December 2017 Wrap Up

What a month December 2017 has been! I turned 16, got my driver's license, and grew Undeniable Joy as a business! And somehow, inbetween the craziness of finals and life, I managed to read 10 books! I also branched out into audio books for the first time this month and I love them! It is so nice to have something to listen to while I am getting ready or working on art! So hold onto your hats and get read for the 10 (!) books I read this month!

1. The first book I read this month was Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett!This was the perfect book to get me out of my reading funk! It was so cute and feel good, and it gave me another couple to root for! I loved everything about this one, so of course it gets a 5/5 stars! By far the best contemporary I’ve read in awhile! 
2. Then I read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I had to read this book for school, and I really did not enjoy it. The writing was hard to follow and the main character was so incredibly unlikeable. An overall 2/5 star read. 
3. Next, I read (or listened to) The Call by Peadar O'Guilin. This was my first audiobook and it was so fun! Okay, honesty, the book was creepy, riveting, and described beautifully! But the whole experience was so enjoyable, between the narrator and the captivating story, I loved it! Another 5 star read! If you are looking for something creepy, but at the same time won’t keep you up all night and is an adventure, mystery type story, then this is the book for you!
4. Then, I listened P.S. I Like You by Kasie West on audiobook. Overall, it was cute and fun, but I didn’t love it. Not my favorite contemporary, but it filled the finals week void I was feeling. I am sure I will venture into more Kasie West soon! I gave this one a solid 3/5 stars. 
5. My next audiobook was Yes Please by Amy Poehler! This was my first autobiography, and I had such an amazing time! I love that Amy narrated it, along with the other people who she would mention in her stories! I also loved how there were actual clips from Parks and Rec and SNL in the audiobook, along with songs, and live interviews! It added so much to the experience! I love her on Parks and Rec, so it was cool to see more into her life! I don’t have a star rating for this one because it doesn’t really fit into my normal standards for rating, but I highly recommend this one! 
6. Next, I read Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco! I read Stalking Jack the Ripper earlier this year and adored it (it’s in my Top 17 of 2017- stay tuned for that post soon!), so I knew I wanted to get around to reading this one! The sequel was everything I wanted, more mystery, more girl power, more development in the relationship, just all around more and better (I didn’t think that would be possible!), and I loved it! 5/5 stars!
7. After that book, I read Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee! Oh! My! Goodness! This book was AMAZING! There was a perfect balance of 1700s politics, romance, adventure, travel, humor, and mystery! It was such a ride and I adored every second! I gave this one 5/5 stars! If you are looking for your next read, i suggest checking this one out sooner rather than later!
8. Remember when I said I would be reading more Kasie West in the future? Well, the future was nearer than I was expecting! I listened to The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West and I enjoyed it a lot! I think it was slightly better than P.S. I Like You, but I still give it 3/5 stars. Very cute, but not the best I have ever read!
9. After that, I read The Graces by Laure Eve! This book was so interesting! It was similar to We Were Liars in that I had absolutely no idea what was going on the entire time I was reading. All the events are shrouded in mystery, yet they are having crazy parties and living their lives. It also has elements of witchcraft and magic, which makes the book even more interesting! I highly recommend checking this book out! It is very underrated and deserves so much more love! I gave it 4/5 stars! 
10. Finally, I read Wonder by R.J. Palacio. My friend wanted to go see the movie, so I went and loved it! I came home and read the book in one sitting after that! It is such a feel good book and a super quick read! I gave it 5/5 stars! 
11. Lastly, I wanted to mention that I DNF’d Now I Rise by Kiersten White. I read And I Darken earlier this year and didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, so I thought I would give the sequel a chance. Honestly, I was reading it while studying for finals and it is so political and violent that I just couldn’t keep up. I got about half way through before I threw in the towel. I desperately want to love these books, but I just don’t think they are for me.

Alright! That’s it! What did you read this month? Comment below so we can chat about books!

All I Want for Christmas Book Tag

Merry Christmas, everybody! I hope your day has been wonderful! I have already opened gifts with my family and had a delicious brunch, so we are now all hiding in seperate parts of the house playing with new toys or cleaning up the carnage. I figured I should stop in and post something christmas-y, so here I am with this fun christmas book tag! I hope you enjoy!

1) What fictional character do you want Santa to leave under your Christmas tree?

This is a weird question, but I’d go with Abraxos because I really want him to be my best friend and fly me places!

2) What character do you want to kiss under the mistletoe?

There’s so many, but I feel like Rhysand is always a pretty solid answer. ;)

3) You write your Christmas list for Santa, what are the top 5 books on it?

1. A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir
2. Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare
3. Three Dark Crowns #3 (It doesn’t have a name yet) by Kendare Blake
4. A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas
5. War Storm by Victoria Aveyard

4) It’s secret santa at Hogwarts, what do you most want to receive?

I’m guessing this means any sort of magical gift, so I would go for an invisibility cloak! Imagine all the places you could go (and people you could spy on) if you were invisible!

5) You get to the spend the day with the characters and movie adaptation actors from one fandom, what do you pick?

Well, since it says fandom and not book series, I am going to branch out and say the cast of the Avengers! It would be so awesome to meet them!

6) What fictional animal would you like to replace Rudolph and be able to meet on your roof?

Blackbeak from the Percy Jackson series! He is so funny and I would love to meet him!

7) You invite 10 fictional characters to your new years eve party, who do you pick?

1. Rhysand (A Court of Mist and Fury)
2. Chaol (Throne of Glass)
3. Annabeth (Percy Jackson)
4. Thomas (Stalking Jack the Ripper)
5. Nina (Six of Crows)
6. Celia (The Night Circus)
7. Simon Snow (Carry On)
8. Simon Lewis (The Mortal Instruments)
9. Isabelle Lightwood (The Mortal Instruments)
10. Cath Avery (Fangirl)

This would definitely be the weirdest party ever, but I would have a lot of fun!

8) What character would make a good santa (Doesn’t have to be appearance, personality counts too)?

I think Cade from P.S. I Like You by Kasie West would be such a good santa! He is a kid’s baseball coach and he is so funny, so I think he would be perfect for he job!

Who would you invite to your New Year’s Eve party? Comment below because I would love to hear from you and Merry Christmas!

This is Living

This is Living

To live is not to simply exist,

To mark all the boxes on your checklist.

It is to enjoy every moment,

To find good despite being broken.

It is to ride the highs and lows,

To roll with the punches and go with the flow.

It is to dance in the sun and in the rain,

To shout in the triumph and in the pain.

To live is to fall in love,

With everything found below and above.

Not with just one person,

But with others, nature, and all your versions.

It is not about moping when things don’t go your way,

It is viewing things in the light of day.

It is going back to the drawing board,

Making sure all options are explored.

Living is finding the little things that bring you joy,

Being rid of the pests that destroy.

It is pursuing the things that set your soul on fire,

And doing it with the fearlessness required.

To live is to have hope that better days are ahead,

That you will not be left alone or for dead.

It is to find contentedness with the way things are now,

To discover the things that make you say, “wow.”

It is more than stressing about a test,

More than when you tried your best.

It is more than how much your house costs,

More than the burdens that exhaust.

It is more than how successful you are,

More than if you become a star.

It is more than when you get married,

More than when you are buried.

It is more than when you were born,

more than when you feel worn.

It is finding your favorite flower, favorite artist, favorite song,

It is going back and making rights from wrongs.

It is finding the people you love and who love you back,

It is overcoming all of your setbacks.

For me to live is to gaze at the stars,

To read hundreds of books, from fantasy to memoirs.

It is to dance and to sing and to celebrate,

To make the most of every single date.

It is make people feel welcome,

To eat lots of bananas and watermelon.

It is to plant thousands of flowers,

To play with goats and in the rain showers.

To live is to make art,

To pour out my heart.

It is to serve those who need it,

To have joy and never, ever quit.

It is to love the Lord with all my heart,

To make late night trips to Walmart.

It is to snuggle with cats and travel the globe,

To embarrass people by saying gnarly and dope.

My purpose on this earth is to love people well,

To put my toes in the sand and collect seashells.

It is to punctuate sentences with hallelujah and amen,

It is to sing his praise again and again.

Snapchat and Drawing Near to God

       I kept my phone on mute all day today and here’s what happened: I was excluded from exactly no adventures, I lost a grand total of no snapchat streaks, I wasn’t kicked off instagram, and I still have all of my friends. Funny how that works, huh? And don’t get me wrong, I did still go on my phone. I just kept the notifications turned off!
       Plus, you know what did happen? I had one of the best bible journaling sessions I’ve ever had, I completed 7 orders for custom prints, I went for a 6 mile run with one of my friends, and I played guitar for the first time in weeks. I felt no pressure to go on my phone because I was not getting distracted easily. And it was awesome! Sure, I responded to a few texts an hour after I received them, but everyone is still alive and I had an awesome day!
       This whole thing started because I was reading a blog post about Snapchat streaks this morning. The person was talking about how ridiculous it is that we put the value of a relationship in a number and a heart emoji next to someone’s name. And then they talked about having a “streak” with God. The tagline of the post was “Start a snapchat streak with God because he wants one with you.” This really got me thinking. I like to think that I am living a good christian life: I pray, listen to worship music, and I bible journal almost daily. But how often do I really study the word, do I really pray, do I really mean the words that I am singing? It’s not that often… The streak I have with God is the black screen with a red “s” in the corner. I want to have a full faced multi-snap-a-day kind of relationship with the Lord!
So, after being super convicted by this blog post, I did a little digging to find a passage I wanted to study to kick off my best-friend status with God. And I found the perfect one! It is James 4:1-12, titled “Submit Yourself to God.” This passage is jam packed with some lovely little gems!
       It begins by saying that it seems like our prayers aren’t being answered because 1) we aren’t even praying or 2) we pray with the wrong motives. Well, that was convicting from the get-go! The purpose of prayer isn’t to get God to do what we want, it’s to align our will to his! This is so important to me because the main thing I have been struggling with is getting myself to pray and mean it! I clearly need to work a little more on it!
       Then, to make things even better, James reminds us that you cannot be friends with the world, or even desire to be friends with the world, if you want to be a friend of God’s! The world is the enemy and everything that is of it is evil. God is holy and can only be with pure things.
       BUT (and that’s a big but) he gives us more grace! Despite the sin we are living with, despite every single thing we have ever done, there is more grace! When sin tries to break in, grace is always stronger, it always resists. And that grace is for the humble, for the people who know they need it. It comes to them not because they deserve it, but because they are receptive to it. This was another huge thing to me! I always thought God gave grace to the humble because they were somehow better through actions of some sort, but it is purely because they know they need grace! And in response to that grace, they submit ourselves to the Lord!
       The study I was doing outlined 5 reasons why we should submit to the Lord. Reason 1 is that he created us. Isn’t it crazy that he gave us eyes to see, but we look anywhere but to him! He gave us feet to move, yet we walk away! He gave us lips to speak of his glory and sing his praise, but all we do is slander and curse! Reason 2 is that he is a good ruler, he wants the best for us! Reason 3 is that, ultimately, resistance to the Lord is futile. We all know that in the end, he wins! Reason 4 is that submission is necessary to salvation. To be saved, you must admit that he is the Lord and the ruler of your life. Lastly, reason 5 is that it will bring you peace. The Lord is the only true source of peace, strength, and joy. You will not find those things until you find him. I don’t know about you, but those are 5 pretty good reasons to give my life over to God!
       And all of that was awesome, but verse 8 is what i really needed today. It says, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” This is an invitation from God to come and be with him! Remember the tagline of that blog post? “Start a snapchat streak with God because he wants one with you.” That is what this verse is saying! God wants to be near you, but he wants for you to want it as well! He will not force you into a relationship with him, he wants you to choose! Here are some ways to choose God: worship, praise, pray, ask his council, enjoy communication with him, bring him into the little things in life, give him the plans you made and trust him to take care of it!
       The one that really stuck out to me on that list was “enjoy communication with him”. I never thought about it like this, but you should not be dreading talking to God. He wants to be with you, you should want to be with him! Don’t do something you hate because you think you have to. If you hate kneeling- don’t do it! If you hate praying while you drive- don’t do it! Maybe you can’t pray until you’ve had a cup of coffee. Well then, get brewing, then pray! Don’t force yourself into quiet time, that will just make you not want to do it anymore!
       Isn’t it amazing what occurred today purely because I put my phone on mute? I think it is awesome! Something I am trying to start is having a weekly verse, so this week’s is James 4:8, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” Do you have any thoughts on James 4:8 or have your own verse of the week? Please share them down below! I would love to hear from you!

Alex, Approximately Review

Book: Alex, Approximately

Author: Jenn Bennett

Rating (of 5):

Synopsis: The one guy Bailey Rydell can’t stand is actually the boy of her dreams—she just doesn’t know it yet.

Classic movie fan Bailey “Mink” Rydell has spent months crushing on a witty film geek she only knows online as Alex. Two coasts separate the teens until Bailey moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surfing town as her online crush.

Faced with doubts (what if he’s a creep in real life—or worse?), Bailey doesn’t tell Alex she’s moved to his hometown. Or that she’s landed a job at the local tourist-trap museum. Or that she’s being heckled daily by the irritatingly hot museum security guard, Porter Roth—a.k.a. her new archnemesis. But life is a whole lot messier than the movies, especially when Bailey discovers that tricky fine line between hate, love, and whatever it is she’s starting to feel for Porter.

And as the summer months go by, Bailey must choose whether to cling to a dreamy online fantasy in Alex or take a risk on an imperfect reality with Porter. The choice is both simpler and more complicated than she realizes, because Porter Roth is hiding a secret of his own: Porter is Alex…Approximately.

I just finished Alex, Approximately, the perfect summer-y contemporary ( which was great to read while it was snowing outside)! It gave me all the warm, fuzzy, happy feelings and I adored every second of it! I must have read about 70% of it in one sitting because I simply could not put it down! I had been hearing the hype about this for a while, and I was scared it would not live up to expectations, but I am in love! It was everything and more!

The thing I loved the most was Bailey’s character development! She goes from Artful Dodger to being confident in herself without loosing what she is passionate about and who she truly is! And, to make it better, it was not only because she fell in love! In so many contemporaries the girls change for the “better”  thanks to the guy of their dreams. But not Bailey! She was slowly becoming bolder and bolder as the book went on, making decisions and friends for herself!

Another thing I loved was how the more serious things were done. In so many books the characters have some strange backstory that is just kind of there. But in Alex, Approximately, the characters were actively living with and overcoming their fears and their pasts. It added an interesting element to the story, seeing the two main characters cope with their pasts and learn how to better handle their pain.

Also, the families in these books were awesome! While they were far from perfect, I loved how the families had such a big role in the story! They actually spent time with their family and held up their obligations, which was so refreshing! Plus, the dads actually acted like dads and not robots, which I seem to find happens in a lot of books (the robot thing, anyways).

The setting of a small town in California is so perfect for a summer romance! The surfing vibes in the town and the cutesy boardwalk were just perfect! I adored how the surfing theme was consistent through the book, as well as the film references. Jenn Bennett could have dropped those things, like so many authors do, but she kept referencing their passions and they stayed in as a huge part of the book! It was so fun to keep hearing old movie quotes or learn something new about weather conditions when surfing!

The writing in this book was perfect for the setting! It was laid back and simple, while still describing things in great detail! I could completely imagine myself standing next to the churro cart or sitting up on the dunes watching Porter surf! Just another aspect that made me love this book even more!

And, lastly, no spoilers, but the ending was all I could have ever asked for!

Overall, I loved this book (if you couldn’t tell…). There is no part of it that I didn’t adore! I gave it 5/5 stars, of course! I highly recommend you check this one out for you next read!

Have you read Alex, Approximately? What did you think? Comment below so we can chat about books!

(Image and synopsis from Goodreads)

12 Days of Christmas Read-a-Thon Announcement

I have always wanted to successfully participate in a read-a-thon, but they are never at a good time for me or the challenges aren’t fun! So, I decided to create my own read-a-ton! Yay!

This one is based around the 12 days of Christmas! The goal is to read as many books as you can, as we are nearing the end of the year! I know I still have a ways to go in my Goodreads goal and am hoping to use this read-a-thon to motivate me! There are challenges, but it is up to you if you use them or not! They are loosely based on the song (I tried, ok…), and you can use as many as you wish! If you do all of them, you will have read 12 books in 12 days (crazy!!!).

This read-a-thon runs from 12:00 am on December 14th through 11:59 pm on December 25th. This will be based off of whatever time zone you are in!

Challenges:

1. Twelve Drummers Drumming: Read a book set during winter/ Christmas time!
2. Eleven Pipers Piping: Read a 2017 release you really wanted to read this year!
3. Ten Lords a Leaping: Read a book you have always skipped out on reading!
4. Nine Ladies Dancing: Read a story that is a retelling!
5. Eight Maids a Milking: Read a classic!
6. Seven Swans a Swimming: Read an anthology, poetry collection, or graphic novel!
7. Six Geese a Laying: Read a book under 100 pages!
8. Five Golden Rings: Read a book set in a different world/ universe!
9. Four Calling Birds: Read a book about friendship!
10. Three French Hens: Read a book set in a different country/ place you’ve never been before!
11. Two Turtle Doves: Read a book with a romance
12. A Partridge in a Pear Tree: Read a standalone novel!

Social Media!

Follow my twitter @aboundingbooks for Twitter sprints and information! Use #12daysreadathon on Twitter and Instagram to share your posts with me! And be sure to follow my blog for more news like my TBR!

Comment your TBR below (or a link to a post)! I would love to see what you are reading!

December TBR

The last half of this year has been rather slumpy for me reading wise, but I am determined to make my goal of reading 50 books this year! I have lots of fun contemporaries lined up for this month because I know I can fly through them and will love them! I am also looking for a read-a-thon to participate in to motivate me, so if you know of any happening this month, please let me know!

The first book I plan on reading is Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett. I have already started this one and am loving it!

Then, I hop to read Once and for All by Sarah Dessen! I love Sarah Dessen, so when my friend let me borrow her copy of this book I got so excited! I already know it is going to be amazing!

After that, I want to read To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and its sequel P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han! I have been wanting to read these books for a while, so when I saw both were available at the library, I had to get them!

Next, I want to finish Night Film by Marisha Pessl. I started in October and I really want to finish this one out!

I am reading the Catcher in the Rye for my literature class this semester, so I am just reading it as I need to, but I know it will be done by the end of the year!

Lastly, I hope to read The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee. I have it on hold at the library and it sounds so good! If I can’t get to it, I hope to read My Lady Jane because I am really in the mood for a funny alternate history!

What do you plan on reading this month? Have you completed your goodreads goal or is it toast by this point? Comment below so we can chat about books together!