Fave New Music: Dec / Jan

This post is going up so late compared to when I normally publish ;; For some reason I thought this post was supposed to go up Saturday. Luckily I had a lot of the work done already! 

I think from now on I'm going to do Fave New Music posts every other month unless there's a really good month that deserves its own post. I have a habit of listening to new songs on repeat instead of venturing out and finding new ones ...

The layout for this post might be a little wacky. Blogger apparently doesn't like me switching between rich text composition and html :|| I'm going to come back and fix the html as best I can once the post is up. 

Winter Break 2015 - 2016

Being a college student definitely has its benefits. This year I got over a month off between semesters, which was extended by winter storm Jonas! We've already had our first two days of the spring semester cancelled. I'd still like more.

So, what did I do with my month of free time?

Spring Semester 2016

As much as I've loved winter break, I'm ready to go back to school. The spring semester is supposed to start on Monday, but I highly doubt we're going to school at all next week. There's a lot of snow outside right now, and it's not supposed to stop anytime soon. #jonasblizzard

I've been in the "advanced" track in school basically since kindergarten, so I got a lot of classes done earlier than I should have. (Which was why I had the laziest senior year out of anybody.) I took five AP tests in high school and ended up earning myself 24 credits even before I took any college classes. My school considers me a sophomore already.

Last semester I took the dreaded math and speech classes I needed, so I'm done with all the classes I don't want to take! I've really lucked out that my college offers courses that align with what I need and still are interesting to me.

So what am I taking this semester?

All the things I nerd out about! :D

Intro to Geography (Geog 101)

I should've taken this last semester, but oh well! I passed Physical Geography with no problem, so this class I could probably pass in my sleep.

Global Geography

I have the same professor for both geography courses, so I'm going to be seeing them every day. Hopefully they're nice. To be honest I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing in this class. The catalog description doesn't help me out much. It's listed as a class I should take my second semester, though, so at least I'm on track with this one.

Meteorology: Intro Weather

I was actually a weather nerd before I became a geography nerd, and this class counts towards my science credit, so it's like a double bonus. It's definitely going to be my hardest class (the longest, at least), but I'm super excited to get a more formal background in weather. We learned a little bit in Physical Geography but I still want more. And hopefully my knowledge from Physical Geog will help me out!

Italian 101

I actually don't need this class at all; I can count at least two AP tests towards my humanities credit. One of my friends wanted to take a language for his, though, and I needed another class to make sure I was a full-time student. Italian was the first one we found that worked out for both of us. In all honesty, I should've pushed for a German class, but I'm hoping that Italian will be easy between 6 years of Spanish and teaching myself French. (I'll probably take German in the fall if it works out.)

So in total this means I'm taking 13 credits! I've only gotten one full syllabus from a teacher so far, so the first week of school will probably be stressful trying to get everything together. I also don't know how the curriculums will change if we miss school because of this blizzard, so that should be an adventure!

Good luck to everyone this semester ♥

Winterspell by Claire Legrand

TL;DR dark Nutcracker-inspired fairy tale

TBR #801

finished 1/20/16

The Nutcracker has been one of my favorite stories ever since my parents taped the Barbie version off the TV one winter, so I've been anticipating Winterspell ever since I'd heard about it. The fact that Marissa Meyer reviewed and praised it was definitely an added bonus.

And Marissa Meyer was right. Winterspell is dark. It's gritty, and knowing it was inspired by The Nutcracker rather than being a full retelling, there were a lot of times I was afraid of what would end up happening. Taking inspiration from the story rather than retelling it definitely allowed for so much more to happen.

I initially bought this book during the beginning of the Christmas season with the intention of finishing it by Christmas, but that didn't go quite as planned. I hit a huge reading slump once winter break started and I had a hard time getting rid of it. I worked on Winterspell as much as I could, but unfortunately the beginning was a little too depressing to be able to sit down and read it for long stretches of time.

It got easier to sit down and focus as time went on and I got more invested in all of the characters. There's a lot going on, and as the stakes kept getting worse, I got increasingly worried for Clara. I'm amazed at her growth and how much she was able to endure.

I loved the fact that Winterspell gave a lot more depth to the characters than I'm used to. There's only so much you can fit in a movie or a story for kids before you lose their interest. Legrand added so much to Nicholas and Godfather while still keeping them easily recognizable; and Anise, holy cow, I feel like I probably couldn't talk enough about her.

And the romance! I won't say too much because there was an entire aspect I wasn't expecting, but that was probably my favorite part. Clara's feelings were treated as valid and I am glad that the romances were treated seriously. They weren't treated as frivlous add-ons or as the main part of the storyline; they were key to what was going on, but the romances didn't overtake the stakes.

The worldbuilding was incredible. Everything felt so thought out, from how the magic worked to how it would cause tension between the races and how Anise's rule affected everything. It was interesting to see a story where the faeries were the ones manipulating iron instead of being weakened by it. It created a really interesting dichotomy where the faeries seemed more modern and capitalistic than the humans did.

I feel like there's so much more that I could say, but it's all stuff that surprised me, so I don't want to ruin that for anyone. Winterspell is definitely one of the books where the blurb only scratches the surface.

TL:DR If you like Marissa Meyer's style of writing, this is definitely a great read! The story is dark but it expands on The Nutcracker story even more than I had hoped going into it.

Ultimate Book Tag (via @bookishSC)

Jessica @ Bookish Serendipity did the tag back in June and left an open-ended tag, so I copied down the questions in a post draft. I wrote in most of the answers during the summer and then forgot about it. Which is a good thing, because I was at a complete loss as to what to post today.

So here we go! This is a long post, so I'm sticking it beneath a cut.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

TL;DR Alina's the savior; too bad the Darkling has other plans

TBR: ~ #351

finished 1/11/16

Shadow and Bone has been on my TBR for, like, forever. Not only just my Goodreads one ;; My grandmother bought me a paperback copy back in August when we were in Alexandria, and it took me four months to get around to starting it.

It took me a while to get invested in the story. I liked the premise from the start, but it took me close to halfway through the book to really care for Alina. There was a little too much of Alina being passed around by other peoples' decisions to really get a feel for her as a character.

That said, I liked all of the characters. I appreciate the fact that the Darkling thinks he's doing good for the long run. I feel like I haven't read enough stories recently where the villain really believes they're the hero. I'm glad that Mal also played a big part in the story; I was afraid he would be pushed to the side because of Alina staying in the Little Palace and her decision because of Baghra at her turning point.

The concept of their world is also amazing. (And I love the fact there's a map in my copy. I relied on it a lot. Also, I really wish there was more of Alina being an assistant cartographer, because let me tell you, that alone was what I connected with at first.) I'm really glad that it looks like the subsequent books cover so much more than what we've seen -- just the preview for the next book is ♥o♥ There are so many things that can be explored and I'm excited to see what is to come.

I liked the diversions in what was expected, both from Alina's perspective and from a reader's. There was a good dichotomy between what Alina knew as a resident of the world and what was the truth. There were things that I hadn't considered that ended up being important. Especially in regards to the Grisha.

I definitely want to see more explanation of the concept of the Grisha. Alina didn't have all that much contact with others except for Genya and the few acquaintances she made. I want to know more about the Heartrenders and the other types of Grisha that I can't remember how to spell. I also want to see if there's an explanation to where their powers came from (if that wasn't in Shadow and Bone already; it might have OTL) and more about how they became so important and high-status compared to the normal people of Ravka.

My biggest complaint about Shadow and Bone is the huge sections of narration. I realize that some of it was necessary, since there was a lot to establish and cover, but there were some parts that felt a little more tell over show. Alina narrating everything that happened wasn't very engaging. That said, most of the narration I found a little uninteresting was Alina narrowing down months of repetition and little action into a few pages, so I don't know how else it could have been done.

The last quarter of the book definitely had my attention, and I'm scheming as to how to get my hands on the next book. I might break my library embargo just so I can finish this series. I'm still reeling from how suddenly everything Alina knew wasn't really the truth.

As a final, slightly spoiler-y comment: I like how the climax / "final battle" of sorts felt especially hopeless and that Alina and Mal still managed to turn it in their favor. That period of time where they felt like they had lost completely was the most intense thing. I also liked the diversion that helped them get out of it as well! I really appreciated how they managed to recover from rock-bottom.

TL;DR it took a little while to get invested but it finished strong! The worldbuilding alone is enough to get me to come back tbh, even without the crises Shadow and Bone ended with.

TBR: January 2016

This is my third TBR post! Have I knocked out many of the books? [laughs] Not at all.

I posted a TBR of the books I own at the beginning of November, and a random selection off my general Goodreads TBR back in June. Nothing's actually changed with the latter other than buying one of the books. (Which now gets tacked onto the former's list. My planning skills are a little lacking.)

Of the post from back in November, I did read one of the books and start two others! (I should probably update the older post at some point with links.) I've bought more books I've yet to read, thanks to adventuring with Chris, so I have to add Hotel Ruby and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy onto my owned-TBR.

I passed my library restriction and I'm seriously debating on whether or not to extend it. I really would like to go back and pick up some books I'm more excited about. I think limiting myself to books I own has led me to a reading slump. (That among other things.) 

Of the books I own, I'd like to finish Winterspell and Shadow and Bone this month. Shadow and Bone is very feasible. I'm not too sure about Winterspell since Christmas season is over now ...

Wow, only listing two books really sets the bar low. :c

I want to finish all of the books I own by the end of spring semester so I can get rid of the ones I don't want to keep (and maybe get some money from them?) but this is all dependent on my moods, so ...

And this doesn't even include all the ebooks I downloaded onto my iPod when I first started using Bookbub OTL The majority of those were free, so I don't feel as responsible for reading all of them, but I should work on getting more of them knocked off my TBR.

Reading on my iPod isn't the best, though. Apple iBooks isn't the most user friendly -- probably because my iPod is an older model -- and at this point I only use my iPod when I'm in bed and trying to fall asleep. For a while I read ebooks before falling asleep, but that tended to backfire and keep me up later, and I haven't done it in a while. 

My Goodreads TBR currently sits at 1,567 books. My Goodreads challenge for this year is 53 since that's what I had to knock 2015's down to. (I'm a little bit of a sore loser.) 

Assuming I completed that goal every year for the foreseeable future, and assuming I added no more books, it would take me 29.56 years to reach a TBR of zero. I don't want to reduce my TBR that far, but it would probably help to get it down to something more manageable. 

("What's considered manageable?" you say. My response is [shrug])

Ideally I want to surpass my reading goal, since I've proven that I can read upwards of 75 books a year, but I don't know how feasible that is with school. I don't have five classes I can goof off in anymore :c I haven't even gone back to school yet and I'm already a book behind in my challenge.

My biggest problem is definitely the reading slump I fell into around mid-November. I didn't finish any books in December ;; This is probably the longest time I've gone without finishing a book since I joined Goodreads back in my freshman year. It's a little depressing.

If you guys have any advice on how to get out of a reading slump, please let me know!! I'm so ready for this to be over. I really do want to knock some of my TBR out of the way so I don't feel so guilty about adding even more. 

Goals for 2016

Man, it's difficult to come up with posts when I'm not getting through a backlog of book reviews. (I haven't finished a book in, like, a month. I think I'm going through withdrawal.)

I didn't want to call these "resolutions", since they're nothing ~life-changing~ for me. I've pretty much covered these already in other posts.

Hopefully collecting all of these into one post will feel more ~accountable~, but again, I haven't actually proven if that's actually going to work yet. We'll see.

Photo Diary: Dec 2015

Here's one of the new post series that I'm hoping to use this year! I went adventuring a lot this December, between going to Dallas and hanging out with friends, and I took a lot of pictures I didn't post to social media. 

This one doesn't look so bad, right?

I'm hoping that by starting this post series I'll start taking more photos. I used to take a ton whenever we went places, but I had lower-quality cameras and no real use for the pictures. It can also be a hindrance to the people I'm with when I stop to take pictures without warning them, so I've tried to keep that in mind.

These pictures aren't really in order. I tried to pick 8 to keep up with the number theme I came up with, but I don't know if I'm going to keep with that if I make more of these posts. (The title of the post might also change if I come up with a better name for the series.)

16 Anticipated New Books of 2016

You might be thinking, "ha, that's so original, matching the number to the year", but I swear I have a better reason for it than that! I've decided that 8 will my "my number", so to speak. I'm hopefully going to be incorporating the number 8 a lot in upcoming posts. (Whether or not I actually do it is still up in the air, because if anything, I am indecisive and lazy.)

Anyway, onto the post!

I got bored one day and sorted out my Goodreads TBR a little bit. I created shelves for books being published in 2016 or 2017, since at first glance I have trouble remembering book birthdays if I haven't read them yet. I went through this year's and picked some out!

(As a side note, a lot of the books I've shelved don't have specific publishing dates up yet or have changed since I last reviewed the lists, so they're not perfect. I'm going to check them periodically to keep them as updated as I can.)

This list was supposed to be split 50-50, but I figured that disadvantaged some debut / new-ish authors I haven't had the chance to read yet.

These are only ordered by when I added them to the post. I only numbered them because I kept losing track of how many books I had listed already. In other words: number does not equal priority. This is also not a complete list of all the books I'm excited for! I tried to keep it at a reasonable number.