Books of 2019

The Best and Worst Books of 2019

I don't feel like making two separate lists, so I'm just going to put the top 5 best and top 5 worst books that I've read all in this one post. :) Also, I know the year isn't really finished yet, but I don't really foresee me finishing many more books before the new year strikes. The ones I am reading I pretty much can tell won't be on either of these lists.

BEST BOOKS OF 2019

Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahurin

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 

Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward

The Burning Shadow by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Circe by Madeline Miller

WORST BOOKS OF 2019

Dearest Ivie by J.R. Ward

Henry IV, Part 2 by William Shakespeare

Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka

The Shadows by J.R. Ward

Mr. Burns by Anne Washburn

Some notes:
1. These are not listed in any order; they just are the five for each category.
2. I had to read a lot of plays for school last spring... I'm not really a huge play-reading lover.
3. The "Worst" list was hard to do because I did like some of the books on that list. They just ended up being the least-liked for the year.

Thanks for reading!

2019 Wrap-Up

2019 Wrap-Up

(Everything This Year That Will Hopefully Help Organize The Future A little Bit at Least)

So my last post was April 26, 2019, and that blows my mind. It seems so odd that I've spent so much time away from the blog, and yet I can also 100% believe that because this (writing) feels hella weird. All this post is going to be is, essentially, me just running through my thoughts as they come and trying to holistically look at my year and start to piece together how I may want 2020 to go. So if you're looking for straight up bookish things or pop culture stuff... sorry. Not the post for you. Please poke around and check back later for those things. This one's mostly just for me.


Looking at my 2019 New Year's Resolution, I think I actually did pretty alright by those standards that I laid out for myself. There were three main resolutions that I wrote about, and while I can comfortably say I failed at the second one (journaling), I did a pretty bang up job with the other two, especially the third. Some observations though:

1) I don't do well with a lack of structure. Resolutions 1 and 3 both left a lot of room for interpretation, and while I do think I did a fairly decent job with them, I wonder if I could have done more if I had set out hard, objective means to measure things by. For example, Res. 1 was to be more creative. Well, clearly that wasn't through blogging. However, I did finish writing a novel, so like... holy **** am I right?! And that's super exciting, and I'm onto the next steps of editing and looking for agents, but again, what else could have happened if I had been more organized with my time? More purposeful? I am especially running into this problem now with the holiday break because I don't have a super structured routine right now. It just feels weird and I don't really like it.


2) I want to hold myself to higher standards and more accountability. This ties into the last point. While I have come a long way from where I was last year, I want to grow further still. 2019 moved fast in a lot of ways; but it also moved rather leisurely in other areas of my life. While that was nice and all, I think it's time to pick up the tempo and get back on the horse. I want to lay out goals. I want to set timelines and deadlines for myself. I don't want to just feel like I've grown in my life, but I want to be able to touch and see that growth as well.


3) I do need to give myself some slack because a lot has happened this year. Personally, academically, vocationally, family-wise, medically... you name it, it likely shifted for me. For one thing, I finished my undergraduate degree and proceeded to seek more education. There were a lot of little and large things in addition to this that, overall, made 2019... what's the word... tumultuous. And I don't necessarily mind that, because I'd rather have things shaken up so that I'm not bored, or to have things be crazy so that they can resettle where they need to be, but I want to grapple with 2020 a bit more forcefully than I have 2019. I want to be able to say I accomplished things and oh-by-the-way thing x was happening at the same time, or oh-yeah that was when thing y was going on.

4) Now what? Where to go from here... Well, this post feels good, like I've started to walk back up a mountain I'd been sliding down. Just dusting off some cobwebs and wondering where to go next. I'll keep thinking about what I want out of 2020, and I'll maybe do another post about that. For the immediate now, I think I'm going to write some reviews and get back into the swing of things. :):):) Super exciting (for me at least lol), so here we go!


This post is vague in general, but like I said, this was another one mostly just for me. If you read it and could relate in any way or to any part, great! I'm glad, and I hope you enjoyed reading it or that it made you think or something. If not, thanks for stopping by anyway. :)

Thanks for reading!

Tea Update

All About the Tea

No, not the gossip sort of tea... the actual tea that you brew and drink out of an adorable mug.

As much as I love to talk about books, I realized that I haven't really addressed the other element in this blog's title in ages. So, here's a tea update!

I drink tea very regularly. Lately, I have definitely been drinking more coffee than tea because of school and necessary caffeine levels (also accessibility), but I still drink a fair amount of tea. I definitely drink more tea than I think the average American does. Hopefully though, I can go back to drinking more tea than coffee once the school year ends.

What kinds of teas do I drink?
I drink a wide variety of tea from green teas to herbal and black teas, iced tea, hot tea, tea flavored foods, pretty much anything. Whenever I com across a new kind of tea, I'm almost always down to try it. The exceptions to this is really only when it looks like it will have a large taste of chamomile in it or if the taste is something that a tea should not taste like, for example, tomato mint tea (I just looked it up, that's a thing, ew). I'm adventurous, but not that adventurous. As for the chamomile, I just have never liked the taste of chamomile for some reason, which is a little crazy to think about when you think about how common it is to see chamomile tea in stores and in other teas.


Which are my favorite teas?
Here are some of my go-to teas: Sleepytime green tea, Apple Cinnamon herbal tea, English Breakfast Tea, Irish Breakfast Tea, Blueberry tea, and Peppermint tea. Of those teas, the two breakfast teas are from Twinings and everything else is from Celestial Seasonings. My miracle tea though would be the Apple Cinnamon one. I drink it when my throat tickles, when I'm really sick, when I'm super tired or stressed, or pretty much whenever there's a thing that needs to get fixed in my life, and I swear this tea makes everything better.

When do I drink tea?
Mostly from 3 p.m. onward right now. I'll grab a cup of Blueberry tea or Cinnamon Apple tea after school or something like that, and they're caffeine free so I'm still able to sleep at night. When I'm not drinking gallons of coffee in the morning though, I was drinking and plan to restart drinking the breakfast teas in the morning. A friend of mine got me addicted to a certain fixing of breakfast tea, so when I have the time I really love putting together a cup of tea like that. But if I only have a quick sec to read between one event and another, I'm very likely to make a quicker tea to drink while getting in a quick read.



Thanks for reading!
(P.S. Please excuse grammar errors in this post- I really need to write a paper and didn't copy edit this)

My Bookish and Bloggish Update

Updates on the Things

March 2019 Edition

It's been much too long since I've written a blog post, and I miss it. I feel like I say this a lot honestly. And looking back at my new year's resolution to give more time to myself, I don't know whether I should take this lack of writing as a sign that I am giving myself more time to just be, or if it's the opposite and I don't have enough time to just be and write. Just some interesting food for thought while I'm in class.

This year though has been pretty amazing so far if I do say so myself. I've traveled to Minneapolis, Sioux Falls, and London. (Yes- LONDON London! Not London, Ohio or some shit like that. THE London, as in London, England. More of that in a later post.) I've done a lot of great work at school, which I'm really proud of. I'm not talking about papers there either, but the extracurricular stuff. Although, I've also done a lot of really important academic things as well, especially in regard to preparing for school next year (<-- intentionally vague; just roll with it).

So this year's already been incredibly full and busy, but of course, in the best ways possible. But now the important part: what I've been reading.


I'm in quite a few play classes this semester oddly enough. There is a grand total of three of my five classes that have to do with plays and drama, one of which is, shocker, a Shakespeare class. But because of this, I've been reading so many more plays than what I'm used to. Some of which are really obscure, even by academic standards as one of my professors likes to point out. I've also read some really common plays though, like The Glass Menagerie and Romeo and Juliet (the one I'm actually reading now).

I like it. I don't think I will suddenly become a huge reader of drama, but I think I'll definitely be more open to picking up a play every now and then or using one to break up a reading cycle. Maybe at the end of my course I'll put together a list of recommended plays. Who knows? It may be fun to do.

In terms of other books that I'm reading for fun... oh boy. Very tragically, I haven't had as much time to read for fun so far this year. I've devoured the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward- more reviews will come, I promise- but other than that, it's been hard to find the time to just sit and read a solid book. I've dabbled in some Goodreads book clubs, like Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf where there was the anthology, The Things I Would Tell You edited by Sabrina Mahfouz. Side note: FANTASTIC read. I really want to do a whole post on that anthology. Back to the readings though, I am so behind. At least, I feel behind. I really want to just find more time to read and engage in the current books and the book community.


I hope everyone else's years are going well so far, both in terms of reading and everything else. We're a quarter through 2019! Which as I'm typing this is making me cringe, but whatever!

Thanks for reading!

BDB Series by J.R. Ward-- Review of Books 10-12

Reviews of Books 10-12 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood Series by J.R. Ward

I'm almost completely caught up with the series at this point!!! I still have to read Prisoner of Night, but I'm done with everything else, including the Black Dagger Legacy books that are currently out. It feels a bit like I've been marathon-reading, but it has been a fun time in the process. I rated these next three all with four stars on Goodreads, but I think overall The King may have been my favorite out of this set?

Lover Reborn (Tohr and Autumn)
This book was definitely a high three start or a low four star rating for me. I was thrilled when Tohr first came back and all, but I just felt like the connection wasn't as strong with him and Autumn as Ward has shown other characters in the past. I'm not sure if it just took too long to get to this part of Tohr's arc, or if he was generally underdeveloped post-Wellsie's death, but it felt off. I also did not like how he essentially picked Autumn's new name for her. It was supposed to be a cute romantic moment, but it rubs me the wrong way.



Lover at Last (Quinn and Blay)

I think everyone saw this one comng from a mile away, which makes the title absolutely perfect. It was about f***ing time that these two realized they should be together. It was almost painful to see them try to resolve the tension between them in any way that wasn't a relationship. It was so natural to seem them come together by the end. They're such perfect balancing points to each other. I will say though that plot-wise, I cannot remember what else happened in this book, which I think says something bout content quality for it because I can remember all the other books.


The King (Wrath and Beth)
As mentioned, of these three books this one is my favorite, mostly just because I think Wrath is hilarious and I love how Wrath and Beth work as a couple. Now, this book I already remember enjoying for the political events happening in the story. Yes, there is relationship drama between the main characters for this book, but it is such a pivotal moment of where the society and where the series goes politically. I thought it was so well handled and it combined these two elements of the book wonderfully.

Because I am so caught up now, I will hopefully have the posts for books 13-16 and maybe even the Black Dagger Legacy books up very soon. These books are just so much fun to read, I can't seem to stop even to write a post. :)

Lastly, this is completely random, but I've looked back at some of my recent headlines and I think they sound hilariously stupid. Just enough to make me laugh and wonder what I was thinking, but I still acknowledge that some of them just sound plain odd and lackluster.

Thanks for reading!

Movies of 2019

2019 Movies That I Am Excited For

Below are some of the movies that are currently set to come out during this year that I can't wait to see! *** means that this is an adaptation from a book.

Ashes in the Snow *** (January 11)

Captain Marvel (March 8)

The Aftermath *** (March 15)

Where'd You Go, Bernadette *** (March 22)

Five Feet Apart *** (March 22)

Dumbo (March 29)

Avengers: Endgame (April 26)

Aladdin (May 24)

The Sun Is Also a Star *** (May 17)

Rocketman (May 31)

Spider-Man: Far From Home    (July 5)

Men In Black: International (July 14)

The Lion King (July 19)

Artemis Fowl *** (August 9)

Downton Abbey (September 20)

The Woman in the Window *** (October 4)

The Goldfinch *** (October 11)

Little Women *** (December 25)

There will probably be more releases during this year that end up being amazing, but there are a couple on here that I am already hoping do really well, like The Aftermath-- that one looks like it's going to be amazing and I hope it actually is. But there's also Little Women coming out, starring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, and Timothee Chalamet and Downton Abbey starring all the favs, so it's going to be a good year no matter what.

Thanks for reading!

#BAYMTGO

#Begin As You Mean To Go On

Scrolling through the internet can be a distracting thing, or it can be a wonderful thing. One of the trends that I've stumbled across is from the author Leigh Bardugo (great books, go check them out) and it's called #BAYMTGO, or Begin As You Mean To Go On. And from what I can see it's just beginning the new year right by setting aside 15 minutes toward whatever resolution or goal you have for the new year.

I just wanted to say thanks! I think this is a great idea and I'm definitely going to be setting aside my own 15 minutes. I wrote out a whole bunch of stuff for 2019 earlier, but I think this will be a good step in starting off on the right foot. Thank you again to Leigh Bardugo for this and I hope the year is off to a good start for everyone!

Thanks for reading!