Hello and Happy New Year! I hope 2022 brings you all the best. I know that you can have a fresh start whenever you’d like to, but I always love the planned reset that comes with a new year.

December in General

December, in a word, has been pretty hectic! My hours really ramped up at the bookstore for the holiday season, and I also had lots of work that I wanted to wrap up before year’s end. I always say that I want more downtime during the holiday season – that never seems to happen, though! I feel like it’s all “good” busy though, and i enjoy that kind of busy. 

Despite the mess that was 2021, I feel very fortunate to say that this year has been very kind to me. It didn’t feel that way at the beginning of the year when my health was on the decline. But as I began recovering – physically and mentally, so many new doors opened for me, and I’m so lucky to be able to welcome these new experiences in my life. 

In terms of 2022? I’m actually not fully cemented on my goals yet, but I do know that setting too many goals is too much for me. For now, I’ll be focusing on making more time towards software development and getting at least two more certifications. I want to focus more on the systems I create to reach my goals more than the goals themselves. As for my reading? There’s just one goal – reduce my physical TBR! 

December In Stats

BOOKS BREAKDOWN

December In Books

Once Upon A Broken Heart
Stephanie Garber
⭐⭐⭐.25

Goodreads | Bookshop

How far would you go for happily ever after?

For as long as she can remember, Evangeline Fox has believed in true love and happy endings…until she learns that the love of her life will marry another.

Desperate to stop the wedding and to heal her wounded heart, Evangeline strikes a deal with the charismatic but wicked Prince of Hearts. In exchange for his help, he asks for three kisses, to be given at the time and place of his choosing.

But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that bargaining with an immortal is a dangerous game—and that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she’d pledged. He has plans for Evangeline, plans that will either end in the greatest happily ever after or the most exquisite tragedy….

So far I’ve only read Caraval by Stephanie Garber a couple of years ago, so reading this book reminded me of how much I enjoy the way she sets the stage and comes up with the settings that she does. This started as a fast-paced, fun read for me, but eventually, the same plot device being used over and over as reasoning for the character’s relationships got old for me. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the ending either – but I’m still curious about the next one! 

You Got Anything Stronger?
Gabrielle Union
⭐⭐⭐.75

Goodreads | Bookshop

Remember when we hit it off so well that we decided We’re Going to Need More Wine? Well, this time you and I are going to turn to our friend the bartender and ask, You Got Anything Stronger? I promise to continue to make you laugh, but with this round, the stakes get higher as the conversation goes deeper.
So. Where were we?

Right, you and I left off in October 2017, when my first book came out. The weeks before were filled with dreams of loss. Pets dying. My husband leaving me. Babies not being born. My therapist told me it was my soul preparing for my true self to emerge after letting go of my grief. I had finally spoken openly about my fertility journey. I was having second thoughts—in fact, so many thoughts they were organizing to go on strike. But I knew I had to be honest because I didn’t want other women going through IVF to feel as alone as I did. I had suffered in isolation, having so many miscarriages that I could not give an exact number. Strangers shared their own journeys and heartbreak with me. I had led with the truth, and it opened the door to compassion.

When I released We’re Going to Need More Wine, the response was so great people asked when I would do a sequel. The New York Times even ran a headline reading “We’re Going to Need More Gabrielle Union.” Frankly, after being so open and honest in my writing, I wasn’t sure there was more of me I was ready to share. But life happens with all its plot twists. And new stories demand to be told. This time, I need to be more vulnerable—not so much for me, but anyone who feels alone in what they’re going through.

A lot has changed in four years—I became a mom and I’m raising two amazing girls. My husband retired. My career has expanded so that I have the opportunity to lift up other voices that need to be heard. But the world has also shown us that we have a lot we still have to fight for—as women, as black women, as mothers, as aging women, as human beings, as friends. In You Got Anything Stronger?, I show you how this ever-changing life presents challenges, even as it gives me moments of pure joy. I take you on a girl’s night at Chateau Marmont, and I also talk to Isis, my character from Bring It On. For the first time, I truly open up about my surrogacy journey and the birth of Kaavia James Union Wade. And I take on racist institutions and practices in the entertainment industry, asking for equality and real accountability.

You Got Anything Stronger? is me at my most vulnerable. I have recently found true strength in that vulnerability, and I want to share that power with you here, through this book.

This was the Feminist Book Club pick for November. I really loved Union’s voice throughout this book – I feel like most celebrity memoirs feel very distant, but here I felt as if I was having a conversation with her. One of the most captivating stories for me was one of the first, where she opens up about her infertility as well as pregnancy and motherhood through the public eye.

Beautiful World, Where Are You
Sally Rooney
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Bookshop

Beautiful World, Where Are You is a new novel by Sally Rooney, the bestselling author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends.

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young—but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world? 

I very much enjoy character-centric stories and this was no exception. I love the way Rooney intertwines the finer details of day-to-day life and surroundings into her writing. However, some of the dialogue can sound a bit unrealistic and pretentious, which may not be for everyone – but if you don’t mind that, you may like this one.

Plan and Organize Your Life
Beatrice Naujalyte
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Bookshop

If You Want a True Lifestyle Change, Start With Good Habits

#1 New Release in Crafts, Hobbies & Home, Organizational Learning, Time Management, and Business Project Management

Learn about how to get more out of life, design your days intentionally, develop good habits, and create meaningful work from podcast, YouTube, and Instagram star Beatrice Naujalyte.

Start planning for success. Plan and Organize Your Life is a comprehensive and interactive “planning bible,” packed with proven advice on how to get organized, how to embrace simple good habits, and how to work your way towards true self-improvement and personal growth.

Organize Your Life. In Plan and Organize Your Life, author Beatrice Naujalyte introduces us to the four pillars of an intentional life: planning, organization, productivity, and routines. With these simple tools, you’ll be able to master everything from effective note taking to minimalist workspace organization.

Design a system that works for you. This book is the ultimate guide to developing a planning system to effectively execute your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. Whether you have professional, personal, or creative planning to do, this book helps you accomplish your smallest and biggest goals by creating new good habits and setting realistic goals.

• Perfect for everyday use, Plan and Organize Your Life is a productivity planner packed with:
• Organizational tips and prompts for your everyday success
• Time and task management tools to help guide you
• Productivity tips for your ultimate lifestyle change

If you enjoyed books like Tiny Habits, Designing Your Life, Cluttered Mess to Organized Success Workbook, or The Lazy Genius Way, you’ll love Plan and Organize Your Life.

I love Beatrice’s YouTube channel, The Bliss Bean, so when I saw she had a book coming out I knew I had to preorder it! This was a helpful little guide to keeping organized physically and digitally, and planning out your time for success by creating systems that work for you.

Here’s To Us
Becky Abertalli & Adam Silvera
⭐⭐⭐.25

Goodreads | Bookshop

Ben has spent his first year of college working on his fantasy manuscript with his writing partner Mario, who is a great Spanish tutor, and an even better kisser. So why can’t he stop thinking about the fact that Arthur’s back in town two years after they called it quits?

Arthur is in New York for a dream internship on Broadway, with a boyfriend back at home that he couldn’t be happier with. But when he comes upon Ben cuddled up with a mystery boy, he starts to wonder if his feelings for Ben ever truly went away.

Even as the boys try to focus on their futures, they can’t seem to help running into each other in the present. Is the universe forcing them to question if they’re actually meant to be?

Possibly not. After all, things didn’t work the first time around.
Possibly yes. After all, the sparks are still flying.
Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and raise a glass.

Here’s to celebrating old friends!
Here’s to embracing new beginnings!
Here’s to believing in second chances!

This was a cute read overall, but honestly ran a bit long for me! It was another book that was fast-paced at first, but eventually dragged out in the middle. Much of this book had that kind of dual perspective where you see both of the characters are thinking the same things in the same scenes, which after a while just felt like a bit too much and could have been condensed. But if you really liked these characters in What If It’s Us, you’ll likely enjoy this one overall too.

The Spiritual Poems of Rumi
Rumi (Translated by Nader Khalili)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Bookshop

Translated by renowned Rumi expert Nader Khalili, over 120 poems on spirituality from the Persian mystic poet and Sufi master have been carefully collected and curated in this beautifully illustrated edition.

For more than eight centuries, Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi Rumi—commonly referred to simply as Rumi—has enchanted and enthralled readers from every faith and background with his universal themes of love, friendship, and spirituality, which he seamlessly wove into resplendent poetry.

The verses herein perfectly express the spiritual quest and desire for a deeper understanding of not only ourselves, but also of our collective oneness as humankind.

With intricately designed and richly colored covers that mirror the beauty of the words within, the Timeless Rumi series presents themed collections of poems from the great Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi Rumi that serve as cherished tools for self-reflection.

I recently bought three poetry collections of Rumi’s work (this being the first that I read), and I absolutely loved it. I love when poems can be interpreted in many different ways, and especially in terms of spirituality, there were so many ways for me to dissect and learn from these poems as I went. I was really able to find my rhythm with reading these poems as well, which is something I’ve struggled in the past with in poetry! 

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski, DMA
⭐⭐⭐.25

Goodreads | Bookshop

This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men—and provides a simple, science-based plan to help women minimize stress, manage emotions, and live a more joyful life.

Burnout. Many women in America have experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them. How can you “love your body” when every magazine cover has ten diet tips for becoming “your best self”? How do you “lean in” at work when you’re already operating at 110 percent and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a sexist world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy, and too selfish?

Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Instead of asking us to ignore the very real obstacles and societal pressures that stand between women and well-being, they explain with compassion and optimism what we’re up against—and show us how to fight back. In these pages you’ll learn

• what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle—and return your body to a state of relaxation
• how to manage the “monitor” in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration
• how the Bikini Industrial Complex makes it difficult for women to love their bodies—and how to defend yourself against it
• why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering and preventing burnout

With the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in these pages—and will be empowered to create positive change. Emily and Amelia aren’t here to preach the broad platitudes of expensive self-care or insist that we strive for the impossible goal of “having it all.” Instead, they tell us that we are enough, just as we are—and that wellness, true wellness, is within our reach.

Again, another book with a great start! This had some really great tips on how to manage the stress cycle from a feminist lens. However, although this book was broken into three distinct parts, I did find that it lost its focus a bit, like each part was its own thesis. My greatest takeaway from this book was how, in modern times, we don’t let the stress cycle ever truly stop as we were intended to in nature, given the day to day stressors that we have as compared to the past.

A Thousand Steps
T. Jefferson Parker
⭐⭐⭐.75

Goodreads | Bookshop

A Thousand Steps is a gripping thriller, an incisive coming-of-age story, and a vivid portrait of turbulent time and place by three-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker.

Laguna Beach, California, 1968. The Age of Aquarius is in full swing. Timothy Leary is a rock star. LSD is God. Folks from all over are flocking to Laguna, seeking peace, love, and enlightenment.

Matt Antony is just trying get by.

Matt is sixteen, broke, and never sure where his next meal is coming from. Mom’s a stoner, his deadbeat dad is a no-show, his brother’s fighting in Nam . . . and his big sister Jazz has just gone missing. The cops figure she’s just another runaway hippie chick, enjoying a summer of love, but Matt doesn’t believe it. Not after another missing girl turns up dead on the beach.

All Matt really wants to do is get his driver’s license and ask out the girl he’s been crushing on since fourth grade, yet it’s up to him to find his sister. But in a town where the cops don’t trust the hippies and the hippies don’t trust the cops, uncovering what’s really happened to Jazz is going to force him to grow up fast.

If it’s not already too late. 

Thank you to Tor/Forge and Netgalley for the ARC! This was a really cool coming-of-age and mystery mashup. I thought the author did an excellent job at portraying the late 1960’s and all of the central issues that defined politics and culture. I also love how he broke down some of the colliding cultures and the good and bad that each of them portrayed in their messaging, and how Matt interpreted that messaging in his journey to understand the world around him and find his sister.

Visualizing The Beatles
John Pring & Rob Thomas
⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads

The story of the Beatles as you’ve never seen it before, told using stunning infographics and data visualisations.

Journey through the Beatles years – from the band’s first ever gig at the Cavern Club to the release of their final album Let It Be – in a visual exploration of their evolution from four young men to one of the greatest bands the world has ever seen.

From witty stories and surprising facts to beautiful visuals created from the data Beatles music left behind, even the most avid fan will discover something new. The book, divided into albums, enables you, in an instant, to spot patterns, anomalies and transformations. VISUALISING THE BEATLES transports readers back to the vibrant sixties and explosive days of Beatlemania through the beautiful world of infographics.

‘With Visualising the Beatles, John Pring and Rob Thomas trace the contours of the Beatles’ incredible career in all of its pictorial splendor. Through an arresting collection of Beatles-oriented illustrations and infographics, they challenge casual fans and die-hard aficionados alike to “see” John, Paul, George, and Ringo in vastly new and revealing ways’
Huffington Post (Kenneth Womack, author of The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four) 

This was a really cool visual representation of the history of The Beatles. I loved the design work and the different points of focus, such as the instruments introduced on each album and their fashion throughout the years. However, there were some errors in this book, and some of the data representation didn’t make the most sense to include (such as having a charts in each chapter where some had no data).

January Hopefuls

So… January does have a bit more structure to it as far as TBRs are concerned! This month I have lots of ARCs releasing, so I want to be sure I stay on top of them. After that, I’ll let my mood figure out the rest!

That’s all for my December 2021 Wrapup. How did your month go this December? What were your favorite reads? Let me know! I’d love to know if you’ve read any of these as well and what your thoughts were!

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