November 2015: Recap & Wrap-Up!

November honestly FLEW by. After half of month of Fortnight of Fright posts, November is always a sort of catch-up month with posting reviews and other features. It was on and off with reading and I fluctuated from being super ahead to almost behind and then ahead again.

I attempted NaNoWriMo and kicked off hard with a few thousand words… and then life got in the way! It ended up being a super busy month and I had to catch up on reading and blogging so writing got pushed to the back burner, but I’m happy that I at least got SOME writing done!

• Number of Books Read: 4. HAHA wow, that’s worse than I thought
• Popular Search Terms:  “books like divergent” // “lunar chronicles quiz” // “books similar to harry potter” // “illuminae files plot”
• More Amusing Search Terms: “instagram +get cash as quick as one day” (uh… no.) // “throne of glass family tree” (ooooh) // “in what stephanie plum book does morelli break up with Stephanie” (oh lawd, like all of them?)
• Most Referrals (non-social media): The Perpetual Page Turner, Bookmark Lit, It Starts at Midnight
• Where My Blog Most Often Leads You (non-internal/social media): Society6, Novelly Yours Bookish Candles (my shop! Thank you!!!!), Fandlemonium

• Some “If You Liked” recommendation posts continued to pop up with Divergent and Harry Potter!
• People searched for which Lunar Chronicles Character they would be and found my quiz! (Pssst, there’s a newer and better one too!)
• I had a blast coming up with the quiz Which YA Fantasy World Would You Live In?
  

        

Reviews Posted

• I loved Courtney C. Stevens’ new book THE LIES ABOUT TRUTH!
• I did a *GASP* video review of Clarissa Explains It All “continuation”, THINGS I CAN’T EXPLAIN
• Mini-review of cozy mystery LOYALTY IN DEATH was posted this month!
• LOCK & MORI was a really fun contemporary adaptation of Sherlock Holmes!
• I thought I would love THE DISTANCE FROM ME TO YOU but it was a little lackluster for me.
• We read THE SPIRIT THIEF for On the Same Page!
• SWEET by Emmy Laybourne was a fun, campy horror novel!
• I adore Lauren Morrill and THE TROUBLE WITH DESTINY brought out the music nerd in me.

Goodreads Reading Progress

Featured on Book and a Beverage

• 11/5/15: Alyssa from The Eater of Books
• 11/12/15: Abi from Rambling Writer
• 11/26/15: Sarah from The Country Bookworm

Other Features & Discussions

• We read along with WINTER for the #TLCReadAlong!
• I did the Throne of Glass book tag, created by Alexa Loves Books and So Obsessed With!
• I started a new series called “Social Media Support Sunday” which is meant to help people step up their social media game/knowledge! Check out my experiences and facts about Twitter, Goodreads, and Instagram!
• In honor of WINTER, I posted some Lunar Chronicles fun and games including MASH, a new personality quiz, and more!
• I did the Shelfie Hop, showing off my bookcases!
• As a promo for FALLING KINGDOMS, I came up with a quiz to tell book lovers which YA fantasy world they’d fit in!
• I was on the blog tour for THE RULES FOR 50/50 CHANCES with an interview with author Kate McGovern!
• This month’s Pub Date post was all about music.
• I had my Gift Guide for Book Addicts again this year! Check out three separate posts featuring candles, tees, and even more!
• Andi and I are hosting the Statistics Survey again this year!
• The Lunar Chronicles has come to a close… so I came up with a list of book recs for fans of the series!

Events

MARISSA MEYER AT ANDERSON’S BOOKSHOP (11/10): I attended the “Lunar Ball” event hosted by Anderson’s LaGrange in celebration of WINTER! Marissa Meyer hit the streets for her WINTER tour and let me tell ya, this turn out was HUGE. Luckily waiting in line wasn’t too bad because there were tons of fun things to do like a “fauxto booth”, madlibs, photo ops, and more games!

A photo posted by Brittany S. (@bookaddictsguide) on Nov 19, 2015 at 6:59pm PST

I just adored meeting Marissa and it was so great to see her again! She was a gracious host for all of her fans too. Part of her main feature was that she told the audience the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and I was ridiculously impressed that she was able to tell it from memory!

A photo posted by Brittany S. (@bookaddictsguide) on Nov 20, 2015 at 6:13am PST

My friend Lisa came with me so it was great to have a friend with me the whole time and of course, we ended up meeting other bloggers there too. It’s always so much fun chatting with book people!

I STARTED MY OWN ETSY SHOP! Okay, so this isn’t really an EVENT but I’ll include it in here anyway! I’m so excited to share my new Etsy shop for bookish candles! I started working on candle making a while ago and I was finally ready to share them with the public! I’ve already had a few sales so if you’re interested in ordering some as holiday gifts, stop on by!! –> Novelly Yours

A photo posted by Brittany S. (@bookaddictsguide) on Nov 28, 2015 at 8:08am PST

November’s Top Instagrams

 

 

A photo posted by Brittany S. (@bookaddictsguide) on Nov 25, 2015 at 4:27pm PST

 

A photo posted by Brittany S. (@bookaddictsguide) on Nov 11, 2015 at 6:16am PST

 

A photo posted by Brittany S. (@bookaddictsguide) on Nov 10, 2015 at 5:28pm PST

 

What’s in store for December?

• I’m still so far behind on writing reviews! Prepare for a whole bunch of those coming up!
• Another Social Media Support Sunday post! I’m planning things out for Pinterest.
• The holiday season? I don’t usually do anything festive on the blog like I do for Halloween but I’m sure I’ll do another wrap up of Secret Santa swaps!