Cute YA rom-com set in NYC over Christmas and New Years. I watched the Netflix adaptation last year, and it is a faithful adaptation, though I think the show did improve upon the book. The main characters and side characters all felt a bit more real and charming in the show (may need to rewatch this year!). Love the role that The Strand bookstore plays in both. 7 hours for #WinterGames #TeamGameSleigher and #LittenListen

Flying solo tonight as my SO is back to work for the next 2 weeks, so taking advantage of the alone time for a book and bath. I started our team read a couple days ago but finally getting some time to dig into to it. I love cooking shows (my guilty pleasure!), so this book‘s premise is right up my alley!

While in the bath, I‘m also planning on updating the pink in may hair since it‘s been fading for a few months.

#WinterGames #TeamGameSleigher

Good news from the doctor today! My tibial fracture has healed enough to ditch the knee brace, and I can start weaning myself off the crutches.

Took an early day from work after my doctors appointment and celebrating by finally watching The Beatles Get Back documentary on Disney+ (sadly my SO doesn‘t appreciate the Beatles like I do, so I‘ve been waiting for him to go back to work so I can fully indulge without him).

Another great entry in this historical romance series. My favorite book is #2, but I liked this one better than #1. Not at all holiday themed (takes place during the summer). I started it at the end of November, but it is my first #WinterGames #TBR read. Whoop 🙌🏼

#TeamGameSleighers

Posting my “Actually Good Christmas Songs” playlist for #DecemberChill. Full disclosure, I do NOT like Christmas music. I get annoyed that every store and radio station starts blasting holiday songs by mid-November.

That said, there are some holiday and XMAS-adjacent songs I actually like, compiled here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0FEyw1YEuOaHQNBAhW10OW?si=RjdmnEg0S5KqkIiqMxtk...

#WinterGames #TeamGameSleighers

Great Kindle deal today on a delightful holiday book!

#WinterGames

Preliminary #TBR for #WinterGames. These are all books I already have on my Kindle, Audible, or Hoopla account. Not including my #BookSpinBingo board that I haven‘t set up yet (TBD). Thankful I won The Holiday Swap from a Goodreads giveaway recently! #TeamGameSleighers

 @StayCurious @Clwojick

Ugh I just realized it is the 29th and #DecemberChill is only 5 days away. Is it feasible I can listen to 19 more hours of Doctor Zhivago before then? Eek! 😬

 @Cinfhen @BarbaraBB

White out conditions driving back from our staycation in Homer, AK this Sunday morning. Thankfully we are out of the storm now, but we did have to pause our audiobook briefly when the blizzard was at its worst so that my bf could concentrate on driving.

Been really enjoying listening to Bourdain narrate his memoir. I‘d read it before many years ago but my bf suggested we listen on our road trip since we recently watched Roadrunner (documentary).

Probably would have skipped if I didn‘t need to choose my free BOTY this month. I won The Holiday Swap from a Goodreads giveaway, which is what I would have picked otherwise. The tagged book I picked does sound interesting, so I am looking forward to it. I already have all of the other BOTY choices, so this was the only one for me to really choose.

Spending a long thanksgiving weekend with my sister @Saknicole and got my birthday present from her a week later. We now have matching GoF shirts, which (of course) we wore today to match ⚡️

Received my #BOTM box yesterday, just in time for my birthday. Tagged book was my free birthday add-on for this month. I‘ve not had a lot of reading progress this month, but my bf left this morning to return to work, so I am going to try to take advantage of the alone time to focus on reading this week.

I won‘t be reading tonight, as I will be having some girlfriends over for cake, pizza, wine, and a Hamilton viewing!

These are all books I have recently won from Goodreads giveaways. Ive also won a few straight to Kindle books. I had no idea how good the chances are to win these giveaways…if I had known I would have started entering years ago!

My bf keeps questioning me about getting more books in the mail, and I have to convince him it‘s okay because they are free!

I didn‘t even bother to post my final bingo card for October, because I didn‘t end up finishing my BookSpin or DoubleSpin, and only hit three squares.

For November and December my sincere goal is to catch up on BOTM backlist on my shelves. My free spots will be for library borrows and audiobooks. My BookSpin will be The Lincoln Highway (definitely excited) and Infinite Country (which is very short).

#BookSpinBingo

Final points tally for #Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix. Lots of media consumed this weekend, finishing the word searches, and logging some more readathon hours with my audiobook listening helped me increase my points this week. I didn‘t end up reading quite as much as I had hoped, but I am okay with that since my October really got disrupted by my medical issues and traveling. Super fun to participate again, thank you to @Clwojick and @StayCurious !

Made 5 bingo lines with the audiobooks I read this month for #LittenListen and #Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix.

Liked, did not love. I just really didn‘t connect with the main character Marie. But the setting and premise were definitely interesting. Audio might not have been the best option for this book for me.

All movies and TV shows I watched over the Halloween weekend for #Scarathlon2021. Muppets Haunted Mansion was the only thing I hadn‘t seen before, and it was very cute! #TeamHendrix

I know some people have asked about how I am doing after breaking my knee last Monday, so here is an update now that I am back home and have seen the ortho. We were able to remove the plaster cast that was put on in France and replace with a brace that will slowly allow me more mobility on my knee. Thankful that surgery was not required, though I will still be immobile for awhile. Watching Halloween movies and finishing this book today 🎃

Happy (almost) Halloween! #Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix

Honestly, if November wasn‘t my birthday month I probably would have skipped. I am interested in the book I chose, but it‘s one I probably would have waited to get from the library. What I am excited for is my add-on birthday gift In The Weeds. I‘ve seen great reviews for this memoir and I heard the author speak on a podcast. Huge fan of Bourdain‘s writing and shows, so I am really looking forward to reading this one!

Sorry for the late tally, but here are my totals for week 2 & 3 combined. Due to a medical emergency last week, things got derailed quite a bit, but I did get caught up on some reading and still managed to log over a thousand points. Hoping for a more successful week 4! #Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix

I originally started reading this in 2019 when the hype was high, and found my interest waning pretty early in. I picked up again last summer during the pandemic and made it about 1/3. It wasn‘t until this summer that I started reading again in earnest, and I recently finished on a 9 hour flight. My review was a so-so for most of the book, but it did redeem itself at the end when all the storylines finally came together to push it to a slight pick

Another audiobook victim of my poor attention span recently. This was a Gaiman-esque fairy tale. I‘ve loved others by Schwab, so I am hoping this was just a outlier for me. I might have enjoyed it better as a book, since I had a hard time getting into the narration. The narrator sounded like a 49 year old woman narrating a teenager in the first person. This audiobook edition also included The Ash Born Boy novella. #AuthorAMonth @Soubhiville

Starting the #TeamHendrix #Scarathlon2021 team read!

Before my accident that afternoon, I was able to visit the iconic Parisian bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. As you can see, there was a long line of people waiting to get in, so I didn‘t actually go inside (was intending on coming back later at a less busy time). I did still enjoy myself looking though the various boxes of damaged books that were free to take.

My so-so rating on this book is severely impacted by my being frequently distracted while listening to the audiobook. For whatever reason, I wasn‘t able to fully devote my attention to it. So I think it had a lot of potential that I just wasn‘t able to appreciate. Would love to try it again sometime. I think it is a perfect listen for October, with the Victorian era haunted house gothic vibe.

I wanted to love this modern fairy tale retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but it did leave me feeling a bit flat, which may have been due to the abbreviated novella length of the story.

Zinnia is the victim of an environmental disaster and suffers from a rare and lethal genetic disorder as a result. Obsessed with Sleeping Beauty, she finds herself transported to an alternate reality after pricking her finger on a spindle on her 21st birthday.

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to wish me well on my last post! I wish I could respond to everyone individually. As inconvenient and unlucky as it has been to break my leg while here, I am still thankful that the accident wasn‘t worse and that I am not in much pain. Also shoutout to socialized European healthcare, as I did not have to pay a cent for the ambulance and emergency room visit.

Here‘s a pic of us at the Eiffel Tower!

Well, I wish I were sharing better news, but I am currently nursing a broken leg in my hotel in Paris. I had an accident on a scooter yesterday, which resulted in a very long excursion to the hospital and a cast from thigh to toes. On the bright side, I did manage to visit Shakespeare and Company yesterday before the accident, and will post some pics later. I am pretty immobilized right now, so thankful I have my Kindle and iPad for company.

This was a great reread/first-time listen. I really loved this book when I read it 4-5 years ago. I saw the abridged audiobook with full cast recording was available on Hoopla and thought it would be a great option for spooky season. I didn‘t mind it being abridged, since I‘d read the book before, and I was still surprised a few times since I didn‘t remember all the details of the plot.

#Scarathlon2021 #Screamathon #LittenListen #TeamHendrix

Here are my Week 1 point totals. I listened to 2 books: 14 total hours x 3 readathons (#Scarathlon, #LittenListen, #Screamathon), watched 19 episodes of scary/spooky shows, posted a few days of the Scarathlon #PhotoChallenge, and scored a bunch of words from the week 1 word scramble challenge!

Week 1 total: 33295 points

#Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix

This is one of our favorite shows to watch in my home. Watched three episodes this week, one of which involved another supernatural creature: the siren. Highly recommend this show for people who aren‘t a huge fan of horror and would prefer to laugh at vampires rather than be scared of them.

#Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix @StayCurious

Finished all 7 episodes of this fantastic series, from Mike Flanagan, who also did the two Haunting series for Netflix. At first, you sense there is something off about the community and one of its newcomers, then becomes obvious that something more sinister is at play, and by the finale things have devolved into outright terror and violence. I was really not expecting the twist about halfway, and the balance of emotion/horror worked well.

Lots of #Murder in this Shakespeare play: the old king, Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude, Leartes, and eventually Hamlet himself. And another one with ghosts!

#Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix #PhotoChallenge

Catching up on #Scarathlon2021 #PhotoChallenge posts. I think that Macbeth fits very well for the #Haunted theme, since the title character is quite literally haunted by the ghosts of victims of his crimes. These are all different copies I have in my office library.

#TeamHendrix

I didn‘t love this one as much as Magic Lessons, but it was a very sweet book nonetheless. I loved the time period and getting to experience the journey through life and love of Franny, Jet, and Vincent, as they try to circumvent the magic curse established by their ancestor, Maria Owens.

#Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix #Screamathon #LittenListen #BookSpinBingo

The copy I ordered from Thriftbooks finally arrived yesterday! Hoping to start (and finish 🤞🏼) this weekend!

#Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix #Screamathon #ScarePairs #PhotoChallenge #Zombie

My bf sent this to me. I think a lot of my fellow Littens can appreciate. 🧦🧤🧣

*Not a review for the tagged book.

Finished all 9 episodes of Squid Game this week. My bf and I got totally sucked into this series and binged the whole thing in two days. It is extremely violent, in the vein of Oldboy, Snowpiercer, and The Hunger Games, so it is not for the faint of heart, but you really come to care for the core characters. Episode 6 really broke my heart!

#Scarathlon2021 #TeamHendrix

First book finished for #Scarathlon2021 and #Screamathon. One of the better “Very Short Introductions” I‘ve listened to. Primarily focused on the Black Death, but includes a broad history of plagues, including ancient and more modern plagues are discussed. Counting this as a spooky read since it goes into the supernatural explanations for disease and descriptions of the nastier symptoms and remedies.

#TeamHendrix #LittenListen #BookSpinBingo

Finally getting around to posting my October #Bookspin. Lots of spooky reads on their for #Scarathlon2021. I‘ve already finished one audiobook in October, which I still need to posta review for.

#TeamHendrix

I was busy at work today, so I wasn‘t bothered by the fb/insta outages, but I didn‘t enjoy this post on social media today 🤣

💁🏽‍♀️

Final September #BookSpin results. Did not get any bingos, but I did finish both my BookSpin (Once There Were Wolves) and DoubleSpin (Someone to Hold) books.

My top reads of September were Beautiful World, Where Are You, Magic Lessons, and The Love Hypothesis (not on my bingo card).

Now to finalize my October card!

This was such a sweet rom-com! Appropriate amount of build-up before things got sexy, the MC has a life outside of her romantic plot, the setting was unique and well-drawn (grad school/world of academia), and the banter-writing was *chef‘s kiss*. While the fake dating premise did border on unbelievable a few times, the MC acknowledges the silliness of the situation they have gotten themselves into, and the self-awareness made it work for me.

By the end, I was borderline hate-reading this. I really enjoyed the first half of the book which focused on Inti‘s work re-wilding wolves in rural Scotland and her dealing with the politics of that in the local community. Things really started to go off the rails when the book became a murder mystery and dwelled in trauma porn. Inti‘s “mirror-touch” disorder was a lazy plot device that was used to excuse the extremely stupid decisions she made.

These are all potential #TBR for #Scarathlon and #Screamathon options from my Kindle library. Some of these will also end up on my October #Bookspin.