Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Our Thoughts Precisely! It's officially 2017. We hope everyone has a safe and marvelous day. Regular blogging will resume shortly. :-)

End of the Year Post (2016)

Well, 2016 is just a few days from being over, and it’s time to share some of my general thoughts about my year in blogging. To make it easier on myself, I’m going to divide this post down into sections, and talk about those subjects individually.

• Books…

This year, I went back and read a lot of older releases that I’ve been meaning to get to. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun, and I realized just how many great books I’ve missed.

One of the big things I’ve come to accept this year is that I don’t need the new releases as soon as they come out. I’ve realized that I’m okay with waiting a little longer—sometimes months—to read the books I’m really looking forward to. My reasoning is that I’m still going to eventually read the book, so I just don’t worry about it anymore and feel more relaxed.

I’m still okay with DNFing books I’m just not enjoying. I used to be one of those people who tried to finish every book I started. So, I’ve tried that before, it takes forever to get to the end of the book, and I end up losing my enthusiasm for reading and blogging. In 2016, I’ve pretty much stuck to the first 100 page thing—sometimes I’ll read a little more than that if there’s something I find promising about the story. However, for the most part, I’ve set aside books that I just couldn’t get into, in favor of ones I really wanted to read, and ended up enjoying.

The biggest thing I’ve focused on is reading what makes me happy, rather than spending too much time on things that I don’t like.

• Memes…

I actually really like the memes I’m currently participating in. They’re pretty easy to do, and it’s really up to me what I do and don’t want to post. Nothing has really changed since 2015 in that regard, except for the fact that I tried out some non-book related memes. Music seemed like a good fit for Our Thoughts Precisely. So, I tried out two—one on Thursday and the other on Monday. The Thursday meme didn’t work out since it added another day to my regular posting schedule. I wanted to keep Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as the days I primarily post on. So, Music Monday stuck around. It worked out for the better since I could use the two Monday memes interchangeably, or participate in both.

For the past several weeks, Adri has been blogging regularly on Music Monday. It has been so much fun writing out the post, and sharing our music recommendations.  

• Some thoughts about the blog...

I don’t think my method of blogging has changed much since last year. A lot of the things I started doing in 2015 occurred regularly in 2016 since they worked so well for me. Could things change in 2017? I don’t really think so. I’m pretty happy with how things currently work. However, a big part of blogging is learning as I go. So, it would be kind of premature to say “never!” to any potential changes.  

The Books of 2016

Instead of doing a quarterly recap to close out the year, I’ve essentially broken the post down into various parts, one of which is The Books of 2016. I’m going post links to all the books I or a co-blogger read and reviewed on Our Thoughts Precisely in 2016, list some of the best new to me authors, and series that I want and have continued. A lot of this post is going to be in a list-like format since this is technically a recap.

2016 Books

Wintersmith / Love Charms and Other Catastrophes / The Torn Wing / Riverkeep 
Thieving Weasels / Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World
The Traitor in the Tunnel / Mortal Gods / The Reader / Visual reference Guide: Architecture
Fangirl / A Corner of White / The Witches / Cloudwish / Burning Emerald / Grand Forks
Hourglass / The Illustrated Compendium of Animal Facts / Flora Segunda 

The Wide-Awake Princess / Oleah Chronicles: Justice
Founding Myths:Stories that Hide Our Patriotic Past / The Darkest Part of the Forest
The Body At the Tower / Dead is a State of Mind / Need 
From the Notebooks of a Middle School princess / Rain: A Natural and Cultural History
Royal Wedding Disaster / A Week Without Tuesday / Wonderstruck 

Guys Read: Terrifying Tales / The Radiant Road / The Love that Split the World
Dead is the New Black / The Marvels / Untamed / The Night Has Teeth / Earth Girl
A Spy in the House / Gemina / The Lost Lullaby / Nightmares / The Snow Queen

The Bridge From Me To You / The Star-Touched Queen / The Sleepwalker Tonic

Iceling / A Shadow Bright and Burning

Best new to me authors, and series that I want and have continued…

This year, I returned to a handful of old favorites as part of my New Year blogging resolutions. I also read a lot of backlist books that I previously missed. And, I read a handful of the new releases this year, and they were fantastic. Of course, by doing all of that, I also came across authors that were otherwise unknown to me. This list is in no particular order. It’s not based on how much I liked the book or any other factor. It’s at random.

Fiction...

Traci Chee / Roshani Chokshi / Jason Segel & Kisten Miller / Jaclyn Moriarty 

Sasha Stephenson / Tone Almhjell / Kiki Hamilton / Lisa Schroeder / E.D. Baker

Janet Edwards / Martin Steward / Billy Taylor / Kat Kruger

Nonfiction...

Ray Raphael / Cynthia Barnette / Marilyn Hagerty / Rachel Ignotofsky

To close out this post, I’m going to discuss some of the series that I continued reading this year and ones that have new releases coming out in 2017. This list doesn’t include series that started in 2016.

• Tuesday McGillycuddy series by Angelica Banks—I took part in the blog tour for the second book in this series, A Week without Tuesday. It was really nice to see a lot of the cast from book one back for another adventure. Plus, the land where stories come from is still one of my favorite parts of the series. The third book, Blueberry Pancakes Forever, comes out on February 7th 2017
• The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff—Gemina was one of my highly anticipated 2016 releases. The wait for it seemed so long, and while the book wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, it was still fun and I will definitely continue on with this series.
• The Cambion Chronicles by Jaime Reed—This is one series I’ve been meaning to finish, and for the longest time, I just didn’t have book two. Book two, Burning Emerald, answered a lot of the questions I still had about the series. 
• Grimbaude series by Kimberly Karalius—Love Charms and Other Catastrophes was another one of my highly anticipated 2016 releases, and suffice it to say, I wasn’t disappointed.
• Splintered series by A.G. Howard—I read Untamed because I wanted to see what happened to Alyssa after the end of Ensnared. Like with most short story collections I’ve read, I had my favorites and there were others that were just alright for me.

I’m going to end this post here. Sometime soon, I’m going to continue my 2016 blogging recap. So, keep an eye out for that. Happy reading!

It's Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has a great day with family and friends.

Christmas Eve Book Tag

Since I’m getting into the holiday spirit—and getting ready to take a break from blogging—I figured that I might as well participate in the Christmas Eve Book Tag some time before, you know, it’s actually Christmas and the year ends. Plus, I kind of enjoy these holiday themed tags. The questions are always fun.

This tag was created by Sam’s Nonsense over on Youtube. You can check out the original video HERE.

Christmas Eve morning: what is a book you wake up excited to read? One you anticipate reading or one you read in the past that you want to get back into?

One book that I want to get back into is This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith. I read it a couple of years ago, and would like to eventually reread it.

Christmas Eve breakfast: what are your favorite treats during the holiday season?

Oh man, this is an easy one. I really enjoy pumpkin and sweet potato pie, homemade French rolls and macaroni and cheese (not the box stuff). 

Family Time: What is a book that fills you with happiness and love? the warm fuzzies in general?

Love Fortunes and Other Disasters and Love Charms and Other Catastrophes—two of my favorite books. I adore this series for a number of reasons. Between Love being an actual character in the story to fortunes gone awry, what’s not to like? The characters had chemistry, and there were some incredibly cute moments that brought on all the fuzzy, heartwarming feels.

Christmas Carols: What are your favorite Christmas Carols or holiday songs?

I have too many favorite holiday songs to count on one hand—and I essentially did this for Music Monday, The Christmas Edition. So, to make it easier on myself, I’m going to just list a few of them at random: Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas, Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song, Michael Buble’s It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, and The First Noel and Joy To The World by Pentatonix.

Anticipation: What is a book release you are very much anticipating?

I’m really looking forward to Blueberry Pancakes Forever by Angelica Banks. Thankfully, the wait is almost over.

You hear sleigh bells on the roof and are so excited you can't sleep!: What is a book that kept you up all night?

Normally, after a certain time at night, I will put a book down even if I’m really enjoying it. However, The Reader by Traci Chee is one book that I stayed up late to finish. The book was engrossing, and I had a hard time stepping away from it. Before I knew it, it was around midnight, and I was done with the book.

It's Christmas morning, and Santa has come!: What is a book on your wishlist that you hope to unwrap?

Actually, all the books I’m currently looking forward to don’t come out until next year. So, I’m not expecting to find any books under the Christmas tree this year.

And that’s about it for today. If this seems like something you want to do then I tag you. Check out the original video to find the questions. Happy Reading!