Leah's December Reads

The Book of Ivy by Amy Engel

Altered by Jennifer Rush

The Duff by Kody Keplinger

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

Fire In The Woods by Jennifer Eaton

Fallen by Lauren Kate

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

Wicked by Jennifer Armentrout

The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

Rush by Maya Banks

Raw by Belle Aurora

Slated by Teri Terry

December has been a really good book month for me! It's nice that I was able to find good reads this month since I had been coming down from a hardcore slump. The only bad thing about this month (and by bad, I only mean in the reading sense) is the holidays! I have been jam packed since Thanksgiving and haven't had a ton of time to devote to reading. As much as I have enjoyed hanging out with friends and family, I am looking forward to after the first of the year when my social obligations go away and I can go back to being a hermit.

One cool thing I signed up for this month is the Fandom of the Month club that I found on Instagram. You play $13 a month and you get sent fandom inspired jewelry each month. For December, the theme was Narnia so I received a bracelet, earrings, a ring, and a really cool bag to put it all in. (This isn't a sponsored post, btw, just wanting to share something cool I found!) 

Speaking of the new year, I can't wait for y'all to see what we have planned! We have some really cool posts leading up to 2015, and we have a TON of things planned for 2015. All I am going to say is that 2015 is going to be the year of the fandom for sure.

DECEMBER FAVE:

My favorite book this month was hands down, no contest Wicked by Jennifer Armentrout. This book is my absolute favorite JLA book so far which should say a TON. I love all of the characters, but my favorites are Ren an Tink. Ren is at the top of my book boyfriend list now. HOT HOT HOT. Tink, well, you just need to read the book to learn about Tink. I just love him!

Angela's December Readcaps

December is coming to an end, and I know that we are posting our December Reads earlier than normal but we have a few things that we will be posting in the next couple of days that will really round out our year. As far as December reading went well... IT WAS PRETTY AWESOME! Since it was also this little holiday that you might have also heard of called Christmas I got a few book things from that I will be posting as well! 

This December has been one of the best!

Below are the books I read in December, all which were hard to get too between vacations, holidays, and work. Either way everything I read was so good, barely any fails (sadly when I typed that I did the whoop whoop sound while raising the roof.)  Also below I'm gonna put my top and not so hot choices and some of my Christmas presents. So lets go! (and now I snapped and did gun fingers... Wow I need to stop.)

The Truth About Alice- Jennifer Mathieu

Rush- Maya Banks
Fever- Maya Banks
Burn- Maya Banks 
Captive- Aimee Carter
Outlander- Diana Gabaldon
The Young Elites- Marie Lu
Filthy 1-4- Megan D. Martin
Uninvited- Sophie Jordan
Everneath- Ashton Brodie (broke up with)
Ugly Love- Colleen Hoover
The Book of Ivy- Amy Engel
Don't Look Bank- Jennifer L. Armentrout
Pushing the Limits- Katie McGarry
Wicked- Jennifer L. Armentrout
Love, Rosie- Cecelia Ahern  
Arclight- Josin L. McQuein (broke up with)
Wait for You- Jennifer L. Armentrout
Unite Me- Tahereh Mafi
Raw- Belle Aurora
Maybe Someday- Colleen Hoover 
Paper Towns- John Green (re-read)
Love Letters to the Dead- Ava Dellaira
Keep Me Safe- Maya Banks


Now for the best and worst. Feeling jazzy so I'm gonna mix it up and I'm gonna start with my biggest let-downs. Yes I did drop two books this month, Arclight (which I plan to try and revisit later) and Everneath. But I'm not counting those in my choice since they weren't completed. To me the biggest let-downs were... 

• Captive by Aimee Carter. It's the second in the Blackcoat Rebellion Series/Pawn 2. The first book Pawn was SO amazing one of the best I had read in a long time. I waited so long to get my hands on book two that I was really let down by how much this book didn't bring it. I have the review posted if you wanna see fully why.
• Filthy1-4 by Megan D. Martin. This is probably the worst book(s) I've ever read. They were disgusting and so aggravating. My review for them are in the links above as well. Can't express how much I hated these books. 

And now to the good stuff... My top pick is... Well actually there are four!!! And yeah I'm refusing to pick just one! They were all just that good. Each one of these I gave 10/10 stars too. Review are up for all of these and the link are in their titles in the list above.

• Raw by Belle Aurora is my first pick. Girl falls in love with her stalker and their relationship only get crazier from there. This book was shocking moment after shocking moment. The ending alone had me freaking out.
• The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu. This book in my opinion is the closet depiction of how high-school is. The book is told from several POVs all leading up the the final one which is Alice's. This book couldn't have been better. 
• Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover. An amazing new spin on a relationship between two musicians completely blew me away. With surprises you wont see coming this book not only is a top pick for me for December but one of my top picks this year.
• Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover. A nurse and Pilot have a rocky relationship built around secrets. This book whoosh... This book was just perfect! One of my favorite stand-alones this year. Colleen Hoover is just simply amazing and never fails to not leave me in tears. If I had to pick just one to be my top pick this would be the one.

To wrap this all up I'll leave you with some of the book-ish things I got for Christmas. I got a lot, A LOT of Barnes and Nobles gift cards, and some of the book I read this month I used the cards to get. I also received lots of cash... Which just meant more books/books to come. I also got a Rune car sticker from Leah but it's also not featured because I need to wash my car before I put it on. I'm really not big on celebrations or holidays so people getting me these gifts was really above and beyond. Everything was so perfectly chosen for me. 

Since I really don't love holidays my husband always lets me open my gifts early... by lets me I mean I always sucker him into giving them to me early... and by early I do mean early like..... November and the start of December. Yup I'm the worst lol. Anyways one of the gift he gave me was a gift cards so I used it to purchase the UK cover editions of The Throne of Glass Series and The Hunger Games Trilogy. For some of you who might not know, I LOVE and collect UK covers for book series. These two series are my favorites so far. The white covers of TOG are so perfect. They stand out from other editions of books. Speaking of standing out The Hunger Games Rebel UK editions are amazing. This picture doesn't do it justice they are so bright. The back and spines of the books have two different and important quotes from that book on it. Loved being able to add these to my growing collection. 

Some of the other things I got were... A signed copy of The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings. Leah got me this book and I was so surprised. Since Lindsay hasn't been able to tour in our area we haven't gotten a chance to meet and have her sign them before so her ordering this for me was amazing. Then my boss got me, probably my favorite gift, a signed and personalize Top Fit Men 2015 Calendar... You're probably wondering why This is in here with all my book stuff, well it's because the cover/main model in it is Nick Bateman. If you follow me on anything than you probably already know who he is, but for those of you who don't he is going to be playing Miles Archer in the movie adaptation of Ugly Love. My sister gave me these amazing Theo James earrings, which I will more than likely turn into necklaces for Leah and I. Then my husband got me a new and HUGE book shelf since my other ones were double stacked some even triple stacked with books. Leah and I will probably do a bookshelf tour sometime in January because people are always asking about them. Plus we just reorganized them this weekend SO be on the look out.

We will be posting our Awards this week along the full list of what we've read this year. We will also have a post about what we have coming up in 2015 dropping on January first.

Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover

Sydney becomes captivated by Ridge, her mysterious neighbor from the other side of the apartment complex. She can't stop listening to the passionate way he plays his guitar every evening out on his balcony. There's also something about Sydney that Ridge can't ignore either. When a series of events brings them together, they soon find themselves needing each other in more ways than one.

"I need someone who is willing to watch me brave the ocean and then dare me not to drown..."

First off December has been the month for good reads. Everything has been so good! Second I've been on a total Colleen Hoover kick. Third I think going into a book completely blank and with the smallest amount of information about the novel is the way to go. 

I picked up Maybe Someday only knowing that it was a story about a girl who falls in love with her musician neighbors and I assumed they hit it off. This book was so surprising. The story and the characters were SO far off from what I thought. All were such a pleasant surprise. 

Sydney and Ridge’s story was so different, and so original. It’s going to be so hard to review this book due to the fact that something right away was such a surprise. I'm going to give NO hint too what it is regarding because not knowing. and the fact that others kept it such a secret really made this story amazing.

This book seriously starts off with face punch. Literally. Sydney catches her boyfriend of two years cheating on her. With her best friend/roommate. When her neighbor broke the news to her about her friends romance she ends up staying with him and hes roommates. The two bond over music and instantly become very close.
She becomes a muse to Ridge, and helps break his writers block. From there a friendship starts to become more than that. 

They however try so hard to keep it platonic, because Sydney clearly just got out of a tough relationship, and because Ridge has been in one of his own for years. This is the thing about Maybe Someday that I loved. It was all about building a friendship then turning into a relationship. It's so hard to say it wasn't a typical relationship because it's not but at the same time it is. The characters are both so well written. I love stories where either the girl is super sassy, and/or the guy is kind of a jerk turned nice guy... Neither of them are these things and I thought I was going to hate that... NOPE. They are nice, compassionate, natural people. 

Colleen Hoover is the Queen Bee of building up stories, sprinkling it with little surprises, then when she thinks you're not looking she reaches into your chest cavity and pulls out your heart.

When she finally has everything presented to you and door A and Bs are set in front of you, you wont know how to feel. This was another one of her books that I didn't think I would end up so upset over, but I was. I was on a roller-coaster of emotions. I didn't think Hoover could surprise me any further than she did with Ugly Love, she managed to do so much more than that. Every sentence down the the very last word was so poetically and beautifully written. Not kidding, the last sentence of this book couldn't have been more perfect. May Someday is yet another book this month that will be moving to the Hall of Fame Shelf. Yes it was just that good. I will continue my Hoover obsession and will be purchasing anything she puts out in the future. 

10/10 Stars 
-Angela