I had to force myself not to throw in a Christmas Wrapping pun in the title, and I’m very proud of myself. This has been a surprisingly productive month, considering how busy work was and the fact that I was assassinated by the flu for a full week (and by Star Wars fanfiction). A good end to a great year for reading. I didn’t hit my goodreads ‘stretch goal’ but I’m not feeling too down about it, and I’m looking forward to next year.

The Stats:

BOOKS READ IN DECEMBER: 13 books!

PAGES READ IN DECEMBER: 3954 pages!

PAGES READ IN 2019: 32,312 pages, which is amazing considering my total for 2015-2018 altogether is 40,810 pages. Nearly beat 4 years worth of reading this year.

BOOKS READ IN 2019: 96 books out of my targeted 52! This has been a great year!

OTHER 2019 STATS:
My longest book in 2019 was The Count of Monte Cristo, a 1276 page behemoth, and my average rating for this year was 3.8 which is higher than expected. If most of my books are above 3.5 stars, I’m happy.

MY TOP 2019 BOOKS (in no particular order):

• The Grace Year, by Kim Liggett
• The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon
• Lost Boy, by Christina Henry
• Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
• Red, White and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston.

December:

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (review here)
Jade and her coven are out to kill after she is assaulted at a party, and if she has her way there will be no survivors.

La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman: ⭐⭐⭐ .5 (review here)
Malcolm and his daemon, Asta, are drawn into spy plots and a dangerous quest to keep baby Lyra safe from the threats that are chasing her through the storm.

Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar: ⭐⭐⭐ .5 (review here)
When 12 year old Gwendy gets given a magical box, she learns the true meaning of responsibility and whether or not its magical benefits are worth the heavy, heavy weight of its powers.

Supernova by Marissa Meyer: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In the final part of the Renegades Trilogy, secrets are finally revealed and it’s time to take sides once and for all as the Renegades and the Anarchists come to their final clash – will Adrian and Nova survive the truth?

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: ⭐⭐⭐ (review here)
Ebenezer Scrooge’s famous transformation from miserable curmudgeon to generous Christmas sponsor is caused by mysterious visits from beyond the grave.

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu: ⭐⭐⭐ (review here)
When a young girl’s arrival with this Victorian family heralds the start of a sequence of eerie and terrifying events it’s time to find out if she’s haunted by something or if she’s haunting the house herself.

Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
First Son Alex and British Prince Henry think they hate each other but when a press fuck-up causes them to fake a friendship, they start to realise that maybe it wasn’t hate-tension between them after all.

Star Wars: Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The weakened Resistance are trying to recover from their huge losses on Crait and when intel comes in that the First Order may be the reason their allies never responded, Poe has to put his guilt aside and step up to relight the fire of the Resistance.

Star Wars: Spark of the Resistance by Justina Ireland: ⭐⭐
Rey, Poe and Rose follow a distress call and find an underground colony and a terrifying mind-control weapon that they can’t let the First Order find.

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz: ⭐⭐⭐.5
In Alex Rider’s first adventure, MI6 send him to Cornwall to find out what’s going on with eccentric billionaire Herod Sayle and his unlikely gift to British schoolchildren.

One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Five students go into detention and only four leave alive – can the Bayview Four survive accusations of murder and national scrutiny with their reputations and their secrets intact?

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
Five years ago Andie Bell was murdered and everyone, except for Pip, thinks that her boyfriend Sal killed her – can Pip and Sal’s brother Ravi prove his innocence and nail her EPQ project at the same time?

Star Wars: Choose Your Destiny: A Finn & Poe Adventure by Cavan Scott: ⭐⭐⭐
Finn, Poe & BB-8 are on a mission to collect bacta from a plant on Tevel when things go awry and it’s your job, reader, to get them safely to a happy ending.

Currently Reading:

The Last Jedi by Jason Fry: 102/320 pages.

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman: 240/784 pages.

2020 Reading Goals:

• 104 books! This is two a week, and is completely ridiculous with my full-time job but I’m going to try and do it anyway!
• Complete the #2020tbrreadingchallenge and the 30 books I’ve chosen for it
• Complete the #armedwithabingo challenge!
• Reduce my ‘unread’ list in my collection. At this moment it’s sitting at just over 50% unread, and I’d like to have read more than HALF my collection 😬 . I’d like to reach 40% unread to 60% read.

• Read ONE Star Wars book a month. There’s a lot of backlist content here that I’ve missed by never reading them, so my goal is to get through one of the Star Wars tie-ins/novelisations/original stories a month. (Idea totally stolen from a conversation with the amazing Jemma so go follow her)
• Clear my Netgalley backlog and read the books I’ve requested and forgotten about.