January 2022 Wrap-Up: Why Is It 2022 Already?

Hello and welcome to another post in which I give a lengthy summary of my month that no one wants to read but which I will use to walk down memory lane in future years.

I never did a December 2021 wrap up but that’s fine because there was no time with all the yearly wrap-up posts I did. This wrap-up is indeed late but… oh well. That’s all right.

Life Update:

No one cares but January had a lot of stuff happen to me.

• It actually snowed in my area. Several times. Incredible.
• At long last, I finished applying to colleges!
• I turned into a gamer because my friends taught me how to play Minecraft (and I suck)
• I started using some more paper journals to write down my thoughts on books and movies, and it’s been a good excuse to get me off the Internet
• I became addicted to Wordle and the lack of spoilers on Twitter is nothing short of miraculous
• Update: so Wordle sold out… it will remain “initially” free… goodbye fun

Reading:

I read 6 books in January, which is a decent amount. Not my best, but what can you do. It’s good enough.

2.5-3 stars:

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio (dark academia, mystery/thriller) – review!

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (philosophy/religion, fantasy)- Goodreads review

3.5-4 stars:

The Egg by Andy Weir (sci-fi, short story)- I’m in the process of reading all of Andy Weir’s sci-fi contributions to literature, as he’s one of my favorite authors. This short story had a very intriguing idea packed into just one page of writing. But I felt like were I to write a full review, it’d be longer than the story itself.

Memory Minefield by Mel Torrefranca – review!

4.5-5 stars:

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut – review!

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn– I really loved this book, and hopefully I will write some sort of review eventually. I started writing a review but as happens disturbingly often, I then forgot to finish it.

Movies, Podcasts and Other Miscellanea That’s Not Reading

I’m going to add this section this year because… yeah

Movies

I watched two movies this month (I don’t usually watch movies so that’s somewhat unusual)

The Social Network– wow– this was a really good movie. So I was sort of inspired to watch The Social Network because Twitter announced the NFT profile picture thing which reminded me of the Metaverse which reminded me of Zuckerberg’s dubious beginnings which reminded me I hadn’t watched this movie yet. Obviously the story of Facebook’s founding was dramatized for the big screen and isn’t entirely accurate, but they did a great job of coming up with a narrative for Zuckerberg and the dialogue was SO good. This is definitely one of my favorite movies now.

The Sixth Sense– OH. MY. GOSH. My mom wanted to scare my sister and me by putting on a horror movie. I won’t say much about this one to preserve the effect but I loved it. Again, such a good movie… I would definitely recommend it– don’t spoil yourself, either. I’m serious, don’t do it!

Podcasts

I recently discovered the world of Spotify podcasts and I’ve been a bit obsessed because now I can listen to interesting stuff while I wait in the cold for the bust to pick me up after school. I didn’t read any nonfiction this month, but I guess you could say my podcast-listening kind of filled that void. This month I listened to a lot of:

Darknet Diaries (true crime, cybersecurity)

The Supermassive Podcast (astrophysics)

Unexplainable (general science)

Blogging

I had a really good blogging month! (Overall)

I seem to go through blogging spells, much like my reading spells, where I’m super enthusiastic, dedicated to growing my blog and posting every single day for a while, and then I go for a week or two without posting or writing one single thing. Yeah, I still have ideas, but… whatever.

For the past week or so I’ve been feeling suffocatingly burnt out by school and other unfortunate events of my life, so I haven’t been posting as much.

However, my blog did well this month, I thought of a ton of post ideas and just have to finish writing them, and I even set a new record for monthly views!

Posts I Published in January 2022

Book Reviews:

Book Review: If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Book Review: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath | Feminism, Isolation and 1950s Womanhood

Book Review: Memory Minefield by Mel Torrefranca | YA Mystery with a Sci-Fi Twist

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: Pacifism, Predeterminism, and Alien Abductions?

Other:

The 15 Best Books I Read in 2021, Ranked (Fiction Edition)

10 Classic Books As Stereotypes Of Their Readers

Answering Your Questions About Me | 800 Followers Special

The 5 Best Nonfiction Books of 2021

8 Foolproof Ways to Read More Books This Year | How I Read 100+ Books A Year

Everything You Need to Know to Start a Book Blog in 2022 | A Step-by-Step Guide

5 Books To Read If You Loved One of Us is Lying

The Last Ten Books Tag

Around the Blogosphere:

Riddhi @ Whispering Stories posted about the types of authors we all know

Rachel @ A Bookworm’s Paradise recommended books based on your favorite Disney movie

Naemi @A Book Owl’s Corner posted about her funniest bookish misconceptions from childhood

Maddie @ Inking & Thinking and Saima @ Stories With Saima evaluated whether several books that have been popular on social media are really worth the hype

Aarushi @ Aarushi Reads shared the books that got her into reading

Last Month (by that I mean December)’s Goals

1) Get at least 6 hours, 45 minutes of sleep a night

No… of course I didn’t stay up until two in the morning on the last day of the semester trying to finish three lab reports in one day. That never happened!

2) Drink water or tea in the morning instead of coffee

Again, I plead the fifth

3) Read more slowly and make sure I understand everything that I read

Finally a goal I managed to follow! I’ve started writing in a journal after finishing books and movies, which has helped me kind of slow down and collect my thoughts and take-aways after watching or reading things.

Goals for February

1) Find time to read every day/use my free time for something other than scrolling on the Internet

I waste a lot of time on my laptop, and I want to get back into the habit of reading a lot even though I’m busy.

2) Do more blog hopping!

I have been a bit behind on reading people’s blog posts, and I want to discover new bloggers who read similar books to me and want to have some good bookish discussions!

3) Figure out some sort of SEO strategy

I have been really interested in improving my blog’s SEO, and I’m not sure how to really go about it. So this month I want to do some research and see if I can get my blog further off the ground, so to speak.

Well that’s it for my January 2022 Wrap-up… How was your month? What was the best book you read? Feel free to share in the comments!

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