It's not the end... only the beginning

Hello lovelies! 

2016 has been quite the year :) 

I've been blogging on my sister site for about 2 years now, and I was getting tired of reading a lot of ...well, stuff that wasn't so great.

Not to say that I didn't find a few gems, because I did. 

But I wanted to read my personal TBR pile too and talk about those too. So I did. 
This past summer I started my own lil blog here, and it's been going alright for the past 6 months. 

My first few posts were books that I didn't even need to reread I knew so well, such as Harry Potter and Pendragon but I wanted them out of my head and onto my blog. As the year went on, I found more and more series that I fell in love with through books that were sitting on my shelves (for AGES) and some were new recommendations. 

TOP FAVES OF 2016: 

- Lunar Chronicles - I had Cinder, Scarlet,& Cress for so long but when I finally picked them up I kicked myself for having waiting for long. However, if I had read them when I bought them I'd have been waiting for the sequels. So really... what's worse? 

- Iron Fey - I don't remember who or how I found out about this series, but I went out and bought the whole series... which took a while because no store had *all* of them, so I drove around Ontario hitting all the stores until I found them all - and in decent condition. Kagawa's world drew me in and I never wanted to leave. 

- my Maddox boys... *swoon* McGuire's Maddox boys will never cease to amaze me. I've had a few that I found locally, and reread them quite a bit, but then I got the rest of them and Beautiful Funeral came out... Needless to say, I'm STILL crying. 

- Splintered - this creepy twist on Alice in Wonderland kept me up at night. I read the first two last year, but the final one came out in paperback this year (and the novella collection, but I caved and got that in HC) and I devoured them. This one left me in feels for days as well. 

That's about it for "series" - there were a lot of single books that I loved, such as Me Before You, Scrappy little Nobody, HP and the Cursed Child (IT'S CANON! Deal with it),  and Holding up the Universe that all made my year a fantastic one as far as books go. I lot of rereads happened with V.C. Andrews books, as I co-run a facebook fan page for her. 

As of right this moment, I've read 91 personal books, and 87 books for my sister site.

178 books with 5 days left in the year isn't too shabby, if I do say so myself. 

(To compare, 2015 personal books were 42, and TDC Book Reviews was about 12 or 13 - when I only did 1/month)

For those wondering how the heck I know this, I keep a "Book notebook" - what I have on my shelves, what I want, what I've read etc. Can you say "Nerd"? I'm so proud of it though.

2017 Goals

Number wise, who knows what'll happen. Life is always changing. 

Personal Book goals: 

- Red Queen series - I've read Red Queen but couldn't get into Glass Sword at the time. So I'll give it another go, especially with King's Cage coming out soon. 

- Dorothy Must Die series - I've been reading this all the way along, but the final one comes out in March so *squeee* It's time for a series reread. 

- With Netflix making their own Series of Unfortunate Events I'm going to do the reread challenge once this blog is all written up. I read them years ago when I got them and loved them, so they'll be nice easy reads to wrap up 2016 and open up 2017.  

- R.L Stine has a few new Fear Street books that I recently bought that I'd like to catch up on. He's so amazing. 

- I'd like to reread The Mortal Instruments. I got Lady Midnight earlier this year, but have yet to read it. (I KNOW, I KNOW!) but it deserves the time and commitment.... and it's just an excuse to reread that whole fantastic series again. 

- I don't feel like I've read enough "Classics" so some of those on my list, like A Christmas Carol, Adventures of Huck Finn, Scarlet Letter... Make me feel like a more "well-rounded" reader, ya'know?                                                               

Yesterday was Boxing Day here in Canada (USA Black Friday equivalent, but black friday is usually better deals...) and I went a bit crazy ordering books online. 16 new ones ordered, plus I ordered 9 last week, so that should keep me busy for a month or so *big nerdy grin*


As far as my blog goes, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. I'm always open to new opportunities, but ARCs and the like go through my sister site: http://www.tdcbookreviews.com/  
Come check us out and submit a request for reviews/ARCs there if you wish. I go by "Canadian Rebel" over there. 

I've made some fun contacts through doing this, and I'm hopeful for a fun, book-filled 2017. 


<3  
Alex 

a sample shot of my book notebook and my TBR/want lists in colour format :)

Meet my bookshelves!

So after moving into our own place (finally!) I got around to putting up my bookshelves. Hubby wanted double-deep for his office stuff and he likes symmetry so I got stuck with half my book being hidden.
It worked out - ended up with a smaller office than I wanted.

~


Bookshelf 1: Series

There are so many on here, it's a bit ridiculous.  Some have to be on the top shelf (I know, it's weird!) Like Harry Potter and Pendragon. Lately, I have been putting the Mortal Instrument series there too - but Ron is blocking it right now. The rest kinda just go where they fit. There is clearly room for so much more. Not sure if you can tell but behind the Jamie Mcguire books (second from top - far right), there is the begining of like 6 or 7 series. As that grows, I'll have to reorganize.
Other series that are hidden: artemis fowl, game of thrones, Georgia Nicolson, and LJ Smith's "Nightworld".
Beside the Eragon books, is another favourite author - Norma Klein. I emptied a second hand store once when I found all those. She writes a lot of coming of age type stuff that spoke to me when I was 12/13, go figure.

I have a lot more HP related items that go on here, but they cover up most of the top shelf.
The picture that has massive glare is my German Shepherd puppy from childhood. The 2 mugs on the last shelf have an "A" and a "J" - I'm A, hubby is J.  The snowman elephant is just something that needs to go in the xmas boxes.


Bookshelf 2: Author specific/ non-series

This starts with all my VC Andrews books at the very top - some are missing from this as my mother is reading a bunch.  She is my favourite author, and a lot of her books are reviewed on here. I also co-run a fan group on facebook called "VC Andrews' Dolls" if anyone is interested :)

Going down the shelves, we have RL Stein - he gets a full shelf -, then random hardcover/fancy books - far right are all Harry Potter related. The last self is everything else. I tried to keep all the bio-ish stuff on the right hand side, and everything else is all just done by size of the book.  My Series of Unfortunate events box set is still packed away. Not all have been read but I'd say at least 60%  have.
Some of these were read as a kid, and I bought because I love them. Some I cannot bring myself to read (such as the fault in our stars) after watching the movie (I KNOW I KNOW!!)   I am missing a bunch from here too because they are on my mom's TBR pile.

There's usually decor stuff in front of these too, like a pic of my grandparents-in-laws, a HP figurine in package, and a "licence plate" blank with a orca whale on it. Nothing fancy. \


~

 That's me in a nutshell. I read pretty much everything except horror/thriller/mystery stuff. I used to read Dean Koontz in high school, but I had to downsize books at one point and he had to go. You can kind of see the 1 john grisham book and there's a brad meltzer book that I loved so I kept that. Otherwise, it's YA all the way.

My happy places...

Finding that perfect spot to read is almost as important as what you are reading. I didn’t move much as a child, so I can’t recall where I read when I was small besides my bed.

In the house that I spent majority of my life in was where I found my favourite spots to read. 

On summer evenings, I’d make myself a tea, grab a blanket and my iPod, take my book out to the porch. I'd sit here until I had no more light to read by. Which, at this point the bugs came out so I wanted to go inside anyways. 

I always loved this spot because I could watch the sunset, see what was going on with the neighborhood, and when there were those lines in the book where you just needed to *deadpan face* … I at least had a nice view. Maybe even a bunny hopping around...

Another favourite place, funny enough, is the car. Weird, right? For some reason, the car is a comfy place to read. I used to go for drives down to the lake (in whatever city I live in) and just sit in my car and read. When I am early for work, I pull out my book and read. When I am waiting for someone I am picking up, I pull out my book. So the car happened by default… but it is still pretty comfy. Mine is a Honda Civic; I call him Paul. 

Finally, the hammock. It’s not mine, but I lived with my best friend/cousin for a few months when I moved to where I am now and she has a hammock. SUPER comfy! Before she had her kids, we’d both go out there for the afternoon and just lay down and read. Her hubby thought we were nuts (and being unproductive. As if!) but it was afternoons like that that I consider “perfect days”