November Wrap-Up

November Snapshots

1. Adulting level: maximum. November started with a letter from my health insurance company. They informed me that they are raising the price of my insurance to $417 a month next year. Um . . . What?! No! Not going to happen. That’s hundreds of dollars more than I’m paying now. Do insurance companies realize how many books I could buy with $417 a month? So, I spent most of November in the mystifying world of insurance. It all worked out in the end, but this is the third time I’ve had to buy entirely new insurance since I got kicked off my parents’ plan. Is this what adulthood is? Just constantly buying insurance? I can’t handle it, guys. It’s too boring. Kill me now.

2. I ran out of stuff to read, but it’s okay, I fixed it. You know that goal everybody has of getting their TBR pile down to 0? I actually accomplished that in November. The day after I accomplished it, I acquired 59 books. That’s not an exaggeration. It was a perfect storm of Black Friday sales and a year spent hoarding used bookstore credits. My TBR went from 0 to 59 in one day. I planned on being reasonable about my TBR, but nope. I basically walked into a store and started flinging credits everywhere. “Noble book merchant, I will take all your finest used books.”

My new TBR pile.

3. Tweet more. I read some articles about how to increase your blog traffic, and they said Tweet more! Share your unique thoughts! I tried to Tweet more, but I came to the conclusion that my thoughts are better off staying inside my head. Most of them are . . . profoundly dumb. I apologize to all of humanity.

4. Aversions and the 21^st century. If you’re a hardcore stalker of this blog, you may have noticed some intriguing new buttons over in the sidebar <--. One of them is for Instagram. I finally entered the 21^st century and got myself an Instagram account! Unfortunately, I don’t think I can post anything on it because I don’t own a phone or any mobile devices. I guess I haven’t gone very far into the 21^st century. I am able to look at other people’s accounts, so leave your info in the comments if you want me to follow you.

<-- The other new button is a tip jar (or money mug? It’s supposed to be a coffee cup, but I’m not allowed to drink coffee because it makes me squirrelly, so we’re calling it a tip jar.) You can put money in the mug if you like my blog. I honestly feel awful about asking the Internet for donations, but there are two reasons I got the jar:

Reason 1: I want to do more giveaways on the blog. The tips will be used to fund giveaways.  

Reason 2: I work volunteer and low-pay jobs. My dad says I’ll be broke forever unless I get over my aversion to being paid for my work. If I get tips, I can point to them and say, “See, Dad? I don’t have an aversion! I’m a perfectly functional human person!” Silly dad. He thinks people are supposed to get paid for work.

Books I Read

Health insurance websites don’t count as books, so I didn’t get much reading done in November. I only read 6 books. A few of them were massive, though.

Perfect Little World – Kevin Wilson

The Forest of Hands and Teeth – Carrie Ryan

Marrow Island – Alexis M. Smith

The Odyssey – Homer (reread)

The Secret History – Donna Tartt

A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin

I also made progress on my reading challenges. Click here to see how I've done.

Best Books of November

1. The Secret History – Donna Tartt

2. A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin

3. The Forest of Hands and Teeth – Carrie Ryan

Most-Viewed November Reviews

1. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage – Alfred Lansing

2. The Stranger beside Me: Ted Bundy the Shocking Inside Story – Ann Rule

3. Touching the Void: The Harrowing First-Person Account of One Man’s Miraculous Survival – Joe Simpson

Most-Viewed November Non-Reviews

1. Top Ten Tuesday: Harry Potter Presidents

2. Discussion: How a Book Gets Five Stars from Me

3. Top Ten Tuesday: Picture Books I’ll Force upon My Future Children

All The Things!

All The Things! (AKA number of unread books on my TBR shelf) = 58 books.

I'm currently rereading A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab.

What did you do in November?