December 2015 Recap

Hello, friends! Well, here we are, at the end of another year together. The last few posts have been all about looking back at 2015; I also got in a few book reviews this month, which I was very happy about because December is usually a tough month to get any reading done with all of the holiday stuff going on. I spent a good part of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day just sitting on my butt and reading, and it was heavenly.

All three of us wish all of you a very Happy 2016, and all the best in all the things! ♥

Reviews Posted:

• The Boy in the Smoke by Maureen Johnson
• The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson
• For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

Featured Posts:

• In Which I Try to Persuade You to Love My Favorite Book, Too
• The Melissa's End of Year Post
• 2015 Rewind: The Books
• 2015 Rewind: The Blogging

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (112)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts and Lunar Rainbows Reviews. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.

This week's topic is:
Favorite Wand from the Series? Not the One You'd Want for Yourself but Your Favorite Out of the Ones We Learned About.

Harry's wand, for sure. It completely fascinated me from the moment Harry got it at Ollivander's, plus, its phoenix feather came from Fawkes. ♥ I wouldn't have traded it for the Elder Wand, either.

2015 Rewind: The Blogging

This is my fourth year writing a rewind post, and that’s kind of hard to believe. 2012 was my first year of blogging, and there’s definitely a feeling of wow—I’m still at this four years later. I’m not always the greatest at sticking with things, but here’s what I realized in 2015: I love book blogging.

In my reading rewind post, I mentioned how crazy things got outside of books and blogging this past year, especially since I had to devote a couple of months to a course I needed to complete for work. It was also kind of a crappy year in general, the sort where the lows outnumbered the highs, and I’ll be glad to put 2015 behind me in a few days. It’s not necessarily for privacy reasons that I’m not going into specifics; it’s because this blog has truly become a space where I shut out the worries of everyday life and focus on something that brings me happiness: books.

I always feel awkward about patting myself on the back, but I do have to say that I’m proud that the blog kept going even while I was studying, studying, studying. Finding the time to read and blog was tough, but it felt necessary; I had to maintain this part of my life because it’s come to mean so much to me. In the past there have been times when I’ve viewed blogging as more of a chore than a hobby, but having a very limited amount of time to devote to it for a good part of this year really woke me up to the fact that it’s OK if I can only manage a handful of posts in a month. I’ve always been a little too obsessed with the blog’s numbers and worried that every unfollow meant that I was doing something wrong. But this was the year that I finally gave up the numbers game. Do I still check them? Yes. But I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing whether they say 1 or 100 or 1000 followers or page views, so really, stats have lost their relevance for me.

The biggest reward that I get from blogging is interacting with all of you. Quite a few of us who chat regularly started blogging around the same time, and you don’t know how happy it makes my heart to still be chatting with you almost four years later. Your comments never fail to brighten my day, and you inspire me to be a better blogger. I feel so very, very lucky to have met all of you, and I can never thank you guys enough for all of the love you show this blog.

It took me two posts, but I think I’m all done talking about 2015 now, lol. There’s just the last monthly recap of the year left to post, and then it’s hello, new year! I hope you’re all enjoying a wonderful holiday season, and see you in 2016!

2015 Rewind: The Books

Somehow, we’ve arrived at the end of another year. Another whole year! In the past I’ve combined the look back at the year in reading and blogging into one post, but this year I feel like I’ve got a lot to say about both, so I’m splitting the post into two separate ones. Today is all about the books.

I fell short of my Goodreads goal again this year, and unlike last year, I’m not beating myself up over it. Even though Goodreads says I read 38 books, it’s not including three books that were rereads. The actual total was 41 out of 50, and considering how hectic this year got at times, I was lucky to have made that number. Work became super, super busy over the summer, plus I took a job-related course that took a few months to complete. By that time it was already the end of September, and the chances of making the 50 looked pretty slim. So I decided to just read as much as I could for the rest of the year and let the final number be whatever it ended up being. Taking that pressure off myself felt great. It’s something that I should have done a lot sooner, too. I’d become too caught up in reaching a certain number, and I wasn’t always taking the time to fully enjoy reading itself.

Most of the books that I read in 2015 came from my own shelves, which was one of the resolutions I made at the beginning of the year. I still have quite a few to get through, but I’m pretty happy with the progress I made this year.

Rereading the first three Study books by Maria V. Snyder and Persuasion by Jane Austen was also on the 2015 resolution list, and I was able to reread all of them. Persuasion was especially sweet, since I love that book above all others—and still do.

I read some fantastic books this year; I rated most of them four stars or above, so it’s a little tough picking out my favorites among very qualified candidates. I loved all of these very, very much, starting with:

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

Sarah J. Maas just keeps writing these phenomenal books in this series, magically making each new release more mind-blowing than the previous one. I want to be a fire-breathing bitch queen just like Aelin when I grow up!

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

This book right here is perfection. So much originality (parallel Londons, Kell’s impossibly many-sided coat) and stellar storytelling. I am a Victoria Schwab fan for life.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search by Gene Luen Yang (Script) & Gurihiru (Art)

2015 was the year in which I finally sat down and watched Avatar: The Last Airbender—and utterly and completely fell in love with it. Both this graphic novel and The Promise were amazing, but The Search earns a few bonus points for centering around one of the TV show’s biggest unresolved story lines. Oh, and there’s lots and lots and lots of Zuko in it. Did I mention there’s lots of Zuko in it?

The Wolves of Mercy Falls by Maggie Stiefvater

Determined not to go the year without reading a Stiefvater book, this was the perfect time to read this series at last. Sam and Grace’s romance was swoony enough to melt all of the snow in Mercy Falls, Minnesota and probably the polar ice caps, too. Cole and Isabel’s chemistry was explosive enough to level the planet, and their snark made me laugh out loud more than any other book I read this year. A big thank you again to Micheline of Lunar Rainbows Reviews for making reading this series extra special by agreeing to buddy read it with me, and also for listening to all of my fangirling about it (and there was a lot of it).

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

This features such a unique narrative—the chapters alternate between the main character and that of the protagonist of her novel. So there’s a novel within a novel, and the whole concept works winningly.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

As if Queen of Shadows releasing this year wasn’t enough, we also got this oh so very fine Beauty and the Beast-like fantasy from SJM. The exquisite slow-burning romance is to. Die. For.

And that wraps up the reading side of the things for 2015; the next part will be all about the blogging. How was your 2015 in books? If you have any year end review posts, please leave a link so I can pop by and check them out!

The Melissa's End of Year Post

What a busy year it has been! I am currently enrolled in my third year of college, and I’ve decided to major in English Literature and minor in History. As you might imagine, that consists of an unreasonable amount of reading and writing. While I do enjoy most of it, I haven’t had an opportunity to read any YA all semester. I’ve really missed writing for the blog, and I hope the New Year will provide me with some time to write posts more frequently. I am so excited to devote most—if not all of my winter break to reading.

Despite my jam-packed schedule I was able to enjoy a few book related happenings. This year, I was fortunate enough to attend YALLFest with Ally and Lee. It was most definitely the best trip we’ve taken yet! I am still in awe over meeting Richelle Mead, and it was awesome to get If I Stay signed by Gayle Forman. I was somewhat devastated Rick Yancey could not attend, but the trip turned out to be a blast regardless. Charleston was a charming city with alluring stores and tasty food. I also really enjoyed the two world-building panels we attended. It was intriguing to hear how much effort the author expends in creating the perfect setting for their story/characters. I’d love to attend YALLFest again this upcoming year, and I hope we can make it to more panels. Fingers crossed Rick Yancey will make it next year!

Yet another highlight of my year was winning a raffle. Whoop whoop! I was especially delighted to return home one evening to find a package filled with books from NOVL. It was even more of a surprise considering that I had forgotten entering the raffle in the first place! XD There is nothing quite like the rush you get from winning something. :D These are the awesome books I was extremely grateful to have won:

Well, that is pretty much all of the semi-interesting things that have happened to me this year. I can’t wait for this year to be over because I have a feeling next year is going to be way better! I hope you’ll be hearing a lot more from me next year, and I wish you guys the best of luck in the New Year!