December Wrapup (& January TBR)

Hello fellow bookworms ❄️  Sadly December is over, which means that I’ve got the post-Christmas blues, yearning to get the festive season back. I’m always a bit grumpy in these last few days of December, but I do like celebrating New Year’s Eve even though it’s terrifying that it’s now 2018. Wooh this is my first post in 2018 and I cannot believe that my birthday is in 4 months now *hides in the corner* Hopefully this year will be kind to me and to all of you out there as well. Gladly, it’s still winter which makes me hope for some last snow to bless me. The other good news is that I’m not far away from my spring break now.

1. Chainbreaker  (Tara Sim) 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 (4.5) 📖 Review
2. Between the heart and the blade (Amanda Hocking) 🌟 🌟 🌟 📖 Review
3. The Midnight Star (Marie Lu)  🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 📖 Review
4. Desolation (Derek Landy) 🌟 🌟 🌟 📖 Review
5. Let it Snow (Anthology) 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 📖 Review
6. Silber 03 [Just Dreaming] (Kerstin Gier) 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 📖
7. A Court of Thorns and Roses (Sarah J. Maas) 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 📖 Review
8. My True Love Gave to Me (Anthology) 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 (3.5) 📖 Review
9. A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 📖
10. Lily & Dash’s Book of Dares (Cohn & Levithan) 🌟 🌟 🌟 (3.5) 📖 Review

I read lots of books in December, even though I reached 100 books at the beginning of the month, which was a huge milestone for me. Lots of books were either for the HolidayadventureAThon or digital Arcs that I needed to get to before the end of the year. With one spontaneous addition, I read 10 books, 4 of them festive books that I choose to read right in time for Christmas. In numbers, I had a good reading month, but university is still stressful and making it hard for me not to feel anxious. Sadly, it’s the case that whenever I’m anxious I find it harder to sit down and read, as I’m always so agitated and full on focused on work, work, work and getting stuff done. I’m really glad when this semester is going to be over in February, because I hate that inner anxiety that’s always looming over me and makes it hard to enjoy reading.

For this section of my wrapup I’m linking up with the Favorite Blog Posts of the Month Meme that has been created by Kristin @ kristinkravesbooks to showcase our favorite blogs of the month!

• Diverse YA Books Releasing January – June 2018 (Aimal @ bookshelvesandpaperbacks)
• Be Positive About your book blog this year (Avalinah @ avalinahsbooks)
• 12 Blogmas Posts (Swetlana @ thecaffeinatedbookwormlife)
• A Book Tag for Christmas (Dani @ perspectiveofawriter)
• Christmas Cuisine Book Tag (Beth @ readingeverynight)
• My Winter Reading Recommendations (Lindsey @ paradisbooks)
• A Guide to Arcs #2 | NaNoWriMo Wrapup (Lia @ lostinastory)
• Top 10 All Time Favorite Villains (Laura @ thebookcorps)
• What makes you happy Tag (Kathy @ booksandmunches)
• What I didn’t know about blogging one year ago (Sophie @ bewareofthereader)
• 10 Reasons why bookworms panic at the end of the year (Cait @ paperfury)
• The many amazing posts about the Netgalley Debate (links down below)

• Christmas + HolidayadventureAThon 🎄 So Christmas happened and is sadly over now, as is the HolidayadventureAThon 😦 I talked about both in my post on Christmas Eve.
• I took a break from working on my paper.  After reading Susan Dennard’s amazing newsletter I decided to take a two-week break from working on my two papers that have been sucking the life out of me. I was constantly stressing out about them, especially as I knew I would not be done after one but do it all over again with a second paper. I’m really grateful for the newsletter, because I was really burning myself out.
• The entire Goodreads + Netgalley debacle. I do think that most of you have heard about what happened by now. Goodreads changed its giveaway policy excluding international readers and charging authors for hosting giveaways, harming self-published authors + authors published by small presses. Netgalley silently made international readers unable to straightaway request most ask, instead replacing this with the “Wish for It” button, meaning the published has to grant you access to the Arc, which has not happened to a lot of people.  There are so many more amazing posts talking about this, so I’ll link them here!

1. International Book Bloggers Don’t Give Up (Avalinah @ avalinahsbooks)
2. Blogging as an International Reader (Lia @ lostinastory)
3. I’m an international reader and I don’t matter (Maja @ bookishaddict)
4. On Netgalley and Goodreads (Marta @ thecursedbooks)
5. An Open Letter to Netgalley & Goodreads (Laura @ thebookcorps)

• I reached 50 Followers on my blog 😱 This still baffles me so much and I’m very grateful for everyone who followed me and reads through my post rambling about books and attempting to be funny – you are amazing 💕 💕 💕

This also happened … wooooh!

• Victoria Aveyard might come to more European countries on tour than the UK?? Nothing is sure yet, but I have hope because I missed her at Frankfurt Book Fair 2015 😭 😭 I’m still mad that I didn’t go the only year she showed up 😦

https://twitter.com/VictoriaAveyard/status/942933140586110976

• Sightwitch Delay. The prequel novella for the Witchlands Series has been pushed back to February 13th because things didn’t go how they were supposed to. I think this is due to the artwork in the book, which was delayed and now affects the entire release. Therefore, Susan Dennard has put up a post asking for help from us readers to promote the book, because while she does her best the delay has huge consequences for shelf spaces etc. (her post explains it way better). Susan is an absolute sweetheart who shares free writing advice in her newsletters and has an entire writing masterpost. Therefore, I’m sharing the preorder links down below and highly recommend the Witchlands Series to you, which is amazing! Technically, you can read Sightwitch without having read the other two books already out.

Preorder Links

• Master List of Stores & Links (US)
• Amazon US | Amazon DE
• Barnes & Noble Exclusive Edition (with Bloodwitch chapter at the end)
• Books-a-Million | Schuler Books | Indiebound
• Book Depository

 There were two great Cover Reveals this month! The first was for Spinning Silver, the new book by Naomi Novik. I am very excited for this because it sounds great and is an NA retelling! Furthermore, I’m going to read Uprooted next month. Spinning Silver releases July 10th 2018. Furyborn got a really nice looking cover as well. Not going to lie this cover looks amazing, fiery and really impressive. I’m also pumped for the book which is about two strong female characters that don’t live in the same timeline but are connected – a unique concept. Furyborn releases May 22nd 2018.

1. Wonder (R.J. Palacio)
2. Uprooted (Naomi Novik)
3. A Study in Charlotte (Britanny Cavallaro)
4. The Reader (Traci Chee)
5. The Forbidden Wish (Jessica Khoury)

It’s a new Reading Year which is always exciting, as the Goodreads Challenge is starting all over again and I’m super pumped to get to all the books I have been wanting to read! This month I’m having a quite tame TBR compared to the (7-10 books) TBR’s of the past months. Likely I’ll read a bit more, depending on how busy I’m when university starts again, but especially as I’ve been really stressed lately, I don’t want to set myself a huge TBR. 5 books is a good number of books for me and if I have enough time I can always choose another book to enjoy! All of these books are from my local library (the German translations except for Wonder) and I can say that I’m really excited about reading all of them, which was important for me. I wanted to start off my Reading Year with books that I’m really excited for!

What was the last book you finished in 2017? What is your top priority read in 2018? ❄️