December Reading Wrap-Up

Hi, everyone! I hope you have been having a wonderful 2017 and that 2018 is going wonderfully for you. I talked about a couple posts ago in my Fall Semester Reading Wrap-Up about how I wanted to reflect each month ago on how many books I read and what I read. Mainly I just want to keep everyone up to date on my recent reads because I'm kind of a lazy reviewer and sometimes don't review books until four years later. LOL

BOOKS I READ IN DECEMBER

 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 5 stars This is my fourth reread of Gatsby and I love more and more every time that I pick it up. When I first read Gatsby I liked it, but I didn't love it. It wasn't until reading it twice that it become a book I loved and ever since then I've appreciated this book more and more. It's one of my all-time favorite novels.

Collected Stories - Raymond Carver 3 stars I didn't read the entirety of this collection. I tried and I planned to, but I find Carver incredibly mediocre and hard to get through. His minimalist style is simple, but incredibly boring and uneventful. The only story I gave 5 stars to was "Cathedral". Check out my review of the stories I read here. 

Branded - Keary Taylor 2 stars DNF @ page 48 This one was boring and I've outgrown this type of storytelling as a reader. Check out my review here. 

Angel Fever - L.A. Weatherly 2.25 stars I wasn't the biggest fan of this one. I would compare the series progression to that of Divergent. It starts out strong, but it becomes more boring, predictable, and inconsistent as the story arc progresses. However, Angel Fever wasn't half the mess that Allegiant was. Check out my review here.

Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin - Phil Cushway and Michael Warr (editors) 4.5 stars This collection is absolutely stunning. It's gripping, emotionally heart wrenching, and beautiful. I wasn't a big fan of a couple of poems (which is why it didn't get a full 5 stars), but the majority of these poems were absolutely captivating and beautiful. I highly recommend this collection. Not only because the poems are beautiful, but because the content is relevant to today's social climate and it's important to see what minority poets are saying and representing in their voices because they represent the black community through their poems. My favorite poem in this collection is "No Wound of Exit" by Patricia Smith. Check out my review here. 

The Shadow Out of Time - H.P. Lovecraft 3 stars The beginning started out strong, but this one was a snooze fest. Totally unimpressed. 

Great Tales of Horror - H.P. Lovecraft 3.83 stars for the entire collection. Finishing "The Shadow Out of Time" meant that I finally finished the tome of Lovecraft's twenty stories that I picked up at Barnes & Noble and started reading February 7, 2016. This was a massive feat. I have mixed feelings on Lovecraft. I love some of his work, hate some of them, but feel neutral on others. He's a wishy-washy author for me and I feel like the stories I was most excited about were the ones that let me down the most. The stories that I hadn't heard anyone talk about where my absolute favorites. The Colour Out of Space is my favorite Lovecraft. I plan on doing a review on the whole collection at some point.

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 4 stars It took me sixth months to listen to the audiobook, but I finally have read a Dickens novel. I'm so proud of myself because I was always intimidated by him and never planned to pick him up. I read a Manga Classics adaptations of Great Expectations and was intrigued by the story and since I owned the audiobook, I picked it up. I absolutely enjoyed it and I want to tell everyone not to be afraid of Dickens. Start small because this one is so much fun and it is a simple, yet somewhat complex, story.

Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts - David Baggett and Shawn E. Klein (editors) 2 stars This collection is a bust. I think the writers jumped the gun with making certain points before HBP & DH were published. Check out my review here. 

Uprooted - Naomi Novik 5 stars This is why I don't make favorites list until after 2017. Uprooted made my top ten of 2017 and is one of my favorite fantasy novels ever. Check out my review here.

The Girl with All the Gifts - M.R. Carey 3.25 stars I expected to love this one a lot more than I did. Some of it was intense and gripping, but other parts were boring and felt dragged out. This book clocks in at 460 pages and I think it could've been shaved down to 400. 

Thoughts on December: I completed nine books out of the fourteen that I planned to finish reading. I'm so happy and pleasantly surprised that I read 11 books in December. I also completed my GR reading goal the first week of December, so everything that followed was without purpose of hitting a goal. December was a productive month for reading, blogging, YouTube, and enjoying life. 

Currently Reading / Hoping to Finish in January:

 

The first five novels are books that were on my CR shelf in December. Out of all of the books I'm currently reading I will most certainly finish The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles, Cruel Beauty (audiobook), Deadly Sweet (almost done), and Amity (super short). 

What books did you read in December 2017? Have you read any of these books? What are your thoughts on them? Let me know down below in the comments!