December is here! And with it, a whole month of dreary New England misery... briefly interrupted by all the Black Friday shopping I did! Yes, I am still trying to support the USPS by online shopping. I'm also grateful to still have a job, food, and roof over my head during the pandemic, so I like to express that gratitude by shopping at small businesses during the holiday season. If you can, I hope you'll join me! Black Friday sales are unfortunately over, but I've linked all the wonderful shops below. Here's a quick rundown of my weekend shopping:
Wait. What? Yep, you heard right! I'm leaving these packages, my Illumicrate Daughter of Smoke and Bone box, and this month's OwlCrate box as gifts for myself under our (secular) Christmas tree! I'm getting some important news mid-December, so if any arrive before then I'll be using them as retail comfort or celebration depending on the outcome, but otherwise I'm wrapping them up and resisting the temptation! I think this is just a fun way to show appreciation for myself and make the holiday more special. My family doesn't celebrate Christmas, being that we're kind of agnostic Hindus, but we do put up decorations. I think it's a leftover practice from when I was younger--my parents didn't want me to feel left out, so we adopted a solely cultural version of Christmas. Did you do any Black Friday shopping? I'd love to hear about it, especially any small businesses that should be on my radar!
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Hm. Rough week. Finals clobbered me more than I'd like to admit, so I again apologize for inactivity. Part of this is inertia--the principle that matter will continue in a state of motion or rest unless acted upon by an outside force. In this case, once I'd stopped blogging, it was easier to say "I'll come back tomorrow" for two weeks' worth of tomorrows instead of just starting again. This is also a great display of what neuroatypicality does to a person: it's a bit harder for me to get restarted than for many other individuals.
I'm here, though, and I'm still reading. I hope you are as well. It's going to be a long winter, and if I can provide any relief through it with my recommendation lists, reviews, and musings, I'm eager to do it. Therefore, my update today is going to be a quick list of my current reads!
Comment below with your own current read, I'd love to hear what everyone else has been enjoying recently! After months, I’m finally getting to the Stuck at Home Book Tag!
Thank you to Sienna @ Daydreaming Book Lover for the tag! The Tag Rules
This is a shame post. Specifically, I'm calling myself out for inactivity here! Between school, work, and a million other things, I let blogging fall by the wayside. Yikes! My TBR pile is screaming at me (the section of unread/unreviewed ARCs is loudest) and I dearly miss sharing my reviews and recommendation collections with you all. I also noticed that I simply forgot to do a November Cover Love! That mistake will be rectified tomorrow--I'll post as soon as I'm able. For accountability, I also should say that I have upcoming reviews for Admission by Julie Buxbaum (read) and Hush by Dylan Farrow (as soon as I finish reading) amongst others.
Truly an egregious oversight on my part, however... it's kind of inevitable when entire weeks go by in the blink of an eye and I can barely get out of bed some days. There's a tough bit of honesty. The "Quarantine" part of #QuarantineReads is starting to get me down again now that it's a true New England winter, terrible weather and all. Even bookstagramming every day becomes difficult when the nights creep in earlier and blur my days together. Readers, I'm just here to tell you that it's okay if tasks are hard right now. It's okay to rest for a while. I wouldn't have agreed with that a few years ago, but I'm wiser (or possibly just jaded) now, and I think it's better to excel and be late than push myself too far and be on time. I haven't been reading as much this fall as I did during the summer, either. I finish more books than many people do (and any amount of reading is amazing--don't let anyone make you feel inferior for how much you read), but it's still fewer than my usual, and that saddens me. There are so many amazing stories out there, and I hear about so many of them by being connected to the publishing world! I just want to read everything and never leave my library! Alas, when real life calls me I must answer. Until next time, lovelies. Thank you for your patience with me. If you want to chat, I'm always available by email!
The entirety of last week was basically... one extension of Tuesday for me, so I believe I skipped a week in these journal installments. I think my instagram caption from last night is the best display of my current sentiments:
"Oof, I don’t think I’ve ever been sledgehammered by a week as much before this one. I am so elated by the outcome of the election—by no means is this country perfect, but now we’re finally able to take steps forward. I’m proud of us. I’m proud to be American, for the first time in four years. I’m feeling gleeful and reveling in this victory. And anyone who comes at me to feel empathy for 45 supporters will earn a swift block. I’m a QWOC. I don’t have the energy for that. I’m focused on doing the necessary work to save our democracy, starting with volunteering to help in Georgia runoff elections!" I'm dropping links here to Fair Fight (Stacy Abrams' voting rights organization): https://fairfight.com/join-our-fight/ Rev. Raphael Warnock's campaign (against Kelly Loeffler, the Senator who made a profit off of not-yet-public information on the pandemic back in March. She's a profiteer. We need her out.): warnockforgeorgia.com/ and Jon Ossoff's campaign (against David Perdue): https://electjon.com/. They need our help! If we can win these two races, Democrats will hold a Senate majority in addition to the House and Presidency. This way we'll be able to pass legislation on climate change, racial justice, healthcare, and so many more issues that impact the lives of Americans everywhere. Please join the fight! In bookish news, I've started the month of November with the Clear Your Sh*t Readathon, meant to get all those unread books off my shelf in the form of a choose your own adventure story. If you'd like to follow along with me and my quest, connect with me on Twitter, where I'm threading my progress.
Hi all! The Book Terminal Tours team is so excited to kick off our blog tour for Lies Like Poison! We're featuring a slate of amazing bloggers and bookstagrammers, so be sure to head over to the tour schedule for links to their posts throughout the week! Auburn, Samantha, and I cannot wait to share this amazing tour with you and encourage you to order Lies Like Poison. We hope you'll enjoy it as much as our bloggers do! I've attached the list of our bloggers, but again, check back at the official tour schedule for updated links every day! Poppy, Lily, and Belladonna would do anything to protect their best friend, Raven. So when they discovered he was suffering abuse at the hands of his stepmother, they came up with a lethal plan: petals of poppy, belladonna, and lily in her evening tea so she’d never be able to hurt Raven again. But someone got cold feet, the plot faded to a secret of the past, and the group fell apart. Three years later, on the eve of Raven’s seventeenth birthday, his stepmother turns up dead. But it’s only belladonna found in her tea, and it’s only Belladonna who’s carted off to jail. Desperate for help, Belle reaches out to her estranged friends to prove her innocence. They answer the call, but no one is prepared for what comes next. Now, everyone has something to lose and something equally dangerous to hide. And when the tangled web of secrets and betrayal is finally unwound, what lies at its heart will change the group forever. Bloggers 11/4 The Baroness of Books - Welcome Post 11/5 The Book View - Review, Mood Board Rajiv's Reviews - Review 11/6 The Broke Book Blog - Review, Playlist Balancing Books and Beauties - Review, Favorite Quotes Storme Reads A Lot - Review 11/7 Brianna's Books and Randomness - Review, Playlist Lady Readsalot - Review 11/8 Kait Plus Books - Interview Fantastically Bookish - Review Mahkjchi's Not-So-Secret Books - Review 11/9 The Clever Reader - Review Moonlight Rendezvous - Review, Favorite Quotes 11/10 teatimelit - Review, Mood Board Lynn's Tidbits - Guest Post Geekiemind - Review Bookstagrammers 11/5 @chroniclesofkayy @firebreathing.book.queen - Guest Post 11/6 @yourlocalbookreader @angelas.book.shelf 11/7 @books_and_dice @bookswithpaulak 11/8 @booksandbiscuits_podcast 11/9 @bearpiglovesbooks @reading_with_nicole 11/10 @beauty_in_the_bookworm |
The BaronessHey, I'm Shreya! I love to read, write, travel, and drink tea. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a small commission if you click the above link and make a purchase.
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