December Wrap-Up | could’ve been better, could’ve been worse

Hey, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. Welcome to the last monthly wrap-up of the year! December wasn’t the greatest month for my family and I, so I hope that 2023 starts off better than 2022 ended.

Let’s move into the wrap-up!

BOOKS READ

The Dragon’s Promise (Six Crimson Cranes #2) by Elizabeth Lim|📖|★★★★
Shiori was amazing as always, in this book. I was glad we got to see more of Seryu, but thought he was going to be in more of the story, considering the title and the cover. Nevertheless, an exciting conclusion!

Butterfly Yellow by Thanhha Lai|📖|★★★★
I loved the mix of English and Vietnamese in this. Hằng and LeeRoy are an unlikely pair, but I came to like the two of them together. Hằng remembering her journey to America was more brutal than I expected, though.

Me (Moth) by Amber McBride|📖|★★★.5
I’m very much in the more unpopular opinion here. The writing and prose was beautiful, the metaphors and analogies giving the words a deeper meaning. I did predict the ending though, so it didn’t impact me as much.

Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds & Jason Griffin|📖|★★★★★
This book shows how only a few words can hold so much meaning in them. The artwork on every page is beautiful and only adds to the meaning of the words.

All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat|📱|★★★★★|my review
This was a super interesting look at the Thai Boys’ soccer team rescue. I was continually engaged in the story and loved how everything was easy to follow along to and understand.

Key Player (Front Desk #4) by Kelly Yang|📱|★★★★
I wasn’t feeling much during the start of the book, but as it went on, I came to really enjoy the fourth book in the Front Desk series. I love the messages the story sends, about being able to do anything you put your mind to.

CURRENTLY READING

Glitter Gets Everywhere by Yvette Clark

You can probably tell that I’m reading a bunch of shorter books. I’m desperately trying to reach my reading goal, but it probably won’t happen. But this book is one that I’ve been wanting to read for a while. So far, the way it explores grief is super realistic: the numb feeling, the not knowing what to do or how to move on. The story is narrated by a ten year old, which is younger than most protagonists in a novel, but it’s interesting to see how a parent’s death affects someone so young. Some of the vocabulary the author uses, though, seems a little advanced for a ten year old.

MY POSTS

• Let’s Talk Bookish: Can You Predict Someone’s Genre of Choice?
• High School in Books/Film vs. High School in Real Life
• Let’s Talk Bookish: Books as Gifts
• Bookish Smash or Pass Tag
• Let’s Talk Bookish: Banning Books
• My Favorite Books as a Child|Part 2
• My Two-Year Blogiversary!
• Review: All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat

AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE

• Sophie @ Me & Ink showed her favorite international book covers.
• Cherry @ Letters to the Lost did a world cup competition for her top rated books this year.
• Amaya @ Mauve Mumblings discussed her pet peeves with book covers.
• Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books recommended books based on winter aesthetics.
• Caro @ The Bookcheshire Cat did the end of the year survey.

BLOGS I DISCOVERED

The Bookworm’s Feast – This blog is run by Hannah who’s been blogging for a long time! She’s been on a bit of a break, but I look forward to more posts by her in the future.

I got some good writing done! I finished the epilogue for my WIP and am now working on finishing the last official chapter. I know how I want it to end, but I don’t know how to write it. I’ve also been working on naming my chapters. I have one chapter named, out of the fifteen in total, so I have a ways to go. Coming up with chapter names is more difficult than you’d expect. I want them to sound nice, without giving too much away or having them all sound completely different from each other.

🎬 TV Shows and Movies: Since much of the month was spent dealing with COVID and finals, I didn’t watch much of anything. The only thing I watched was The Addams Family (1991) because I want to watch Wednesday. You don’t technically need to see the movie before, but I wanted to see it anyway. I’m planning to watch the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special sometime in the next few days. I was planning to watch it on Christmas, but it didn’t end up happening.

😷 I got COVID the week before finals. And it sucked. I’m pretty sure my friend gave it me because me told me she tested positive and then I tested positive two days later. And she was the only person I was unmasked around at school a few days beforehand. I had to do all my studying by myself, while also recovering from COVID. The sickness itself wasn’t horrible, the worst part about it was the sore throat and low energy levels. It just sucked that I couldn’t be in class doing the reviews. And I had to miss my orchestra concert! I was really sad that I wasn’t able to perform, since I worked so hard on practicing the Christmas music we had. I was really looking forward to playing and seeing the other classes perform. What matters though, is that I passed my classes with As! I didn’t do as well as I hoped on my finals, but I had good grades in all my classes going into them.

❄️ My winter break has been pretty good so far. I sleep in every morning and it is so nice to not have to wake up at 6am. The only downside is that my house currently doesn’t have heating. We haven’t had heating or AC since May because the person who was supposed to install it kept getting sick. And then I got COVID so our electrician nor our heating person could come into our house. We still don’t have heating because I gave COVID to my mom and now she has rebound COVID.

🎄 Christmas didn’t go quite as planned. Since my mom is still sick, we couldn’t go to my aunt and uncle’s like we normally do. So we made plans to go for New Year’s weekend. But then my uncle tested positive for COVID, so we didn’t end up seeing each other at all. We still had a fun time though. For books, I got Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, The Ones We Burn by Rebecca Mix, and Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long.

December Goals:

• Read 5 books
• Post 7 times ✅
• Work on WIP ✅
• Clean my room 🤔 kind of?

January Goals:

• Read 6 books
• Post 7 times
• Work on WIP

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How was your December? Did you read any good books?
Do you have any fun plans for the New Year?

I’m still accepting questions for my blogiversary Q&A. If you have any, submit them here or in the comments!