2020? Completed it mate.

Hello fellow book blogging friends and happy Christmas month! I feel like this year has simultaneously been the slowest and quickest of my entire life, it still feels like we should be back in March or something and in actual fact we’re about to ring in 2021!

Back in June I shared my halfway through the year blog post, with all the books I’d read so far as I suck at doing monthly wrap ups…

I still suck at doing monthly wrap ups and that is something I’m working on for next year but in keeping with June’s post here is my second half of 2020 reads.

2020???? COMPLETED IT MATE! (At last).

P.S. I increased my Goodreads goal again, up to 100 this time so we shall see what I end up on 🙂

Grab your hot chocolate, fave Christmas snack and a blanket and let’s get cosy AF. I’ve also tagged all my reviews that are live if you fancied a nosey!

July (10 books) – I FINALLY hit double figures after my slump in June and I was so happy. Granted some of these were short stories I still count them towards my goal. July’s reads were definitely aided by my two weeks off work where I literally chilled with my bf and read for hours on end.

My July reviews were: Reckless Nights in Rome, The Garage, Turn Her Face to the Wall, Honeymoon Alone, A Deadly Delivery: A Psychic Cafe Mystery, The Room Upstairs, Bones, The Cry of the Lake, The Scam List and Falling For The Cowboy.

August (7 books) – August was a strange one for me, I read a few books that I loved and couldn’t rate highly enough but I just struggled to read that many in total, it just felt a bit of a strange month to me. Coupled with not reading for an entire weekend because I was visiting my brother I felt really behind compared to July!

My August reviews were: Gerald’s Game, Heaven’s Peak, Silenced For Good, Extreme Malice, Intergalactic Interloper, Abandoned: A Ghost Story, The Fear.

September (6 books) – Ahhhh September, the month of possibly the WORST reading slump I have found myself in this year, I am so thankful I had some short stories on my Kindle to read else this would literally have been like 2 books… September also saw me read one of my favourite (if not favourite) reads of the year so it wasn’t all bad!

My September reviews were: It Came From The Multiplex, Evangeline: Memoir of a Teenage Serial Killer, Sleeping Beauti, Secrets on Sale, Death’s Door, The Proctor Hall Horror.

October (9 books) – So during October I made a pact with myself to read only books that were horror or thriller themed, which honestly just got me SO in the mood for Halloween. You can see my round-up post for my October reads here as I also detail how many pages I read in total, amongst lots of other stats!

My October reviews were: Be Careful What You Wish For, I Can’t Sleep, Dr Sleep, The Ghost In The Closet, Typhoid Mary, Psychosis, What Goes On In The Walls At Night, Horror Stories, The Haunted.

November (7 books) – After my highly successful October TBR list I decided to set myself one for November too, which you can read here. I was pretty ambitious with my TBR for November and I worried I wouldn’t get through that many books that I’d almost rebel against myself but I did pretty well!

My November reviews were: Tales of Lunis Aquaria, The Stranger, Dreaming of Florence, Squall, Lord of the Flies, Fiddleback and Love Among the Recipes.

December (10 books) – December was the month where I pledged myself to read just Christmas books and that I did! I still haven’t written the reviews for these so they’ll be appearing in January some time but honestly I had such a blast reading these books.

My December reviews were: The Christmas Bake Off, Six Geese A-Laying, A Beginner’s Guide To Christmas, Sex, Snow and Mistletoe, A Cornish Christmas Reunion, Christmas Wishes Come True, The Christmas Truce, Christmas at Carly’s Cupcakes, Snowed In with the Billionaire and Midnight Sun.

Well bookworms that took me a total of 101 books in 2020!!!!! I changed my Goodreads goal three times, from 50 to 60 and then finally to 100.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever hit that number again but my work allowed me to work from home during most of this year so that gave me an extra 30-35 minutes to read per day (no commuting time!) and I was furloughed fully for 3 weeks before going onto flexi furlough for a period of time, meaning I was doing half my usual hours and I had soooo much more time on my hands.

Without books I would have been in a much worse place this year, and I will be forever grateful for having access to so many books❤️

Anyway, there you have my half yearly wrap up, happy 2021 everyone!

Em xxx

WOAHHHH, WE’RE HALFWAY THERE…

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my blog, today we are now halfway through 2020 and I really don’t know how to comprehend the first half of this year.

It is up to every single one of us to make a change in our lives and to become an ally for those of us that need us, we must use our privileges to support and uplift those that need it. There are resources across the internet you can read and use to educate yourself, which I have been doing and will continue to do.

I will do what I can to support and help those that need it.

Anyway now I’ve said my piece here’s what my actual post is about…

I started doing monthly round ups in January 2020 but that lasted all of one whole post, oops! I mean a gold star for trying.

I schedule a lot of my reviews and posts anything up to 2 months in advance, so a lot of the reviews you read are books I’ve read some time ago.

I have gotten better with this and they are more up to date but it just didn’t make sense to do monthly round up posts when they weren’t actually from that month.

So, I decided to a half yearly round-up instead and share with you all what I’ve read in the first 6 months of 2020. This will be a long ASS post, get a cup of tea (or wine) and settle in.

I’m going to tag all my reviews if you fancy a nose at any of them if you haven’t already looked! Some of them won’t have gone live when this post does so if they aren’t tagged they will be coming soooooon.

January (6 books)… I decided in January to take part in the Goodreads challenge so I set my goal to 40 books, and I got through 6 of those in January! Granted some of them were short stories but I counted them towards my goal.

My January book reviews were: Before You Wake, One Week ‘Till Christmas, The Doll, The Sunday Philosophy Club, The Lost Symbol, The Woman In Black.

February (5 books)… I only managed 5 in February, but I’m blaming it being a shorter month than January, granted it was only 2 days but that is my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

My February book reviews were: The Night Vanishing (DNFR), The Crack of Evil, The Ghost Files, Coraline, Can You Keep a Secret?, It Will Just Be Us.

March (11 books)… A LOT of plans were cancelled in March (like most people) and so I had a lot more time. Because of this I smashed through 11 books!

My March reviews were: Allegation, Five Tales of Horror and Suspense, Schooled, The Woman in Our House, Summer Unplugged, How Much To…?, Dark Web, Treehouse, The Graves of Whitechapel, Taken: Captive Romance.

April (14 books) … We were literally in the midst of a global pandemic and I had SO much time on my hands. I did read 14 books but that was because 10 of those were the Goosebumps Horrorland Series, I counted them but also increased my Goodreads goal to 50 as I didn’t feel they counted towards it.

My April reviews were: The Night Stalker, The Lost War, Drift Stumble Fall, Seed of the Dead shorts and Goosebumps Horrorland Series.

May (10 books)… And the global pandemic continued, but at least we got the announcement that Stephenie Meyer was releasing Midnight Sun, WOOP! This led to my decision to do a Twilight series reread… And that counted to my total of 10 books.

My May reviews were: Good Girl, Bad Girl, Wicked Girl, Even Good Girls, A Wedding in Cornwall, The Whisper Man, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

June (7 books)… June was hard, I didn’t read anywhere near as much as I had hoped to and after 3 double digit months I fell into a slump and I just couldn’t bring myself to read much. I only read 2 full length books in June and one of those I started in May so there was only a handful of chapters left… And the rest were short stories, which I found were better for me as I could dip in and out of them.

My June reviews were: See You Soon, Origin, Alive, The Text, Tell Him He’s Dead, Virtual Insanity and Twisted All To Hell. None of these are live yet on my blog so I can’t link them.

My total of 53 books during the first 6 months of 2020 has meant I’ve hit my Goodreads goal too! I only set 50 books and at the time I felt that was totally unachievable and I do feel I’ve cheated a little bit as I’ve read 5 short stories in June haha.

Here’s to hopefully reading a similar number of books for the second half of 2020!

Until next time, Em xxx