Books To Beat The Winter Blues

Winter is my least favourite season. Especially winter without snow. Winter always brings a sense of stillness - the days are shorter, temperatures drop, it is always dark outside and you only leave the house if necessary. However, for these reasons, winter is also the best time to get lost in a good book, wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket with a hot cup of tea. 

Here are some books to help you beat the winter blues, when it feels like the darkness and chill are never-ending:

My Reading Year 2024 And My Goals For 2025

 Hello, fellow book lovers!

2024 was a good year for my reading life. After my overambitious reading goal in 2023, I set out to read 20 books, and I’m thrilled to say that I mostly reached that goal (I ended up reading 17 — close enough, right?). The biggest highlight of my reading year was the variety of genres I read. Some of my favourite reads from last year included Love Letters: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West and Sunburn.

I made an effort to tackle my TBR pile—though let’s be honest, it’s never really "tackled." I still haven't read any of my beautiful Fairyloot books, but I bought a bunch of new books (which I all read!). All in all, I did make progress, and that feels like a win!

Now that 2024 is behind me, it’s time to set my sights on 2025. Here’s how I’m planning to shape my reading year:

Sunburn - Chloe Michelle Howarth

 Why would we give anyone the chance to stop loving us? Why would I let them confirm my worst fear: that we are not a normal couple at all, but one strange sin spread across two people?

It's the early 1990s, and in the Irish village of Crossmore, Lucy feels out of place. Despite her fierce friendships, she's always felt this way, and the conventional path of marriage and motherhood doesn't appeal to her. Not even with handsome and doting Martin, her closest childhood friend.

Lucy begins to make sense of herself during a long hot summer, when a spark with her school friend Susannah escalates to an all-consuming infatuation, and, very quickly, to a desperate and devastating love.

Fearful of rejection from her small and conservative community, Lucy begins living a double life, hiding the most honest parts of herself in stolen moments with Susannah.

But with the end of school and the opportunity to leave Crossmore looming, Lucy must choose between two places, two people and two futures, each as terrifying as the other. But only one can offer her real happiness.

I'm Glad My Mom Died - Jenette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants. 

Reading Wrap up 2023

 

Lesemonat September

Lesemonat August