Tag: wrap up

Monthly Wrap Up-December 2021

Lauren2 Comments

Well hello, fellow humans! Did you have a good New Year’s Eve? I did up until I didn’t because our glorious queen Betty White passed away. Like a few generations of folks, I grew up on Betty White. She was one of a kind and will be missed in this house.

But hey, it’s time for our Monthly Wrap-Up! And folks, this will be our last one. I’m going to switch to a weekly wrap-up style, mostly inspired by Biblio Nerd Reflections (if you don’t already follow him, you should, he’s great!). I’m not going to copy his format exactly, but rather be inspired by it. I like the idea of doing a weekly update as opposed to a monthly one. It just makes more sense to me. Kind of.

On to the wrap up!

WWW Wednesday-December 1st: Starting the month off strong with WWW Wednesday.

Monthly Wrap Up-November 2021: So the very next post was the monthly wrap up for November. So long current format!

First Lines Friday-December 3, 2021: I did a book I was surprised I had never read!

All The Books I Read- November 2021: I read 5 books in November. Spoiler alert, December has just as small a number.

TTT- Books I Could Re-Read Forever: This particular week was a freebie, so I did a past topic and had fun doing it!

WWW Wednesday-December 8, 2021: This week’s WWW Wednesday had some familiar faces, er spines, in it.

Black Friday Book Haul: I bought a lot of books on Black Friday thanks to the sales. I’m not ashamed…I’m not.

First Lines Friday- December 10, 2021: This week’s FLF ended up being such a cute read.

A Festive TBR-December 2021: This one was short. Very short. Three books short.

TTT Tuesday-Books On My Winter 2021 To-Read List: Why are these so hard? And also, why do I never stick to them? Oh yeah, mood reader.

WWW Wednesday- December 15, 2021: So this is another one with some repeat offenders on it. I promise I was just busy!

The Christmas Bookshop-A Book Review: I reviewed this cozy Christmas story a few weeks ago. I found myself really enjoying it.

First Lines Friday- December 17, 2021: So this one is a book I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time. But when I will get to it remains to be seen.

Absynthe-A Book Review: This was a surprising book for me. I got it through NetGalley (and then from the Hubs for Christmas) and had a grand ole time reading it.

TTT- Books I Hope Santa Brings/Bookish Wishes: This list of ten books is the exact list I gave the Hubs when asking for a Christmas present. Go figure.

Naughty or Nice Book Tag: This was a good one and I had an enjoyable time answering the questions.

First Lines Friday- December 24, 2021: This FLF was a Christmas treat!

Bookish Christmas Book Tag: So this was one I did after Christmas. I just didn’t want that special holiday magic to be over with, I guess.

TTT-Best Books I Read in 2021: I was going to do this post anyway, so I just went ahead and did it on Tuesday!

Worst Books I Read in 2021: Um yeah. I had a few disappointments. I only listed ten though.

End Of The Year Stats 2021: I was happy to give you all of my stats for the end of the year! It’s fun to look back and see the breakdown of how you did.

Reading and Blogging Goals for 2022: I set up a few goals for the year. I hope I accomplish them!

And there you have it! Our final monthly wrap-up. I hope it was fun for you, but for now, I bid you adieu. You know. Until Monday.

Every Book I Read-July 2021

Lauren1 Comment

Well, I made travel TBR last month. How did it go?

We shall see!

Bestiary by K-Ming Chang

The story of a girl who is told a story about a woman who has a tiger spirit by her mom, only to wake up with the same tiger spirit in her! I’m not gonna lie, I DNF’d this book. I just couldn’t get past the writing style and as a result had a hard time getting into the story. I know there is an audience out there for this book, it just isn’t with me.

The Left Handed Book Sellers of London by Garth Nix

When Susan heads to London to find her father, she accidentally stumbles across Merlin, who is part of a shadowy organization called the Booksellers who protect society from the otherworldly. I gave this quirky little book 4 stars. I really hope we get another book set in this world.

For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten

Red has the misfortune of being born the second daughter. This means she will be sacrificed to the Wolf of the Wilderwoods. You can read my full review of this book here, but it’s safe to say I loved it. 5 stars.

Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

This story follows Chih as they learn about the exiled Empress In-Yo from Rabbit, a member of the Empresses house. This short novella was expertly done, and I can’t wait to read the next story in Chih’s journey to chronicle to truth of things. 5 stars.

Bow Legged Buccaneers From Outer Space by David Owain Huges

So the premise of this book is a little weird. A group of uber nerds from the 1990s takes over a city that ends up being walled up as a result of the lawlessness that reigns inside it. A friend, who shares my bookish tastes recommended this one to me. Um, I gotta disagree with her. I DNF’d this one. I don’t chaotic writing styles, and that’s what this book had. Also, it was just a little too weird for me.

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers

The story of a monk, Sibling Dex, who heads off into the remote woods and meets Mosscap, a robot who asks what humainty needs. I loved this short novella and fell in love with the characters. Becky Chambers certainly doesn’t shy away from the hard questions. I gave it 5 stars.

Soulless by Gail Carriger

The story of Alexia, a preturnatural, who wants to solve the mystery of why a vampire attacked her. I have a review on this book forthcoming, so stay tuned to find out my thoughts on this book! Spoiler alert, I bought the whole series.

Changeless by Gail Carriger

The sequel to Soulless. Sorry that I can’t tell you what it’s about, it would spoil the ending for Soulless! I will say it’s very good. 5 stars.

Blameless by Gail Carriger

And this is the sequel to Changeless. Again, the plot would spoil the previous book. But it was good. I enjoyed it muchly. Oh wait, 5 stars…again.

Well, look at that! 9 books (2640 pages)! Huzzah!

But as far as that original TBR went, I failed it. I read 3 of the 5 books on that list. So I still have those to read later on at some point. Oh well, that’s how the cookie crumbles.

Mmm…cookies.

On to the stats!

I love posting my stats each month. They give me an opportunity to look back and see how I’ve done with my reading and, well, yeah, I love it. As always the stats are brought to you by The Storygraph.

Moods

I read 9 books this month, and it seems that every one of them was adventurous. It was interesting to see that three of them were dark. I only figured on two of them being considered dark. Oh well.

Pace

It’s seems I was quite fond of medium paced books this month, reading 4 of those.

Page Numbers

Books over 300 pages are coming in hot this month!

Genres

I love seeing the genre break down of my books. I always assume that Fantasy is my most read Genre, given it’s what I am drawn to the most.

Star Ratings

Um, I may have a problem with handing out 5 star ratings. Maybe.

Also, if you don’t follow Jaysen on the TikTok what are you even doing with your life? He goes by Ezeekat if you want to check him out.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna have to go buy some cookies now.

Monthly Wrap Up-July 2021

LaurenLeave a comment

Hello and well met! It’s time for the monthly wrap up, where I wrap up my blog posts for the month into one nice, neat place in case you missed one!

Did you miss one? That’s okay. You can always sign up to follow the blog in the bar to the right of the post! That way you don’t miss anything!

Now that I have begged sufficiently for this month, on to the wrap up!

Every Book I Read-June 2021: June was a great reading month for me. I read 8 titles and completed my TBR. If you count DNF’ing one of the books as completing it.

Every Book I Bought in June 2021: I gave up on the book buying ban in May, and June was no exception. I bought a fair few books in June, and my pocket book was angry with me as a result.

Every New Release I Want-June 2021: I love looking up all the new releases from the internets. A point I seem to make every month when I make this post. I also managed to pick up a few of the new releases this month, which is unusual for me, as I normally buy older releases from, say, book outlet.

Two Week Trip TBR: I went away for a fun (and chaotic) two weeks with my mom and my brother’s kids. I made a TBR to satisfy my reading needs during the long drives while we were gone.

Project Hail Mary: A Book Review: In which I reviewed Andy Weir’s latest offering. Check out my spoiler free review here!

Somewhere New: I’m going on a trip! I’m very excited and I know my fellow travelers are as well! Squee!

Bookish T-Shirts: I went online, out of curiosity, and fell down a rabbit hole of book related t-shirts. I was nice enough to take you with me.

For the Wolf-A Book Review: Well look at that! I achieved my goal of writing two book reviews this month. Go me!

WWW Wednesday-July 28th: I tried my hand at the WWW Wednesday meme. I gotta say, I enjoyed it. I may not be able to do it every week, because I am a mood reader, but we shall see!

And there you have it. A comprehensive list of all the blog posts I put up in July! I hope I inspired you to pick up a book this month!

December 2020 Wrap Up

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Hello everyone! How was your December? Mine was good. Surprisingly busy considering I didn’t even go anywhere. I had a wonderful, and safe, Christmas here at home with the hubs. We missed our family but it was for the best. Also we got to sit around in our PJ’s all day, watch movies, and in the hubs case, build legos.

New Years brought with it more relaxing and some sadness. My uncle very suddenly passed away the morning of New Years Day. He’ll be missed.

And with that depressing note, on to the wrap up.

What I read in November 2020: My reading list for November. This is also when I discovered The Storygraph. Man I love that website.

November 2020 Book Haul: I posted my monthly book haul. Nothing to surprising. I had said I was gonna slow down on the book buying this month. I lied.

What to Read, December TBR: Here you can find my TBR for the month. Spoiler alert, I actually managed it. Sort of. Does it count if you DNF one of the books?

The Autobiography of Santa Claus- A Book Review: I cannot stress enough how much I loved this book. It was so sweet and heart warming.

12 Days of Christmas Book Tag: I did my first book tag! Huzzah! It was themed after the 12 days of Christmas. I enjoyed doing it!

Old Man’s War-A Book Review: I read Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. It was pretty good. Naturally, I wrote a review about it.

The Festive Christmas Book Tag: I actually liked doing this one more than the first one. I think I did better with this one. I’m going to try and do more books tags and see how my answers change!

A Night of Christmas Lights: I shared the time we went to look at the Christmas lights in Grand Prairie, TX. It was a lot of fun!

Book of the Month- A Review: I joined Book of the Month in November and decided to review my experience. Spoiler alert, it was pleasant.

Christmas Book Haul 2020: I received book type gifts for Christmas! So I shared what I got with you, because why not.

2020 Review Round Up: I did a round up of my reviews from this year. Will I do it again next year? I don’t know, it depends on how many books I review.

Books I Did Not Finish in 2020: Pretty much what it says on the tin. It’s all the books I DNF’d in 2020!

And there you go. Everything I posted in December. A few more posts then usual due to the fact that it was the end of the year. Oh well. Just means it was more for me to write. And since I happen to like writing, it works out well!

2020 Reading Stats

Lauren1 Comment

2020 was a good reading year for me. It was bolstered by the fact that I read 31 books in August.

Why was it so good? Well my Goodreads goal for the year was 30 books, and I read 82 books this year.

I have accomplished a thing! Huzzah!

This is actually pretty great for me, given that I usually set the goal pretty high for a casual reader and then I fail. Horribly.

So without further ado, I present to you my stats for 2020!

As you can see, the majority of my books are fantasy reads (64 of them). This should surprise absolutely no one. That I read so many young adult books surprised me, since I really just started to get into that genre in the later part of this year. I mean really, 20 YA books? And that sci-fi is next with 10 books really isn’t a shock to me. Fantasy and sci-fi are my jams. What this does tell me is that I need to read more sci-fi though. Good thing to work on for 2021.

With the amount of fantasy and sci-fi I read, that I read 78 adventurous books doesn’t come to much of a surprise to me. Mysterious, however, does. I didn’t think that I read a lot of mysterious books this year, but apparently I read 19 of them, so that is interesting.

29,391 pages read. That’s a lot of pages. Thankfully, I avoided papercuts this year. Goodreads says that my average book length was 366 pages, and that sound about right.

Again, I’m not very surprised by these stats. 95% of the books I read this August fell around 350 pages long, which is why I picked those books to read.

Look at those pace stats. I am surprised by those. I was convinced I didn’t like slow books, but apparently I read 28 slow paced books this year. Huh.

My average rating was 4.06? I thought that number would be lower. I didn’t know I had so many 5 star reads. I do know some of those were re-reads. So they had already been ranked before. But still, 30 5 stars seems a little high.

I only read 2 non fiction books last year. That is too low a number. Must read more informative books!

And there you have it, my end of the year stats. What do yours look like? Have you tried Storygraph?

November 2020 Round Up

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Well hello. How are you? Did you have a good Turkey Day? Was your Black Friday shopping fruitful? I hope you got all the good deals.

I don’t really do Black Friday shopping unless its online from my couch. Cyber Monday is my jam.

What I Read in October 2020: We have to put those monthly qualifiers on everything, don’t we? This post was, obviously, a list of everything I read in October.

Birthday or October 2020 Book Haul: This is exactly what it says on the tin. A list of all the books I bought during my birthday month!

What to Read-My November TBR: This is my TBR for November! What a short list!

November 2020 New Releases I Want!: My list of new releases for November that I, or people that live in my house, want.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue-A Book Review: Spoiler alert, I liked this book. A lot. You can find the full review here.

Bookish Gifts to Give This Holiday Season: I complied a list of some of my favorite book related gifts to give! Because who wouldn’t want a candle that smells like a bookstore?

The Book Nook: What a fun little piece of art the book nook is. I loved finding this list of book nooks for you!

100th Blog Post: I put together a list of some of my favorite blog posts from the last 99 posts.

Happy Thanksgiving: I wrote a very, very short Thanksgiving day post.

This was a good month for blog posts it seems, except for book reviews. I need to do more of those.

How was your November?