Bookwyrm Breakdown: December 2022

2023 is officially underway, and I’m very much hoping things will shape up better than the sour note 2022 ended on. Thankfully, not a COVID scare like last year at least (god, I hated those two weeks of prime anxiety), because it is the bare minimum the universe can offer, and I will take it.

(Although I forgot the blog a bit. But that seems to be the same pattern as November, and I’m not entirely worried about it.)

Let’s hop in for a somewhat quick wrap-up of the last month of 2022!

December Musings

• [2 Dec] Bookwyrm Breakdown: November 2022
• [6 Dec] Is Book Blogging Dying? No, but it’s Evolving

Books Hoarded

I’m continuing to avoid ARCs like the plague because I really and truly want to finish my overdue ARCs and clear out the eldest of my library holds, but there are a few authors that I would absolutely make an exception for. December said hello to just one ARC.

• Winnie Zeng Vanquishes a King (eARC) by Katie Zhao – Winnie Zeng Unleashes a Legend was a lot of fun to read and I’m excited to see what Winnie’s next adventure is!

Books Devoured

Sometime in December, I slipped into a webtoon hole again like I did in May 2021, and I have not come out (it’s bad). Unlike in 2021, though, the reading monster did not rear its giant head because I only read two books.

• Take the Lead and Off the Ice by Jacqueline Snowe – You would think I would’ve read The Puck Drop (I even downloaded it!) to finish up the series, but I didn’t, because webtoons kept me in its clutches and did not let go until around late in the month. I might get around to it in January, but we’ll see.

November and I had a good deal, and I was hoping December would continue that deal: one day or week I’ll focus on reading, the next I’ll go catch up on some shows or movies. December decided n o, but I got a good chunk of media time in either way.

• Avatar: the Last Airbender – I FINISHED! Please be proud of me; it only took me a good part of the year. But I really enjoyed myself, and if I had to choose one season as my favorite, it would definitely be the third one (there’s so much character development! Ahhh!).
• Secret Society of Second-Born Royals – This wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t good; it felt like trying to be the MCU but with a different concept that’s on par for what we know Disney for. Which is fine, but overall meh.
• Iron Man and Iron Man 2 – My experience with the MCU so far is scattered across the board, but I caved and got Disney+ before the price increase (damn capitalism), so now I’m watching all the ones I’ve missed. So far, my only thoughts on Tony Stark is he has an annoyingly big ego, and it was amusing having everyone put him in his place (but I do like him in The Avengers).
• Phantom School – If this is only one season, you will be thoroughly disappointed. If there’s a second season in the works, the jury is sort of still out there, but I don’t know if I’ll even watch it.

December did not have me following much music; a lot of the albums and songs I’ve been listening to have been ones from earlier this year or the past few years.

I’m realizing this could very well be the longest section of this month’s wrap-up; everything else feels short. (I say this as this post is over 1K words long…)

The Breakdown

What catastrophes have the universe handed us throughout the month? Let’s find out. 🧐

December was relatively similar to November in the sense that life has been stressful and I’m trying to be kind to myself, but it’s a lot easier said than done.

The past month in a nutshell:

• Sleeping a lot (it’s borderline unhealthy, but I’ve accepted that while others seem to lose sleep when they’re stressed, I run the opposite direction).
• Journaling went out the window (I don’t think I wrote a single entry?! This makes me a little sad because I love journaling).
• Created a Notion to keep track of the webtoons I read because it was bad, and by bad I mean I went through at least 50+ webtoons in less than two weeks.
• Being irritated at the universe and the cards I got handed.
• It snowed right before Christmas! Except it also melted two days later.

I also got back into BitLife after first downloading in 2019 and becoming absolutely obsessed with it until around 2020 when I changed phones and I just stopped playing (but BitLife doesn’t have a cloud save option – they still don’t – and I hated losing all my progress, so secretly, it was also a rage quit moment). Two years is a lot of content to catch up (even though I think there could be a lot better improvements to some of it) since I stopped shortly after God Mode came out, and it’s been a wild time creating some fictional character lives.

Some Wild Moments in BitLife:

• Duke (I was playing with the royalty update) Sherlock Holmes died at 4 years old. So much for that detective life. (I was going to have him abdicate his title so he can be a detective since you can’t really do anything as royalty in BitLife lol.)
  • This is where I’m a little annoyed at the design of the game, especially in regards to succession and abdication (because every country is different), but I get they probably wanted to make it simple according to the game’s current design.
• Queen Rose Holmes got murdered by a banshee while engaged and expecting a child. RIP Holmes Reign, but I guess the generational wealth is nice. (Her dad was obsessed with haunted property and did no exorcizing. But hey, don’t mess with the dead.)
• The Holmes family cannot fully get away with royalty because a few generations later, and after emigrating to Monaco, they married into the royal family.
• Will Herondale kept cheating on Tessa and gave her the worst engagement ring ever. What happened to your undying love for her?!

Now that I think about it, I stopped playing The Sims 4 around that time as well, so maybe I miss it deep down.

(I lied earlier; I thought that was long. Turns out this section is long, but if we take out my obsession, it’s not long at all.)

Let’s talk: How was your last month of 2022? Any games you’re obsessed with currently?