December Recap // Christmas celebrations, fangirl mania and SO MANY BOOKS!

I know we’re already in the middle of January, but December was too good of a month for me.

It was Christmas and I got the best presents from family (BOOKS), friends (BOOKS) and myself (BOOKS). And yes, buying yourself Christmas presents is a thing because you can never have enough books.

December was also my best reading month of the year??? And I just barely* reached my unofficial goal of reading 100 books in 2017??? PHEW.

And what kind of fangirl would I be if I didn’t find a ton of new things to obsess about this month.

Bi the way!!! Don’t forget to enter my *INTERNATIONAL* giveaway which ends next week ahhhh!

*I literally read two comics books 30 minutes before 2018 began!

4 Reasons why The November Girl should be on your To-Read List // magical realism, romance and quirky characters

After being in kind of a reading/writing/general life slump this month, I was SO stoked that the first book I picked up at the end of November after I got over my struggles had been a great read for me.

Me at the beginning of the month: not in the mood to read ANYTHING, forcing myself through the 3 kinda shitty books I had to read for uni

Me at the end of the month: 4 STARS! 5 STARS! ALL THE STARS! I LOVE READING!

The first book I read this month that WASN’T average or complete garbage (I literally just typed bargage wow) was The November Girl. YASSSSSS.

It’s a book I’ve been really excited for because one of my trusted book reviewers had given it a high rating so I had high hopes! AND THANKFULLY I WASN’T LET DOWN.

Also, I am part of the The November Girl blog tour so I hope you enjoy my stop and make sure to follow the rest of the tour here.

5 Reasons Why YOU Should Read Warcross by Marie Lu RIGHT NOW // EPIC, DIVERSE AND MIND-BLOWING

Have you ever had exceedingly high expectations for a book and then it ended up letting you down???

Oh.

BECAUSE I HAVEN’T. At least not with Warcross.

As we all know, Marie Lu is a freaking LEGEND (hA, get it????!!!?!)* and I had no doubts that I would love Warcross. And boy did I loveit!!!

I decided to switch up my reviewing style for this post and give you 1000 reasons (actually, it’s only 5-ish) why you should read Marie Lu’s Warcross (including loads of Gifs!) to make this post a lot more fun!

There will be no spoilers for the book (as always, but I just thought I’d mention it again) SO KEEP ON READING AND ADD WARCROSS TO YOUR TBR IMMEDIATELY.

*I swear I’ve made that joke like 50 times now kill me

The End of the Year Book Tag // lots of Shatter Me and Tahereh Mafi feat. other books which aren’t thAt important (just kidding)

Do y’all know the feeling of not being able to keep up with your endless list of pending tags and if you try to keep up, you simply don’t know which of the many awesome tags to choose???

That’s cool BECAUSE I DON’T.

I’m the kind of person to choose to do a tag THAT I WASN’T EVEN TAGGED IN.

Because I love having a loooooong list of pending tags! And I love how the list just looms over me! And how the pages in my blog journal are haunting and taunting me everytime I open it! Clearly I must love myself!

You can tell how lazy and just overall incompetent I am when it comes to managing things and maintaining order in my life, right???

I am in complete control of my life!!!! #sarcasm

Fall Reading Guide aka my Fall Book Recommendations and somewhat of a TBR (even though I don’t do TBRs)

Are you looking for your next perfect Fall read? WELL, LOOK NOT FURTHER BECAUSE I’M HERE TO PROVIDE YOU WITH SOME FANTASTIC FALL READING RECOMMENDATIONS.

This post will include a mix of books that I’ve read and enjoyed and that I feel like fit perfectly into the Fall season because they give off autumnal vibes! I will also mention a few books that I haven’t actually read and (possibly) plan to read around the Fall season!

it’s not really the first day but it’s AUTUMN AKA THE BEST SEASON

I have a huge physical pile of (unread) Fall-ish books that I’ve put on my nighstand which is literally about to topple over and suffocate me in my sleep—IT’S THAT HUGE. I wouldn’t necessarily call this pile my Fall TBR, but rather books on my never-ending, about-to-murder-me TBR that give me Fall feels and that I can see myself reading this season!

I like giving myself options of books to choose from instead of trying (the emphasis lies on TRYING here) to read all the books I’ve put on a monthly TBR list.

Please enjoy my way-too-long list of Fall reading recommendations and my Fall TBR (even though it’s not really a TBR!!!).

Penguin Teen Game Changers—First Impressions // Would I purchase these books based on the first chapter???

Do you ever judge a book by its cover??? YES? Well, today we’ll be judging books by their first chapters!

You might have heard of the Penguin Teen Game Changers set which contains 5 books that have been releases by Penguin back to back for 5 consecutive weeks!

If you’re like me, you’ve probably cried of jealousy when you saw all the big Booktubers receiving this box set and getting to read all these books early on.

All of the books in the set are out now and you’ve most likely read some of them! I HAVEN’T which is why I requested to read samples of these books to see what I think of them based on their first chapters!

Will I like what I read and then go on to purchase the book? Will I hate it so much that I will want to yell at people NOT to purchase it???

WHO KNOWS. I do. YOU’LL FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH.

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo // FIERCE, BADASS AND SO EMPOWERING

HAPPY RELEASE DAY (at least for the US) TO WONDER WOMAN: WARBRINGER BY THE QUEEN LEIGH BARDUGO! My dear UK people, you’ve only got two more days one day left (August 31^st) to go until this book releases so get excited!!!

Ignore that I meant to post this yesterday but I wasn’t quite finished writing the review so it’s a day late (or a day EARLY depending on how you wanna see it and whether you’re from the US or UK). I have the UK edition so let’s go with A DAY EARLY to make me feel better HEHEHEHE.

This book gave me so. many. feels. PHEW. I can’t even. Like how do I… I CAN’T FORM COHERENT THOUGHTS BECAUSE THAT BOOK WAS A MASTERPIECE.

I rambled all about my feelings for Wonder Woman: Warbringer in my VERY fangirly book mail post when I first received it in the mail so check that out because it’s fun and I need attention.

BUT NOW I ACTUALLY READ IT AND IT’S EVEN BETTER THAN I IMAGINED??????????? *dies*

Let’s hope this review will be somewhat coherent.

Mini Reviews: Cinder, Blue is the Warmest Color and Unfiltered // I read so many good books recently!!

I have recently read and enjoyed various books and I loved them so much that I feel the need to share them with you!

But instead of writing the longest reviews (usually like 500 1k 2k words) that end up being rambly and all over the place, I decided I’d write some cute and short mini reviews to share my thoughts (and love) for these books!

The other reason may be that I’m too lazy/busy/exhausted to write said long and extensive reviews hehe and I didn’t take notes while reading (which I only ever do for books that I HAVE to review aka ARCs) so I don’t really have that many thoughts on these anyway.

And I have the worst memory lol. So no notes = short reviews because Jackie’s brain isn’t capable of remebering things long-term.

I am the real-life Dory

The Tiger’s Watch by Julia Ember // A GENDERFLUID CHARACTER WHO HAS A SPIRITUAL BOND WITH AN ANIMAL? SIGN ME UP + Giveaway

Hello friends and welcome to my stop on the The Tiger’s Watch Tour!!! I’m so so so excited to be participating in this tour and being able to promote such a great book!

If you’ve been following me for a while you might remember that I mentioned The Tiger’s Watch in my #ARCstravaganza post a few months ago and I TOTALLY FREAKED OUT ABOUT IT BC JULIA EMBER HERSELF SENT ME THE BOOK.

AND IT’S JULIA EMBER!!! THE WOMAN WHO WROTE UNICORN TRACKS AND THE SEAFARER’S KISS (I haven’t read either of them but I know that they’re brilliant).

So when I heard she’d come out with a book about a genderfluid main character???? I KNEW I HAD TO GET MY HANDS ON IT.

Please enjoy my review and check out the giveaway below! It’s international!!!

You can follow the rest of the tour here.

ARC August TBR // let’s tackle those ARCs we’ve been avoiding!!

Oh looooook, I found a super cool challenge to participate in next month!

I’m so happy that I stumbled across the #ARCAugust hashtag on Twitter because I’ve been needing some motivation to get through some of my Netgalley ARCs that I’ve been meaning to read since March!

My current Netgalley ratio is 75% WHICH IS AWESOME and the highest it’s ever been!!! But I’ve never actually reached that precious 80% so that’s what I’ll be attempting to do in August!

I currently have 8 ARCs left to read on Netgalley. While I don’t plan to read ALL of them next month, I want to get through a good chunk of them!

I’ve also received some ARCs from authors or for blog tours which need to be reviewed this month so I’m quite determined!

You can still sign-up for the ARC August challenge here!