Monday, December 2, 2019

November 2019 Wrap-Up Post and Looking Ahead to December

Did I say October was a crazy month?  Because I have no idea what happened to November!  It's like I jumped right into NaNoWriMo and was doing pretty well a few days after the month got started.  Then halfway through the month things started happening, family things, Thanksgiving, you name it, and my project stalled at about 22,000 words.  Two weeks into the month I traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to present at the American Association of School Librarians, and that was a really great trip!  Got some cool books there, so of course my suitcase ended up too full:






















I even got to meet Katie McGarry!

For getting things done in my house, I did finally get my garage cleaned out and was able to park my new car in it.  Although at the moment it is currently filled with the boxes I broke down and need to take to recycling.  I thought with my family up at my mom's for Thanksgiving, they might want to drive over and see my new house, I mean I think at some party last year they all went to see my brother's new house, but whatever.  So I spent most of my days off the week of Thanksgiving cleaning up a lot!  Getting boxes unpacked, etc.  No one came.

Oh yeah, have I mentioned yet that my sister who lives in New York City took a job in Scotland?  She came home for Thanksgiving, so it was good seeing her.  We kind of decided that since she probably won't be able to come back next year for Thanksgiving, we're going to try to all fly to Scotland for that week to visit her.  I'm very excited!  It will be my first time off the continent. The only time I've been out of the US is to Mexico, and of course that was still on the same continent.   Today my brother texted and said he wants to take my niece and nephew to Hawaii over spring break.  I don't know that I can afford that and a trip to Scotland, but we'll see, I'd love that!  He can get us all free airline tickets with his frequent miles from traveling basically weekly for work.  Basically, 2020 is looking to be a pretty exciting year!


On with the reading stats for November.

According to Goodreads, I've read 202 of the 210 (new number I set) books goal for the year.  November made up 19 of those.  Because I was so behind last month, and I was worried with NaNoWriMo I'd get even farther behind, I dropped my year goal from 220 to 210 based on the number of books I new I'd be reading for the rest of the year.  I may have to move it back up because I'm pretty sure there are more than 8 books I'll be reading in December.  Currently Goodreads says I'm ahead too.

Here is a list of books I read in November, and I'll link to my review if I've finished it:

  1. The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White
  2. Stud Muffin by Jiffy Kate
  3. Rock F*ck Club #4 by Michelle Mankin
  4. Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz
  5. The Locker Room (audio book) by Meghan Quinn
  6. Prose Before Bros by Cathy Yardley
  7. No Whisk No Reward by Ellie Kay
  8. Back in the Game by Meghan Quinn
  9.  Rock F*ck Club #5 by Michelle Mankin
  10.  Crime and Periodicals by Nora Everly
  11.   Deadly Little Scandals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
  12.   Breakup Boot Camp by Beth Merlin
  13.   Outmatched by Kristen Callihan and Samantha Young
  14.   My Bare Lady by Piper Sheldon
  15.   Blindsided by Amy Daws
  16.  It's Not PMS, It's You by Rich Amooi
  17.  The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh
  18.  Grin and Beard It by Penny Reid
  19. Naughty or Nice by Rachael Stewart
  20.  
I did really good this past month about reviewing everything I read except for the audiobooks I listened to.  And I didn't get the audiobooks I still needed reviews from September or October done either. 

Another stat I want to talk about is books that I don't finish.  I haven't added any in November, so that's good!  But then again, other than audiobooks and one or two ARCs, I only read books for reviews really.

My number of posts in November was still kind of high, I had 47 which is one less than October.  But part of that is because I did the Blog Ahead Challenge in October to be ready for NaNoWriMo, so there were some extra posts thanks to that.  But I still need to quit signing up for tours!  Now I have turned down a few books I kind of would have liked to read because the tours were too close to other tours I'd already signed up for, or other books I have ARCs of that I know I want to read for sure.   Of those 47 posts, 16 were reviews.  I've been good with my weekly posts I want to keep up with too.   My average rating was down to 4.4 stars.

I also joined into a fun new meme called Six Degrees of Separation, which I might do again in December
Rejoined in a couple times to Top Ten Tuesday thanks to my blogging ahead challenge in October:
And I did a couple of Tags I saved from throughout the year as part of my Blog Ahead Challenge, they were fun!  I'll have a couple more this month too.
Okay, on with my challenges.



1.  Once again I kept up with my Looking Forward To posts, on Wednesdays as much as possible to tie in with the Can't Wait Wednesday posts.  But there was a week that there weren't really any on my list, so I didn't do that week.

November 5th
November 12th
November 19th

I'm still working on visiting other blogs and commenting as much as I am posting on my own blog, but I still haven't been keeping track of it in my calendar where I was trying to do that.  Don't know if that'll ever get going again.

Been doing well on cleaning up my Goodreads TBR with my weekly post and giveaway (except that I keep adding new to Goodreads), as well as even my physical TBR a little.  I think I now have two people occasionally joining in, and you should feel free to join in as well.  Here are the posts for that:

November 2nd
November 9th
November 16th
November 23rd
November 30th - Giveaway still open until December 7th!

2.  My Reading Goals are coming along with the Goodreads challenge as I mentioned above.

3.  As I mentioned above, I got about 22,000 words done.  I thought I might try to re-do a story I'd written during one of my very first NaNoWriMo attempts that was set in Chicago, because maybe I could get it to connect to the Penny Reid Knitting in the City universe, and try to get it published with the SmartyPants Romance series that I'm loving.  But now I'm thinking it needs so much work, maybe I just need to completely start over.


Still nothing from my list.  :-(




No new discussions this month. Again. 



And.... I still need some kind of button for the First in the Series Challenge, although once again, didn't do any from my list!


Looking forward to in December:
Okay, so here is my proposed TBR based on my blog tours and review requests for this month:

  1. Shelf Awareness by Katie Ashley - I am reading this as I write this post, should be posting the review on the 3rd.
  2. Adorkable by Cookie O'Gorman - Supposed to be doing a review tour and posting on the 4th
  3. The Line-Up by Meghan Quinn - Supposed to be doing a review tour and posting on the 5th
  4. Beard Necessities by Penny Reid - part of a review tour and posting on the 9th
  5. The Younger Man by Karina Halle - part of a review tour on the 11th 
  6. Wait for Me by Tia Louise - part of a review tour on the 17th
  7. So That Got Weird by Amelia Kingston - part of a review tour on the 26th, 27th, or 28th, and I've already read a very early version of this and loved it!
  8. Wardens of Eternity by Courtney Allison Moulton - maybe reading and reviewing the ARC of this the last week of December. 
  9. Chosen by Kiersten White - I got an ARC from books for trade on Twitter, so can't wait!
  10. Oasis by Katya de Becerra - part of a tour that I'll actually not post a review until January 2nd
  11. The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring - I have the ARC of this one, hoped to have it read in the last two months, but since I didn't, hoping to read this month
  12. Salvaged by Madeleine Roux - I have an ARC of this and started reading last month, so hoping to get done this month
  13. The Memory Thief by Lauren Mansy - I meant to get this ARC read  in the last two months, but didn't

Hopefully I will get the audiobooks I haven't reviewed yet posted on my blog.  So I did better at signing up for tours this month, hopefully that means I can catch up on some ARCs, physical books I own, and maybe get ahead for 2020!

With another crazy month, I'm skipping the Best of the Bunch thing again and just going ahead and wrapping up this post.   Hope everyone had a great November, and here's to an even better December!  It's definitely feeling like winter already.

How was your November?