Leta’s November Wrap-Up

I’m starting to think that it wasn’t individual months that ended up being difficult or unfortunate for one reason or another. Perhaps 2022 itself is difficult and unfortunate. Either way, I made the most of November the best I could.

I read seven books during November. I fought off feelings of guilt for not reading enough and it kinda worked. I contextualized it like this: my goal for the year is 125 and I finish 114 by the end of November. That means I only need to read 11 books in December, so it’s alright that I didn’t get a ton of books read. Eleven is a reasonable amount for me to aim for.

The books I read in November are:

• Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn
• Stuck with You by Ali Hazelwood
• Defend the Dawn by Brigid Kemmerer
• Rumba by Melanie Munton
• The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber
• In Limbo: A Graphic Memoir by Deborah Jung-Jin Lee
• Weyward by Emilia Hart

Overall, these were great reads. My least favourite is easy to pick: Stuck with You by Ali Hazelwood. It wasn’t as good as the other two novellas and really played into the heroine being “smart” but really unable to logic her way through anything. Her immaturity was also a hurdle for me, like in the other two novellas. All the conflict in these novellas would be completely avoided if the heroines were willing to actually communicate. I think part of it was their unwillingness to be wrong. Anyways, I know that I’m not into Steminist stories. I prefer heroines to be written well and be relatable. I’m glad I read these novellas instead of the novels.

I think I talked about Bloodmarked in my October wrap-up, which was wrong but oh well. I’ll pick a different favourite to talk about in this post.

That would have to be The Ballad of Never After. Evangeline and Jacks are some of the loveliest characters to read about. The elements that were brought into this sequel upped the stakes in a very unexpected and interesting way. As always, the magic in this world is fascinating and Stephanie expands on it in crafty, sneaky ways.

November was also my birthday month. I’m twenty-five now! (No, it doesn’t feel too much different than twenty-four.) I was surrounded by so much love that day, despite spending the day at home by myself. The gifts I received were thoughtful: the softest robe from my friends, a blanket sweater that I’m rarely taking off from my partner, and something exceptionally useful from my mom and grandma: a new laptop. My laptop decided that it was going to stop turning on in early October and I was stressing a lot about getting a replacement. So, the laptop itself is a gift I am extremely grateful for, but the relief I felt at knowing that I would have a working and reliable machine to work on was an even great gift. Thank you a thousand times, Mom and Grandma, if you read this.

I didn’t accomplish much else in November, since I didn’t have a good laptop for most of the month. I was also battling with my depression for a good couple of weeks there and remembered that SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is a thing that gets me bad at this time of year. I’m working on nullifying that and getting back to myself and I’m on my way. Kelowna got a dump of snow on November 3rd and it’s been here in large amounts ever since. It doesn’t help morale, but it is beautiful.

Thanks for tuning into my November Wrap-Up. Stay tuned to read my December TBR post tomorrow! I’m going to start posting those again to keep myself accountable. Thanks for reading!

And a huge THANK YOU to those of you who have liked and/or followed me! I appreciate you so much.