Hello fellow bookworms ๐ย *christmas music starts playing in the background* November is over so you know what that means: it’s officially my favorite time of the year: winter & christmas! I have suffered through hot summer, found relief in beautiful autumn and now we are finally entering the festive season againย ๐ย I am a huge Christmas person, so please bear with me ๐ But I am also a bit sad to be leaving autumn & NaNoWriMo behind, because I had a fantastic time writing this past month and have gotten through 2 Acts (75% of my book), more on that on Sunday, when I will be posting my NaNo wrapup!
ALSO IT SNOWED YESTERDAY, SO CHRISTMAS IS OFFICIALLY HEREย โ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธ
- Queens of Geek (Jen Wilde)ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย Review
- Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell)ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย Review (Reread)
- It Only Happens in the Movies (Holly Bourne)ย ๐ย ๐ย RTC
- Silber 2 [Dream On]ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐
- Juliet takes a breath (Gabby Rivera)ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย Review
- Demon Road (Derek Landy)ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย Review
- The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย Review
- Passenger (Alexandra Bracken)ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย ๐ย Review
This month has overall been a better reading month than October, because despite everything I felt less stressed. My TBR was shorter (even though it gained a bit more books because of Tome Topple) and I did not feel like I was rushing to finish the books. Towards the end it took me a bit longer to finish my last book – Passenger – but mostly because I wanted to savour it, as I found a new favorite in it. Overall I enjoyed almost all books I read and even found 4 new favorite books that made it to my best-of-2017 shelf on Goodreads, which is really impressive! However, I guess to balance it out I also suffered a major disappointment with one of my most anticipated books by my favorite contemporary author. It’s by far the worst book I have read and I was super startled that this book was so unlike the 5 books I have enjoyed by this author. It got so bad that I had to DNF the book, as reading it was making me so unhappy and stressed out, that’s also why I have not been in the right head space to write the Review … but soon. Apart from that I would call November not only a success for writing, but a success for reading as well!
A new memeย called the Favorite Blog Posts of the Monthย has been created by Kristin @ kristinkravesbooks, which I thought was super cool, as I love to include my fave posts in my wrapups. Now there is a linkup & I can check out all the other posts and discover so many great new blogs! I am really excited!
- The Holiday AdventureAthon (Jasmine @NovelThoughts)
- Stranger Things Book Tag (Danielle @ lifeofliterarynerd)
- NaNoWriMo Survival Guide (Jackie @ toomuchofabooknerd)
- What makes me DNF a bookย | Juggling blogging & reading (Heather @ thesassybookgeek)
- Blogging Struggles: Numbers and the Power they have | Recent Favorites | What to get your bookish friends for Christmasย | 12 Days of Blogmas Announcement (Swetlana @thecaffeinatedbookwormlife)
- NaNoWriMo Updatesย | Guide to making aesthetics (Lia @lostinastory)
- Do we put too much pressure on ourselves? (Ellyn @allonsythornraxxbooks)
- Blogging Burnout and how (not) to deal with it (insidemylibrarymind)
- Are Tropes always bad?ย | How my writing habits have changed in 2017 (Cait @paperfury)
- #31 Week’s appreciation (Dani @perspectiveofawriter)
- 8 by 2018 | End of the Year Goals (Sam @thoughtsontomes)
- Autumn Reading Wrapup & TBR (Zoe @readbyzoe)
- Reader Problems Book Tag (Hannah @Aclockworkreader)
- The Tome Topple Readathon. Round 5. This time the Readathon all about reading long books took place from November 17th to November 30th! I posted my TBR and I don’t think I will be doing a separate Wrapup this time, so I’ll tell you what I managed to read here! I am quite pleased that I kind of read 3 books (I did start Demon Road a bit earlier) despite NaNo and university going on!
1. The Book Thiefย (Markus Zusak)ย ๐ย 554 pages
2.ย Demon Roadย (Derek Landy)ย ๐ย 507ย pagesย
3. Passengerย (Alexandra Bracken)ย ๐ย 512ย pages
- University was stressful again. I have talked about this approximately 500 times already, but this semester is the worst and just when I think things have settled down something catastrophic happens again. It’s truly no fun, but I have made peace with this semester – kind of – and am currently working on my two term papers that I have to hand in.
- NaNoWriMo – more on that later. I am planning to have my NaNoWriMo Wrapup up this Sunday, so I will tell you all about my progress and more about my WIP! For now let’s just say that it all went well for me and that I am quite proud of my writing, which is a very nice feeling. Hooray to everyone else who made it and to those who didn’t quite reach 50K: you are still all winners because you worked on your project in some way!
- The Goodreads Choice Awards. It’s kind of a popularity contest and most of the time a trash fire (I am talking about problematic books getting nominated and one still in the finale round), but I cannot help but vote every single time. We’ll see what books win by December … something – I forgot the exact date but soon ๐
There were two amazing Cover Reveals! The first was for War Storm, the finale to the Red Queen Series and the cover looks absolutely stunning ๐ฎ I knew it would be very dark, as the color schemes have turned darker with each book – I honestly cannot wait to get my hand on the book, which comes out May 15th 2018! Then the cover for Leah on the Offbeatย was revealed, which I also really like. I have to say that out of all the Becky Albertalli covers it might be my favorite, because of how amazingly the colors work together! The book comes out April 24th 2018!
- Chainbreaker (Tara Sim)ย ๐ ย Digitalย Arc
- Between the heart and the blade (Amanda Hocking)ย ๐ ย Digitalย Arc
- The Midnight Star (Marie Lu)
- Desolation (Derek Landy)
- Let it Snow (Anthology)
- Silber 03 [Just Dreaming] (Kerstin Gier)๐ย Holiday AdventureAton
- A Court of Thorns and Roses (Sarah J. Maas)๐ย Holiday AdventureAton
- My True Love Gave to Me (Anthology)ย ๐ย Holiday AdventureAton
- A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)ย ๐ย Holiday AdventureAton
My TBR for this month is a bit bigger, because there are so many books that I still want to get to until the year is done, so now is the time to put down everything I still want to readย aaaaah. I am firmly wanting to finish both the Young Elites and the Silver Trilogy! Then there are two Arcs that I want to get to and then there is the Holiday AdventureAthon from December 13th to December 24th. I am very excited for the Readathon, because I have been wishing for a winter/holiday themed Readathon that takes place around Christmas since last year. There was Harry X-Mas to you, but it’s a Hary Potter Readalong and the other winter readathons all took place either in November or January. Now my wishes have finally been heard! I am planning to read 4 books (+ one bonus festive read) for the Readathon and my TBR Post will be up next Friday!
IT’S TIME TO GET FESTIVEย ๐ย ๐ย ๐
What was your favorite book in November? Are you excited for Christmas?ย ๐
Ah I am so excited for Christmas!!! It looks like you had a really great reading month!
Thank you so much for participating in my meme! I am definitely going to check out every post that you shared!
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Christmas is the best ๐ ๐
Thank you for creating the meme, it’s a really great idea!!! ๐
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Seems you had a great reading month! Fangirl is one of my favorite books, and I am looking forward to reading Queens of Geek! Thank you so much for featuring my post!
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Yes I was really happy with my reading this month ๐ Books about fandom are just the best!!
You’re welcome ๐
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The Midnight Star ๐ฅ was so good!! I hope you enjoy it!!
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I am very happy to hear that, as I am hoping to enjoy it! It’s my next read ๐
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Thank you for featuring my post! ๐ Your December tbr looks great btw!
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You’re welcome! ๐ I am sooo excited for all these books ๐
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Hi Caro following you now thanks to Kristin’s Favourite Blog Posts! I love your blog and I see we have several books in common. You linked to soooo many blog posts I think I will have a day field to peruse every one of them. My best of November book is Beartown by Frederik Backman.
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Hey there ๐ Now following you as well! Kristin’s new meme is an amazing way to discover new bloggers!
That’s great ๐
I must say that I have not heard of this book at all ๐ฎ *searches on Goodreads*
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Hahaha hope you find it or come back ,-)
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I have read the synopsis and wow it sounds so interesting and unlike what I usually read, which is a good thing ๐
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GAH!!! Caro I am a HUGE Christmas fan… but I didn’t think about doing any Christmas sort of posts… now I will have to think of some… You had an incredible reading month… well except for that lousy 1 star there… I will look for that review I want to see what has you so mad… I too vote for the Goodreads popularity contest… I just can’t help myself even though i know many people haven’t read the books they vote for, lol. Good luck with the end of your semester and your papers and happy reading during your readathon!! I just finished one for Thanksgiving for the first time and it is fun! โค
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OH and THANK YOU for mentioning my Appreciation post!! I love bloggers so its a no brainer for me to shout out about the posts I love ๐
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You’re welcome ๐ I really love that concept of shouting out bloggers, it makes me discover so many amazing blogs ๐
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YES CHRISTMAS ๐๐๐ I had a few Christmas posts planned, but as the month goes on I get so many more ideas aaah!
I will hopefully get around to writing that Review sometime, soon but I keep putting it off because I am still so mad ๐
I also could not help myself and today the results are in! I saw it this morning and was like … what? It’s the 5th already? xD
Thank you so much!! ๐
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OOo! Ooo! You’ve read Dream On series?! ๐ I haven’t found anyone else who knows about it! This is so exciting! Do you read it in German or English? *is way too excited about this* Hee hee!
Wow! You have so many favorite posts/videos. I don’t know how you make time for all of it! I’ve always wanted to read and interact with more bloggers, but it’s very time-consuming (and being a student makes time nearly impossible to come by.) But that’s so awesome! I’ll have to check out some of those posts! ๐
Oh-ho! You are a student as well and still have time to read tons of blogs?! Okay. Now I’m in awe! What are you studying, may I ask? ๐
And NaNo! I couldn’t participate this year, but I have in the past. What genre do you write in? And for what age group? ๐
*should have read the side-bar first and realized you’re a German blogger so you probably read Silber in German Duh!!* :p
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Yes I have, at least the first two books, I am reading book 3 this month!! I do read it in German ๐ *joins in on the excitement* I have not seen many fellow bloggers that have read the Series so this is really cool ๐
I sometimes down either, but *whispers* I tend to read posts and watch lots of videos when I am procrastinating doing anything for university ๐
Yes I try to make time for reading lots of blogs, as best as I can ๐ I am studying psychology and sociology! ๐
You can always do CampNaNo in April and July if you want to, that’s what I will be doing as well ๐ Fantasy is my one true love and I mostly write YA!
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YAY! I wish I could read it in German, but fantasy books in German are still a little above my vocabulary. :p I would definitely need a ton of extra time to read a full novel in German than the 1 week/book I currently give myself. :p
But I’m so excited you like the series! I’m usually not big on romance, but I thought this was great and the world-building was so awesome! I have Book 2 on my shelf, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. (I’m taking a break from fantasy for a while.
) I hope you like book 3! ๐
Oo! Psychology! I always thought that might be a cool field to join, but I don’t think I’m quite compassionate enough. I’m kind of mean. :p And sociology kicked my butt in undergrad so that’s a no. Hee hee! Very cool subjects! I imagine they take up quite a bit of your time.
I tried Camp NaNo in April this year and totally bombed. I’ve just been way busy with real life. Makes it difficult to find time/focus to write.
I hope that’ll change soon. I miss writing. *sigh*
Hee hee! Another YA Fantasy writer. I have a couple friends who write those. It’s very popular! Do you have any finished novels?
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Fantasy books also tend to be pretty long ๐ฎ
I’m really excited as well! The author is one of my favorites and I love this Series so much! It’s really right up my alley ๐ Thank you!
Oh no, but I get that life can get in the way real fast, especially if you are working full time
I hope that you find time to write as well! ๐
It is! I don’t have any finished ones … but I intend to change that ๐
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Thank you. I did find some time (aka Christmas break). But of course, I also had reading to do so I had to cut off despite just wanting to spend the entire day writing. *sigh* Priorities are frustrating. :p
I hope you get something finished soon! Best of luck! And if you ever want to chat writing, let me know. ๐
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I feel you, it’s the eternal struggle ๐
Thanks! ๐ I will definitely do that ๐
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Oh wow, you’ve had such a great reading month! 8 books is amazing YAY! And I’m so happy that NaNo went so well for you! Good luck with your Holiday readathon, it sounds like a lot of fun and I wish I could participate but I don’t have the time ๐ฆ will this be your first time reading ACOTAR? also thank you so much for linking one of my posts! โค AND OMG THAT LEAH ON THE OFFBEAT COVER IS SO GORGEOUS I CAN'T WAIT FOR IT TO COME OUT!!!
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Yeah you could say that both writing and reading were pretty good this month ๐
Thank you!! ๐ There is always next year, hopefully the Readathon will become a yearly thing ๐
This is my first time reading ACOTAR, after much nagging from my best friend, now I finally get to read it ๐
You’re welcome! ๐ YES IT LOOKS SO SO GOOOOD!!
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