here’s what I’ve been reading!!
**Haley’s December Reading Round-Up: A Journey Through Books**
December is always a special time for book lovers, especially when it comes to festive reads. In this video, Haley shares her thoughts on the books she read in December, which includes both holiday-themed and non-festive titles. Despite some delays in her reading vlog, she managed to squeeze in a ton of books and wanted to share her experiences with you. Let’s dive into the details!
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### Introduction
Haley kicks off her video by mentioning that this is a delayed December wrap-up. She explains that while most of these books were discussed in her reading vlogs throughout Bookmas, there were a few she didn’t get to due to unforeseen circumstances. She assures her audience that these books are still worth talking about, even if they weren’t part of the official reading vlog.
She categorizes the books into three non-festive titles and the rest being festive reads. She emphasizes that festive books can be enjoyed year-round, so don’t feel pressured to limit yourself to December for Christmasy stories. Without any spoilers, she encourages viewers to check out her detailed thoughts on each book in the video’s timestamps.
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### "Holly Jolly Diwali" by Sonia Lolly
The first book Haley discusses is *Holly Jolly Diwali* by Sonia Lolly. This story follows a character who makes an impulsive decision to travel to India during Diwali, despite her life feeling uncertain after losing her job. She’s attending her best friend’s wedding and stepping out of her comfort zone, which leads her to meet a London musician who she can’t help but fall for.
Haley highlights that the book is not just a romance; it’s also about personal growth. The protagonist learns more about her culture, family, and life goals while navigating her feelings for the musician. The vivid depiction of Diwali and India transported her to another world, making the story even more engaging. She appreciated the depth of the character’s struggles with identity and the balance between tradition and individuality.
The romance in the book is described as adorable, with the couple feeling perfectly matched. Haley found the story fun and a great way to kick off the holiday season. Her enthusiasm for this book is clear, and she was pleasantly surprised by how much it resonated with her.
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### "An Emotion of Great Delight" by Tahara Mafi
Next up is *An Emotion of Great Delight* by Tahara Mafi, a contemporary story set during the U.S. declaration of war on Iraq in 2003. The protagonist is a Muslim woman dealing with personal struggles, including the loss of her brother and strained relationships with her family. She’s also experiencing prejudice and hardship as she tries to navigate life.
Haley describes the book as emotionally intense, focusing on the character’s internal journey. However, she feels conflicted about the abrupt ending, which left many questions unanswered. While she understands open-ended stories, this one felt too unresolved for her taste. She warns readers to be aware of potential triggers and advises looking into that before diving in.
Despite its emotional weight, Haley acknowledges that the book was a fast read but wishes it had provided more closure.
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### "The Cost of Knowing" by Brittany Morris
Haley then talks about *The Cost of Knowing* by Brittany Morris, written by the author of *Slay*. The story follows two brothers: one who has the ability to see the future of objects he touches and another who is struggling with their shared loss after their parents’ death.
While she enjoyed the emotional depth and the relationship between the brothers, Haley felt disconnected from the magical element introduced in the plot. She appreciated Brittany Morris’s writing skills but found the inclusion of magic somewhat out of place. Despite her reservations, she praised the book for its ability to tug at heartstrings and break her heart.
Haley humorously admits that she started December planning to read two sad books but ended up enjoying this one despite her mixed feelings.
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### "The War Outside" by Monica Hesse
Unfortunately, Haley didn’t get a chance to discuss *The War Outside* during Bookmas. However, she mentions that she read it in January and plans to talk about it in an upcoming video. For now, she focuses on the festive reads she did manage to finish.
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### "Blame It on the Mistletoe" by Beth Garrett
One of the festive reads Haley highlights is *Blame It on the Mistletoe* by Beth Garrett. The book follows an influencer who swaps places with a British follower during the holiday season to kick-start her struggling Instagram account.
Haley had high hopes for this one but was disappointed by the writing, which she felt was too young and forced. She struggled with the influencer aspect of the story and found the British character’s voice jarring. While she acknowledges that it might work for some readers, it didn’t resonate with her. She ended up putting it down after getting halfway through.
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### "Eight Perfect Hours" by Leah Louise
Another book Haley tried was *Eight Perfect Hours* by Leah Louise. Set during a blizzard in the UK, the story follows two strangers stranded on a highway who end up meeting over time. While she enjoyed the wintry setting, Haley felt the book was less Christmasy than she expected.
She describes it as a “mediocre” romance with average chemistry between the characters. The story didn’t leave a strong impression on her, likely because of her high expectations for a holiday-themed read.
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### "The Project" by Courtney Summers
Finally, Haley shares her thoughts on *The Project* by Courtney Summers, a book she had been dreading due to its mixed reviews. The story follows two sisters: one who joins a cult while the other investigates it after a car accident takes their parents.
Haley struggled with the protagonist’s character development, feeling it was unrealistic and frustrating. She found the plot twists jarring and felt the book didn’t live up to her expectations, especially after enjoying *Sadie* by the same author.
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### Festive Reads: Novellas and More
In the latter part of her video, Haley talks about shorter festive reads she enjoyed:
1. **"Just a Short Story" by Talia Hibbert**: A cute holiday romance that satisfied her need for Christmas charm. The chemistry between the characters was strong, making it a delightful read.
2. **"Window Shopping" by Tessa Bailey**: Unfortunately, this one didn’t work for Haley. She found it too smutty and felt it was just “sex wrapped in a pretty package.” Listening to the audiobook didn’t help, as she disliked the narrator’s voice.
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### Full-Length Festive Reads
Haley also discusses three full-length festive books:
1. **"The Matzo Ball" by Jean Meltzer**: An enemies-to-lovers story about an author who attends a Hanukkah event hosted by her childhood rival for inspiration. Haley loved the cultural insights and the mix of second-chance romance with enemies-to-lovers dynamics. The chemistry between the characters was a highlight.
2. **"Nick and Noel’s Christmas Playlist" by Cody Hall**: A best-friends-to-lovers story set in a Christmasy town. Nick is recovering from a breakup while working on his family’s Christmas tree farm, and Noel is an orphan taken in by Nick’s family. Haley adored their deep connection and the festive backdrop, making it one of her favorites.
3. **"The 12 Dates of Christmas" by Jenny Bayless**: A fun and adorable enemies-to-lovers romance about a girl who agrees to go on 12 dates before Christmas. The twists and turns kept her engaged, and she loved the Christmasy theme with its English setting.
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### Conclusion
Haley wraps up her video by inviting viewers to share their thoughts on any of these books. She also hints at an upcoming January reading vlog since she’s already read several books this month.
Whether you’re a fan of festive reads or prefer stories that transcend the holiday season, Haley’s December reading journey offers something for everyone. Her enthusiasm and honest reviews make her recommendations worth considering!
Thank you for watching, and we’ll see you in the next video!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone it's haley and today i'm going to be talking about the books that i read in december so this is a quite delayed december wrap up so most of these books i talked about in reading vlogs over the course of bookmas there are quite a few actually that didn't end up making it into a reading vlog because i was supposed to do a reading vlog on the one monday but circumstances just led to that not actually happening but i did still want to share my thoughts on all of those books for you guys so i have three like non-festive books here and then the rest of the books are kind of festive but i hope that you don't mind that i'm still going to talk about them because i feel like i don't know you can kind of read christmasy or festive reads any time of year if you really wanted to that being said i'm not going to be sharing any spoilers for any of these books so don't worry if you haven't read any of them and i will also have time stamps in the description box down below so if there is a specific book that you would like to hear about then you can check that out so the reading vlog that i didn't end up doing i actually ended up reading a ton of books for it which is so tragic like i read this one and then plus i read an e-book as well but that was supposed to be my christmas romances reading vlog it's just it didn't end up happening for various reasons however of course i ended up being a reading blog where like i read so much but i'm actually going to start off with the book that i actually finished in november but i didn't get the chance to include this in a recent reads video so that is a holly jolly diwali by sonia lolly that is always kind of a struggle for me to say but this is a book that is set during diwali and it follows a character who goes to india she goes and she is learning more about her culture what diwali is and it's just this like completely impulsive out of character move for her but she has just lost her job so she decides to go and try and like she's attending her best friend's wedding and she's kind of putting herself out of her shell but along the way she ends up meeting a london musician who she can't help but fall for so it is definitely a romance story but it also is a book that's very much about the main characters like own personal development and her learning more about who she is her family her culture like what she wants to do with her life and everything so it was a really multi-faceted story i did enjoy the diwali element to it how it taught me a lot about that the setting of india was beautiful i felt like it truly transported me there and i just loved watching her experience it for the first time she's kind of struggling with her identity a little bit and she basically has always wanted to be like the good indian daughter but she feels like she wants more than that now so well her older sister has always been the rebel and everything and she felt like she's had to make up for that she's breaking out of her shell and learning more about what she actually wants the romance in here was also absolutely adorable i loved the two of them and i felt like they were perfectly matched and i just loved everything about this book it was a really fun read to kind of kick off the holiday season for me and i was very pleasantly surprised by it so for the first reading vlog of bookmas i read a couple of my five star predictions that i had predicted it's always so hard for me to explain this but in 2020 i predicted some books that i felt like i was really going to love in 2021 and i read a lot of them but there were also a few that i didn't get to and i ended up reading two of those during bookmas so the first one is an emotion of great delight by tahara mafi this is a contemporary and it's following the main character in a really hard time in her life it's when america has officially declared war on iraq it's 2003 and the main character is a muslim character who just everything in her life has been going wrong she's really struggling with her mother is having a hard time her brother died a year ago and her family has been falling apart ever since then and her father is very ill and she fears that she will lose him soon too and she also had this best friend that she was like inseparable with but now they have completely fallen apart so essentially she is just experiencing a lot of changes and not for the better she's seeing all this prejudice around her and the news is always just very depressing and she's having a very hard time in general so as you would expect it is a very emotional story but i just i'm kind of torn on this one because the ending that's really like the only thing i can remember is the ending because it was so incredibly unbelievably abrupt it literally seems like it ends like mid-sentence there's not that much that happens throughout the book it's a very very quiet plot where you're just following the character and like her relationships how her life is going all of that so it's really about her story and it's an internal story but at the same time then when like something does finally kind of start happening the book ends so there's so much that's left unresolved i'm not really like i don't hate open-ended endings but this for me was a little bit too much it just was so incredibly like i was flipping through and i was like did my book misprint or something because it just out of nowhere you get no answers there's a bunch of questions that are brought up throughout the book but you don't get any answers at all there also are numerous triggers for this book so definitely be wary of that and look into that before reading it but i just felt like for such a depressing story that was really emotional i didn't like the fact that you didn't get answers and you didn't know like what happened to certain characters that were really struggling what happened to the main character like let alone other characters you didn't even really get to know what happened to her so i just kind of had mixed feelings on this one it was an incredibly fast read but i felt like some of its impactfulness was impeded by the fact that it just like had such an abrupt ending next is the cost of knowing by brittany morris so this is by the author of slay and i definitely thought that i was going to love this one because i enjoyed slay so much and i didn't not like this one however i didn't enjoy it quite as much as slay so i don't think either of these were accurate five star predictions but oh well like they weren't bad books i just kind of have some issues with both of them so in this one you're following the main character and his brother and i will say i did like i did enjoy this one a lot it's just i kind of enjoyed slay a little bit more but the main character ever since his family like he lost his parents he has always had the ability to when he touches something then he sees the future of it so it's really hard obviously going through life with that ability but then he ends up touching something and sees his brother's imminent death and obviously that is like really juggling and he knows he can't really do anything with the information and him and his brother have really been struggling since they lost their parents so it's kind of about him trying to make up for lost time while also trying to save his brother even though he knows he really can't so it's a very emotional story i felt like the kind of magical element to it i didn't that's where i kind of had a disconnect with it i loved watching these two brothers connect after so long apart and their relationship was truly very nice to read about but the magical element that was added even though it was explained i felt like i didn't quite get it and it seemed a little bit out of place i know it is like the catalyst for the whole story but i don't know i kind of had mixed feelings about that however i think brittany morris is a fantastic writer and this book was no exception like it totally broke my heart and i don't know why i'd like to start off december i was like let's read two really sad books but that is what i ended up doing but i did end up really liking this one even though i did have a couple issues the next reading vlog that i did i had my boyfriend wrap up some books for me so he wrapped them up and then as i was unwrapping that's what i chose to read one of the books that i unwrapped was the war outside by monica hesse and i didn't get the chance to get to that one during bookmas but i did read it in january so i will be talking about that in a video i'm actually filming right after this one but i'm going to be talking about the books that i've read so far in january however one of the books that i did unwrap and read during that vlog was blame it on the mistletoe by beth garrett i asked him to wrap up a couple of actually that reminds me i'm totally missing one i'll need to find that one but there's definitely two christmas reads that i read during that vlog so blame it on the mistletoe is the first one i asked him to wrap up a couple christmas reads for me and then just some like random not too long books and i didn't actually end up finishing this one and i'm so sad because i thought it sounded adorable it's a holiday retelling and it's about this influencer who's hoping to like kick start her account because it's kind of been struggling so she decides to switch places for the days leading up to the holidays with one of her british followers and i just i had so much trouble with the writing for this one i i know like i'm 26 so like why a isn't necessarily geared toward me although anyone can read it but this one just felt young to me it felt really young and i think just corny it felt like i could tell an adult was trying to get into the headspace of like influencers and that whole thing and i just i did not like the influencer element to it it just felt so forced and so strange and maybe it's just like i haven't seen that side of that world so it just was weird to me but on top of that the voice of the british character i can't remember her name holly she was she was i don't know i didn't really care for her that much and a lot of it was because the writing was just like non-stop like i get that she was a very like peppy and energetic character but the writing of her portions just felt like it was like doo like i don't even know how to really describe it it just was so jarring and hard to keep up with what was going on because she had such a distinctive voice so i think that this one would definitely work for a lot of people it just didn't work for me i got like maybe halfway through maybe a little bit more and i was just like yeah i'm not liking this one it kind of feels like i'm forcing myself to pick it up so i ended up putting it down but i did give it a go so the other book that i forgot about and i don't actually know where i put it so i don't know it's somewhere but that is eight perfect hours by leah louise this actually was kind of disappointing to me because i was expecting it to be more christmasy than it was but it wasn't so the cover kind of got me for this one but it's set like during a blizzard these two characters there's so much snow that there's kind of not a pile up but all of the cars are stopped on this highway in the uk and she's on her way to go to a high school reunion and she's actually going to get like a camera that her best friend who died recently she put in this time capsule so it's this whole thing but they end up getting stranded in the snow in their cars together over the course of eight hours and then it's kind of them like meeting up again over the course of months so it's not really all that christmassy but it definitely is like wintry so you can read this book whenever and i did like it i just kind of it felt like a really average like i have such a hard time describing books that are just averaged me because there wasn't anything that i can really pinpoint being wrong with the story i just think i was expecting it to be something different which is why it didn't necessarily work out all that well for me so it was kind of like will they won't they sort of thing and i felt like there was mediocre chemistry between the two characters so it was just fine and the final book that i read for that reading vlog where my boyfriend wrapped some books was the project by courtney summers this i had been kind of like dreading reading because i really enjoyed sadie by courtney summers and this book came out last year it's her most recent release and the reviews that i had seen weren't all that great and i tried to like avoid them and not let them cloud my judgment and i didn't i went into this with an open mind but i was definitely a little bit nervous a little bit skeptical and at the beginning i was like okay but then by the end i was like wow there are a lot of things happening the character does a complete 360 and is like a completely different person like it's one thing for character development but this wasn't character development one it was more of a decline and two it just didn't really make sense to me this book deals with cults and the main character her sister she joined a cult while she was in a coma so this is going to get confusing i need to say their names so low and b b is the one who ended up joining a cult while low was in a coma from being in a car accident that took their parents so she like takes solace in this cult and everything and that's where she ends up going and lo is convinced that it's a cult because obviously like they're not they don't say like this is a cult but she's convinced this is a really bad place bad things happen they're in everything so she sets out to investigate it and she hasn't spoken to her sister at all like they completely just they haven't spoken at all and so she doesn't really know like for sure things about it but she's just very skeptical and she ends up being able to get an inside view at things but like she just becomes a completely different character and it was so frustrating i kind of get why it happened it just didn't seem realistic to me it just made her seem really dumb so i don't know if this is just a mia issue but i really did not care for that i didn't care for where the story ended up going but yeah i don't know it was just like myth the final reading vlog that i did for bookmas and i filmed half of it but then i ended up getting some bad news and i could not bring myself to film the rest of it but for that i read my christmas holiday romances and the first one that i read was just a short novella and it's by talia hibbert it's wrapped in new and this was really cute like it's very short so i don't really have that much to say about it but it like kind of satisfied that you know holiday cuteness itch and i did like it it was a fun story i felt the chemistry between the characters it was just a really cute holiday romance not much else to say about it however i did try out one other novella and that was window shopping by tessa bailey and i ended up dnfing this one because it was literally just like sex with some mistletoe that was it like it was just like festive like it just is constant weird weird like i don't know this was just way too smutty for me and nothing wrong with anyone who enjoys this it just felt like it was smut just wrapped in like a pretty christmas packaging and i that's not what i was wanting from it i really i listened to the audiobook for this actually and i think part of it was i hated the narrator so that just made it like that much worse for me but i just thought it was gonna be something so different like it's about this girl who starts working at this department store dressing up their windows and i was like oh my god adorable like during christmas doing window dressing whatever but it just ended up being like a really weird relationship developing and a really strange dynamic and i just wasn't a fan of that i don't know if you can hear it because sometimes the might picks it up sometimes it doesn't but charlie's chewing on his bones so i apologize if you can hear it but i'm just gonna let him do his thing i did read three other books during that reading vlog week and they were all christmas books and those were the last books that i ended up reading in december because then i ended up going home for the holidays and i wasn't really reading them so the matzo ball by jean meltzer is the other well the first like full-length book that i ended up finishing during that week and i did really enjoy this one it's an enemies-to-lover story and it's about an author who secretly she has been writing christmas romances and this is a secret because she's jewish so her family like she hasn't told them no one actually knows this and she also suffers from a chronic illness which is key in the story and that was a really nice element to see but her publisher they approach her wanting her to write a hanukkah romance and she all of a sudden has like no ideas for anything she's like i can't do this so she ends up going to the matzo ball which is like this really big event made by one of her childhood rivals and she sees him and obviously like there's kind of some sparks flying between the two of them but she goes there to try and get inspiration for her story i just felt like this was like such a cute refreshing and new sort of holiday romance i really loved learning so much about hanukkah and like the jewish culture in general and watching these two characters it wasn't enemies to lovers that i did really enjoy because that is kind of a trope that i do tend to struggle with a little bit but in this case i could definitely see the chemistry between the two of them and i loved it i think maybe because it was a mix of like second chance romance and enemies to lovers that's why i liked it because they weren't like so much enemies it really was more of that second chance romance but either way it worked for me i also ended up reading nick and noel's christmas playlist by cody hall and i really really liked this one i kind of when i was marking us right on goodreads i saw some like really negative reviews but honestly i had a lot of fun with this one and maybe it's because i listened to the audiobook like i had a lot of fun with it it was very corny but it was exactly what i wanted from this christmas romance and it also is a best friends to lovers and that's like definitely one of my favorite tropes of all time and i think this did it so well like i just i wanted these two characters to be together i could feel it it was meant to be their chemistry was amazing but this is about two characters who they like obviously they've been best friends for a really long time and they live in a very christmasy town so nick has been working on his family's christmas tree farm and he has just been through a really bad breakup so now it's kind of like finally the time when the two of them can be together so the two of them end up kissing and like they're surprised that it feels right and everything and it's just you know we have a love story set against the backdrop of christmas that goes from there i just like i love the fact that their two families were so tight-knit because noel has she's orphaned she's lost her family and nick's family has taken her in so there was just already such a deep connection between the two of them that i was like this needs to happen and i was all about it i just could not but i loved the christmasy elements to it i felt like they added the perfect touch to this romance story and i mean maybe if this was not said at christmas i wouldn't have liked it as much but the corniness just worked for christmas for me and i i just felt like it was so cute like i didn't know what to expect from this one i kind of picked it up on a whim but it was really good and the final book that i read in december is the 12 dates of christmas by jenny bayless i had picked this book up last year and i thought it sounded adorable it's about a girl who agrees to go with this dating service that sets her up on 12 dates leading up to christmas and they like are assuring that they will find the one and it was just it was so fun like it was adorable there were so many different twists and turns and a lot of it was kind of over the top and ridiculous but it worked i loved the christmasy theme of all the dates so you had a lot of holiday things sprinkled in there and it had an adorable romance overall like it was so cute but i didn't really explain that very well it's like 12 dates leading up to christmas so it's 12 dates with 12 different men it's just like it's a lot of fun you know when you have a concept like that it's kind of like 10 blind dates ish but this is the adult version and i felt like it was adorable i loved the english setting i don't know why but christmas books always seem to be set in like small english towns and this one was no exception but it was so cute i loved the characters loved the friendships and everything like it wasn't just about her and all these dates there was so much more going to it which is why i really enjoyed it so those are all the books that i ended up reading for the end of 2021 that i haven't gotten the chance to talk about yet so if you have read any of these books please let me know your thoughts on them and i will have a judge not july january recent reads coming out soon because i'm actually gonna film it now because i have read quite a few books already this month so thank you guys so much for watching today's video i hope you enjoyed and i will see you in another one soon byehey everyone it's haley and today i'm going to be talking about the books that i read in december so this is a quite delayed december wrap up so most of these books i talked about in reading vlogs over the course of bookmas there are quite a few actually that didn't end up making it into a reading vlog because i was supposed to do a reading vlog on the one monday but circumstances just led to that not actually happening but i did still want to share my thoughts on all of those books for you guys so i have three like non-festive books here and then the rest of the books are kind of festive but i hope that you don't mind that i'm still going to talk about them because i feel like i don't know you can kind of read christmasy or festive reads any time of year if you really wanted to that being said i'm not going to be sharing any spoilers for any of these books so don't worry if you haven't read any of them and i will also have time stamps in the description box down below so if there is a specific book that you would like to hear about then you can check that out so the reading vlog that i didn't end up doing i actually ended up reading a ton of books for it which is so tragic like i read this one and then plus i read an e-book as well but that was supposed to be my christmas romances reading vlog it's just it didn't end up happening for various reasons however of course i ended up being a reading blog where like i read so much but i'm actually going to start off with the book that i actually finished in november but i didn't get the chance to include this in a recent reads video so that is a holly jolly diwali by sonia lolly that is always kind of a struggle for me to say but this is a book that is set during diwali and it follows a character who goes to india she goes and she is learning more about her culture what diwali is and it's just this like completely impulsive out of character move for her but she has just lost her job so she decides to go and try and like she's attending her best friend's wedding and she's kind of putting herself out of her shell but along the way she ends up meeting a london musician who she can't help but fall for so it is definitely a romance story but it also is a book that's very much about the main characters like own personal development and her learning more about who she is her family her culture like what she wants to do with her life and everything so it was a really multi-faceted story i did enjoy the diwali element to it how it taught me a lot about that the setting of india was beautiful i felt like it truly transported me there and i just loved watching her experience it for the first time she's kind of struggling with her identity a little bit and she basically has always wanted to be like the good indian daughter but she feels like she wants more than that now so well her older sister has always been the rebel and everything and she felt like she's had to make up for that she's breaking out of her shell and learning more about what she actually wants the romance in here was also absolutely adorable i loved the two of them and i felt like they were perfectly matched and i just loved everything about this book it was a really fun read to kind of kick off the holiday season for me and i was very pleasantly surprised by it so for the first reading vlog of bookmas i read a couple of my five star predictions that i had predicted it's always so hard for me to explain this but in 2020 i predicted some books that i felt like i was really going to love in 2021 and i read a lot of them but there were also a few that i didn't get to and i ended up reading two of those during bookmas so the first one is an emotion of great delight by tahara mafi this is a contemporary and it's following the main character in a really hard time in her life it's when america has officially declared war on iraq it's 2003 and the main character is a muslim character who just everything in her life has been going wrong she's really struggling with her mother is having a hard time her brother died a year ago and her family has been falling apart ever since then and her father is very ill and she fears that she will lose him soon too and she also had this best friend that she was like inseparable with but now they have completely fallen apart so essentially she is just experiencing a lot of changes and not for the better she's seeing all this prejudice around her and the news is always just very depressing and she's having a very hard time in general so as you would expect it is a very emotional story but i just i'm kind of torn on this one because the ending that's really like the only thing i can remember is the ending because it was so incredibly unbelievably abrupt it literally seems like it ends like mid-sentence there's not that much that happens throughout the book it's a very very quiet plot where you're just following the character and like her relationships how her life is going all of that so it's really about her story and it's an internal story but at the same time then when like something does finally kind of start happening the book ends so there's so much that's left unresolved i'm not really like i don't hate open-ended endings but this for me was a little bit too much it just was so incredibly like i was flipping through and i was like did my book misprint or something because it just out of nowhere you get no answers there's a bunch of questions that are brought up throughout the book but you don't get any answers at all there also are numerous triggers for this book so definitely be wary of that and look into that before reading it but i just felt like for such a depressing story that was really emotional i didn't like the fact that you didn't get answers and you didn't know like what happened to certain characters that were really struggling what happened to the main character like let alone other characters you didn't even really get to know what happened to her so i just kind of had mixed feelings on this one it was an incredibly fast read but i felt like some of its impactfulness was impeded by the fact that it just like had such an abrupt ending next is the cost of knowing by brittany morris so this is by the author of slay and i definitely thought that i was going to love this one because i enjoyed slay so much and i didn't not like this one however i didn't enjoy it quite as much as slay so i don't think either of these were accurate five star predictions but oh well like they weren't bad books i just kind of have some issues with both of them so in this one you're following the main character and his brother and i will say i did like i did enjoy this one a lot it's just i kind of enjoyed slay a little bit more but the main character ever since his family like he lost his parents he has always had the ability to when he touches something then he sees the future of it so it's really hard obviously going through life with that ability but then he ends up touching something and sees his brother's imminent death and obviously that is like really juggling and he knows he can't really do anything with the information and him and his brother have really been struggling since they lost their parents so it's kind of about him trying to make up for lost time while also trying to save his brother even though he knows he really can't so it's a very emotional story i felt like the kind of magical element to it i didn't that's where i kind of had a disconnect with it i loved watching these two brothers connect after so long apart and their relationship was truly very nice to read about but the magical element that was added even though it was explained i felt like i didn't quite get it and it seemed a little bit out of place i know it is like the catalyst for the whole story but i don't know i kind of had mixed feelings about that however i think brittany morris is a fantastic writer and this book was no exception like it totally broke my heart and i don't know why i'd like to start off december i was like let's read two really sad books but that is what i ended up doing but i did end up really liking this one even though i did have a couple issues the next reading vlog that i did i had my boyfriend wrap up some books for me so he wrapped them up and then as i was unwrapping that's what i chose to read one of the books that i unwrapped was the war outside by monica hesse and i didn't get the chance to get to that one during bookmas but i did read it in january so i will be talking about that in a video i'm actually filming right after this one but i'm going to be talking about the books that i've read so far in january however one of the books that i did unwrap and read during that vlog was blame it on the mistletoe by beth garrett i asked him to wrap up a couple of actually that reminds me i'm totally missing one i'll need to find that one but there's definitely two christmas reads that i read during that vlog so blame it on the mistletoe is the first one i asked him to wrap up a couple christmas reads for me and then just some like random not too long books and i didn't actually end up finishing this one and i'm so sad because i thought it sounded adorable it's a holiday retelling and it's about this influencer who's hoping to like kick start her account because it's kind of been struggling so she decides to switch places for the days leading up to the holidays with one of her british followers and i just i had so much trouble with the writing for this one i i know like i'm 26 so like why a isn't necessarily geared toward me although anyone can read it but this one just felt young to me it felt really young and i think just corny it felt like i could tell an adult was trying to get into the headspace of like influencers and that whole thing and i just i did not like the influencer element to it it just felt so forced and so strange and maybe it's just like i haven't seen that side of that world so it just was weird to me but on top of that the voice of the british character i can't remember her name holly she was she was i don't know i didn't really care for her that much and a lot of it was because the writing was just like non-stop like i get that she was a very like peppy and energetic character but the writing of her portions just felt like it was like doo like i don't even know how to really describe it it just was so jarring and hard to keep up with what was going on because she had such a distinctive voice so i think that this one would definitely work for a lot of people it just didn't work for me i got like maybe halfway through maybe a little bit more and i was just like yeah i'm not liking this one it kind of feels like i'm forcing myself to pick it up so i ended up putting it down but i did give it a go so the other book that i forgot about and i don't actually know where i put it so i don't know it's somewhere but that is eight perfect hours by leah louise this actually was kind of disappointing to me because i was expecting it to be more christmasy than it was but it wasn't so the cover kind of got me for this one but it's set like during a blizzard these two characters there's so much snow that there's kind of not a pile up but all of the cars are stopped on this highway in the uk and she's on her way to go to a high school reunion and she's actually going to get like a camera that her best friend who died recently she put in this time capsule so it's this whole thing but they end up getting stranded in the snow in their cars together over the course of eight hours and then it's kind of them like meeting up again over the course of months so it's not really all that christmassy but it definitely is like wintry so you can read this book whenever and i did like it i just kind of it felt like a really average like i have such a hard time describing books that are just averaged me because there wasn't anything that i can really pinpoint being wrong with the story i just think i was expecting it to be something different which is why it didn't necessarily work out all that well for me so it was kind of like will they won't they sort of thing and i felt like there was mediocre chemistry between the two characters so it was just fine and the final book that i read for that reading vlog where my boyfriend wrapped some books was the project by courtney summers this i had been kind of like dreading reading because i really enjoyed sadie by courtney summers and this book came out last year it's her most recent release and the reviews that i had seen weren't all that great and i tried to like avoid them and not let them cloud my judgment and i didn't i went into this with an open mind but i was definitely a little bit nervous a little bit skeptical and at the beginning i was like okay but then by the end i was like wow there are a lot of things happening the character does a complete 360 and is like a completely different person like it's one thing for character development but this wasn't character development one it was more of a decline and two it just didn't really make sense to me this book deals with cults and the main character her sister she joined a cult while she was in a coma so this is going to get confusing i need to say their names so low and b b is the one who ended up joining a cult while low was in a coma from being in a car accident that took their parents so she like takes solace in this cult and everything and that's where she ends up going and lo is convinced that it's a cult because obviously like they're not they don't say like this is a cult but she's convinced this is a really bad place bad things happen they're in everything so she sets out to investigate it and she hasn't spoken to her sister at all like they completely just they haven't spoken at all and so she doesn't really know like for sure things about it but she's just very skeptical and she ends up being able to get an inside view at things but like she just becomes a completely different character and it was so frustrating i kind of get why it happened it just didn't seem realistic to me it just made her seem really dumb so i don't know if this is just a mia issue but i really did not care for that i didn't care for where the story ended up going but yeah i don't know it was just like myth the final reading vlog that i did for bookmas and i filmed half of it but then i ended up getting some bad news and i could not bring myself to film the rest of it but for that i read my christmas holiday romances and the first one that i read was just a short novella and it's by talia hibbert it's wrapped in new and this was really cute like it's very short so i don't really have that much to say about it but it like kind of satisfied that you know holiday cuteness itch and i did like it it was a fun story i felt the chemistry between the characters it was just a really cute holiday romance not much else to say about it however i did try out one other novella and that was window shopping by tessa bailey and i ended up dnfing this one because it was literally just like sex with some mistletoe that was it like it was just like festive like it just is constant weird weird like i don't know this was just way too smutty for me and nothing wrong with anyone who enjoys this it just felt like it was smut just wrapped in like a pretty christmas packaging and i that's not what i was wanting from it i really i listened to the audiobook for this actually and i think part of it was i hated the narrator so that just made it like that much worse for me but i just thought it was gonna be something so different like it's about this girl who starts working at this department store dressing up their windows and i was like oh my god adorable like during christmas doing window dressing whatever but it just ended up being like a really weird relationship developing and a really strange dynamic and i just wasn't a fan of that i don't know if you can hear it because sometimes the might picks it up sometimes it doesn't but charlie's chewing on his bones so i apologize if you can hear it but i'm just gonna let him do his thing i did read three other books during that reading vlog week and they were all christmas books and those were the last books that i ended up reading in december because then i ended up going home for the holidays and i wasn't really reading them so the matzo ball by jean meltzer is the other well the first like full-length book that i ended up finishing during that week and i did really enjoy this one it's an enemies-to-lover story and it's about an author who secretly she has been writing christmas romances and this is a secret because she's jewish so her family like she hasn't told them no one actually knows this and she also suffers from a chronic illness which is key in the story and that was a really nice element to see but her publisher they approach her wanting her to write a hanukkah romance and she all of a sudden has like no ideas for anything she's like i can't do this so she ends up going to the matzo ball which is like this really big event made by one of her childhood rivals and she sees him and obviously like there's kind of some sparks flying between the two of them but she goes there to try and get inspiration for her story i just felt like this was like such a cute refreshing and new sort of holiday romance i really loved learning so much about hanukkah and like the jewish culture in general and watching these two characters it wasn't enemies to lovers that i did really enjoy because that is kind of a trope that i do tend to struggle with a little bit but in this case i could definitely see the chemistry between the two of them and i loved it i think maybe because it was a mix of like second chance romance and enemies to lovers that's why i liked it because they weren't like so much enemies it really was more of that second chance romance but either way it worked for me i also ended up reading nick and noel's christmas playlist by cody hall and i really really liked this one i kind of when i was marking us right on goodreads i saw some like really negative reviews but honestly i had a lot of fun with this one and maybe it's because i listened to the audiobook like i had a lot of fun with it it was very corny but it was exactly what i wanted from this christmas romance and it also is a best friends to lovers and that's like definitely one of my favorite tropes of all time and i think this did it so well like i just i wanted these two characters to be together i could feel it it was meant to be their chemistry was amazing but this is about two characters who they like obviously they've been best friends for a really long time and they live in a very christmasy town so nick has been working on his family's christmas tree farm and he has just been through a really bad breakup so now it's kind of like finally the time when the two of them can be together so the two of them end up kissing and like they're surprised that it feels right and everything and it's just you know we have a love story set against the backdrop of christmas that goes from there i just like i love the fact that their two families were so tight-knit because noel has she's orphaned she's lost her family and nick's family has taken her in so there was just already such a deep connection between the two of them that i was like this needs to happen and i was all about it i just could not but i loved the christmasy elements to it i felt like they added the perfect touch to this romance story and i mean maybe if this was not said at christmas i wouldn't have liked it as much but the corniness just worked for christmas for me and i i just felt like it was so cute like i didn't know what to expect from this one i kind of picked it up on a whim but it was really good and the final book that i read in december is the 12 dates of christmas by jenny bayless i had picked this book up last year and i thought it sounded adorable it's about a girl who agrees to go with this dating service that sets her up on 12 dates leading up to christmas and they like are assuring that they will find the one and it was just it was so fun like it was adorable there were so many different twists and turns and a lot of it was kind of over the top and ridiculous but it worked i loved the christmasy theme of all the dates so you had a lot of holiday things sprinkled in there and it had an adorable romance overall like it was so cute but i didn't really explain that very well it's like 12 dates leading up to christmas so it's 12 dates with 12 different men it's just like it's a lot of fun you know when you have a concept like that it's kind of like 10 blind dates ish but this is the adult version and i felt like it was adorable i loved the english setting i don't know why but christmas books always seem to be set in like small english towns and this one was no exception but it was so cute i loved the characters loved the friendships and everything like it wasn't just about her and all these dates there was so much more going to it which is why i really enjoyed it so those are all the books that i ended up reading for the end of 2021 that i haven't gotten the chance to talk about yet so if you have read any of these books please let me know your thoughts on them and i will have a judge not july january recent reads coming out soon because i'm actually gonna film it now because i have read quite a few books already this month so thank you guys so much for watching today's video i hope you enjoyed and i will see you in another one soon bye\n"