Happy Wednesday, bibliophiles, and happy New Year’s Eve!
I know this is probably the millionth wrap-up post you’ve seen today, but this is mostly in service of my love of bullet points and categorizing and such.
Let’s begin, shall we?
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
New Year’s Eve. It’s the time of the year when your social media is flooded with everybody making neat little wrap-up posts about everything that they achieved and how much fun they had in the past year. Now, I fully acknowledge the irony that I’m doing almost the exact same thing in written form. But with Instagram, I often find myself reluctant to post big end-of-the-year lists or posts like I do on here. With my art account, everybody seems to have stuff all ready for the holidays, but I’m just drawing whatever I see fit, rarely ready with anything festive for Christmas or the new year. All this is to say, it’s good to remember that this is, after all, social media. Even as the year ends, it’s okay to not have everything wrapped up in a neat bow. Social media’s all a sham anyway, so post at your own pace.
Compared to this time last year, when I felt like I’d gotten a proverbial pummeling from 2024, I’m at least grateful that I’m in a better place, even if 2025 was…god, it was certainly a year. And honestly, 2025 pummeled me too. But it was marginally better for me than last year, which is saying something. I’ve learned to take better care of myself. Even though keeping my head above water with everything going on in this country has been—and continues to be—an uphill battle, I feel like I’ve come so much further from the person I was last year. I moved into an apartment, I got another two semesters of good grades, I learned how to knit, and above all, I feel more independent. (I’m saying that in my head like they do in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. In-dee-pendent!) Yet I’ve also been beaten down by stress, by school, by tragedy—preeminently a school shooting at my old high school back in September. Above all, it’s been a year of upheaval for me—not just the negative upheaval of the government (because they think that our Constitution is a suggestion, apparently), but a year of so much change. But I’m here. And hell, I’m so proud of myself. Half of the things I listed here (and many that I didn’t) are things that I never imagined myself doing even five years ago. But I’m here. I can ride the bus and make easy conversation sometimes, I know the way there and back to my record store, and I am surrounded by people who I love and who love me back. I am grateful.
Plus, the more important holiday is Ringo’s 4th birthday. Send your birthday wishes, or the birthday boy will bite your feet…
NOVEMBER READING WRAP-UP
In total, I read 174 books in 2025!
I read 14 books in November! Though my reading count was buttressed by several re-reads and school books (and one unfortunate DNF), I encountered so many lovely books.
1 – 1.75 stars:
3 – 3.75 stars:
- Sky Full of Elephants – Cebo Campbell (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
- Fate’s Bane – C.L. Clark (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
- Roadside Picnic – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (for school) (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
- A Healthy Interest in the Lives of Others – Teresa Carmody (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
- Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Each Other – Sophie Gilbert (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
- Funeral Songs for Dying Girls – Cherie Dimaline (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
4 – 4.75 stars:
- Dracula – Bram Stoker (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
- The Deep – Rivers Solomon (re-read) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
- American Werewolves – Emily Jane (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25)
- The Tainted Cup – Robert Jackson Bennett (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
- Mad Sisters of Esi – Tashan Mehta (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
5 stars:
- The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance – Robin Wall Kimmerer (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
- A Closed and Common Orbit (The Wayfarers, #2) – Becky Chambers (re-read – for school) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: The Serviceberry – 5 stars
REVIEWS:
SUNDAY SONGS:
DECEMBER READING WRAP-UP
I read 13 books in December! Finals put me way behind my usual reading amount for the month, so I thought this would end up being my worst reading month of the year…and then my power went out for four days. I ended up reading two books in a single day, something I haven’t done since I was, what…9? 10? Either way, the power outage, as unfortunate as it was, gave my reading a bit of a boost.
2 – 2.75 stars:
3 – 3.75 stars:
- Somebody Give This Heart a Pen – Sophia Thakur (⭐️⭐️⭐️.25)
- We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This – Rachel Lynn Solomon (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
- Sisters in the Wind – Angeline Boulley (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
- Green Rider – Kristen Britain (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
- Loving Day – Mat Johnson (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
4 – 4.75 stars:
- Things in Jars – Jess Kidd (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
- Katabasis – R.F. Kuang (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
- Absolute Wonder Woman, vol. 1: The Last Amazon – Kelly Thompson, Hayden Sherman, and Mattia de Iulis (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
- The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronauts, #1) – Mary Robinette Kowal (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
- Things I’ve Been Silent About – Azar Nafisi (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
- Embassytown – China Miéville (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
5 stars:
- Begin Where You Are: The Colorado Poets Laureate Anthology – edited by Turner Wyatt (anthology) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Begin Where You Are: The Colorado Poets Laureate Anthology – 5 stars
REVIEWS:
SUNDAY SONGS:
BONUS:
Today’s song:
Above all, thank you for everybody here. WordPress isn’t exactly the most popular site anymore, and I’ve considered moving platforms myself. But for the people who are still here, thank you for the likes, the comments, and the kind words. This year would’ve been ten times harder to endure without my family and friends here to support me—it is the privilege of a lifetime to have you all in my life. And to anyone who’s casually read any of my posts, thanks for stopping by. Keep reading dangerously, keep loving each other. Spread love, not fear, and go to your local record store or library or indie bookshop every once in a while. Smile at people. And celebrate this new year however you see fit.
The Bookish Mutant 