Hello December! My favourite month of the year! And one of the best months to curl up with a book with a cup of tea next to a twinkling Christmas Tree with a blanket and a kitty. Perfection! I’m only a couple of books away from hitting my revised reading goal of 100 books in 2017, which is pretty cool. In fact, I should hit that by this weekend!
But enough about that, let’s take a quick look back at November and the books I read. Last month I read a couple of books that turned out to be frontrunners for my top 10 books of the year, and one that I think everyone needs to read – so let’s get to it!
10-Minute Mindfulness: 71 Habits for Living in the Present Moment – SJ Scott
This is the book I was reading after I finished putting together my BlogJam presentation and realized like half of the things I talked about for the “keeping your sanity” part was in this book. Which led me to realize I had created a total yogi presentation, haha. But really though, this book has lots of great (and simple) ideas for bringing more mindfulness into your day, helping you get more done without the frantic flying around like a chicken with its head cut off!
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling
Perfection. Again. There is nothing more to say here. Whether you read the physical copies or listen to the e-books, this is an absolutely perfect series. PERFECT.
Loving My Actual Life: An Experiment in Relishing What’s Right in Front of Me – Alexandra Kuykendall
I purchased this e-book when it was on sale, honestly, I loved the cover. The title sounded enticing and I picked it up since it was a dollar or two. It wasn’t my favourite book, but it still was a fun read as it both gave ideas how we could make small changes to love our actual lives more, but it showed that not every idea works.
I see she now has released a “Loving My Actual Christmas” title which is super interesting to me. I’m that annoying person that is pretty much ready for Christmas right now on December 4th, mostly because I love Christmas so much I refuse to let it stress me out and I wish more people would think to get organized in November (or earlier) so they could enjoy the holidays too!
Love & Gelato – Jenna Evans Welch
Another book I decided I wanted to read based on the cover alone. And this is a time where you can totally judge a book by its cover because Love & Gelato was every bit as delightful as the cover made me think it was. A fun YA novel with a mystery to unravel. It was a delight.
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris – Jenny Colgan
It’s hard to see here but the quite on the book cover at the top is by Sophie Kinsella. My favourite chick-lit author, and I knew if she was recommending this title I would love it. And I did. Chocolate and Paris – sign me up! I’ve since gone and put holds on every title in Jenny Colgan’s back catalogue. So yeah, I liked it.
The main character is in a workplace accident and then her roommate in the hospital sets her up with a job in Paris which is a super simplistic way of describing the book, but if you enjoy chick-lit I’d definitely recommend it!
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
This was chosen as a favourite title by a couple of people on the WSIRN Podcast and it was likened to The Rosie Project which I read and enjoyed largely because it was a different type of story telling. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is definitely comparable to The Rosie Project in many ways, but ultimately is a completely different type of story. It’s not a terribly happy story, and the ending sort of broke my heart, but I think it does a wonderful job of portraying a life and life experiences of someone who has had a difficult life. While not my favourite, it’s a story I’m really glad I read.
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Few novels have had more hype this year than The Hate U Give, but the hype is well deserved. I feel it accurately portrayed the differences in culture and the world we currently live in. I listened to the audiobook (which I highly recommend – but not if you have sensitive ears around as there is a fair amount of language) and it was amazing. Bahni Turpin does a fabulous job narrating, and breaking your heart as the story unfolds.
The story is highly relevant, shows us into a world that hopefully fewer and fewer of us will ever have to see, but as far as we may feel we have come, we still have so much more distance to cover to equality and this story shows that in a way that really makes you think. Or at least it made me think. And feel sad about this world.
As I always strive to keep my reviews spoiler free I’ll finish this off by saying that I truly believe everyone needs to read this book, and that I’m so glad that through this book I finally found out for CERTAIN what the chorus of Fuego by Kumbia Kings is saying. And it’s exactly what I thought they were saying but nobody could ever confirm it for me until now. A random thing but Zumba folks from yester-year will understand, haha.
[Tweet “The book everyone should ready this year via @suziconfesses”]
So I guess you’ve likely figured out which book I was talking about in the blog title, The Hate U Give has topped so many book lists this year I can’t imagine anyone is surprised, but really I enjoyed all of this month’s books and depending on the type of books you like, all of these were lovely.
And that wraps up another month of reading, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that December finds just as many enjoyable titles as November did!
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