So, I took a chance and started watching My Demon (Netflix)...not all of the episodes are out yet so no one knows how it will end. 🫣 I am thru episode 8 and so far I'm loving it! Please let there be a happy ending!!!!!!!!!!!!! The last 2 episodes come out this weekend. I will report back.

For book club this month we read The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore: "Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. For Mirielle West, a 1920’s socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate. As a registered nurse, Amanda Skenandore’s medical background adds layers of detail and authenticity to the experiences of patients and medical professionals at Carville – the isolation, stigma, experimental treatments, and disparate community. A tale of repulsion, resilience, and the Roaring ‘20s, The Second Life of Mirielle West is also the story of a health crisis in America’s past, made all the more poignant by the author’s experiences during another, all-too-recent crisis." This was an interesting look into the leprosy disease. While I knew of leper colonies, I've never read anything about what life was like inside of one. For me, I wasn't too fond of the main character. I didn't feel like I got to know her all that well beyond superficial kinds of things. The secondary characters were much more relatable and likable, even though they had less page time. It was kind of weird. (3.5 stars)

The Texas Military Department provided this update... "The Texas Military Department has continued a thorough review of the circumstances surrounding the drowning of migrants in the Rio Grande. Claims of Border Patrol requesting access to save distressed migrants are inaccurate. Claims that TMD prevented Border Patrol from saving the lives of drowning migrants are wholly inaccurate. At the time that Border Patrol requested access, the drownings had occurred, Mexican Authorities were recovering the bodies, and Border Patrol expressed these facts to the TMD personnel on site. TMD Soldiers were in direct communication with Border Patrol on the evening of 12 January when Border Patrol requested access to Shelby Park. Soldiers confirmed that when Border Patrol requested access to the park they stated that Mexican Authorities had already recovered the bodies of two drowned migrants. Border Patrol specifically requested access to the park to secure two additional migrants that were presumed to have traveled with the deceased, though had crossed to the boat ramp. Two migrants were apprehended by TMD, with one turned over to DPS and the other transferred to EMS in response to initial hypothermic conditions. Additionally, TMD remained engaged with lights, night vision goggles, and thermals to ensure that no additional migrants were in the river or in distress." https://tmd.texas.gov/update-tmd-investigation-into-migrant-drownings-2024-01-14

I finished my first book of the year... What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez: "Bolivian-Argentinian Inez Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old world magic that’s been largely left behind or forgotten. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns the most: her globetrotting parents—who frequently leave her behind. When she receives word of their tragic deaths, Inez inherits their massive fortune and a mysterious guardian, an archeologist in partnership with his Egyptian brother-in-law. Yearning for answers, Inez sails to Cairo, bringing her sketch pads and an ancient golden ring her father sent to her for safekeeping before he died. But upon her arrival, the old world magic tethered to the ring pulls her down a path where she soon discovers there’s more to her parent’s disappearance than what her guardian led her to believe. With her guardian’s infuriatingly handsome assistant thwarting her at every turn, Inez must rely on ancient magic to uncover the truth about her parent’s disappearance—or risk becoming a pawn in a larger game that will kill her." I really enjoyed the Egyptian setting and anything to do with ancient Egypt is always appealing to me. The characters and the story were all fine, although it was a bit slow-moving from what I was expecting (it was advertised as The Mummy meets Death on the Nile). However, two main things bothered me. One, the magic that was present wasn't explained at all. It was just there when necessary. And two, the ending. I don't mind a cliffhanger, but this one was very confusing and irritating. Shouldn't the end leave me wanting more, not mad because I don't know what the heck just happened?!?! Anywho, I liked it enough to continue, I think, so hopefully book two continues on a better path. (3.5 stars)

Y'all won't believe this...DDs and I convinced DH to watch Business Proposal!!!!! We started it on NYE and I guess he liked it enough to continue. 🥳 Unfortunately, I don't think he'll turn into a K-drama addict. In fact, I'm not sure if he'll even watch many shows with me after this (unless they're like Bloodhounds), but I'm glad he's somewhat enjoying it. ☺️ I'll call it a win!

I've used Storygraph. As I mentioned in the wrap-up thread, I love stats and they have the best! Plus really cool graphs and charts! Unfortunately, I'm pretty bad about updating it regularly. I have the Goodreads app on my phone and iPad, so I used that because it's so much faster and easier for me. However, the stats that Goodreads provides aren't nearly as good as Storygraph. You can import your Goodreads data into Storygraph, but apparently that can only be done one time, which is kind of a bummer. It would be nice if this could be done every year, or whenever.

I believe this is new but here’s some information…. https://www.sling.com/help/en/subscription-programming-questions/channels-programming/local-channels We don’t go through Sling for locals, though, since the option above wasn’t available when we signed up. For locals, we have an antenna and use an app called Tablo (I believe it’s free, minus the cost of the original equipment)…. https://www.tablotv.com

We use SlingTV. Looks like CNN and Lifetime are available in both of their packages. We’ve also used FuboTV and liked it, but we just didn’t need all of the channels they offered and wanted to pay less.

Happy New Year!! 🎊 Wow…2024 is actually here!!! I really enjoyed our reading threads last year, so I’m excited to continue on into this year. I hope in this new year everyone enjoys oodles of wonderful books. I look forward to hearing what you all are reading!

I’m so very sorry 😞

Thanks for the heads up…DD wanted to watch this one. 😬

We’d love to have you…feel free to pop in anytime! ☺️

I looked this one up because I was curious….its over 1400 pages!! 😧 Classic books kind of intimidate me, but gigantic ones really do! That’s great that you can tackle that, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t make it. I hope you enjoy the new translation. ☺️

That would be great!! 😊

As I mentioned in the December thread, my Goodreads reading goal for 2023 was 75 books. I read a total of 76 books this years, so yay!! 🎉 Here's a very broad breakdown of the genre of books I've read: Nonfiction - 14 Classics - 11 Fantasy - 9 Young Adult - 6 Contemporary Fiction - 14 Historical Fiction - 12 Contemporary Romance - 10 If I recall correctly, one of my goals from last year (or a previous year) was to read more fiction/historical fiction and less contemporary romance. I think I can consider that goal met as well. I still enjoy romance, but I have noticed that if I read too much of it, I get bored so it's good to space it out. (I'll be honest...about 4-5 of those 10 romance books were towards the end of the year because I knew I could read them fast and use them to meet my reading goal. Ha!!) Every year I always say I want to read more classics, so I'm very happy that I've read more of those thanks to the American Literature study DD and I have been working through. I can't say I've loved all of the books we've read, but I've definitely enjoyed the experience and exposure to those stories. A few fun facts from Goodreads.... The average length of book I read was 333 pages My average rating for books is 3.9 stars The highest rated book I read was Demon Copperhead (the average Goodreads rating is 4.5 stars...I gave it 4 stars) I didn't have too many books I disliked this year, which is a good thing. I had several 3 star books, but I don't consider those bad. The two lowest rated books I had were... The Bear and the Nightingale - This was actually a DNF for me (no rating). The premise of the story sounded really good, but as I started reading it, I just didn't click with it. Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe - This was my last read of the year. It was actually a gift from my cousin last Christmas so I quickly skimmed through it prior to seeing her this year. It was bad...really bad. It just had no story, no purpose. Not my cup of tea. I had several 5 star rated books, so I'll consider those my favorites of the year... They Went Left As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow The Collected Regrets of Clover Catcher in the Rye The amount of books I've read this year has been less than previous years where I've read well over 100 books. While I'm a little disappointed in not keeping up with previous years, I'm okay with still meeting my goals. I definitely know why I've read less......K-dramas!!!! Yes, K-dramas have kind of taken over my evenings and I'm definitely reading less because of them, but they make me just as happy as reading, so it's all good! My main goal for next year, besides keeping up with the good mix of books I've been reading, is to find a good balance between K-dramas and reading. Whew....thanks for reading all of that! ☺️

Hey Everyone! I can't believe 2023 is almost over, but here we are! I thought I'd do a separate thread for an end of year reading wrap-up. I'm always curious to look back at my reading journey each year to see what I've read and see which books I enjoyed (or didn't). I'm a bit nerdy so I love stats, things like how many of each genre I read, or did I read mostly short books or long, things like that. I'm still compiling all of my information, but I'd love to hear from you! Did you set any reading goals this year? Did you meet those goals, or not? How many books did you read? What different types of books did you read? What were your favorite books, least favorites? Looking forward, do you have any reading goals for next year? Feel free to share anything from your reading journey over the past year!

This made me feel better about my ever-growing TBR stack. 🤣

Quick update...apparently the "finished date" of one of the books I read a few weeks ago wasn't recorded in Goodreads, therefore it hadn't been counted in my total. I updated it, and I've now reached my 75 book goal! Yay! 🥳

So, for Goodreads I set my Reading Challenge this year at 75 books. I've been frantically trying to get to that number this month. Please don't ask me why it matters because I have no clue!! Ha! 🤣 As of today I am at 74 of 75, but the craziness of the holidays are about to be in full swing, so hopefully I'll make it. Anywho, here are the books I've recently finished... The Clockwork Universe by Edward Dolnick - This was a book DD13 and I read for school. We're doing a History of Science study, so this was an interesting addition to our learning. It was mostly about Isaac Newton, but there were other scientists mentioned. (4 stars) A Winter in New York by Josie Silver - Book of the Month sent me this book in error, but they said I could keep it, which was nice of them. The story is centered around Iris, who has recently moved to New York after getting out of a bad relationship. She was drawn to NYC because of her mother's past there. After her friend drags her to a street fair, Iris recognizes a little gelateria. The next day she goes backs and meets the handsome Gio and after speaking with him about the gelato in his shop, she decides to help him with a problem he has. This book wasn't bad, it was just meh. An easy read, but nothing super memorable. (3 stars) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - This was the next book in the American Literature Study DD15 and I are doing. DD is a little behind on her reading, so she hasn't finished it yet, but I enjoyed this one. Each of the stories, especially the mothers, was very moving. They each endured many hardships. The book skipped around quite a bit with each of the characters, so keeping track of everyone was the only challenging thing. (4 stars) Betting on You by Lynn Painter - This is the fifth book I've read by this author and I really love all of her books. They are all so easy to just settle into and really like the characters and the story. This one is a YA contemporary, so it follows Bailey and Charlie, both 17 years old, both dealing with parents going through (or having gone through) divorce. They first meet on a plane trip where they had each been visiting one of their parents. After that plane ride, they keep running into each other and over the course of time build a friendship/bond and then more. This was a sweet story and I really enjoyed it. (4.5 stars) Forget Me Not by Julie Soto - Thanks for the recommendation @Kareni. The book synopsis is up above, so I won't repeat too much. Super cute story about a wedding planner and a florist. The part about her broke down car made me laugh because that'd probably be me if I didn't have DH taking care of my car!! (4 stars) The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Boston - I appreciate this authors attempt at mixing things up with her stories (she also wrote The Dead Romantics). However, I seem to always have an issue with time travel books. There are just too many questions/plot holes and I just haven't found one that's done it right (at least to me). Anyways, this story follows Clementine who is dealing with the death of her beloved aunt. This aunt left behind her magical apartment. When she least expects it, the apartment throws Clementine back seven years where there is a stranger living in the apartment. He just so happens to be a handsome wannabe chef. This is another meh book. I will say, the parts that dealt with the grief the main character was going through were well written. (3 stars)

Well I think that settles it…it’s going in the bin. Thanks ladies.

Have any of y’all watched Nevertheless…I’ve watched 4 episodes and I’m really not liking it. It’s the two lead characters…they are so shallow and don’t communicate at all. It’s so annoying. Does it get better, is it worth it to continue?

I'm so sorry. The holidays are already hard enough. 😕 I hope things get better soon. Lots of hugs.

Isn’t FUBAR a military thing? I heard it from watching Band of Brothers. Correction…not Band of Brothers…it’s Saving Private Ryan. Whoops

I live in Texas and BFE is common around here. I’ve heard both versions (butt/bum). DH was a military brat and he moved all over and he’s heard/used it too. I guess I can see why people wouldn’t like it because it has the f-word in it, but I admit I’m kind of a potty mouth, so curse words don’t bother me. 🤭 I didn’t know about “Netflix and chill” so that’s funny. I guess it’s a good thing I’ve never really used that phrase! 🤣

I finished Castaway Diva…loved this one!!! 🥰 Loved the whole cast and the story. By golly, though, another love triangle…this one made me really sad. Like I wanted to cry with him. Other than that, cute couple, nice friendship, adorable family, and a good ending.