December ’19 wrap up and January TBR

Good morning bookworms! It’s time for the final monthly wrap-up for 2019, the December wrap-up!

During December I read an excessive amount of books. For me. A grand total of 18 books, which is definitely my highest monthly total for the year!! This mostly had to do with Sam @ Fictionally Sam’s Mrs Claus’ Readathon, but also probably to do with the sheer number of romance novels I devoured (why can’t I read fantasy this quickly?!*).

Book	Author	Series	Format	Rating (/5)	Cover
Masterson	Lisa Lang Blakeney	The Fixer #1	eBook	3
Masterson Unleashed	Lisa Lang Blakeney	The Fixer #2	eBook	3
Masterson in Love	Lisa Lang Blakeney	The Fixer #3	eBook	3
The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky	Mackenzi Lee	Montague Siblings #1.5	Hardcover	3.5
Someday, Someday	Emma Scott		eBook	4.5
Call Her Mine	Melissa Foster	Harmony Pointe #1	eBook	4.5
The (Alien) Nanny For Christmas	Amanda Milo		eBook	2.5
Falcon	Michelle Heard	Trinity Academy #1	eBook	4
Mason	Michelle Heard	Trinity Academy #2	eBook	4
Lake	Michelle Heard	Trinity Academy #3	eBook	4
Million Dollar Devil	Katy Evans	Million Dollar #1	eBook	2.5
Pucked	Helena Hunting	Pucked #1	eBook	4
The Wall of Winnipeg and Me	Mariana Zapata		eBook	4.5
Pretty Reckless	L. J. Shen	All Saints High #1	eBook	3
In the Unlikely Event	L. J. Shen		eBook	3
The Girl Who Steals Christmas	C. G. Drews	The Boy Who Steals Houses #0.5	eBook	5
A Heart So Fierce and Broken	Brigid Kemmerer	Cursebreakers #2	Paperback	5
Pumpkinheads	Rainbow Rowell		Graphic Novel	4

I have to say, my favourite book last month was A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kemmerer. It’s not a total surprise, and I am halfway through my review for it already, which is coming in the next couple of days. So if you enjoyed A Curse So Dark and Lonely last year, or you’re yet to read it, please add this book/series to your TBR, you will not regret it!!

However, HUGE CONGRATS to C. G. Drews who managed to make me bawl my eyes out while at the car wash, with her smol prequel story of Moxie and the De Lainey family. I haven’t had emotions like that in public for a long time. I had to stop reading and wait for my car with tears streaming down my face…

* I am fully aware of why I can’t read fantasy this quickly, and it’s because I like to have a good grasp on the world-building, which is often more done than romance!!

This is the year, friends. The year that I AM going to get through 75 books on my backlist (and also try not to increase the number of books on it simultaneously…)! I am only putting 5 books each month on a dedicated TBR, so I can still mood read and shop around a bit!!

The Of Wonderland Book Club theme for January is Owned Books II, so this works out very well for me!!

I’ve also been adding some new/different emojis for you all!! So, my TBR for January is as follows.

? physical book | ? ebook | ? audiobook
? comic / graphic novel | ?‍♀️ buddy read | ✳️ reread
⚔️ fantasy | ⛱ contemporary | ☄️ sci-fi | ? historical fiction
❤️ romance | ? crime / mystery | ? horror / thriller
? Beat the Backlist | ⏰ ARC / review copy | ? Of Wonderland

• Red Glove – Holly Black ? ?‍♀️ ⚔️ ? ?
• The Night Country – Melissa Albert ? ⚔️ ⏰ ?
• A Darker Shade of Magic – V. E. Schwab ? ⚔️ ? ?
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January – Alix E. Harrow ? ⚔️ ? ?
• Private Princess – James Patterson ? ? ? ?

I didn’t really post anything that earth shattering during December…

I did participate in BookEnding Winter though (not as a host) which was a lot of fun, as per usual. My three posts were:

• Ways a Villain Could Ruin the Holidays
• Weasley Jumper book tag
• All I Want For Christmas…

I caught up on blog-hopping during December (thank goodness), but I think I accidentally deleted my list of fave posts… (awks…) So, these are some of my faves that I saw:

• Isabelle @ Bookwyrm Bites wrote a discussion post on whether literary tropes and predictability are bad things (and I don’t think they are)
• Veronika @ Wordy and Whimsical wrote a great post that feature great books with not-so-great covers
• Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane talked about the stress of NEEDING TO READ ALL OF THE BOOKS. Which, let’s be honest, is freaking intense!

Also, another version of the Spicy Pumpkin Latte tag floating around that I wanted to share them with you!

• Charlotte @ Bewitching Books, Ravishing Reads

It seriously brings me no end of joy that this smol child of mine is still out there. If you have also done this and I haven’t given you a shout out, then please let me know!

*NOTE* I’m not trying to be preachy or anything here, but if you don’t want to know about the Aussie bushfires, or this may trigger something for you, please feel free to skip this section.

Well, the biggest thing for Australia at the moment is the horrendous bushfires. In case you can’t tell (?) these are taking up a lot of my brain power as I worry for friends and family, but also the damage that this is doing to our country and the wildlife. Here’s some stats:

• Fires this season started on 11 November 2019 and are still burning.
• We have lost almost 6 million hectares of land to fires.
• Koalas, other wildlife and vegetation will not only be considered endangered, but technically ‘extinct’ by the time the fires are out.
• As at Christmas day, 14 people had been killed, including 2 volunteer firefighters.
• There have been over 2,500 buildings destroyed, including homes, businesses and historic sites.
• The smoke covering a lot of our cities and towns is up to 11 times worse than what is considered hazardous for humans to breathe.

Now here’s some comparisons for you, that may put into perspective why some of us are screaming so much:

• 6 million hectares is a lot. When the Amazon rainforest went up earlier this year (due to farmers wanting more land to farm on) the Amazon lost 0.9 million hectares. I’m not saying this is nothing, because it really isn’t, but people pledged millions of dollars internationally to support saving vegetation and animals when this occurred.
• 6 million hectares is bigger than a lot of countries. The closest I could find in comparable size is Croatia, which is 5.6 million hectares. We have lost more land to fires in less than two months than the size of some of YOUR countries:
  • Slovakia (4.9m ha)
  • Estonia (4.5m ha)
  • Denmark (4.3m ha)
  • The Netherlands (4.2m ha)
  • Switzerland  (4.1m ha)
  • Belgium (3m ha)
• For our US friends, it’s the equivalent of losing almost all of West Virginia (6.2m ha). And we would have lost the following states twice:
  • Hawaii (2.8m ha)
  • Massachusetts (2.7m ha)
  • Vermont (2.5m ha)
  • New Hampshire (2.4m ha)
  • New Jersey (2.3m ha).

Yes, Australia is huge. We’re the 6th largest country in the world in terms of land mass. And 5 million hectares isn’t even 1% of our land. However, like most of the world’s largest countries, like Russia, Canada and China, a large proportion of Australia is actually unliveable. The parts that are on fire, are the parts where we live.

The part that probably upsets us most is that a lot of people are just kind of shrugging, saying this is “typical Aussie bushfires”. Despite fires being “normal” as part of an Aussie summer, these fires are NOT normal. The last time there were fires this bad was in 1974, and only 3.4 million hectares of land was lost, primarily not where people were living.

On top of all this, Australia has been in drought since 2017. Our scientists are on record saying this is the worst drought in the recorded history of Australia. The parts most heavily affected are south Queensland, New South Wales/ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, and eastern South Australia. Coincidentally (?), these are all of the places currently on fire.

So, that’s basically the situation right now. I’m fortunate, the closest fire to me so far has been about 20km (12.4 miles). My mum’s farm has had some closer calls, but we’re all doing ok at the moment. THANK YOU to everyone who has checked in, sent prayers and wishes. Keep your fingers crossed that we get some rain soon, and some relief for the firefighters who have been working their butts off for the last two months.

How was your December?