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Oh dear readers, what a year this has been!  When it’s Christmas and we wake up to a light dusting of snow, then news of a bomb in our city’s center, it makes us want to curl up for the day with our favorite titles and block out this weary world.  While we didn’t do exactly that, we’re still looking forward to some quality hours with Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series to help us re-center ourselves, as well as prepare for Virtual Book Club with you lovelies on Friday, February 12 at 7:30 p.m. CST.  If you’re in for an adventure with Feyre, please sign up here to join us for the discussion of the extended trilogy as we refresh ourselves for the next book, which comes out in February!  

Ashley IN MEDIAS RES

• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Batman: Nightwalker (DC Icons #2) by Marie Lu
• The Living Gospel: Daily Devotions for Advent 2020 by Deacon Charles Paolino
• Healing PCOS: A 21-Day Plan for Reclaiming Your Health and Life with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome by Amy Medling

Nikki IN MEDIAS RES

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Ashley FIN

• My Christmas Quarantine by Mika Lane
• In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
• Secret Santa by Kati Wilde
• Exes & Ho Ho Hos by Pippa Grant
• The Only Woman in the Room: Knowledge and Inspiration from 20 Women Real Estate Investors by Ashley L. Wilson
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Nikki FIN

• Faithful: Christmas Through the Eyes of Joseph by Adam Hamilton
• Santa’s Perfect Package: A Collection of Holiday Romances by KB Winters
• My Christmas Quarantine by Mika Lane
• Winter’s Wallflowers (The Wicked Winters #8) by Scarlett Scott
• Wooed in Winter (The Wicked Winters #7) by Scarlett Scott
• Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz
• Shuri: A Black Panther Novel by Nic Stone
• In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
• Secret Santa by Kati Wilde
• Meg & Jo by Virginia Kantra
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Exes & Ho Ho Hos by Pippa Grant
• The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie
• Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist
• The Bookshop on the Shore (Scottish Bookshop #2) by Jenny Colgan
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Oh friends, it’s been a month of stress and weird as we’ve celebrated the holiday season pandemic style.  I hope you’ve found some joy and peace amongst all this strange that’s going on, as well as some great titles to keep you company.  In looking at my list there’s a lot of variety there, and also more inputs than usual.  As we shared earlier this month, Ashley and I got Kindle Unlimited again and have been working that into our reading plans some.  I’ve also had a couple of library surprises, and picked up a title a sweet friend gifted me this fall.  My reading life has been different than I expected this month, but also fuller than I would have predicted given this year, just like my real life.  It’s been a challenge for me over the last several days to relax and not should myself into doing all the things.  I’ve postponed some chores and left others undone to just be with my people, and my Kindle.  I’ve cooked more than in recent memory, and my boys have played together so well with all their new Legos and hex bugs, then retreated with new books for afternoon quiet time.  I’ve read books for posts, books I wanted to read, and books that felt right in the moment.  When a book wasn’t working for me, I put it down and picked up something different.  This isn’t to say that any book on my list wasn’t good or right (I finished them all and regret nothing), but that I let myself mood read more than usual, and that was good and right.  Even with the end of the year looming and my adjusted reading goal perilously close, I’m still mood reading.  Is the goal realistic at this point in the year?  Oh yes, I could exceed it with a little effort.  Will I hit it?  I’m not sure, because it depends on how the moods strike me between now and then.  Knowing I could is enough.  I want to read the right books for me this week, so I won’t be worrying about numbers and shoulding on my reading life.  I’ll be reading books that bring me hope, love, joy, and peace this week.  

Now for some specifics, I think you all picked up that we were headed on a Little Women deep dive this month and it was pretty fantastic.  I intended to reread March but only covered about a third of it in total (so it’s not listed here), but I did get to add in Jo & Laurie (which was one of my library surprises).  While I didn’t love it, it was great fun and I’m glad I read it.  I like an alternative reality title, and I like the premise of what it might look like for Jo and Laurie to end up together.  I didn’t like the mixing of the real life consequences of Jo (Louisa) imagining Meg’s future with a John Brooke who’s never spoken to her or the inclusion of Jo’s need to finish the sequel (since Jo doesn’t write the book in between the volumes, but near the end of the second).  Maybe it’s me, maybe I’d have liked it more if I’d read Jo & Laurie before Meg & Jo (which I adored), or maybe not.  If you love Little Women and a good re-imagining, then I’d encourage you to pick it up, just don’t forget to let us know what you think.

If you have littles in your life, I want to recommend The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie.  It’s a quick book about why and how to read (or listen) to books with your kids.  At first I was struggling because, dear readers, I do not like reading aloud.  Then the chapter came wherein the author says audiobooks count, and I rejoiced!  Here’s the gist: books make us better people, and shared experiences bond us together, so when we have inside jokes and references to books we’ve experienced together, it supports our bonds as a family.  Do movies and shows have this same bonding ability?  Perhaps, but my love of Toothless is much stronger in the books because he talks.  And also, there are 12 books and only 3 movies.  Yes, dear readers, my children have gone back to watching Cressida Cowell read the How to Train Your Dragon series to them over winter break, and I am not sad!  

What books are helping you cherish your people more this season?

~Nikki

I am going to preface this post with the admission that I am having a weird and not as expected December month. Adam and I overcommitted on some things which have thrown our routine, which I wouldn’t have considered a ‘routine’ until writing this sentence down to be honest, into  the yule-log fire to meet its demise.  We did it because these things were planned months in advance, are big deals for family and friends, and we didn’t truly know that our schedules were going to be imploded by other things that have caused immense grief and heartbreak on top of typical pandemic and holiday shenanigans. (Who knew that by this point we’d be thinking something about the pandemic was typical?! Bless.) I have encountered great joy in welcoming my niece into the Catholic faith as her godmother, spending bittersweet time with my mom here at our new house while also visiting my grandparents (by choice not blood) with our faces covered in masks because they are both on hospice and full-time oxygen, grieving with one of my bridesmaids on the loss of her husband in a tragic accident, all topped off with the ‘dance of the pet-sitter’ this past week, me going back and forth midday to let out dogs while Adam slept over every night. Oh, and as Nikki mentioned, the terrible bombing in Downtown Nashville on Christmas morning that has been a scary and emotional time. Adam and I watched 3 Die Hard films (which I realized while watching them might not have been emotionally appropriate for what happened in Nashville, but here we are) on DVD on Boxing Day because our internet just came back on at about 6:30pm this Sunday evening. That’s a first world problem, but additionally I have been sick to my stomach all weekend thinking of all the people who have been affected because the 911 emergency call centers were offline. We had no phone service, no internet, and no TV because we have all of those through one provider. It has me rethinking the ease-of-billing situation I created for myself. (I can feel the I-knew-it look that Nikki’s Adam is sending my direction.)

Therefore, my reading life this month has been on a scale of disappointing to abysmal. I haven’t even finished reading: 1) Little Women and 2) my Advent daily devotional. I WILL finish #1 before Friday but, #2, will be falling off the in medias res list and going on the DNF before January. I’m so disappointed that I’m not including a picture of my planner for you to ogle, so here’s a picture of the cutest cat-scratcher-theatre that Fancy French Store, Target, has to offer. Settling my mind enough to focus on a book has been a struggle-bus. End of year is probably not the time for me to push through to a stretch goal for 2020. I’ve already surpassed my goal of 100 books by 26%, and I’m trying to be happy and content with that situation. I was hoping for 130, but I’m going to be gentle on myself as I try to reset my household after the holidays and set myself and my little family of 2 humans and 2 cats up for a great start to 2021.

I’ve been thinking about what I want for my Reading Goals in 2021 and I’m stoked to be bringing you my decisions on Thursday. I’m sure Nikki’s busting at the seams with it, too. Where has December 2020 left you satisfied or disappointed in your overall goals for your Reading Life in 2020?

~Ashley

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