– I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. –

To be published by Thomas Dunne Books on 10 Dec 2019
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Selina Lennox is a Bright Young Thing. Her life is a whirl of parties and drinking, pursued by the press and staying on just the right side of scandal, all while running from the life her parents would choose for her.

Lawrence Weston is a penniless painter who stumbles into Selina’s orbit one night and can never let her go even while knowing someone of her stature could never end up with someone of his. Except Selina falls hard for Lawrence, envisioning a life of true happiness. But when tragedy strikes, Selina finds herself choosing what’s safe over what’s right.

8 books. 2819 pages. 6 fiction, 2 nonfiction. 3 fantasy, 1 historical romance, 1 suburban drama, 1 classic, 1 essay collection, 1 psychology. 6 women. 1 person of colour.

Counting books read, it looks like I did alright this month; less read than the last few months, but still a pretty good amount. At the beginning of the month I was hoping to take more time with my reads–to be more present and immersed in my reads–and thus read less books overall anyway.

But looking at my ratings this month, the month has been a bit of a bust. I rated most 3s–the 3s ranging from some-great-moments-and-some-boring-moments-that-evened-out to entirely-neutral to not-my-taste-but-could-be-for-others. (What a range to be encapsulated in a 3 star rating haha. I’d love to hear about your rating system! Mine probably needs some adjusting.) There were a few times I enjoyed a book well enough but didn’t have an urge to pick it back up after I set it down (though I always did pick it back up because my habit of reading is pretty solidified by now), and there were many times I dozed off while reading a book.

In December, I’m going to make an effort to choose books I’m really excited about it, be more realistic about my commitments to buddy reads, and pace myself through e/ARCs. Gotta end the year strong!

And speaking of the end of the year… Every year since 2015, I’ve compiled one long post of every book I read that year (my record being 58 books in 2017), but already at 96 books at the end of November 2019, I don’t think that’d be a great strategy for this year’s recap, even if I do organise the post by genre! I’m thinking of just recapping the books I truly enjoyed plus popular titles (that I may or may not have enjoyed), and including fun stats like books read, books bought, money saved via the library, etc. Let me know if there’s any specific bookish content you’d like to see to wrap up the year!