November Wrap up - Book Haul & What to Expect Next Month

Welcome, welcome my dear readers.

Welcome to the blog!

This month was a busy one for me, with two weeks of teacher/parent conversations. These take up to 30 minutes per student and are held after 3 PM. I have 25 kids in my classroom, so I had two very busy weeks and I was home late, almost every day.

This week I was back to my normal schedule and had a lot of fun stuff to do, like dining with co-workers and dining with my sister.

Because I was busy, busy I didn't read and write blog posts as much as I usually do. I was able to finish some books and with that I've completed my Goodreads Reading Challenge of this year with 75 books! There are still two books waiting to be reviewed, so I'm actually at 77 books, but November is over... Oh well.

I'm very excited for December. I'm going to buy my Christmas tree next weekend and I'm just so happy to be celebrating Christmas, my favorite holiday of the whole year!

I do hope you'll have a very merry December with loads of loved ones and good books.

I look forward to see a lot of participants in my Your Year In Books Meme and I can't wait to see all your yearly wrap-ups!

See you later on the blog! 🎄🎅

Review: Stoner

Author: John Williams
Started reading: November 8th 2019
Finished the book: November 24th 2019
Pages: 320
Genres: Fiction, Classics
Published: 1965
Source: Bought the book
Goodreads score: 4.30
My score:

Synopsis

William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely.

Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value.

Stoner tells of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history, and reclaims the significance of an individual life. A reading experience like no other, itself a paean to the power of literature, it is a novel to be savoured

Review: Legend of the Stone Keepers (Legend of the Stone Keepers #1)

Author: J.L. Trepanier
Started reading: September 28th 2019
Finished the book: November 8th 2019
Pages: 293
Genres: Fantasy
Published: December 8th 2018
Source: Audiobook from the author
Goodreads score: Not enough ratings
My score:

Synopsis

Young and inexperienced, Elaro of Agraxia is made captain of a journey with stakes of life and death for the whole world of Terranum: to prevent the endless winter that has plagued his land from taking over the rest of the world.

To save the world, he and his companions must heal Terranum's soul by reuniting its shattered fragments. One of which is The Stone of Courage, a magic relic kept by the humans.

But centuries' worth of bad blood between the Agraxians and the humans, Elaro must find a way to recover the human’s soul fragment without succumbing to his greatest fear: becoming the monster the world believes him to be.

GIVEAWAY: Riyria Chronicles & Riyria Revelation (US & Canada)

Hi there, welcome to the blog!

Today I'm featuring an AWESOME Giveaway on my Blog.

I'm kinda sad that I'm not in the US or Canada, because this is a giveaway for 7 signed copies of the Riyria Chronicles & Riyria Revelation!

Sunday Post #11

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead.

Blog Tour / Review: Things That Art

Author: Lochlann Jain
Pages: 128
Genres: Graphic Novel, Art
Published: October 3rd 2019
Source: Physical copy from publisher

Lochlann Jain's debut non-fiction graphic novel, Things That Art, playfully interrogates the order of things. Toying with the relationship between words and images, Jain's whimsical compositions may seem straightforward. Upon closer inspection, however, the drawings reveal profound and startling paradoxes at the heart of how we make sense of the world.

Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Author: Ken Kesey
Started reading: October 13th 2019
Finished the book: November 3rd 2019
Pages: 325
Genres: Fiction, Classic
Published: February 1st 1963
Source: Kindle Copy
Goodreads score: 4.19
My score:

Synopsis

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy.
But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned.
Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.

Review: Friend or Fiction

Author: Abby Cooper
Started reading: October 21st 2019
Finished the book: October 27th 2019
Pages: 272
Genres: Middle Grace, Magical Realism
Published: October 8th 2019
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads score: 4.21
My score:

Synopsis

Jade's life hasn't exactly been normal lately, especially since her dad's cancer diagnosis. Jade wishes her family could leave their no-name town in Colorado already--everybody else does sooner rather than later, including every best friend Jade's ever had. So she makes one up. In the pages of her notebook, she writes all about Zoe--the most amazing best friend anyone could dream of.

But when pretend Zoe appears in real life thanks to a magical experiment gone right, Jade isn't so sure if she likes sharing her imaginary friend with the real world. To keep her best friend (and even make some new ones), Jade learns how to cope with jealousy, that friends should let friends be true to themselves, and that maybe the perfect best friend doesn't exist after all..