December Wrap-up & January TBR

Well, December was an intriguing month. My friend told me the other day that it wasn’t a real month, and I’m kind of inclined to concur. However, in this not real month, I managed to read 23 books, and like, howwwww??

Books Read

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✔️ Pulp by Robin Talley – 4 👑
✔️ The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan
✔️ The Last 8 by Laura Pohl – 4 👑
✔️ The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton – 5 👑
✔️ The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi – 3 👑
✔️ Fence Issues 9 – 12 by C.S. Pacat – 4 👑
✔️ Aquicorn Cove by Katie O’Neill – 2 👑
✔️ Mischief & Magnolias by Kristi Cook – 1 👑
✔️ Legendary Ladies by Ann Shen – 3 👑
✔️ History Vs Women by Anita Sarkeesian, Ebony Adams – 1 👑
✔️ Lost Soul, Be At Peace by Maggie Thrash – 1 👑
✔️ Mary Shelley: The Strange True Tale of Frankenstein’s Creator by Catherine Reef – 2 👑
✔️ Nutcracked by Susan Adrian – 3 👑
✔️ Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Short Stories Vol. 2 by Naoko Takeuchi – 1 👑
✔️ My New Crush Gave to Me by Shalini Petroff – 3 👑
✔️ Sheets by Brenna Thummler – 3 👑
✔️ Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith – 1 👑
✔️ Legend by Marie Lu – 3 👑
✔️ Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi – 2 👑
✔️ The Museum of Heartbreak by Meg Leder – 4 👑

Summary

Thanks to Short-A-Thon, I was able to get in a ton of reads. And overall, they ended up being a total mixed bag of books. I had one book that ended up in the favorite shelf, and I had a couple of 1 crowns, so like, I don’t know what to do with all these random ratings?

The Highs

The Belles was easily the highlight of the month. This book slid right into the favorites shelf with easeeeeeeeeeee. It’s a stunning book – from characters to the writing to the twists and turns. One of the best reads that I read all of 2019. The Museum of Heartbreak was another brilliant one, and I am now a total Meg Leder fangirl. The Last 8 and Pulp were good reads as well.

The Lows

I sadly had a lot more 1 crowns than I would have ever hoped for a month. The Love and Lies was the worst book that I read for the month – and possibly the year. It was an incredibly triggering book that was not the pleasing. Field Notes was another not so pleasing read, but it wasn’t anything completely disastrous – mostly just so meh that it was annoyance. And the other books were just mehness.

Other BPR Activities

Closed

Sha and Mandy closed up shop for a little over a week. Both of these princesses needed to take a break. We have spent the past year going pretty hard, and by the end of the year, these girls just needed to take a break…and binge read a ton of books because we signed up for Short a Thon???? From Dec. 21 to Dec. 31, Mandy read 18 books while Sha read 17, so I mean, clearly we never rest.

  • SHA here, popping in to say that I am far too lazy to compile all the books I read for the Short-a-Thon, but I already reviewed them on my Goodreads! (Which is harder and longer than just listing titles, so who played who here?) If you want to check ’em out, link is here: Goodreads of the Sha

It was Christmas and New Year’s as well. I mostly just chilled, silently wondering if I forgot a review or a post that needed tending (fun fact: I did, and ya girl had to binge write a review of The Gilded Wolves going !!!! MUST NEVER LET ANYONE KNOW…which everyone does now so I just broke my own trust circle).

I don’t tend to make New Year’s resolutions, because ya know, it’s just another day in the cycle of life, but I am definitely feeling the need to make some book and book blogging resolutions. Sha and I talked about a few we made here, but I keep thinking about more and more.

Also, I MADE IT TO 200 BOOKS FOR 2018, and like wHaT aM i DoInG with my life???? BEING IN COMPETITION WITH MYSELF, OBVIOUSLY.

We also have a super fun theme for the month: JanuARCary, so we’ll be having some fun features and reviews for some hot and epic 2019 books. Check out more here!

Book Haul

Well, it was Christmas time, and I didn’t really have a lot of books on my Christmas list. I asked fora a few, but I was trying to be more chill about it…since I don’t have any roommmmmmmm. Here are a few:

📚 Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson
📚 The Mortification of Fovea Munson
📚 The Last 8 by Laura Pohl

January TBR

I’m kind of stuck a bit with what I want to read. I have two major plans: finish all the ARCs that I have from Yallfest and keep going on knocking off my physical TBR – because I’m determined to finish all books on my physical TBR because I, um, NEED THAT ROOM. I also feel the need to reread Illuminae series. SO IDK. I feel like January going to be a messy month, but here are two books I’m reading for sure:

📚 Courting Darkness by Robin LaFevers
📚 A Million Junes by April Henry

What do you think? What books did you read last month? Did we share any of the same? What do you plan for Jan? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

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31 thoughts on “December Wrap-up & January TBR”

  3. I loved A Million Junes, it gave me Romeo and Juliet vibes but it isn’t really a retelling. I read The Belle’s earlier in the year and it’s such a great book. It does have mixed reviews, but I enjoyed how different it was.

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  6. I’m glad you liked Pulp! I enjoyed it a lot myself. It was incredibly sad and my heart felt heavy, especially in the Past parts, but overall it was a good read. 🙂

    I was recommended The Belles again recently after winning it last year, so I’m going to try and read it soon. I’ll admit I put it off because I’m sore about a passage that was not changed from the arc to the finished copy that messes up a transgender character’s pronouns. That kept me from actually reading it for ages. :-/

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    1. Omigosh yes! The moments with Janet were so heartbreaking to read. I loved reading them for her voice, but they were just so hard to read sometimes with all that she faced and what it was like.

      Oh gosh, I totally missed that when I was listening to the audiobook. Omigosh that is terrible that no one ever caught it with how many people’s eyes would gaze over it.

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      1. Janet’s voice was great, but yeah, it was really hard. Like, you knew it was likely to happen, but still. 😦

        Re: The Belles – Yeah, the problem is, if I remember correctly from reading about the issue, it was an issue that was brought up prior to publication, even the author’s notice I think, but…*shrug* I don’t know why it wasn’t fixed.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Definitely. Especially with the foreshadowing in Abby’s part, it just got harder and harder.

        Oh wow. I definitely don’t know why either. It’s such a simple, easy fix that is the right thing to do.

        Like

  7. Your ratings make me sad. A lot of duds. I am especially sad to see the new JES book so low. Her last book was not great, but I do usually adore her books. –sigh–

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  10. Wow 23 books! I’m curious about your thought of courting darkness, that book sound interesting!

    (Www.evelynreads.com)

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  11. [SPOILER FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T READ THE BELLES. PROBABLY.]

    Lately I’ve been feeling torn about The Belles? I remember putting it on my “never read”-thing because someone told me a queer character [or the only queer character? don’t remember?] gets killed in this book? Turned me off immediately – especially if it was the only queer character. I think it was. But I do remember anticipating the book before finding out about that so idkkkkk.

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    1. I went into the book blind, so I missed all the issues that popped up about it. D: There is a death of a queer character, and the death was hard enough to read period. There is a lot of great things about the book, and it definitely is a super hard portion to read and I didn’t realize the full implications when I was reading it since I was doing an audiobook. There were a few character deaths if I remember correctly, but the biggest one was of a queer character. As I said, it has great things to it, but it definitely did that.

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      1. I have some blogging friends who take it upon themselves to shout about books with issues like that in private, hah. That way I’m always adding books to my “nope”-pile, even when I wanted to read them at first. But sometimes you simply forget WHY exactly it’s on the nope-pile and.. well.. since you just confirmed the thing again, I’m going to leave it right there. Or maybe move it to the “hell nope”-pile or something..
        Although I have to admit, stupid brain of mine is kind of curious to see how I’d feel about it? Why do I like testing myself so much..

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Being human is so much FUN, haha!
        Right. I try not reading reviews of books I plan on reading, simply because I’m terrified of getting spoiled. D: Or of things that others point out suddenly annoying me while I know it wouldn’t have bothered me if I hadn’t heard about it first or something.

        Sometimes it’s hard being a reviewer / part of the book community. xD

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