In past years I have primarily stuck to books and maybe my video games, basically trying to keep it about books. This year I am not going to do that, because I want to include those other things that make me who I am and honestly, I really feel like sharing. This year has actually found me reading several books that I have already read several times; I call them my ‘go to comfort books’. I read the entire New Species series by Laurann Dohner (she is an awesome writer). I also read a few Desire, Oklahoma books from Leah Brooke again and a few others. I guess it was easier to go them because reading something new is sometimes hard especially since the fog started lifting.
For those who don’t know what the fog is, it is basically this time frame where you are just numb and to get through each day you do the most basic and/or easiest things you can do, for some it’s going to work, cooking or sleeping all the time, anything to keep you mind busy even while you are still dealing the pain and heart ache. It’s how our brains and bodies try to cope with those traumatic moments and when that fog lifts and you feel like you’re waking up it feels like you’re trying to catch up with everything. That where I am and I sometimes wish for the fog to come back, granted I was just a weepy then as I am now. I do feel like I have improved some, not much but some. I still can’t deal with car crashes. I still see the car Shanny was in and her blood on the ground in my mind every time I see a crash. It turns out lots of blood triggers some stress and anxiety, I discovered this when I had to renew my First Aide card and the video showed a lot of fake blood and it was awful, all I saw in my head was the picture of Shanny under a tarp with her blood on the ground, I had to leave the room for a bit. On the improvement part I can deal with sirens for about 5 minutes before my brain goes where it shouldn’t.
I think the biggest improvements happened after Doug and I went to a DUII Conference with our friends from MADD and found some focus on what we want to do to help prevent other people’s children from be murdered like Shanny and her friend Jake were. That weekend we learned that Kevin Gomez was released from supervised probation and he had barley been out of prison for a year, so not only did the state let him out of prison early but they removed him from supervised probation. We were so angry, still are but we are going to fight to save others from the hell that was rained down on us. Doug wants to see our state get mobile testing units like the ones in Arizona and I want to do victim impact statements any where that either teaches or employs CDL drivers and I plan on do a victim impact statement as soon as our City Counsel starts in person meetings again. I think I want to go to the local schools as well. Will it make a difference? If I don’t try then I will never know.
I was more productive in 2022 then I have been since July 2015 as far as writing reviews go, I promised myself that I would try harder to write at least one review a month and I got every month but one and some months have more then one review so that is an improvement that I am thrilled with. I have the same goal going into 2023 and hope to be at a point where I can write 2 reviews a month in 2024. I do have a new goal for 2023 for my blog, I want to do at least 2 virtual interviews with authors, I miss that and really want to do that again, the authors I have talked to in the past were so nice and it will be cool to talk to some more, and it would be amazing if I could get one of my favorite authors to agree to one.
Now that I have talked your ear off about everything else (thank you for that) I will get to the nitty gritty of the year in books based on my reading challenge on Goodreads.
My goal was 25 books, granted I felt I was over estimating myself at the time and honestly thought it was a hopeless goal. I surprised myself by reading 31 books, granted like I said early some of those were books I had read before. Out of those 31 books about half of them have reviews written for them, posted on my blog. Those 31 books equaled 4,670 pages read, that’s really not a lot of pages but I will take it because it proves I read something and something is better than nothing.
My average book length was 150 pages and my average star rating for the year was 3.7, I will strive to find more 4 and 5 star books.
My first review of the year was Second Love
The shortest book I read this year was The Troublesome Mail Order Bride
The longest book was Feral Sins
This one is always one of my favorites to learn and that is which of the books I read has the highest rating on Goodreads and this year that goes to Valiant by Laurann Dohner, I love that since Valiant is one of my favorites in the series.
Now here is the tricky one; Goodreads says my last review of the year if for Wicked Cravings but that is not the case, it is the last book of the year that I read but I wrote the review years ago. So, I honestly am not sure a little irritated with that one because that is a lie. My last posted review is actually Finding A Home by A. B. Lee, I just posted the review today, I had recorded it read on Goodreads but needed more time to write the review (With December being Shanny’s Birthday month and add in the Holidays I am sure you can understand the struggle), so my apologies for that piece of misinformation.
I think that covers most of the essentials of my year in books, there are a few other tidbits but I have already virtually talked your ear off so I will share the link to my year in books page so you can check out the rest if you like and find links to the books that interest you.
Link my year in books 2022
Laura's Book Binge 