**A Year of Reading: December's Book Roundup**

As we approach the end of the year, I'm excited to share my reading journey with you. In this month-long recap, I'll be discussing the books that caught my attention and left a lasting impression.

First up is Frost Blood by Emily A. Duncan. This novel has been on my radar for quite some time, and I was eager to dive into its unique world-building. The story follows a young woman who discovers she's a Frost Blood, a rare blood type that makes her a target for persecution. As a Frost Blood, she's considered a witch, and her journey is filled with self-discovery and rebellion against the Fire Bloods, who have taken over her society. I was impressed by the author's ability to create a complex world with clear divisions between the different blood types. The story explores themes of identity, power, and resistance, making it a compelling read.

Next, I picked up Furthermore by Taharah Mafi, which was a delightful surprise. This novel reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, with its whimsical tone and magical storytelling. The author's writing style is a perfect fit for this type of story, and I loved how the narrative transported me to a world of wonder and curiosity. The characters are well-developed, and the plot is engaging, making it easy to become invested in their journey.

For my next read, I decided to tackle The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis. While there's been debate about the best order to read these books, I prefer to follow chronological order. Reading them in this way allowed me to appreciate the world-building and character development that spans both series. Both novels are classics for a reason, and I was struck by their ability to transport readers to a magical realm.

Last but not least, I ended my reading journey with The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This timeless tale has been recommended to me countless times, and I'm so glad I finally got around to reading it. The story is a poignant exploration of human connection and the importance of relationships. The illustrations are beautiful, and the message never gets old. It's a book that will stay with you long after finishing the last page.

Finally, I picked up The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, which has been on my radar for some time. As it turns out, this classic fairy tale is the inspiration behind Disney's Frozen, making it a must-read for fans of the movie. While it's darker than its modern counterpart, the story remains a captivating and beautifully told tale that explores themes of love, loss, and identity.

Last but not least, I read Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, which was an enjoyable but slightly disappointing conclusion to my trilogy. Illuminating, the first book in this series, gripped me from start to finish, while Gemina failed to match its intensity. However, the story is still engaging, and I appreciated the unique artistic approach that sets it apart from other books in the genre.

Overall, December was a month of reading that offered something for everyone. From fantasy worlds to classic fairy tales, I enjoyed exploring new stories and authors. As we head into the new year, I'm excited to see what 2024 brings – until next time, goodbye!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone it's Haley and today I'm going to be doing my December wrapup so I had a pretty good reading month in December I ended up reading seven books three or four of those were in book Miss which really helped me out with my reading that whole really relaxed readathon that I do um I had tons of fun with that and it was lots of fun to read with you guys I really wasn't putting a lot of pressure on myself this month to read a ton just because it is Christmas time it's super busy with absolutely every facet of my life so I'm really happy that I was able to finish seven books I think that's awesome and really I almost have finished eight books because I'm almost done with caraval by Stephanie Garber it is absolutely amazing it's coming out January 31st definitely keep your eye out for this one because it is so so so good so far but I am hoping I'll be able to finish this before the actual end of the month because I'm filming this on I believe it's the 29th so I have two more days and I'm really hoping I'll finish it before the new year and as per usual if I have a reviews for any of these books for you guys I will link them down below for you I have a bunch of reviews are kind of backlogged right now that I really have to film so there probably won't be any that are actually uploaded that I can link down below but I will be um writing in the down bar when they will be coming out so then you can kind of keep track of that so the first book that I read this month was Frost bled by Ellie Blake this is actually by a local author which I'm really excited about because it's not often that um authors from my part of town really get picked up by big publishing houses so I'm super excited about it and I did really enjoy this book it does kind of suffer from some of the typical tropes of ya but I think it still did it in an interesting way I think fans of Red Queen will really like this one but I personally am not a huge fan of Red Queen I think this one is a little bit more original than red queen it deals a lot with temperature um so there's Frost Bloods and fire Bloods and like fire Bloods have overtaken Frost Bloods and this girl is a frost blood and they find that out which is basically terrible she's considered a witch and you get to kind of see her journey of trying to see how like these different bioner um how they're very very like straightly I don't know starkly divided but really the division isn't that like the division can be easily blurred I hope that made sense it was really hard for me to get out but nonetheless I really enjoyed this book and despite the tropes I did end up giving it a four out of five stars next up is furthermore by tahara Mafi I finally ended up picking this one up and I loved it I thought it was so good it's really magical Whimsical story that dahara mafi's writing style works perfectly for it reminded me a lot of Alice and Wonderland I mean not only is the main character's name Alice but like there's one part where it says Alice fell very far so it's kind of like down the rabbit hole story but it's done very very well and I loved this story so so much so I ended up giving this one a five out of five stars next up I ended up picking up the first two books in The Chronicles of Narnia by CS leis which is the Magician's Nephew and The Lion The Witch in the wardrobe I know there is a ton of debate about the order of this this series but I prefer to read in chronological order so I've read these two first because chronologically they are first so whatever you do you I'm going to do me but I did really love these I thought they were a fabulous story and I'm really looking forward to diving more into the series so I gave both of these a five out of five stars next up I picked up the Little Prince I have been recommended this book a million million times and it really has been on my TBR for a very long time I just had never gotten around to it but this month I ended up picking up my own copy of it and I'm so glad that I did because I loved this story it's really a story that makes its way into your heart and that you will remember for forever and it's just a magical story that you can reread again and again and it like the message never gets old so I loved this and I highly recommend it for everyone I ended up giving it a five out of five stars next up I picked up the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson we ended up getting this really pretty addition of it at work so I had to pick it up but this is the story that inspired Frozen so if you're a fan of Frozen and I think you'll really like this one it's really like darker but still a great story like it's not it's obviously not a Disney version It's the regular fairy tale version so it's not sugarcoated at all but it's a fantastic fairy tale I love reading fairy tales and this one was no exception and the last book that I ended up reading in December so far so possibly my last book of the year is gemina by Amy Kaufman and Jay Kristoff I enjoyed this one but not quite as much as illumin which is the first book in this Trilogy illumin really grip red me from the beginning this one I felt like had a lot of dragging parts and I wasn't as connected with the characters like I didn't really feel for them I wasn't really sitting on the edge of my seat the whole entire time I didn't have that same feeling of fear the whole entire time like I think something about the concept of the first one just terrified me this one it didn't really terrify me but that being said it still is an amazing book I still really did enjoy it a lot and I love the way these stories are told the one thing that I'll give this one that the other one doesn't really have is this one is a little bit more on the artistic side as far as the graphics in it than the first one is so I'm trying to find an example yeah so it has like actual illustrations in it so it's a beautiful beautiful book it's a great story and I do plan sorry the dust jacket is falling off but I do plan on doing a full review for it very soon so if you want me to go more into depth on my thoughts then you can wait for that it should be coming soon hopefully so that is all for today's video I hope you guys enjoyed let me know what you guys read in December or if you have read any of these books your thoughts on them and yeah I will see you guys in the next video byehey everyone it's Haley and today I'm going to be doing my December wrapup so I had a pretty good reading month in December I ended up reading seven books three or four of those were in book Miss which really helped me out with my reading that whole really relaxed readathon that I do um I had tons of fun with that and it was lots of fun to read with you guys I really wasn't putting a lot of pressure on myself this month to read a ton just because it is Christmas time it's super busy with absolutely every facet of my life so I'm really happy that I was able to finish seven books I think that's awesome and really I almost have finished eight books because I'm almost done with caraval by Stephanie Garber it is absolutely amazing it's coming out January 31st definitely keep your eye out for this one because it is so so so good so far but I am hoping I'll be able to finish this before the actual end of the month because I'm filming this on I believe it's the 29th so I have two more days and I'm really hoping I'll finish it before the new year and as per usual if I have a reviews for any of these books for you guys I will link them down below for you I have a bunch of reviews are kind of backlogged right now that I really have to film so there probably won't be any that are actually uploaded that I can link down below but I will be um writing in the down bar when they will be coming out so then you can kind of keep track of that so the first book that I read this month was Frost bled by Ellie Blake this is actually by a local author which I'm really excited about because it's not often that um authors from my part of town really get picked up by big publishing houses so I'm super excited about it and I did really enjoy this book it does kind of suffer from some of the typical tropes of ya but I think it still did it in an interesting way I think fans of Red Queen will really like this one but I personally am not a huge fan of Red Queen I think this one is a little bit more original than red queen it deals a lot with temperature um so there's Frost Bloods and fire Bloods and like fire Bloods have overtaken Frost Bloods and this girl is a frost blood and they find that out which is basically terrible she's considered a witch and you get to kind of see her journey of trying to see how like these different bioner um how they're very very like straightly I don't know starkly divided but really the division isn't that like the division can be easily blurred I hope that made sense it was really hard for me to get out but nonetheless I really enjoyed this book and despite the tropes I did end up giving it a four out of five stars next up is furthermore by tahara Mafi I finally ended up picking this one up and I loved it I thought it was so good it's really magical Whimsical story that dahara mafi's writing style works perfectly for it reminded me a lot of Alice and Wonderland I mean not only is the main character's name Alice but like there's one part where it says Alice fell very far so it's kind of like down the rabbit hole story but it's done very very well and I loved this story so so much so I ended up giving this one a five out of five stars next up I ended up picking up the first two books in The Chronicles of Narnia by CS leis which is the Magician's Nephew and The Lion The Witch in the wardrobe I know there is a ton of debate about the order of this this series but I prefer to read in chronological order so I've read these two first because chronologically they are first so whatever you do you I'm going to do me but I did really love these I thought they were a fabulous story and I'm really looking forward to diving more into the series so I gave both of these a five out of five stars next up I picked up the Little Prince I have been recommended this book a million million times and it really has been on my TBR for a very long time I just had never gotten around to it but this month I ended up picking up my own copy of it and I'm so glad that I did because I loved this story it's really a story that makes its way into your heart and that you will remember for forever and it's just a magical story that you can reread again and again and it like the message never gets old so I loved this and I highly recommend it for everyone I ended up giving it a five out of five stars next up I picked up the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson we ended up getting this really pretty addition of it at work so I had to pick it up but this is the story that inspired Frozen so if you're a fan of Frozen and I think you'll really like this one it's really like darker but still a great story like it's not it's obviously not a Disney version It's the regular fairy tale version so it's not sugarcoated at all but it's a fantastic fairy tale I love reading fairy tales and this one was no exception and the last book that I ended up reading in December so far so possibly my last book of the year is gemina by Amy Kaufman and Jay Kristoff I enjoyed this one but not quite as much as illumin which is the first book in this Trilogy illumin really grip red me from the beginning this one I felt like had a lot of dragging parts and I wasn't as connected with the characters like I didn't really feel for them I wasn't really sitting on the edge of my seat the whole entire time I didn't have that same feeling of fear the whole entire time like I think something about the concept of the first one just terrified me this one it didn't really terrify me but that being said it still is an amazing book I still really did enjoy it a lot and I love the way these stories are told the one thing that I'll give this one that the other one doesn't really have is this one is a little bit more on the artistic side as far as the graphics in it than the first one is so I'm trying to find an example yeah so it has like actual illustrations in it so it's a beautiful beautiful book it's a great story and I do plan sorry the dust jacket is falling off but I do plan on doing a full review for it very soon so if you want me to go more into depth on my thoughts then you can wait for that it should be coming soon hopefully so that is all for today's video I hope you guys enjoyed let me know what you guys read in December or if you have read any of these books your thoughts on them and yeah I will see you guys in the next video bye\n"