November and December 2020 wrap-up

Hello bookworms!! Welcome to the November AND December 2020 wrap-up. Because I didn’t get organised enough to publish the November one and now it’s two thirds of the way through January and I haven’t even done the full 2020 wrap-up yet. Because what even is being organised in this day and age???

Honestly, I barely even remember what happened last week, let alone two months ago. I’m pretty sure all I did was watch Julie and the Phantoms a bunch of times (yes, again), and maybe a bunch of Christmas movies.

So, let’s get this show on the road.

I read VERY little in November and December. In fact, December was my lowest read month of the year, with only TWO books. I would be ashamed, but I had already hit my annual goal in October, so it’s fine.

I was planning to finish my NEWTs by the end of December, but honestly I just kind of stopped tracking things… and I don’t think I read anything that matches any of the prompts I had left. But I’m not too concerned as I was only finishing to support Gintare.

Book	Author	Series	Symbols	Rating	Cover
Kiss My Cupcake	Helena Hunting		❤️ ? ?‍? ?	4
Love Her or Lose Her	Tessa Bailey	Hot and Hammered #2	❤️ ? ?‍? ?	4
A Lesson in Thorns	Sierra Simone	Thornchapel #1	❤️ ♿️ ? ?‍? ? ?	5
Feast of Sparks	Sierra Simone	Thornchapel #2	❤️ ? ♿️ ? ?‍? ? ?	4
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories	Holly Black	The Folk of the Air #3.5	⚔️ ? ?‍♀️ ?	5
Crave	Tracy Wolff	Crave #1	❤️ ? ? ?‍♀️ ?	3
Spoiler Alert	Olivia Dade	Spoiler Alert #1	❤️ ? ? ?‍? ? ?	5

Favourite book for November was undoubtedly How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories. It wasn’t what I was hoping for – there’s less Jude and Cardan bits together in it. However, the story it tells from Cardan’s life is really interesting. I love the way that Holly Black tells it like it’s a fairytale as well.

In December my favourite book was Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade. I loved the body positive story, and the social commentary on how people shouldn’t have to change themselves. Plus it had a lot of super cute nerdy parts as well.

General

I actually have no idea what I did in either November or December. I took off work from 25 December to the end of the year.

Gaming

While I didn’t read a lot of books, I did play a lot of video games. I mostly played The Sims new expansion pack, Snowy Escape. The pack came out on 13 November, and I had a lot of fun with it, but there’s still lots to explore.

Of course there was a lot of Animal Crossing going on as well. I’m about 3 deep sea creatures off having the entire diving collection, which is so good.

I have exciting news for D&D too. We’re starting a new campaign in January, so I’ll be really excited to

TV and movies

Things I watched in November were:

• The Witcher (season 1)
• Man of Steel (rewatch)
• The Queen’s Gambit
• Long Way Up
• Stranger Things (season 1-3)
• The Mandalorian (season 2, episodes 1-5)
• Dash and Lily (season 1) ?
• Pride and Prejudice (2010 movie, rewatch x2)
• Julie and the Phantoms ??? (season 1, rewatch x 2)

Things I watched in December were:

• Virgin River (season 2)
• What Men Want
• The Madalorian (season 2 episodes 6-8)
• Midnight at the Magnolia ?
• She’s the Man (rewatch)
• Julie and the Phantoms ??? (season 1, rewatch)
• Wild Child (rewatch)
• Christmas Wonderland ?
• Klaus ?
• Bridgerton (season 1)

Yes, after watching Julie and the Phantoms twice in October, I watched it twice more in November, and then again in December. I am so completely in love with this show.

I am also now hopelessly addicted to Bridgerton. It was SO GOOD!!

Of all the Christmassy stuff I watched (and continued to watch in January), I have to say Klaus is absolutely the best – hands down. There isn’t even a spark of competition. I bawled my eyes out SO HARD. It’s just such a beautiful movie and love and friendship and HOPE. I’m tearing up just thinking about it.

Music

Apart from Taylor Swift dropping evermore out of the blue, I basically just listened to the Julie and the Phantoms playlist on repeat. Actually, there was a point to it. I got really annoyed that Spotify put out the “Your top songs of 2020” at the start of December, so I wanted to see if I could change them.

I listened to Unsaid Emily on repeat for almost the whole month to see if I could change my top sing of 2020. Let me tell you now, the data doesn’t change. EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A WHOLE MONTH LEFT.

Obviously this really annoyed me. However, I can now listen to Unsaid Emily without crying while belting it out. So, silver linings!!

Top 5 Tuesday had a lot of topics, but my faves in November and December were:

• Books I’m glad I read
• Books with disability representation
• Top 5 Tuesday wrap-up
• Books of 2020

I was also a host for BookEnding Winter in 2020!! I was so happy because we haven’t had a BookEnding Event for a while and I missed it so much!! My topics were:

• Under the Mistletoe
• Christmas Down Under
• Box It Up
• Winter Vacation

Writing these posts made me realise how much fun I have writing my own content, so I’m hoping I can set some time aside to do that more often this year. ?

These are some of my fave posts from your blogs in November and December:

• Sabrina at Wordy and Whimsical matched book recommendations to things like tv shows and video games
• Veronika at Wordy and Whimsical made recommendations based on her favourite albums
• Evelyn at Evelyn Reads checked her progress of the 100 best fantasies according to Time Magazine
• Marie at Drizzle and Hurricane Books listed underrated YA books to add to your TBR
• Katie at Never Not Reading wrote about not judging people for what they love to read
• Kat at Novels and Waffles listed 5 recommendations to get you out of a slump
• CG at Paperfury listed books she hoped to read before the end of 2020, AND 10 new favourite authors
• Sabrina and Vera at Wordy and Whimsical made a recommendation list based on Taylor Swift’s evermore

There were also a few anticipated book lists for 2021 (thanks for adding to my TBR!!):

• Rain at Book Dragonism listed her 25 most anticipated releases
• Kristin at Kristin Kraves Books made two anticipated lists: a YA romance list, and an adult romance list
• Marie at Drizzle and Hurricane Books listed 28 anticipated YA books

Plus there were some great ‘best books of 2020’ posts that I loved (with more to come in January):

• Kay at Hammock of Books shared her favourites of 2020 list
• Katie at Never Not Reading made a best middle grade list of 2020
• Sabrina and Vera at Wordy and Whimsical did a best of list for YA books and adult books

How was your end of year?