Happy New Year!
December was a month of gifts, Christmas lights, family but also of being honest with myself. Sometimes things just don’t go the way you would like them to go.
The Reading Challenge
The Numbers
# Read 90 Books – Completed
Read this month: 8
Total: 100/90
- Vision in Silver (The Others 3) by Anne Bishop – 5 stars
– Rivers of London (Peter Grant 1) by Ben Aaronvitch – DNF - The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown – 3,5 stars
- Marked in Flesh (The Others 4) by Anne Biship – 5 stars
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Screenplay by J.K. Rowling – 5 stars
- The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury – 3 stars
- The Last Hero (Discworld, Rincewind) by Terry Pratchett – 4 stars
- The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid by – 3,5 stars
- War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells – 3 stars
I ended up reaching a 100 books which I am super pleased with considering this year.
Favorite
Marked in Flesh. I am obsessed with Meg and Simon. ❤
Dissapointed
The Forbidden Wish. I was just expecting a lot more surprise from this book than I got.
Not Going to Review
The Da Vinci Code was an interesting read. I thought the middle dragged a bit with so much information dumping but overal it was a quick read. And it was great to buddy read it. Made it more interesting. The Fantastic Beasts screenplay was a great read to remember the movie. The Last Hero had great illustrations. Something I’ll probably do a post about in 2017. And War of the Worlds had such an interesting concept. Unfortunately the writing in the second half couldn’t quite capture me and I was a bit dissapointed by the conclusion.
Current Read
Nothing! Will start a new book January 1st!
The TBR Challenge
# Unread Books
Total unread books on shelf end of November– 169
Books read in December (that count) – 7
Books bought/received in December (no ebooks) – 15
Total unread books on shelf end of December– 177
Tudu. I already had about the same amount of books bought at about 10th of the month as I did in the whole of November. It was one of THOSE months.
How Was December for Me?
⌘ We had the Sinterklaas celebration on December 4th. There were lots of gifts and rhymes though all small (we had a budget of 2 Euro for every person we had to buy gifts for). And with the game afterwards I gave away my extra copy of An Ember in the Ashes I had from the BookVault box.
⌘ I wasn’t really feeling like writing Christmas/Holiday cards so I just did a few ‘mandatory’ ones and then returned the cards from the people we got cards from. Usually I’m better organised than this but I just couldn’t quite muster up the energy for it.
⌘ I rounded up some energy to wrap up some packages that needed to be send out. I did my best to wrap things nicely but I have zero talent to be honest.
⌘ At about the mid way point of the month I wasn’t doing so well emotionally. I haven’t been for a while to be honest and I went to see the doctor. I got anti-depressants for what likely is a post partum depression. They also caused me to be extra tired and woozy for the first few days/weeks I took them. I seem okay now at the end of the month (no crying) but I know that January is going to be hard on me once the holidays are over. I’m too hard on myself and it actually ends up making me be unable to do things besides the bare minimum in household chores and taking care of Merijn because I am so stuck in my own head or hidden away in a book.
⌘ I had almost a complete day to myself when my father in law came to pick up Merijn just before Christmas. I went out to lunch with a former co-worker (from a job from a few years ago that I still have contact with every now and then).
⌘ Christmas eve we drove to my parents, stayed there the next day, and then left on second Christmas day to go have dinner at the inlaws. It was a bit stressful driving around with Merijn like that.
⌘ I started feeding Merijn mashed vegetables now that he is four months. He really seems to like carrots. I puked those out at his age. Still don’t eat them, haha. Anyway I’m trying to make it myself instead of buying those little baby food jars. We’ll see how long that lasts…
⌘ We have my inlaws cat, Ramses, staying over with us as they are on holiday and aren’t comfortable leaving him home alone, especially with the fireworks. It is interesting to see how our cat, Mika, is used to being around another cat and Ramses isn’t. Mika is just like; ‘Oh another cat, lets play’ while Ramses keeps hissing at her.
⌘ I planned this in on the last day of December 31st so I can’t say that how that evening was for us. We are just going to stay at home with Merijn. Probably stay up until midnight and then turn into bed because Merijn will wake up early, haha. I hope you all had a great end of the year.
⌘ One thing about this last week of December though is that I heard a LOT of fireworks going of. Even though they aren’t allowed to do it until December 31st 18.00 I have been hearing fireworks all week. On December 31st they started at 6.00 in the morning. Luckily Merijn doesn’t seem to care too much. They also do carbide shooting. If you don’t know what that is, there is an explanation here and you can find video’s on youtube. I hate it.
What Happened on the Blog?
Reviews
⌘ The Visitor (The Graveyard Queen 4) by Amanda Stevens
⌘ Heartless by Marissa Meyer
⌘ Timekeeper (Timekeeper 1) by Tara Sim
Top Ten Tuesday
New to Me Authors I First Read in 2016 // Books I’m Looking Forward to in the First Half of 2017 // Books I Wouldn’t Mind Santa Leaving Under My Tree // Best 2016 Releases
Other Posts
Book Haul #18 // BookVault December Unboxing // Dancing Out of November 2016 // Movies I Like to Rewatch in December // 2017 Beat the Backlist Challenge // Dumbledore’s Army Read-a-Thon Sign up and TBR // Tells That Your Partner Is a Book Buying/Hauling Enabler // Book Marks #5 // Milking That Cash Cow – Why We Need to Stop Complaining When Authors Write More in the Same World //BAK Secret Santa 2016 Unboxing // (Book) Haul #19 – Christmas Time
What Did I Watch?
⌘ Game of Thrones – season 5 – up to episode 6
I’m finding it hard to watch this. I’m not quite as interested in this anymore. I just wish they’d get on with it already instead of the endless yammering around that they are doing.
Best of My Bookstagram
Best liked
Others
Elsewhere
International Blogs
⌘ Cait from Paper Fury shares her tutorial to make origami lucky stars She also made a quiz about type of book reviewers. I got the list lover. But I don’t write my reviews in list form. I do make lists in my head though. She also answers some of her blog’s bizarre search terms.
⌘ Now that we are heading into 2017 a lot of challenges are being posted. I already posted about doing the Backlist challenge. Here are a few others to check out if you enjoy doing challenges throughout the year. // New Adult Reading Challenge // Diversity Bingo // Pop Sugar Reading Challenge // Find even more on this great master list on Girlx0x0
⌘ Ava from Bookishness and Tea made a list of 60 diverse books to look forward to in 2017
⌘ Gabi from Let’s Gab About Books talks about how to call someone in to the (diversity) conversation
Dutch Blogs
⌘ Vanessa from Mijn B.I.E.B. shared a story about the difference in marketing between an English book and its Dutch translation
⌘ Joanny from Nerdymommy gave us the Dutch end of the year Book Blogger Survey
⌘ Ellis van Cinderellis over een leesdip
⌘ Marcia from Oog op de Toekomst celebrated Christmas with 12x Science Fiction
⌘ Annelies from Boekboetiek wrote a post about why she doesn’t want to forget about 2016
⌘ Liesbet from Zwartraafje recommends some underrated Paranormal Romance books
What Is Up Next Month?
⌘ Next month there will be some posts concerning reading statistics from this year. Review from books read this month will be planned in and start back up at about the halfway point.
⌘ January 1st I will start the DA read-a-thon.
⌘ As for me personally I will be working on myself to be more even with my emotions. That is always hard.
Linking Up With
The Sunday post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. This is a bit of a recap post of the week (or month) where you can link to the posts you made this week, share news and wrap up your reading.
A Dance With Books 
Congrats on 100 books! That’s awesome. I was thinking about the Aronovitch series but I see you DNF’d the first one- I’m just not sure about those. Will wait I guess. War of the Worlds I’ve never read believe it or not. And happy New Year! I stayed in for a quiet night and have no regrets ha ha. There were a few fireworks here too and I don’t really get it, but whatever. 🙂
Sorry to hear December was a bit tough. I think this can be a tough time of year- I don’t know about your weather there but we have like two months of gray skies now and that doesn’t help. It’s easy to get down too after the holidays. Hope you have a great start to the year and feel better!
Lol about Game off Thrones. the show is hit or miss for me. Hope the new cat plays with Mika!!
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Thank you.
I was expecting a lot more from them but I couldn’t make it past page 30. I did not enjoy the tone of the book. It is a shame because I like the idea.
War of the Worlds is interesting though at moments a bit of a bore to be honest. A good thing it isn’t long, haha.
Quiet nights are the best then. 😀 Yeah, there has been a lot of gray skies here too, but nothing truly wintery. Just bland which I agree doesn’t help at all.
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Congrats on your 100 books! Also, props to you for getting help for your depression. It’s so hard to admit sometimes…I really struggle with it.
Your little man is so cute!! I just want to smoosh his little cheeks. ❤
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Thank you. And it is hard to admit, but worth the effort in the end I think.
He is the cutest. ❤
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Annemieke, Merijn is adorable! My kids really liked carrots too at that age. And sweet potatoes. 🙂 Sorry to hear about your post partum depression, though. I think I had it too but it was never diagnosed and yes holidays were hard. I hope you feel better soon! I love your bookstagram, Following it now! I want to read all your books 🙂 Happy New year!
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I will have to try sweet potatoes later on. He likes green beans too.
PPD is so little talked about which is a shame. 😦 It can make you feel so alone.
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100 books is awesome! Especially with the baby and everything. Sorry about the post partum depression though, I hope things get better soon ❤ Lol about the cats reacting to each other. But how weird that people were doing fireworks at 6 in the morning o.0 I mean, I heard people doing fireworks the day before, but in the morning is just strange.
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Thanks! ❤
Oh you hear fireworks going off the whole week before NY, especially when they start selling fireworks which is 3 days before NY. It is terrible really.
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You have been busy! Also, it was very hard to read your post with your cutie pie distracting me lol. Your baby is very adorable!
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Haha, thank you ❤
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Oh, ik wist niet dat je het de laatste tijd zo moeilijk had. Een echte knuffel wordt wat moeilijk maar ik stuur je wel alvast een digitaal exemplaar toe. Die tweede foto van Merijn blijf ik superleuk vinden. Ik beeld me altijd in dat hij op dat ogenblik ‘Grrrr’ zegt.
Dankjewel voor de vermelding. Het viel me trouwens op dat we dezelfde blogposts hebben onthouden. Ik herkende ze echt allemaal. Die van Annelies heb ik nog maar vrij recent gelezen én ik vond het echt een super mooi stukje.
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Dank je. Digi knuffel terug. ❤ Met het internet kan je toch vaak makkelijk verstoppen hoe het echt gaat.
Ja ik vind die foto ook echt super, haha. Grrr komt er nog niet uit maar de rrrrr rolt momenteel wel veel van zijn tong. 😀
Ja die van Annelies was inderdaad mooi en krachtig.
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Gelukkig nieuwjaar, Annemieke! Hopelijk kan je komend jaar opnieuw veel mooie boeken lezen en van mooie momenten genieten met je gezin. Ik stuur je net als Liesbet een digitale knuffel toe, om deze saaie wintermaand hopelijk wat beter door te komen ❤
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Dank je wel Marcia. ❤ ❤
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Yes to Marked in Flesh and Simon and Meg! I really want to re-read them, I think I might do that in Dutch actually. I’m so excited for Etched in Bone. I hope you’ll have a wonderful 2017! 😀
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That is a good idea. I quite like the Dutch editions and I think the publisher really tries hard with them.
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I will do that then! 😀
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I am in awe of how organized and detailed your wrap up is. Very inspiring. Oh man, I was hoping that The Forbidden Wish would be good. I have it ready to go and everything. Thank you for mentioning the DA Readathon on your Instagram. I wouldn’t have heard of it otherwise! So glad we’re participating in the readathon together. *Big hugs*
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Thank you! ❤ I try to update them throughout the month so I don't forget things and it isn't such a chunk at the end.
Yeah I had hoped that too but to me it was very dissapointing.
Glad you are participating too! 😀
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Yay for 100 books! Also, your pictures look so pretty 🙂
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Thank you!
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Happy New Years!! Sorry to hear about the post-partum depression! That’s really hard. I hope the meds will help you out!
Congrats on your 100 reads. That’s really great!
I hope January will be better for you! 😉
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Thank you. I hope so too.
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You did fabulous with your reading totals for being pregnant and then having Merijn! I am glad you went to the doctor Did they mention talk therapy? I think that is very helpful for new moms, especially first time moms. Here’s to great books in 2017 and lessening of the stacks! 🙂
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They didn’t but going to see a therapist is something that I keep in the back of my mind. I might get a volunteer though that I can talk to about stuff.
To a great 2017 😀
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