Fairy Tale by Stephen King: A READALONG ANNOUNCEMENT!

 

So... one of my goals is to get back to doing or participating in... readalongs. That's like a temporary book club of one book! Gather a bunch of people that want to read a specific book, read it, and discuss! 

I wanted to read Fairy Tale by Stephen King, and I think this book would be a TON MORE FUN with people! So, I'm hosting a readalong for this book in March. 

If you are on Storygraph, you can join the readalong over there. I'll (hopefully) create some forums and stuff to see how that works over there. BUT I'll also post stuff here, and on the channel. So you don't need to do the Storygraph thing at all. (Here's the link to find that page over there.)

Though I would love for you to tell me if you're interested, so I can know who to..annoy...about stuff as we get going! LOL! So comment here if you think you might join in. 

Anyway, look for a schedule to come in a bit, as we get closer. In the meantime, if you are interested, you can get the book and plan your schedule to participate in March. JOIN US!!

Favorite Kdramas in 2023

I kind of stopped reviewing my kdrama watching over here on the blog! AHH, I'm going to regret that just for my own knowledge at some point. Sigh. Anyway, I thought I'd at least share the list of my favorites for those interested. Because there were some AWESOME ones from this year!

See You in my 19th Life: This one is about a girl who can remember her past lives, and when she ends up in her 19th life, she is determined to find the boy that she loved in her 18th. Oh my word, it's so good and so heartbreaking! We learn about many of her other lives along the way too. (You can watch this one on Netflix)

King of Land: This one is a fantastic romcom about our dude who is the CEO of the hotel (and aren't they all!!) and our girl is the front desk person. And she is like SO GOOD at her job, and ends up working in the posh part of the hotel where the execs (including our dude) hang out. They take notice of each other, and bam, stuff happens. And he's not as CEO -ish as one would imagine. Ah, it's the best romantic-y thing ever! (You can watch this one on Netflix)

Twinkling Watermelon: This one is probably my favorite of the bunch. Our guy is a CODA (child of deaf adult) and is very important to the survival of his family. (His whole family is deaf actually.) But his dream is to play the guitar, and when he argues with his dad about this issue, he ends up back in time (to 1995) when his dad is in high school. And his dad isn't deaf! What's up with that??? And he realizes he needs to help his mom and dad meet, because it appears his dad is gaga over some other girl. This one is so cute, and so funny, and so sweet, and so...perfect! The two leads.... our dude and the dude that plays his dad in 1995... are SOOO GOOD! And the girls are amazing also. And it's fun to see how different Korean sign language is from American sign language. Who knew I would recognize this fact? Anyway, I loved loved loved this one. (This one is on Viki)

A Good Day to be a Dog: This is an adorable drama about a girl who is cursed to be a dog if she gets kissed, and the curse is only broken if the same dude kisses her again... when she is a dog. But the dude she ACCIDENTALY kisses.. is scared to death of dogs!! WHAT TO DO? In addition to solving this problem, we also learn the back story of why she is cursed, which is a heartbreaking story. Cha Eunwoo (of Astro) is fabulous in this drama. Talk about swoony.... (this one is on Viki)

Peak Time: This was a fantastic band competition show between idol groups that are maybe struggling, or are brand new... or are has-beens... and they are all pitted against each other to win the prize! But at the same time, they all bond and are cheering for each other. And the performances are amazing and you just want them all to win. It's so good! You can watch this one on Viki.

So there you have it. My favorite Korean TV watching stuff from this past year! I dare you to give one of them a try. You know you'll love it!

Crunching the Numbers 2023

 READING STATS for 2023 

(If you want to watch the live where we discussed all this in real time on the channel, click on over here!)

TOTAL BOOKS: 50 (Goal was 50!)

Total pages: 16,606
Total Re-reads: 0

Authors
Men: 10
Women: 40

For:
ARCS for Review: 1
Book Club: 11

Readathon/Events: 1 (Ktropeathon) and 3 (Asian Readathon)

Forced Phase: 5

From:
Library: 5
On my Kindle: 14
Bought/Owned: 29
Borrowed: 1
Audio: 3

Genres:
YA: 24
Adult: 24
Middle Grade: 2


From the YA Category:
Contemporary Realistic Fiction or Romance: 14
SF/Fantasy: 6

Dystopian: 0

Historical Fiction: 2

Graphic Novel: 1

Non Fiction: 1

From the MG Category:
Classic: 1

Nonfiction Biography: 1

From the Adult Category:
Historical Fiction: 0
Fantasy: 5

Romance: 1

Literary Fiction: 7
Non Fiction: 10

Star Ratings:
5 stars: 12
4 stars: 22
3 stars: 14
2 stars: 2
1 star: 0

Observations:

• Go me for making my 50 book goal!
• I am so amazed at how many non fiction I read this year. I love memoirs I guess!
• I need to read more classics though. Why can't I get that one going again?
• Next year I will do more readalongs. The first one is already scheduled! Stay tuned!

KDRAMA STATS

Total Kdramas: 14

5 hearts: 6

4 hearts: 6 

3 hearts: 2

YOUTUBE STATS:

The Kpop Konverters

Total videos uploaded in 2023: 32 long videos, 3 shorts

Subscribers at year end: 40,219

View count at year end: 18.9 million

Note: I was demonetized this year, but according to my analytics, I ended up making nearly $2000 from this channel before it all ended! Now I'll just make videos for fun without worrying about the whole making money side of it. 

Suey's Book Banter 

Total videos uploaded in 2023: 119 long videos, 88 shorts

Total Views at year end: 100.6 K

Total Subscribers at year end: 919

Note: Working on hard on the youtubing thing, hopefully someday it will pay off! The booktube crowd is a hard sell! 

Reading Recap: December 2023

 Here's what I read (and listened to!) in December! Not too bad a month... I was trying to catch up to my goal!

Becoming by Michelle Obama: I listened to the audiobook, read by the author and enjoyed it A LOT. She tells stories from her childhood, through all the schooling she had, how she met her husband, and following him on his path to the White House. And how she made a name for herself all the way there too. Great stories and lots of fun to listen to. Five stars! 

The Quiet Little Woman: A Christmas Story by Louisa May Alcott: Cute compilation of three short stories for kids that the author wrote for a magazine back in the day, started by some girls who were inspired be her Little Women story. They sat unknown somewhere until someone found them and compiled them into this cute little volume... three lovely Christmas tales for kids. Four stars!

The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict: Our Christmas book club book, about a girl whose aunt has called her and all her cousins to come to the mansion in the country at Christmastime to play game to see who will inherit the house. The aunt, dead of course, has figured out all the clues and rules ahead of time. As the game progresses, nearly everyone gets murdered! And so her girl has to survive till the end and hopefully get the house, even though she really doesn't want it...lol. This one was weirdly written which took me out of the story a lot. Strange stuff, this one is. Two stars.

If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin: A very angsty and very sad YA story about a girl who is in love with a dude who has been her friend her whole life. We learn from the first page that he dies, and then we learn what lead up to that. Sad heart wrenching stuff, but so good! Four stars.

Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham: another memoir I listened to while finishing my Christmas crafting... so fun to have her tell a bunch of Gilmore Girl stories and other tales from the business. I really enjoyed it. Five stars!

The Name Drop by Susan Lee: A cute YA (ish... a bit older than YA actually) about these two kids who are both headed to a huge company in NY for their summer jobs. But their names get mixed up and they end up at each other's spots. One is a post exec job, and the other a lowly intern job. Even though they figure it out, they decide to stay put and learn from the experience. And fall in love at the same time. Fun! Four stars!

Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood: Another YA-ish romance (I guess new adult is not a thing anymore? These would be NA if it was a thing!) about a girl who loves to play chess, but has sworn it off, until she ends up in a competition, and then in a job... where she has to play chess. She needs the money so why not? And the dude is the champion to beat, which she does. But she is oddly drawn to him too, so how to navigate THAT? What to do! I enjoyed it a lot and managed to finish it just before New Years so it counted as my 50th book of the year. Go me! Four stars!

Now on to 2024! I've committed to 60 books this year. Any bets on if I can make it???

(If you want to watch me discussing all these books on the channel, here's the link!)

Reading Recap: September, October, November 2023

 It's been busy and crazy and I got behind logging my reading on here. So here's a bit of a catch up post! 

SEPTEMBER

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: A sad story about a very dysfunctional family and how they deal with the death of their daughter, which we find out about in the beginning and then learn what led up to it. It was page-turny for me but I still found the "being a mom is terrible" narrative to be frustrating. I'd love to read a book about a happy mom sometime. I gave it three stars on Goodreads.

Not If I Date You First by Krysti Meyer: A cute YA romcom that I ended up with when the author gave out the link on Instagram. The premise: what happens when a top celebrity and a rising paparazzo fall in love? They have run ins, but the dude's people decide that the run  ins are helping his career, so they encourage it... and she needs the run ins to get the paparazzi job she wants. So yeah, fake boyfriend trope, which is always fun! I gave it three stars on Goodreads.

Just Won't Spring for the Boy Band Star by Sasha Hart: This is a book I bought from the author at the writing conference back in May. Part of a companion series, this one is about our girl who is an up and coming chef and ends up being hired as the personal chef for a celebrity boy band star... and one she had a tiff with over on Twitter. So she has to hide her identity and then worries what to do when they start having feelings for each other. I

Flour Power: The Practice and Pursuit of Baking Sourdough Bread by Tara Jensen: As part of my quest to learn how to do sourdough stuff, I got this really awesome book from the library. I didn't read it cover to cover (the whole last half is recipes) but I did read A LOT of the learning stuff up front. But it's still a mystery. I guess I need to continue my research. I gave this one four stars on Goodreads.

OCTOBER

I read nothing in October, but I TRIED to read a lot of things and nothing would stick. See my video about those struggles here.

NOVEMBER

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas: Wow! I finally know what everyone is talking about! Not sure it totally lived up to the hype, but yeah. It's a pretty intense fantasy (romantasy? Isn't that the new buzz word??) where the world of our human girl clashes with the world of our fairy lord boy. (Man? I guess this is adult so they are older, though our girl is still only 19. And he's like thousands of years old, so... man I guess, lol.) Anyway, she gets messed up in all the craziness of what's going on in the fairy world and has to help to solve it all. I am not sure if I'll continue on to the next book, but probably. Especially since I'm going to read more banned and challenged books this year and I think the 2nd book of this series is on a lot of lists! I gave this one four stars even though it was a slow start. The ending is quite...intense.

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams: A cute story about a sad lonely girl working at a small local library and an sad lonely older man dealing with the death of his wife. She finds a reading list... he needs something to read... and they start going through the books and realize how much they can relate them to the struggles they are both facing. I enjoyed reading about what they thoughts about the books on the list, but I didn't feel as emotional attached as I wanted to be. I gave this one 3 stars on Goodreads.

And now November is over and on to December! I have seven books to read to reach my Goodreads goal of 50 books this year. Sigh. I was doing so well until everything got derailed in October. I'm thinking of reading some small Christmas books from my Christmas book basket. Maybe that will work? I also need to read the book for book club (The Christmas Murder Game) and I fear that's going to take me all month since I predict it will not grab my attention well. Wish me luck! 

Reading Recap August 2023

 It was a pretty great reading month. For me anyway! Here's what my list looked liked (and for a video version of this click here):

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin: I'd heard to much about this one so it was awesome to finally read it. It's basically 20 or so years in the life of these two friends who end up writing a computer game together and starting a gaming company back when gaming was fairly new. It is very character driven and I was totally invested in their lives and what was going to happen to them. Great story! Five stars on Goodreads!

My Contrary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodie Ashton and Jodie Meadows: I read this one for August's book club book, another in the sort of alternate reality history recreations these authors do of Jane's and Mary's! This one is about Mary Queen of Scots and how she is fighting for her throne. I enjoyed it but it's not my favorite sort of thing. I'm giving it 3 stars on Goodreads.

Beyond the Story by BTS: This is a big beautiful book detailing the events (including all the albums and songs and awards and etc) of the kpop group BTS from when they debuted in June 2013 to now, these ten years later. Lots of fun interesting tidbits and QR codes throughout leading you to the MVs and/or performances that are mentioned in the book. I really enjoyed it and am giving 4 stars on Goodreads.

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir: This is the sad story of our boy who's mother as just died and he is struggling to keep her motel business afloat since he's dad is an alcholoic and is no help at all. And our girl how just wants SO BAD to go to college but the uncle who raised her refuses to allow it. And all their even more crazy backstories, and struggles they have. It deals with hard subjects, and is heart wrenching but beautifully written. It's getting 5 stars on Goodreads.

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang: I picked this one up randomly and read it in one afternoon and loved it. The author follows the basketball team from the school where he teaches has they strive to take the state championship. In the journey, we learn the backstories of the players, and the coaches, and fun interesting history about basketball. It was awesome. I loved it and am giving it 5 stars on Goodreads.

Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher: This is our September book club book in observance of Banned Books Week/Month, about a dude who falls in love with a girl who happens to be transgender. The story is about what he does when he learns this secret. And also opens our eyes to the struggles of a transgender person. Another heart wrenching but fantastic story. I'm giving it 4 stars on Goodreads.

Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter: A fun fabulous YA enemies to lovers romcom. It has all the things! Movie and music references. Playlists. Two great leading guys. Lots of funny scenes and perfect romance. Such fun! It's getting 4 stars on Goodreads.

September's Plans:

• work on some prompts from the challenges
• do a "forced phase" on sourdough bread baking
• maybe read some more banned/challenged books

It's going to be a great new month of reading! How did your August go? I hope you are loving all the books you're reading!

Ten Alien Books I've Read and Five I Want to Read

Did you see the video where I talked about aliens? LOL. You've heard they are real, right? Yes. And so we better read up on them!

Here are the ten books I listed in the video that I've read and enjoyed/loved:


The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancy

Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Host by Stephanie Meyer

I am Number Four by Pitticus Lore

These Broken Stars by Aimee Kaufmann and Meagan Spooner

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

And these five I've added to my list to read. Hopefully sooner than later!

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolinli

Skyward by Brandon Sanderson

Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews

Contact by Carl Sagan

What alien books have you read and loved?