November Wrap Up + December TBR/Epic Recs

Today is the final day of November which means time to take a look at the books I've read. I had a not-so-great month to be honest. I read five books, which sounds okay, but one was a children's book that was super short and easy to read (took me about an hour) and another was a very quick read that was also mandatory for a novel study.

1. War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay: *** (three stars) - GINS novel study book
2. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll: *** (three stars) - Strangest book ever I swear
3. Unwind by Neil Shusterman: ***** (five stars) - a;lskdjf;lksdjfjasdkjfd 
4. Allegiant by Veronica Roth: **** (four stars) - *cries*
5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: ***** (five stars) - Re-read... ahh love these books! <3

I also haven't been keeping up to date with anything really. I didn't do an October Wrap-Up OR a November TBR, I didn't participate in any Top Ten Tuesday's, I didn't complete a book spotlight or November book reviews. I haven't even published or fully written my Liesl and Po review from October. In case you didn't get the message: I've been slacking. All I have posted this month have been mandatory novel posts. I will try to improve that for December! I have quite the extensive list, so take a look (in order of priority).

1. Partials by Dan Wells - My Epic Rec from this month which I didn't get around to reading. It will happen this month! 
2. Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (re-read) - I just want to, kay.
3. Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan - Yay light winter contemporary
4. The Giver by Lois Lowry - My epic rec for December! See more below. 
5. Winterling by Sarah Prineas - Light winter adventures and fantasy! 
6. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - I haven't read this but this is the traditional Christmas classic!
7. Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu - Snow Queen winter fairytale, enough said. 

Other options: How to Save a Life by Sarah Zarr, Fathomless and Cold Spell by Jackson Pearce, Witchlanders by Lena Coakley and The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson.

Okay, so there are 13 mandatory books. Plus Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins which I'm not even halfway through. Yeah... that's realistic.... I'll try. And fail. Whatever. 

I know this post is super long, but I just want to say a quick note about Epic Recs. My book for the month is The Giver by Lois Lowry, and Brianna's is Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers. We both have not read last month's books yet (we're trying!), but we definitely we complete both Epic Recs for December. Check back for another post on that later. 

Anyways, have a lovely day. Thanks. (:

GINS: Task #4

Hi! For this post, I was making connections between the novel study I am participating in (see here for more), and my academic consumerism tumblr (click top tab).

From reading the novel “War Brothers” by Sharon E. McKay, it came to my attention that there are many poor or impoverished people living in Uganda. 40% of all people living in the rural areas of Uganda are living in poverty - that’s around 10 million people! See, in the rural areas of Uganda, there are isolated from the developments and economic growth happening in the cities. As a result, they lack the technology to increase the efficiency of their crops and also to rid themselves of pests and diseases. And honestly, I wanted to know why they didn’t have the opportunities that we have here to improve their quality of life.

I was able to connect this to one very part of the government: social programs and services. Social services are provided by the government to help increase the economic inequalities amongst citizens, as well as promoting a better quality of life. In Uganda, there is little access to these type of services, such as health-care or financial support. There are huge amounts of people that also are sick from AIDS/HIV and don’t have the access or money for proper health care.

For the purpose of my mini-investigation, I headed to the Uganda Parliament website to try and get some insight into how and why their government uses their money. They do have a committee for social services, including health (and AIDS), education, and sports, but it isn’t clear what exactly their health-care looks like. I decided to try to find a bit more information about this. I found a rather interesting look at their health profile (http://www.who.int/gho/countries/uga.pdf), but nothing about the way their system runs. When I visited the Ministry of Health website for Uganda, the link that was supposed to redirect me to their practices said it was “hacked”. Interesting.

My point of this post was mainly to reflect and think about the difference in the life we have here as opposed to somewhere like Uganda. Our country’s wealth, government and economic system, allows us to live the lives we do and greatly affects our roles as consumers. I also don’t think we realize in North America the impact that social programs provided by the government has on the way we live each and every day.

Thanks for reading! Have a lovely day.

GINS: Round Table Discussion (Task #3)

This is our second round table on the novel War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay. This discussion was done with Michael who also is reading War Brothers. In this discussion we examine the novel after conducting some research about the book and the country it is set in (Uganda).


Thanks for listening!

Epic Recs with Brianna!

Hey there! Today I am posting to announce that Brianna from For The Love of Books and I are going to be participating in Epic Recs! This is a book club hosted by Amber at Books of Amber and Judith at Paper Riot. Basically how it works is you find a partner or friend (Brianna, in my case) and at the beginning of each month, you each recommend a book to each other that they have to read within that month. It's about expanding your horizons and being able to share your thoughts with them on the books you both read. Here are our choices for November...

For Brianna (chosen by me): Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo!
I chose this book because I love it so insanely much and I really want Brianna to read it so we can talk about it!!! Also, this book makes me feel all sorts of things (like clawing my eyes out, for example) and I kinda want to ruin Brianna's life too cause I'm a great friend. Sharing is caring, right?


For Me (chosen by Brianna): Partials by Dan Wells!

I've been wanting to read this and I think I'll like it, but I'm really not in the mood. That said, Brianna recommended it, so read it I shall.

We also each have a back-up book in case this book doesn't come in from the library (not likely for me, since I already have Partials in my possession). I am not going to give those away at this time because if this months picks work out, then the back-ups will be for the following month.

Thanks for reading! I'm hoping we like each other's picks! 

Consumerism Tumblr

As you may have noticed, there is now a top tab on my blog reading 'consumerism tumblr'. You're probably wondering what the heck that's about. As a new study at school, we are inquiring more deeply into our consumer identities. Our way of expressing this is going to be through different types of media presented in a tumblr blog format. I haven't posted anything yet, but maybe you'll be seeing some posts soon.

Have an excellent day!