene in the dining room, wow.
The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma (2/5)
This one had such potential. I didn’t like it, I thought the premise was super interesting when I picked it up, time travel in Victorian London, sign me up. It was three stories and I was confused, the prose was great but so dense that I skimmed parts because I was getting bogged down in it. Lots of lies and deceit, I just didn’t like it. I have the second one, I will be unhauling without reading because I cannot suffer through another 600-page novel that I am not enjoying. That’s right, I read the whole thing because I cannot DNF. Like there were like 30 interesting pages in the mid-500’s and that was it. It starts out literally with a guy picking a gun to kill himself. That was trigger for page one and it didn’t get any better than that.
Darling Girl by Liz Michalski (4/5)
I wrote a whole post on it, literally a whole post because this was my May Book of the Month, so that will be out soon. I really enjoyed it, there are a few trigger warnings (drug use and mentions and depictions of SA) so go into that mindful to that if you want to read it. It’s fast paced and very twisty, sometimes we don’t like the hero anymore, though all villains are just heroes in their own minds.
A Clockwork Heart by Liesel Schwarz (3.6/5)
I read the first one in the series last fall and I ordered the third as I was finishing this one. It’s good, I liked the story, it was for sure a slow start and this one hurts. Like you want people to have a happy ending and I know there will be bumps in the road to a happy ending, but if this one doesn’t end happy you bet your sweet bippy that they will be unhauled. I will unhaul them if I am left feeling unfulfilled because the Goodreads reviews say that there was supposed to be a fourth one, well the third one was published in 2014 and nothing since then. Right, it picks up with Elle and Marsh, who I love together, then he gets taken made into a zombie and she’s trying to free him. The ending hurt! It hurt so much!
The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan (2.5/5)
I wanted to like it, I really did, like I bought this and I was so excited because who doesn’t love a royal love story (this was seriously a pretty carbon copy to a certain royal love story we saw in the early 2010’s). It was so long! It had some really funny parts but the rest of it I slogged through, there was just so much needless and senseless drama involved. Like this book was just not for me I guess and that’s fine. Like they didn’t need to have his brother in love with her too, that was so unnecessary. I will not be reading the second one because I don’t care, I honestly and truly do not care about the resolution of Bex and Nick’s story, this will be unhauled. I almost DNFed this book a half dozen times but I would have stressed about not finishing it. It had so much potential and I found myself just trying to get through it, I don’t read ahead, I read ahead because I really did want to see if it was worth finishing. It had a happy ending? I have no idea because I gave up my interest in it. Seriously, so much potential and it just didn’t do it for me. Not every book is for everybody and this one was clearly not for me. (This was book fifty of the year though.)
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (4/5)
I liked it, it took a while for me to get into it and I really left the door open (pun accidental but intended) for a sequel because there are a lot of threads left unbound. The splicing in of the Ten Thousand Doors really detracted from the story for me. I understand having to put context on things but they were so long and wordy, like those are what took me the longest and after they ended it was so much better and a much more fun story to read. I loved the characters and all that and do I hope that there is a second one of January going through all of these worlds and opening the doors back up, yes, I really do because I would read that. I would read that hardcore. I know that it’s a story within a story within a book and I understand that, but I need to have a more resolved ending than how this epilogue ended.
In Falling Snow by Mary-Rose MacColl (2.5/5)
I didn’t really enjoy it. There were too many randoms shifts in the timeline, if it would have all been WW1, I think it would have been better. There was too much drama and a lot of stuff that just felt unnecessary to the plot of the story. It left me feeling unfulfilled and that’s okay. The World War One stuff was compelling, the present? 80’s? I am not really sure when it took place in the “present”, but I was confused and it was just odd. I wasn’t even sure if it was taking place in Australia in the present or not, I think it was? I really don’t know, I think so. The chapters were either like three pages or 60 pages and that’s too much. Too much! I was just confused for 450 pages, it had potential, it didn’t deliver.
So that’s it for May, I had a really unfulfilling reading month and that is disappointing. Like I read nine books, I will be unhauling three and I wasn’t super wowed! by any of them. That’s so hard, why was A Not So Meet Cute the most exciting book I read this month. I liked most of them, I did, but some just left me feeling like I could easily stop reading all together, and I know that I am on book 54 of the year and we aren’t even halfway through the year. I know that some of them will not be winners, I am completely aware of that because when I bought a lot of them, I was a different reader.
I have some books that I will be reading in June that I am super excited about and I am so looking forward too, I want to get through the TBR so I can read whatever I want. I changed my Goodreads goal from 75 books to 100 books and I cannot believe that I did that. (I also didn’t think that I would have already finished writing three entire books this year already, but here we are.)
If you want to see what else I have read this year, you completely and totally can, some months are better than this one, I promise: January, February, March, and April!
Well, I will be back later in the week with another post so until then I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy!
-MJ
Let’s Keep Track Shall We?:
General Fiction: 5/10 (The Runaway Princess, Since You’ve Been Gone, Admission, Delicious, The Royal We, )
Sci-Fi/Fantasy: 5/10 (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Hiddensee, The Crystal Cave, Sword of Destiny, The Map of Time, )
Historical: 7/10 (The Velvet Hours, In the Shadow of Paris, And Only to Deceive, Radio Girls, Black Rabbit Hall, A Study in Death, In Falling Snow, )
Thriller: 2/2 (The Alienist and Meddling Kids)
Free Choice: 8/14 (Love and Gravity, A Fate of Wrath and Flame, City of Lost Dreams, It Devours!, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Study in Ashes, A Clockwork Heart, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, )
Memoirs/Autobiographies: 2/2 (Buffering and Always Look on The Bright Side of Life)
General Non-Fiction: 2/2 (The Happiness Advantage and Teacher Misery)
Book of The Month: 5/12 (Reckless Girls, A River Enchanted, Dating Dr. Dil, Kaikeyi, Darling Girl, )
Extras: 12/? (Midnight Spells Murder, Hot Vampire Next Door S1, Twisted Love, Malibu Rising, A Deal with the Elf King, Hot Vampire Next Door S2, The Fine Print, Well Met, Book Boyfriend, The Sound of Stars, Twisted Games, A Not So Meet Cute, )
I am prewriting a bunch of posts because we are having AMI days at school and I have the time while working online with my kiddos. While we are getting a thunderstorm with freezing rain, it is unpleasant.
My Bullet Journal this year is Marvel themed, I like the theming every year, it’s kind of fun. I already have next year’s themes picked out and I won’t be revealing that until the end of the year.
So, we are just going to get right into it and go over January through March. I could do every two months but I think that’s a bit excessive. I am a lot as a human and even I think that’s excessive.
Let’s roll right into it because I am running on two cups of coffee and spite, that’s just my baseline, but here we are.
January: Avengers
Cover: They are supposed to be stickers, I somehow ended up on sticker small business TikTok late last year and I loved the idea of stickers, I tried. If I would ever actually make stickers, this would probably be the content. Each sticker has a quote on it and yes, I did pick a lot of Avengers, all of the movies were fair game because it’s more MCU than the comics.
Mood Tracker: It’s the A, a very iconic symbol of the Avengers and I mean it was fun. I did it more like a piece of stained glass with the original six Avengers colors because I have a problem. I mean, I have lots of problems and wanting fun and cute things in my Bullet Journal’s is one of them.
Last Page: It’s villain quotes, I took the major villains from all three of the Avengers movies. (I am lumping Infinity War and Endgame together because Thanos.) I picked their symbols or something to represent each of them and then found a quote that made sense for that character. I am not the best artist, we all know this, it has never been a secret that I really like art I am just not that great at it. I did mess up on the stone order on the Infinity Gauntlet, but it’s fine. It’s artistic representation, I don’t know, I made a mistake, it happens.
February: Guardians of the Galaxy
Cover: The music in the movie is such a large part of the theming and the radio on the ship is iconic, I grew up with cassette tapes, well the end of them before we got CD’s (I am a child of the 90’s, it happens) and so I remember cassettes. This was fun to draw with all of the very regimented lines and details. I did simplify it slightly because otherwise it never would have gotten done.
Mood tracker: Well, about that. It was fun and a little gross because it was inspired by one line from the movie and if you know it, you know it. I wanted something simple and this was fun to do. I like organic shapes, after doing such a regimented lined piece for the cover this one was the opposite of that. I picked fun colors and that is all I plan on saying about it.
Last Page: Again, the music in these movies is so important to the storyline in so many ways. I chose to recreate the soundtrack from the first movie specifically on the tape as if it got unwound, if you were not alive during the cassette era you do not know how annoying it was to have the tape unspool and you would have to fix it. It was very annoying and happened more frequently than anyone liked to admit and I was a little kid during those days, I almost ruined like all of my tapes.
March: WandaVision
Cover: I had a number of ideas for this page, seriously like four or five and then I went with something a little simpler. The town sign was fun to do especially with the bars around it like you were going through the shimmer or whatever it was that Wanda put up to keep the town how she wanted it. The other page is a spoiler and sorry if you haven’t watched it yet. It got spoiled for me too.
Mood Tracker: I went with a TV show theme for this one because that’s kind of the theme of the show, shows through the eras of television. I went with an old school set and the color bars. I had to improvise on it a little bit because there are so many days in March and I didn’t plan it as well as I should have and could have. Again, we are going for fun not 100% accuracy.
Last Page: Seeing this in the last episode or whenever it was broke me a little bit. It was just so sad and the reason that Wanda did what she did. She lost literally like everything and this hurt. I went with basically just a line drawing in black and white and then put in the heart because I wanted it simple, it didn’t need to be fancy and complicated, it just needed to be.
This year is a little simpler than last year and there is no shame in that, I don’t have the same amount of time to work on it that I did last year and that means that while I really like the ideas, I am having I don’t have hours and hours to spend on it like I did last year. Times have changed.
I have a lot planned for this bullet journal throughout the rest of the year so I cannot wait to show everyone that stuff.
I will see everyone sooner rather than later with another post and until then I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy.
So here’s the deal, this little break was not on purpose. I just have been dealing with work and not been in a creative space blog post wise. I will hopefully post something this weekend, but my Spring Break starts on Friday and I am going out of town while a few of my packages (IPSY) are supposed to show up. So those will happen later in the month, I don’t know why but there is usually a month when I accidentally take a hiatus and I used to get so worried about it. I write here for fun, I have always done it for fun and while I should be posting on my regular schedule, I just can’t this month.
I will post when I can this month because that’s just what my life is right now. I had grades due today and that meant that my last several days have been full of trying to get grades in and prep for parent/teacher conferences which are right after we get back from break.
I have well over 100 posts on this place so if you want to read any of them just scroll down the feed and enjoy my ramblings.
I am hoping to post Sunday, I haven’t written the post yet, so if I don’t it’s because I didn’t get a chance and I will be traveling, by car, to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana to visit family and friends so I will be exhausted. I will be back to posting regularly after my Spring Break.
So until then, I hope that everyone has a great St. Patrick’s Day, a great beginning to spring and stay safe, happy, and healthy!
Here we are again with another month and another set of books that I have read, again, I am doing this monthly so there will be less books on these than my posts of last year. There were so many in some of them last year and it was too much. If you want to read about the 9 books I read in January, you totally can.
I am hoping to shrink my TBR pile even more this month and read a few more books that BookTok made me order. I mean I am easily swayed when it comes to reading, so I bought six books in January because of BookTok…It’s a lot.
A Fate of Wrath and Flame by K.A. Tucker (5/5)
The second one comes out in July and I will be preordering it soon, like really soon. This was the first book that BookTok made me buy and it was because of one exchange. I bought the book for like four lines of dialogue. It was so good; I loved the spinning of the worlds and it was such a fun read. I laughed, I questioned my very existence, and I read 300 pages in one day. One day! I loved the story and the characters and it was just a touch spicy and it is for sure enemies to lovers and who doesn’t love that trope? I mean I really do and here we are. It was totally worth the 492 pages; it was so good I could not put it down. I cannot wait to read the next one because this one left off at a cliffhanger and I want a happy ending because I like books with happy endings and this was for sure only my second five-star book of the year. I saw people reviewing it that they didn’t like the politics in it, I didn’t really think that I thought that it added a layer of realism and intrigue to it, and the twist was something I kind of figured but it’s fine. I cannot wait to read the next one and see how this story concludes, or keeps going I am not sure if it’s a duology or a series, we’ll find out I guess.
Hot Vampire Next Door (Season 1) by Nikki St. Crowe (4.3/5)
It is rare for me to buy a book and read it in the same week, this was a novella and it is a serial on Kindle. I saw it on TikTok and it is spicy, a lot spicier than I usually read. It was really funny though and I didn’t really mean to read it but it was only 132 pages and I did, while finishing the book that is right above this one. I laughed a lot, I cannot wait to see where it goes in Season 2, which I will buy when it comes out in paperback because I don’t read e-books. I really should have a “TikTok made me buy it/or at least add it to my Amazon cart” post. Maybe down the road I will. It was a really fun little paranormal romance with so much going on. It was fun, it was sexy, and overall amazing.
And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (3.8/5)
Three out of the last five books I have read have been historical mysteries and this is was my favorite of the three. I have had this book in my collection for probably nearly a decade, maybe not that long but who knows. I bought the 8thbook on clearance and bought this one after. I have not read any of them until this one, the second is on my TBR for next year and I might read it sooner than that but who knows. I loved the intrigue of this one, I hated Emily’s mother but that is modern sensibility as opposed to the Victorian morals. The story had me guessing until we actually find out who is guilty. It’s not a murder mystery! Which is super cool because I loved the fact that it was about stolen antiquities and I hated the person who was actually behind all of it from the beginning. I wrote in my book bullet journal in my thoughts section that I wanted to punch him. I am really excited to read the series. (Even though there are 15 published and the 16th comes out later this year.) I cannot wait to see what happens next in Emily’s life.
Twisted Love by Ana Huang (4.3/5)
Well, this is another book that BookTok made me want and I read it in one day and I read 100 pages in another book. It was really good and I could not put it down. I mean my reading tastes have for sure changed since last summer. I am going to be honest about that one, I don’t know why. It was hilarious at parts and absolutely broke me at others. It was so much, like so much and I could not put it down. Mind you it is currently February 5th and I already have four books on this post! That’s so many! I cannot wait to read the rest in this series since they are intertwined standalones. So excited for them, I cannot order any of them at the moment though (spoiler alert, I did order them…oops) because I promised myself that I would whittle down my physical TBR before I bought anymore and I bought 6 books because of BookTok in January and that is so many. Y’all, BookTok is a wild place, a really wild place and I have never had more fun reading.
Since You’ve Been Gone by Anouska Knight (3.8/5)
I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about this one. I really enjoyed it, I saw some mixed reviews and I need to stop looking at reviews. It was really cute and I have had it in my collection for a long time. This is one for sure that I don’t think I would have liked when I bought it but I read it in two days. This was the book that I read 100 pages in when I was reading Twisted Love, I read two books this weekend. It’s the 6th… I mean really. I need to stop devouring books this fast. It was a really cute story and so much. There were parts where I had to put the book down and laugh because I love a good rom-com. I was a teenager and into college at the height of the rom-com movie phase. There is a lot of talk about death in this one but it was good and showed that dealing with grief is not a linear and straightforward thing, it can take a long time to get over. It was a powerful story and it was fun, super fun.
City of Lost Dreams by Magnus Flyte (4/5)
City of Dark Magic is one of my all-time favorite books and I should have read this in like 2016 when I read the first one but I didn’t want to finish the series and here we are six years later and it didn’t have the same magic for me. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved the book. I called the plot twist early on though, and for me that’s odd. The ending left me a little underwhelmed because it just felt too sudden and almost too peaceful for the rest of the book and even the one before it. I loved the time travel mechanic and who doesn’t love a sarcastic immortal dwarf. It’s a good book and I need to go back and reread the first one. I loved it so much when I read it and it was a good duology.
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid (3.5/5)
Well, this book got so hyped last year and it was a lot. I enjoyed it to an extent but it is not my favorite. The fact that it was told through the eyes of what felt like 30 people was a little much for me and the ending was lacking. It just kind of ended and it was very odd. It was a fine book but it was not my favorite. It was an interesting story and it only took me three days to read and that’s pretty normal for me. I read it, I liked it enough, but it not going to be a top ten read this year. It was just a lot and all of the family drama was interesting but a little much for me as a reader.
A Deal with the Elf King by Elise Kova (4/5)
I read it in two sittings because I couldn’t put it down, the blurb on Malibu Rising I wrote yesterday to give you some context. This was another book that TikTok made me buy, I don’t even remember what enticed me to it. It was real cute, like real cute. It had very strong Beauty and the Beast vibes which I was totally there for. It was predictable in the best ways and there was a moment there were I was thinking that it wouldn’t end happily and y’all know your girl almost threw it across her office. It was such a fun read about learning and being in a new place and how sometimes you find what you are looking for when you aren’t even looking. It was a touch spicy, just a little and that’s fine. I really enjoyed the magic in this story and I will be reading the other books in this series when I get a chance to order them but I am putting myself on a self-imposed book buying ban until at least my birthday (except my BoTM) because I really need to stop buying books and then neglecting the books that I own and need to read.
Hot Vampire Next Door (Season 2) by Nikki St. Crowe (4/5)
It was really good, I read it in about an hour literally the day it showed up at my apartment. There were for sure some parts where I would urge you to read the content warnings. I had to stop reading for a minute an collect myself because I was in shock, let’s just say if you are averse to blood… I wouldn’t recommend it. I cannot wait for Season 3 and I could read it on the Kindle but I don’t like eBooks, I never have. This book left off on a soft cliffhanger, I don’t want to call it a hard cliffhanger but it’s still a cliffhanger. I want to read the rest of it. I love the characters and the story is absolutely bonkers. I mean it’s really bonkers but I am really enjoying it. It’s spicy and I mean it, well, it’s spicy for me. I know people who can blow through a lot spicier content than me with a straight face, I will sit and blush like an idiot. That’s just who I am as a person. Seriously, TikTok made me buy it and that’s just apparently who I am at the moment.
A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross (4/5)
I was not planning on opening this document again tonight, I did though and here we are. I have been reading this through the last two books so here we are. I really enjoyed this one and I wrote a whole post on it because it was my February Book of the Month. So that will be out next week at some point so I am not going to go into heavy detail here. I enjoyed it and the next one doesn’t come out until December so that’s a bummer.
The Fine Print by Lauren Asher (4.4/5)
I even liked the epilogue in this one and everyone should know by now how much a detest epilogues. I could not put this book down and I am reading a non-fiction at the moment as well so I needed a break from that. I loved this book; the concept is amazing and well I mean it’s a theme park that feels very much like a certain mouse themed park and that was a fun thing. Rowan is so grumpy; I love the grumpy/sunshine trope though so that was fun. I really liked how there were some tough topics discussed and that was so important to see in a book like this. It’s spicy, it’s real spicy. I cannot wait to read the second one though and that comes out somewhere near the end of the month, which is next week and I am really excited for it because let’s be real; I love series like this that focus on one group or family apparently.
The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor (4/5)
This was a gift from my step-grandmother when I graduated from high school in 2010. At the time I thought it was an odd gift to give someone at 18. Now at 29, I see the value. I have an undergraduate degree in psychology and reading this book made me remember and realize how much of my time as an undergrad was spent trying to chase the high of positive psychology. This book was great, it’s non-fiction which for me takes a lot longer to read but the contents of it were fascinating and I am going to try and implement them in my real life. It’s a lot, it’s so much trying to be happy at work somedays but we all try and we all want to do better (at least I hope that’s the case). It was eye opening to read this book that was published in 2010 that it still holds true because we went through another crisis and I feel like most of us throughout the pandemic have been living in a constant mode of crisis and uncertainty. It’s a good read if you are interested in psychology and I know that Growth Mindset is on my list of books to buy and has been for years. We are allowed to be happy in all aspects of our lives, it just takes time.
Hiddensee by Gregory Maguire (3/5)
I didn’t really enjoy it and that is okay. I have had this in my collection for years and I was hoping it would be much more fantasy and much more about the nutcracker than it actually felt like it was. I didn’t really like the pacing; it was just a little weird for me and it wasn’t a book that is for me. That’s totally cool because it is for someone else. I just didn’t jive with the story and the style of it. I thought it was interesting but it was just odd in many aspects and jarring in others. It was just weird. I don’t really have anything else to say about it, it just wasn’t my favorite.
Radio Girls by Sarah-Jane Stratford (3/5)
This book has been in my collection for a long time. I liked the idea of the BBC in its infancy, there is a lot of espionage and I didn’t know that one of the characters was a real person. Not until the end. I expected very different things from this novel. I liked the character of Maisie, but there were a lot of things that I didn’t particularly enjoy. I know men treated women like this back in the day, but man, I wanted to punch things reading parts of this book. I expected more radio, less fascism. It was a lot and it just wasn’t for me and that is totally okay. I have read 14 books this month, and I have read almost 25 this year, we are bound to find a few that aren’t for me.
I didn’t expect to read this many books this month, I read 14 in December and this post is just as long or longer which is insane. I have trained myself to read like 100 pages a night and some nights that goes by super-fast, sometimes it takes me a long time. I had some highs and lows this month in my reading because some of my TBR books are just things that I am forcing myself to get through. I don’t DNF, I just don’t because what if it gets good ten pages before the end and that makes it all worth it? Will that actually happen? No, but do I think maybe someday it might? Maybe.
I have no idea how I read so much this month besides a few AMI days and books that I just couldn’t put down. I think on average it took me something like two days to finish each book which is insane and a breakneck pace that I cannot sustain. I need to not condition myself to do this because I will be finished with my TBR by the summer and I don’t need to be.
I cannot wait to read some of the books that I have planned for March and I am going on a book buying ban until my birthday so I cannot buy the four or five books that I have sitting in my Amazon cart, I need to get off BookTok because it’s one sentence and I am buying a book, which honestly seems a little insane; but here we are.
Well with all of that I will be back later in the week with another post, so until then I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy!
-MJ
Let’s Keep Track Shall We?:
General Fiction: 2/10 (The Runaway Princess, Since You’ve Been Gone, )
Sci-Fi/Fantasy: 1/10 (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Hiddensee, )
Historical: 4/10 (The Velvet Hours, In the Shadow of Paris, And Only to Deceive, Radio Girls, )
Thriller: 1/2 (The Alienist)
Free Choice: 3/14 (Love and Gravity, A Fate of Wrath and Flame, City of Lost Dreams, )
Memoirs/Autobiographies: 1/2 (Buffering, )
General Non-Fiction: 1/2 (The Happiness Advantage, )
Book of The Month: 2/12 (Reckless Girls, A River Enchanted, )
Extras: 7/? (Midnight Spells Murder, Hot Vampire Next Door S1, Twisted Love, Malibu Rising, A Deal with the Elf King, Hot Vampire Next Door S2, The Fine Print, )
I wasn’t sure if I was going to reveal what books I unhauled in 2021, I usually don’t unhaul books. It’s just not who I am. I usually keep every book I buy, well since I moved from Indiana. I got rid of a lot of books when I left Indiana because books are heavy.
I changed my mind on revealing which books I am saying goodbye to and will be donating as soon as the opportunity presents itself for me to get to the used bookstore. It’s been a busy beginning to 2022. I have gone and pulled other books from my collect for people I no longer support or books that no longer serve and I don’t want to have in my personal collection. I am trying to build a collection, not a library. Though I would love a library, that’s the dream but I digress.
I unhauled ten books that I read last year. I probably could have unhauled more but I didn’t want to get rid of any of the Book of the Month books that I got, I have about three that I could unhaul and not feel bad. One day, I will.
This is just going to be in brief. They are not in order because there isn’t really an order besides the order that I read them in. These books just aren’t for me and that it totally fine, they will find their way to someone who will love them when I couldn’t. If you liked these books, cool, I love that for you; they just weren’t for me. Not every book is for everybody and that’s fine, that’s what makes us people, we are allowed to disagree.
I think I unhauled most if not all of the historical fictions I read off my TBR last year, that’s a little strange, but here we are.
There is nothing against any of the authors on this list, I have written 17 books, (Published none of them because I am terrified of what I am doing at the moment, someone not liking it and telling the world.) so I know how hard it is to bare your soul on paper and have someone not like it. Art is subjective, it’s not for everyone and these just weren’t for me.
There are so many books that I love, it might just be these books, I might love other books written by these authors because a few of them have repeats in my collection that I am still trying to get through. Not every book is for everybody, I want to scream that from the rooftops and I felt it needed repeating before we get into the meat of this post.
So, which of the 77 books I read last year am I unhauling?
West of Sunsetby Stuart O’nan
It was a good one time read. I enjoyed reading a fictionalized version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s later years. It was interesting but not something that I want in my forever collection. I have read plenty of historical biographical fiction and while I liked it, it wasn’t my favorite so I am unhauling it so someone else can enjoy it.
Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
Again, I enjoyed it as a one-time read. It was really interesting to learn about Westinghouse, Edison, and Tesla during the race to light the world with the electric light and bring power to homes with electricity. It’s fascinating, but not for my forever collection. I bought this book probably in 2014 or so and that is the case for a lot of my books, I buy them and then don’t read them because I am a mood reader.
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
So good, so powerful, and so poignant. World War 2 fiction is fascinating to me. I love that this is semi biographical but not at the same time. It was such a good read and I could not put it down. This again though, is a good one-time read and not one that I want to keep forever. It will be so good in someone else’s collection.
The Marlowe Papers by Ros Barber
I liked the subject matter I just hated how it was written, I don’t like reading a whole book in verse unless it is a play and those are meant to be performed. I skimmed this one, there is no shame in that and I just needed to let everyone know that. I didn’t enjoy this one, that’s my own fault because it says ‘in verse’ on the back of the book, I just missed that sentence.
All is Fair in Love and Cupcakes by Betsy St. Amant
Very Hallmark, that’s about all I remember about it. A baking competition and a love story, every predictable. I read it in January or February of last year so I don’t really remember much of the plot and that tells me that it didn’t leave an impact on me and it will bring someone else a lot more joy than it brought me.
The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
I thought it was going to be more about Degas, if we are being honest. A lot of the books that I am unhauling are historical fiction. This one was just a lot for me and I enjoyed most of it, but not all of it and that’s totally okay.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
There were no quotation marks and that took so much away from this book for me because it was hard to follow. It was also just weird, like super weird, I think that her brother turned into furniture because he was sad? I had no idea because I was so lost while I read this book, or struggled to read this book.
Soulless by Gail Carriger
If I would have read it when I bought it, I would have probably read the whole series, I enjoyed it as a one-time read and it would have been fine as a standalone but I didn’t like it enough to keep it or continue the series. It was an interesting concept, I enjoyed the read, but it was not for me in my current reading habits.
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan
I might have read this whole book in a day; it was that or two days. It was a fine read, it was basically a rom-com, it was predictable. Which is totally fine, I love predictable sometimes but nothing in this book really stood out to me. I don’t actually remember much of it, which is not great. I have a pretty good memory for most things but if I don’t really like a book or it’s fine, I don’t remember a lot of the plot…oops.
Dream London by Tony Ballentine
Another one that I probably would have loved the series, it’s sci-fi, which I usually like. It was just weird and that’s okay. I liked it when I read it, I truly did but it is not something I want in my permanent collection. I got concerned at the ending and that was what threw me into unhauling it. I know there are more in the series but I have no interest in reading them.
Well, there it is, ten books that I got rid of from my collection. I gave my top ten might as well give my bottom ten as well. I already have a list of books that I am unhauling so far this year because when you read over 5 books in a month that you have owned for several years you are bound to find some that just aren’t your scene anymore.
That’s the thing about being a mood reader and buying books when you are in the mood for them and not reading them because your TBR is so long, they get lost in the cracks and then you pull them out 5 years later and you don’t like them anymore. That’s alright, I love to read and I love to read a variety of books because they amuse me. I will pretty much read anything, or at least try and I am so much of a completionist (yes, I am aware that is not a word, but that’s who I am) that I do not ‘do not finish’ books, I haven’t not finished a book since like 2016 so I get through them, because maybe the last ten pages will make the other 300 worth the read. I don’t know.
This post was hard to write, it’s repetitive and I will link the original blurbs to all of them when this is posted so you can see in the moment what I thought about them, not several months removed. I read something like 20 books in November and December and all of them except a few were mood, so all the books that I unhauled were from my TBR. I need that to be clear. All ten books came from my original 45 book physical TBR, these are books I am going through to make sure I want them in my personal permanent collection.
This post was a long one, sorry. I hope that everyone has a great rest of the week and I will be back later in the week with another post. Until then, I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy.
Here we are with my first GB+ of the year. I know that my last post was my Glam Bag for the month and I don’t like doing a back-to-back like this but I am still trying to figure out what is going to go in my Best in Beauty for 2021, I really don’t have many things that were amazing to me in 2021 but we will find some things. Spoiler, this is going out a lot later than I planned because I was sick so I kind of missed some posts, whoops.
So with my first bag of the year, I am going to just say, again, this ultra-personalization does not feel real personal, I don’t want to switch to a different beauty subscription but I feel like I am not getting a variety any more. I could redo the beauty quiz but I feel like nothing is going to change. Again, if you as a brand and company want to know how people feel beyond your social media comments send out a survey to everyone because we are paying to be a part of the community and we would like a voice beyond the standard form letter in social media comments.
I know that the pandemic has messed so much up and we are still dealing with it, that I get and I understand, it’s just getting to a point where I don’t feel like as a member I am appreciated.
The Bag:
I love the bag, I love the smiley face theme this month and the pastel watercolor pattern on this and the Glam Bag this month, it’s super fun and I am loving the drawstring bags that come with the GB+ now. I don’t feel like I have much to say about it though, I really like the bag this month.
The Products:
111Skin Hyaluronic Acid Aqua Booster:
111Skin is amazing, I love their products and I love a good hyaluronic acid treatment and I need to use my serums more again while trying to find one that I have that I can give to my mom because she wants to see what the hype is with serum. I need a good hydrating serum this time of year because my skin is dry. I need to buy a tiny humidifier because my apartment is super dry and I need more hydration. Seriously, the winter takes everything out of my skin and now that I am back to wearing a mask full time it makes it a little bit more complicated.
Róen Beauty Cake Mascara in Black:
The applicator on this is HUGE! I mean it’s so big and I love the sleek look of the packaging. I just opened a mascara so this one will go into the collection until I get a chance to give it a try. It says it doesn’t flake, I always put that to the test because when it says that usually by the end of my school day I am getting mascara in my eyes. So I’ll be putting that to the test soon enough.
Realher Power Wear Ombre Bronzer in You Are Golden:
I love this shade! Normally when I get bronzers, they are too dark for me and this one is a perfect shade for me and my skin tone. I am so excited to give this one a try, not right now because it’s the middle of winter. It’s also clean beauty which I am a huge fan of and I am glad that we are getting more clean beauty brands making it to the main stream. I love the packaging and I cannot wait to give this one a try and hopefully absolutely love it.
Context Skin Tinted Lip Balm Duo in All or Nothing and Hard Time:
The shades are beautiful and I cannot wait to give these a try, I like tinted lip balm all the benefits of lip balm and the color and fun of a lipstick. All of the packaging in this bag is super simple and I love all of it. I tend to go for either the ones that are completely out there or the ones that are nice and simple and these are beautiful shades, a little more fall toned but I will give them a try here soon enough.
Hipdot All in One 4-piece brush set:
Who doesn’t need another set of eye brushes? I love a good eye look and this was the only option for this selection that I even thought about wanting or needing. I like the fact that I can just take a few brushes and finish an eye look. A good multipurpose eye brush. They are brushes, I like the handles because they are super cool, but they are brushes and most of the time most brushes are pretty similar for me.
Well there you have it, my GB+ for January 2022, I cannot believe we are already writing another year’s worth of these. There are no other ones to check out at the moment, you can read my regular Glam Bag post for January if you are interested in it.
I will be back with another post later in the week, hopefully I will have figured out what my top in beauty for 2021 is and I will be posting that, spoilers, I didn’t. So until then I hope that everyone has a good rest of the week and stays safe, happy, and healthy.
Wait It's MJ 