Anyway, I’m Falling in Love with You<\/strong>, which I also found out has an anime adaptation coming soon. So I’m excited to watch that when it airs! I haven’t watched Squid Game Season 2 yet, but I am looking forward to starting that soon as well, especially since I found out that T.O.P is on the cast!<\/p>\n
\nLife and Other Things<\/h2>\n
December was a busy but happy month. I’m thrilled I got to spend the holidays with my husband, he was overseas for work last year and we were both bummed that he missed holidays with family. Christmas and New Years’ were both a blast and I was in a real reading mood during my vacation days, and it did me a lot of good mentally.<\/p>\n
My husband gifted me the new Kindle Scribe and it’s been a game changer for me, since I really like highlighting and taking notes on ebooks for reviews. I do not like annotating or marking up physical books, so the scribe has been nice for scribbling my notes as I read physical books as well without distraction. The problem I had was that in the past, I’d pause reading a physical book to type up notes on my WordPress draft, and then get sidetracked and just start surfing the internet. So the Scribe kind of deters me from doing that, especially since I’m more tempted to walk over to the couch to read rather than sit at my computer. Plus, the bigger screen and ability to adjust warm lighting is just nice for me as my vision has gotten worse.<\/p>\n
I’m not one to set New Years’ Resolutions, but for 2025 I do have some goals I’d like to work on:<\/p>\n
A) Spend less time doing “time wasters” and more time on hobbies I love, namely, reading and playing the games I actually paid for on my PC. In 2024 I played a crazy amount of freemium mobile games and listened to a lot of junk drama channels on YouTube. No disrespect to either of those things, but it’s left my books and especially my Steam games on a shelf to collect dust, and I’d like to get through my existing backlog.<\/p>\n
B) Workout more, which I know is pretty standard. Now that I’ve recovered some from the near constant illnesses I experienced after COVID in 2023, I’d like to do a little more walking and biking to get my strength up and hopefully improve my immune system over time.<\/p>\n
C) Spend less money on books, every reader’s struggle. I have a massive library of books that I need to read at home, but then I get tempted to jump on Kindle Unlimited promos or borrow books from my local library (it is literally less than a block from my house). So for at least the first few months of 2025 with a few exceptions (namely my Twisted Retreat subscription and the books I bought at the end of December that haven’t arrived yet) I’d like to take more time to catch up on the books and ebooks I already own.<\/p>\n
D) Knock out more ARCs from all sources. I’d love to up my NetGalley percentage some, and to catch up on all my ARCs from BookSirens. Not to mention the ones I’ve received from Cemetery Dance. I read a few ARCs over the Christmas holiday and it felt good to help out some indie authors whose books I’ve enjoyed in the past and I’d like to get back on board with ARC reading regularly.<\/p>\n
\nBooks Hauled<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_theresurrectionist.png?resize=204%2C300&ssl=1\")
Look December was a crazy month don’t come for me, lol. I received a lot of books as gifts. My most exciting acquisition of the month is a copy of Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami. The book is long out of print in English and I had held off on purchasing it because of the obscene prices that people charge for it, but I got lucky to get a copy of an edition I really like for a reasonable price (50% of the normal price), and it is in stunningly good condition. The seller sent it wrapped in a plastic and I’ve kept it because I was to preserve it definitely, and plan to gently read it this year.<\/p>\n
Book Boxes<\/strong>
\n\u2665 It Came Upon a Midnight Clear by Dorian J. Sinnott
\n\u2665 The Darkest Night by Lindy Ryan (editor)
\n\u2665 The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap
\n\u2665 To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger
\n\u2665 We Kept Her in the Cellar by W.R. Gorman<\/p>\neARCs (Author\/Publisher)<\/strong>
\n\u2665 Trading Bullets with the Devil by Kirsten Cross & Mark Steensland
\n\u2665 Waste Ground by Marc Ruvolo
\n\u2665 Where Dreams Are Entombed: Creator by Chase Will<\/p>\neARCs (NetGalley)<\/strong>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_thedivineflesh.png?resize=199%2C300&ssl=1\")
\n\u2665 Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
\n\u2665 Free Burn by Drew Huff
\n\u2665 Home Office Romance by Kintetsu Yamada
\n\u2665 Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel
\n\u2665 Sheltering Eaves 1 by Rie Aruga
\n\u2665 Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce
\n\u2665 The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen by Yuta Takahashi
\n\u2665 The Divine Flesh by Drew Huff
\n\u2665 The Lost House by Melissa Larsen
\n\u2665 The True Happiness Company by Veena Dinavahi<\/p>\nEbook Purchases<\/strong>
\n\u2665 Abomination in Wax by Judith Sonnet
\n\u2665 Among the Living by Tim Lebbon
\n\u2665 Antibody by Chris Williams
\n\u2665 Bloat by Rob Ulitski
\n\u2665 Crushing Snails by Emma E. Murray
\n\u2665 Debasing Seth by Aiden E. Messer
\n\u2665 Dreamwhispers by M. Ennenbach
\n\u2665 Earth Angel by Madeline Cash![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_earthangel.png?resize=189%2C300&ssl=1\")
\n\u2665 Helloween by Duncan Ralston
\n\u2665 OH FUCK OH FUCK IT HURTS by Ruth Anna Evans
\n\u2665 Real Love by B.C. Hollywood
\n\u2665 Rest Stop by Nat Cassidy
\n\u2665 Sick! Sick! Sick! by Robert Essig
\n\u2665 Skins by Audrey Rush
\n\u2665 The Bug Collector by Wrath James White
\n\u2665 The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti by Stephen Graham Jones
\n\u2665 They Eat You From the Inside by Jacob Perrett<\/p>\nGifts<\/strong>
\n\u2665 Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson
\n\u2665 Cold Snap by Lindy Ryan
\n\u2665 Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
\n\u2665 Ghost Summer by Tananarive Due
\n\u2665 Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
\n\u2665 Invaginies by Joe Koch
\n\u2665 Pink Slime by Fernanda Tr\u00edas
\n\u2665 She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_almosttransparentblue.png?resize=209%2C300&ssl=1\")
\n\u2665 The Queen by Nick Cutter
\n\u2665 The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
\n\u2665 Uncanny: Origins of Fear by Junji Ito<\/p>\nGiveaways<\/strong>
\n\u2665 Books of Blood 1-3 by Clive Barker
\n\u2665 Download by Rob Ulitski
\n\u2665 Hideaway by Dean Koontz
\n\u2665 October Screams by Kenneth W. Cain (editor)
\n\u2665 The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born by Peter David
\n\u2665 The Fury by Alex Michaelides<\/p>\nPhysical Purchases<\/strong>
\n\u2665 Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami
\n\u2665 Flesh Party by Jordan Thiery
\n\u2665 Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
\n\u2665 Our Greatest Enemy by Jordan Thiery<\/p>\nAmazon First<\/strong>
\n\u2665 Bitter Passage by Colin Mills
\n\u2665 When She Returned by Lucinda Berry<\/p>\n
\nNext Month<\/h2>\n
I don’t know what I’ll have planned for January, beyond happily reading on my new Kindle Scribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Blog Updates Nothing crazy on the blog this month! Posts Book Reviews \u2665 Bury Your Demons by Timothy King (3\u2605) \u2665 Flesh Party by Jordan Thiery (5\u2605) \u2665 Fuck Them…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3217],"tags":[],"book-author":[],"book-illustrator":[],"book-series":[],"book-publisher":[],"book-genre":[],"book-source":[],"book-format":[],"class_list":["post-22888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-monthly-blog-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/blogreview_dec2024-header.png?fit=1080%2C540&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22888"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22915,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22888\/revisions\/22915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"book-author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-author?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"book-illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-illustrator?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"book-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-series?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"book-publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-publisher?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"book-genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-genre?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"book-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-source?post=22888"},{"taxonomy":"book-format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-format?post=22888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_fleshparty.png?resize=188%2C300&ssl=1\")
Book Reviews<\/strong>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_abominationinwax.png?resize=194%2C300&ssl=1\")
I got to read quite a few books and manga over the Christmas holiday and I had so much fun!<\/p>\n