Always Best Buds Book Trailer!

 I made a book trailer for Always Best Buds! Hopefully this will give you a feel for what this book is like: sweet YA romance, boy crazy girls, 80s nostalgia, told through letters. Let me know what you think!

READING (and other) STATS for 2025!

  READING STATS for 2025

(We'll be doing a LIVE STREAM again on the Booktube channel. Tori and I will be discussing our stats and we hope you all join in and share yours along with us. It will be Sunday January 11 at 3:00 pm MST... click here to find us. )

TOTAL BOOKS: 66 (Goal was 60!)

Total pages: 20,580
Total Re-reads: 0

Average Length of book: 314

Authors
Men:  17
Women: 51
New-to-me authors: 35

For:
Review for an author:  4

AML Award: 0
Book Club: 10

Readathon/Events: 9 

Forced Phase: 2

Beta Reads: 1

Readalong/Buddy Reads: 1

Banned Books: 0

Fun: 40

Part of a series:19

From:
Print books from the library: 5
eBooks: 20

Print books: 35
Borrowed: 1
Audio: 13

Books I own: 36 

Categories:
YA: 21
Adult: 41
Middle Grade:  4


Genres from the YA Category:
Contemporary Realistic Fiction or Romance: 13
SF/Fantasy: 4

Historical Fiction: 1 

Graphic Novel: 1

Dystopian: 2

Genres from the MG Category:

Fantasy: 0

Graphic Novel: 3 

Contemporary: 1

Genres from the Adult Category:
Historical Fiction: 5
Science Fiction an Fantasy: 4

Dystopian: 0

Romance: 5

Literary Fiction: 5
Memoirs: 6

Other Nonfiction:  5

Classic: 6

Mystery: 3

Horror: 1

Star Ratings:
5 stars: 8

4.5: 5
4 stars:  31

3.5: 8
3 stars: 10
2 stars: 2

1 star: 0

Average Rating: 3.89

Observations:

• Happy to report that starting The Classic Six Challenge absolutely did help me to add more classics to my line up. I will be doing it for 2026 so if you want to join in on the Storygraph page you can click here!  Most of my classics would be considered science fiction. Next year I want to read more romance classics!
• Loving all the memoirs I've been consuming.
• I went from 7 audio books last year to 13 this year. That number really does continue to go up!
• I wanted to add manga to my line up this year... I only read one I would consider manga and it was a middle grade zombie story full of potty humor. Not what I had in mind! LOL!
• Not sure exactly where to put the Emma M. Lion books. I had them in romance at first but have moved them to historical fiction. What do you think?

KDRAMA STATS

I don't think I even watched a kdrama this year. What the heck is up with that? If I did I can't remember what it was. I do know I was in the middle of one that I never finished. I just put a lot more time into reading (and writing) this year. 

YOUTUBE STATS:

The Kpop Konverters

Total videos uploaded in 2025: 3

Subscribers at year end: 40,662

View count at year end: 19,790,718 

So I said was going to quit this channel, and I pretty much did. And yet it still grew by 400 subscribers. Twice as much as my book channel which I am pouring my heart and soul into. I also got 500,000 more views this year. All on old content. It's so not fair. I just want to SCREAM! AHHHHH!!

Suey's Book Banter 

Total videos uploaded in 2025: 121 long videos, 78 shorts

Total Views at year end: 337,904

Total Subscribers at year end: 1,597

So I grew by a couple hundred subscribers in the whole freaking year. Woot. Sigh. I want this channel to do well so bad and it's just... not. 

WRITING STATS:

Should I add writing stats to the year end number crunch?

A Breath of Starlight

Current word count: 92,784

Status: beta reader feedback has been received

Soon to be getting a complete overhaul using reader feedback with plans to query.

The Adventures of Samantha Sawyer

Current word count: 47,967

Status: About half done? Maybe 3/4 done?

Still in draft mode and getting feedback from alpha readers (writing group peeps.)

Always Best Buds

Current word count: 65,025

Status: being turned into a semi-graphic novel

Will hopefully be a guinea pig for self publishing.

Indian Summer (needs new title)

Current word count: 83,842

Status: on hold

Plans to completely revise it, changing up the genre and the intended audience.

Weeping Rayne

Current word count: 41,489

Status: on hold

About half drafted. Not sure what to do with this one. Is it worth reviving at some point?

Love the Boy Band (working title not real title!)

Current word count: 18,604

Status: on hold

About 2/3 drafted. Not sure I'll ever finish this one even though I'm love with the characters.

The Sunday Post: Life Goes On

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer.

 

LISTENING:

The kpop music world is starting strong with a sweet rock song from Monsta X that I've been listening to a lot this week:

But Fall Out Boy had a "comeback" too! (Do you call it a comeback in the nonkpop world? I don't even know anymore!)

WATCHING:

I still haven't finished my latest kdrama watch because another Korean show took over... called Single Inferno. It's a Bachelor type dating show, that is totally different than the Bachelor (at least what I've seen of it.) I was leery going in, but everyone was right, it grabs and you are invested so freaking fast! I was annoyed that no one liked my favorite boy. Whatever. I hope he ended up finding love somewhere else with some real girl, lol.  (The girls felt very fake I must say, except one of them who was so different from all the rest of them!) 

Our household has also been watching the Harry and Meghan documentary. I've found it to so very interesting and quite sad and depressing too. The crazy lives some people lead, you know what I mean?  hope to get to his book someday to read down the road soon too. 

We also watched Super Junior's documentary thanks to Jenni and her Hulu! LOL! It was a quick two hour thing that give us a glimpse of how this, my favorite kpop band, came to be and rose to fame and how they have managed to stay together for these almost 20 years now despite some really really painful and hard moments. They are seriously some of the best humans out there. 

READING:

I finished My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You I'm Sorry for book club. That was an awesome book and made for a petty good book club discussion.  I will say more about it on my monthly review post. 

I started An Ember in the Ashes, which is one of my books from my forever TBR that I'm hoping to get through some of this year. Pretty intense and harsh story so far!

WRITING:

I signed up for the annual Storymakers Conference which takes place in May. 

I'm hoping to be brave enough to query my 80's story this year!

And the finishing up of the space opera story is slow slow going. I am so bad at this!

BLOGGING:

I've posted my top ten books of 2022, my top ten dramas of 2022, my goals for 2023, I crunched some numbers from 2022, and caught up on reviews with a couple of mini review posts. I think this will be my formant from now one. Anyway, be sure to scroll through and check them all out!

YOUTUBING:

On the KPOP channel I've uploaded a bunch more year end videos, but here I'll share my favorite title tracks of the year. Great songs, yeah?

Or you can watch my narrowed down favorites in a quick 1 minute short here!

One of these groups I get to see in person in two weeks... AHHHH!!!

One the BOOK channel I did another bookstore tour:

And also introduced my "Forced Phases" idea to the world. I hope to do a separate post about this here, but in the meantime, go watch it and I'd love for you to join me!!

HEALTH WATCH:

Trying to get back into the exercise routine still. Some weeks I manage it and others are quite rough. The struggle is real, for sure. I really need to stop eating stuff again too.

MISC:

Trying to think if there's anything else interesting to report on in life.  Lots has been going on but nothing that will be too very interesting to most I would imagine. I hope all is going well for you all! I hope the reading is being fun! 

         

The Sunday Post: Another Year Older

 The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer.

Time for another catch up post!!

Listening:

One of my new favorite groups is called TRENDZ... here is the "dance practice" of their latest song. I wanted you to see their amazing choreography, should you happen to choose to click on it! They blow me away with this talent! AHH!

And for something totally different that I'm loving from this week:

Watching: Just keeping up with the Survivor and Amazing Race episodes. I finally got invested in a kdrama from last year called From a Distance, Spring is Green. It tackles some heavy subjects, but stars an adorable kpop idol named Park Jihoon. I'm loving his acting in this one.

Reading: I actually finished several books over the past couple of weeks! It's a miracle! Fingersmith, The Maid, and People We Meet on Vacation. I really enjoyed all of them. You should be able to find my thoughts on all of them here on the blog, or over on the Booktube channel.

Writing: I've been doing pretty awful at my 10,000 word Nano goal, but I did add another 1000 the other day, for a total of almost 3000. Better than nothing, right?

Blogging: The Struggle!

YouTubing:

The Booktube channel is growing fast thanks to the Book Shelf Tour video I shared here last time. I have since uploaded the video where I reorganized the mess and tried to get rid of some things. Here's that one if you missed it:

On the Kpop channel I'm gearing up for all the year end video compilations I love to do. Maybe I'll have a cool one to share next time.

Health Watch: Ugh. It's still terrible in this category of my life. I dug out all my fat pants that I was wearing three years ago before I lost the weight. Most of it is back on now. Just like everyone said it would be. I am learning that "normal" eating won't work at all for sure. (Normal eating meaning normal carbs... not even out of control carbs.)

We all had a bit of a cold at this house since last I wrote. But we never tested for the covid, so who knows? 

Misc:

* I'm anxious about what's going to happen with Twitter since I'm quite addicted to that spot. I don't think many of you follow me over there, so it probably won't affect our little interaction here. I am embracing Discord and finding some places there. If you are in a Discord that you find is cool let me know!

* I had a birthday this past week! Is that reason to celebrate? I'm not sure any more!

* We are going to see Mandy Patinkin in concert this weekend. We saw him once upon a time years ago and I'm excited to see him again. He's quite the goofball! And an amazing singer.

Introducing: Suey's Book Banter

Once upon a time, I thought it would be fun to do a Booktube channel. Or any kind of channel. Something fun on YouTube. I knew I loved editing, but the talking, not so much. 

Then kpop happened, and the talking fear went out the window because of the enthusiasm I had for this subject! So.. with my sister and daughter, I started the kpop channel. And learned A LOT about having a YouTube channel. Even though there is still SO MUCH to learn.

Now, I'm feeling the pull to do the Booktube thing again, and maybe lighten up on the kpop channel a bit. I don't know. I guess we'll see. And besides, so many YouTubers have two channels, or several channels, so I've been thinking for quite awhile now to just go ahead and start another channel for my other passion and see what happens!

I've been working on it this past week and am feeling ready-ish (ha, not even a little bit ready, I'm so nervous) to share. But I have to get over this fear, right? Because I need to share it to grow, so here you go. 

My Booktube channel: Suey's Book Banter:

All that above story (and more) you'll hear in this introduction post. In this video I also lay out my plans for the channel and things I hope to do with it. I've managed to uploaded a few other things so far and yeah, I hope you find something interesting, (or potentially interesting) and will subscribe and join me over there for bookish thoughts and discussions!

Of course I'll still post things here, but the two will be sort of companions and things will be mingled here and there. 

Anyway, thanks for checking it out!

The Sunday Post: New Music, New Channel, New Me!

 

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer.

Happy new week! I hope everyone is doing well! 

LISTENING:

I have been overwhelmed with amazing music this week. This happens often in kpopland, TONS of new music all at once. It's kind of the best. But what to share for the listening prompt? I don't even know where to start!

I guess the one that has caused the most uproar is this one from Stray Kids. They are seriously so much and take nothing too seriously. 

 

And then there's a small little group called DKZ that's been through a lot and some pretty crazy ups and downs over the past year and they came out with this killer of song this past week. Such a great head banger!

 

There's so much more, like I said, but I'll leave it at that for now. 

WATCHING:

Yep, so we started the new season of Survivor. I have no idea what is so engaging about this show after so long, but it still somehow captures my attention. 

I've skipped some Amazing Race seasons, but we've decided to add that to the viewing party list again too this season. So fun to see them in places I've been to. It seriously makes me want to travel so much!

We also watched Enola Holmes and that was very cute and fun!

I haven't started another kdrama yet. I am overwhelmed with the choices.

I am watching a fun k-reality show called "Young Actors Retreat" where they grabbed the stars of three popular kdramas and are making them do fun games and compete against each other. I am absolutely loving seeing the personalities of some drama stars... we don't usually get this so much like we do with the kpop stars. Dang, some of them are SOOO shy and it's crazy how good they are at acting when they are so timid in "real life." LOL! 

I'm also watching a reality, just- for-fun show that features a new kpop group that has yet to debut. They are ATEEZ's little brothers (in the same company) and they are going to be AMAZING when it's their turn to come out into the world. But in the meantime, we get to learn about them through these fun shows they are doing pre-debut. They are adorable.

READING:

I am currently halfway done with Feed by Mira Grant. This is our book club book for October. I was hoping for a creepy Halloween-y book, but it's not doing it for me. In fact, I'm having trouble focusing on it and just kind of want to get done so I can get on to something else. 

The something else I actually started... Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. I feel like this one is supposed to be creepy? Am I dreaming or am I right? Anyway, hopefully I get to that one soon!

WRITING:

I'm frustrated with my inability to get going on this again. I would love to do NANO but I can't start another story until I finish up this one. So, maybe I'll participate as one of those "rebels" who work on an old WIP? I don't know what it will take to get me moving again. But maybe that would help a bit.

We went to another author event at the library. This time it was Sarah Eden doing a quick reading on her soon to be released book and then a Q and A all about writing. She is lots of fun and it was great to go support her. In a week or so we have another author event, this time it's the authors of our December book club book, In a Holidaze. 

BLOGGING:

I think I'm caught up on both books and dramas to review! And I even did Top Ten Tuesday on bookstores this past week! Go check it out!

YOUTUBING:

So I started the Booktube channel. But I'm scared to share it. LOL! I will in a different post. If I get brave enough. But dang I've put a lot of work into it so I HAVE to be brave enough! Besides, you'll all come and subscribe so I won't look so doofus-y out there in that community, right??? 

Over on the kpop channel I compiled very short snippets of my favorite songs from the past quarter, as is my tradition this year. Take a look/listen and see if you find something that pulls you in!

EATING/EXERCISING: 

I am starting a thing from doTerra. It's called MetaPWR.  It's a whole system of essential oil, and a supplement, and a collagen powder drink. I'll do it for 30 days and then see if I feel like a new person, or what. I'll let you know! (This is the "new me" part of this post's title!)

In the meantime I'll try to keep up on the exercising. And the eating. LOL! I can keep up on eating SO WELL! Anyway, we tried oatmeal this week. Not my favorite thing. But this wasn't bad. I'm still not convinced it's healthy though. 

MISC:

* I have so much stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks I doubt I'll be around here much. But wish me luck on all the things! And I'll be back eventually!

The Sunday Post: First Post

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted at Caffeinated Reviewer.

I've seen Jenni Elyse doing this meme for quite awhile now and we were talking about blogging last week and I said maybe I'd give this one a try. I've done my own newsy "Currently" post for several years, but it would be fun to try and connect to with others, so here we go!

LISTENING:

I've been all about this song by ONEUS this week/month. It's called Same Scent.

 

 Here's another one from them from the same album, but a totally different feel. Just them standing and singing and not be too distracting with the dancing, lol! This one is called Gravitation.

WATCHING:

Still trying to finish up a kdrama called Extraordinary Attorney Woo. Everyone else has loved this one, but man I am SLOGGING through it! In the meantime we started a reality show called Young Actors Retreat with a bunch of kdrdama stars doing games and interacting and being funny. I'm loving it. 

We watched the movie about the dude who wrote Rent... Jonathan Larson called tick tick BOOM. That was really good and fantastically acted, especially by Andrew Garfield. 

I'm wondering if Survivor should be starting up soon! Isn't it about time? We can't miss that show after watching it for 23 years! WAH!

READING:

I read the book club book (The Good Sister) and another for fun kpop love story book. I started J. Scott Savage's latest one in the Lost Wonderland Diaries series.  I acquired two fun romance books at the Rom Con I went to yesterday. More on that later. 

WRITING:

UGH! Thinking about my story ALL THE TIME, but never actually sitting down and finishing it! I need to figure out how to get back in the groove of the voice. That is SO HARD for me!

BLOGGING:

I did a lot of catching up posts the past couple weeks. Pretty much reviewed my whole summer's reading and watching consumption. I think there's a few more to go still until I'm truly "caught up."

YOUTUBING:

I'm doing a ONEUS (see above) week on the kpop channel this week.  I'm also working on my 25 favorite songs of the month video. 

And I'm pondering starting a booktube/writing/life learning channel. What do you think? Am I crazy? Am I too late to the game? Is the booktube community already too saturated? If I do this then I really need to step up my reading game and get back in the loop. But I do want to do something else on YouTube in addition to the kpopping. I can't stop thinking about which is usually an indication I need to just jump in and don't look back. But I'm scared. Sigh. 

EATING/EXCERSIING: 

I walked once and did Supernatural once this past week. At this rate, I'm going to never make any goals in this category!! I also made a lot of cookies and treats this week. Baking is one of my biggest life joys and I wish SO BAD it wasn't something that was "bad" to do... 

MISC:

* We have another kpop event in LA to go to this month. If only all the groups would stop coming! Anyway, this is a huge festival thing and we'll be seeing a ton of groups all at once including the one that starting this whole crazy thing... Super Junior! YES!!

* I spent a week with my daughter and granddaughter this past week. It was fun being a grandma for a bit again! 

* I picked a couple of things in the garden. I think it's all we'll get! Seriously one of the most depressing things in my life!

Book Review: The YouTube Formula by Derral Eves

 Book: The YouTube Formula by Derral Eves

Genre: NF self help

Rating: ★ ★

I randomly ended up getting my hands on this book and was curious about what this dude had to say, so I read it. 

Let me first say I have seen/heard this guy at several conferences for Youtubing and while I can admit he is knowledgable and passionate, I just always get the impression that he struggles with how to actually TEACH his ideas. In these classes, I always get frustrated that he ends up talking about what great things he's done for other creators, but never really gets down to the nitty gritty of HOW he did it, or how things can apply to all creators, or a nice clear list of stuff to do. You know? It's so very frustrating.

Well, and of course, this book is the same way. I gathered a few intersting tidbits, but mostly it's just about experiences he's had in the youtubing world and how great it's all been. I could probably do a page or two of the bottom line tips he gives, whereas this book is like, 200 plus pages. WAH!

Anyway, it was fun to read and see how it's been done for all the popular people. Not much of it can I really use in my own experience and niche.  But some. Yeah, some. 

Youtubing is pretty much the weirdest thing. And all these experts can guess at how it happens, and what to do to make it better. But basically, people are going to click on whatever, and there's not a whole lot you can do to make them do anything different. 

My channel grew really fast and strong for the first couple of years, but then we changed directions a bit and that is a pretty big no no because your audience doesn't change with. It's so very frustrating. So now I'm in a place where I have to decide, do I keep going and try to find the viewers who like what I'm doing? or do I change directions again? Do I start over with something different? or do I just give it all up!

So, yeah, much more than any of you wanted to know about my youtubing struggles, but there you go. I've also been watching a lot of channels that talk about how to get better at this game, and those are interseting too and sometimes even motivating, but mostly, I just keep wondering why I'm even trying. 

It's because I love it I guess!

Anyone else out there reading this trying to do Youtube? Let's talk!