monthly wrap up: november, ’21

Hello, friends!

It’s been forever since I wrote a post and I apologize. Life has been incredibly chaotic lately: my internship is kicking my ass, I have an upcoming international trip to plan for and university is still going somehow, lol. I hope to dedicate more time in this end of the year to blog hop, catch up and finally draft some posts for y’all!

BOOKS I READ

I finally picked up Here The Whole Time, which was super quick to read. Some dialogues in this book felt very artificial (like trying too hard to be woke) and the pop culture references were clearly made by someone over 25, not by a teenager. However, the relationship was still adorable and I appreciated a lot the discussion on body image and therapy made by the protagonist.

 

I finally read Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating and this one really was Quirky. But in the best possible way. While I did find the conclusion to be a bit too rushed and wrapped-up-in-a-bow, I still really liked the characters, their dynamic and the sex scenes were particularly well written! Congrats!

 

Now, it is true that my read of Call Down the Hawk lasted for what it felt like a month. Every time I thought the book was about to end, Maggie Stiefvater found a way to squeeze 50 more pages. It was driving me a bit insane. But, overall, the book is actually pretty cool! I definitely prefer the characters we already knew from TRC than the new ones we are introduced to here, but the dynamics (except for the romance) were cute and the plot is vvvvv interesting.

 

I loved Love and Other Natural Disasters SO MUCH! This book had an amazing chaotic protagonist, a twist in the fake-dating trope that was great to read about, and a very important conversation on dealing with homophobic relatives that was so refreshing to read about. I also really enjoyed all the characters and imo, the author did an amazing job with all of them despite the short amount of time we spend with them.

I still haven’t found out how to rate An Emotion of Great Delight. This book is very sad, as it deals with a MC with depression, grief, self-harm and a toxic friendship. All the characters are hurting themselves and one another. It’s overall, pretty awful, but I think comes with great discussions on mental health, as well as colorism within the Muslim community and the protagonist’s relationship with religion. However, there’s a very predominant romance that I didn’t like at all, and it didn’t help that the author barely addressed how codependent and unhealthy they would be together.

MONTHLY PLAYLIST

Was ther an option to listen to anything else this month but Red (Taylor’s Version)? Like everyone else, I am absolutely obsessed with it and it was hard actually listening to anything else. My favorite songs are the All Too Well 10min version, obviously, but Forever Winter and Nothing New are stunning as well.

LOOKING FORWARD

I have a trip planned for this December, but the new covid variant really is about to ruin all my plans, which is lovely and not making me freak out at all. *insert picture of the dog in the room on fire saying “this is fine”*. I am excited to all the end-of-the-year content we’ll be seeing, though!

How are you, friends? It’s been a long time so let me know what you’re up to, which books you read recently that you loved (or not) and what is your favorite song from Red (Taylor’s Version)!