Bookwyrm Breakdown: I Got Bitten by the Nostalgia Bug Known as Wizard101 + Other Things that Happened Lately

Can’t believe it’s December and less than 30 days from 2024. 😭 I feel like the only thing I’ve really done this year is survive which is okay, other than we’ve been so ingrained in hustle culture that I feel guilty for just surviving and not being productive.

(Your not so regular reminder that it’s okay if all you did this year was to survive as well. We’ll be survivors together. 🥺)

September + October Musings

(I’d include November but well…)

• [1 Sep] Her Radiant Curse by Elizabeth Lim ★★★½
• [5 Sep] Bookwyrm Breakdown: July + August 2023, Where I Actually Get to Rest (!!!)
• [15 Sep] Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros ★★★½
• [19 Sep] Books from My TBR I Aspire to Read in Fall 2023 (And Probably Rest of the Year)
• [29 Sep] The Last Fallen Realm by Graci Kim ★★★★

• [13 Oct] Swear on This Life by Renee Carlino ★
• [17 Oct] A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole ★★★½
• [27 Oct] All of Our Demise by Amanda Foody, C.L. Herman ★★★★

Books Hoarded

I don’t think I got anything, but I’ve also been very forgetful lately (like forgetting about Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, which are pretty much the only books I’ve gotten apparently).

Books Devoured

September had me going back to my now regularly scheduled routine of reading romance novels. (There’s a lot of Lauren Layne books – I’m really just plowing through her backlist, aren’t I?)

• Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
• Ghosted by J.M. Darhower
• Swear on This Life by Renee Carlino
• The Trouble with Love, Someone Like You, Just One Night, and After the Kiss by Lauren Layne
• A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole
• Fake Empire by CW Farnsworth
• DC/RWBY by Marguerite Bennett

October continues my current streak of going through the Stiletto and Oxford universe by Lauren Layne. I only have one more book from the Oxford series, but I’m not a big fan of the premise, so I think I’ll end up skipping it.

(I was also on a full month of reading streak and then broke it.)

• Love the One You’re With, Irresistably Yours, I Knew You Were Trouble, and I Think I Love You by Lauren Layne
• All of Our Demise by Amanda Foody and C.L. Herman
• Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle

November died down in reading by a lot – mostly because I’m hyper-fixated on a different game (that’s not Cookie Clicker – shocker).

• Lights by Brenna Thummler
• Spy X Family Vol. 10 by Tatsuya Endo
• Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros – I think I only got through this because I was farming for level 160 gear in Wizard101 and one of the final battles of that world is dreadfully long and boring
  • My other option was watching Netflix or clearing out my Watch Later playlist on YouTube, but then I’ll forget and become That Person Who Still Gets Rewarded Doing Virtually Nothing (and I would like to not be that Person).

The Breakdown

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

A summary of the past few months (well, this year, really) summed up in a GIF:

I know I got to rest for most of August (courtesy of happy accidents), and that was absolutely dandy, but I also mentioned in early September (the last wrap-up now that I realize it) it could ultimately be a temporary band-aid. And well… let’s just say that was accurate to a tee.

• Burnout from Work – I wish I could go more in depth about this, because there is a lot (and it’s a culmination of the past year). But burnout is pretty much all I can really say regarding this.
  • It’s not been a fun time for my mental health and quite frankly, physical health.
    • The worst part is I’ve been laughed at and dismissed by family (and when they decide it’s a good time to bring this up in public when talking to other people, who also do the same thing) – “You’re burnt out? LOL.” I don’t know, pals, try having your childhood essentially robbed and then laugh again. (You can also be grateful for what you have and acknowledge the system and situation is shitty.)
  • If I disappear and never come back after this post, I probably got devoured by dealing with the holiday season and everything that comes with it before, during and after.
• Mom’s health – I won’t go into detail too much, but she’s been experiencing some issues for the past few years and we finally got to see the doctor* regarding it. It’s been mostly fine, though there’s a possibility she might have a chronic condition and she’s been very vehement about the diagnosis being wrong (which she may or may not be right, IDK). It’s been… an experience.
  • *Can I just say the meds they prescribed are more than what I make in a month? Not that I make much in the first place as a fellow living paycheck-to-paycheck… I think my jaw fell straight into Hell and never came back, because damn, our healthcare system is terrible.

So really to cope with everything, I spent the vast majority of my time playing games (if not working, resting from feeling like throwing up due to work burnout, and other things functionally necessary to function as an adult). Or rather just one game I’ve been hyper-fixated on in between playing Cookie Clicker: Wizard101.

Y’all, I was obsessed with this game as a child*. I still played it in college here and there, and then I stopped some time in 2018 when level 125 was the maximum level (boredom, life — I honestly have no clue). But lately I’ve just been craving a magical school game (that’s not Hogwarts Legacy) — or maybe what I really wanted was to read fantasy, but I didn’t feel like reading at all (unless it was contemporary romance and even that lately has been a toss up).

*The blog’s name is literally named after an NPC in the first arc in the storyline. I think he only has like two lines.

I guess the universe decided to poke around going, “HEY DO YOU REMEMBER THIS GAME? You know, the one where you spent late nights in middle and high school hanging out with other kids in the (now abysmally) small amount of free to play area? YEAH, IT STILL EXISTS.” Because sometime in early/mid October while scrolling Twitter, I just came across their 15th anniversary video on my timeline and I got hit in the feels in the only way nostalgia knows how.

And then I downloaded the game and have been living my best childhood life for the past month. How long will this hyper fixation last this time? I have no clue. The only way out is to just keep swimming.

Let’s talk: what’s been happening with you lately? Any plans for the last month of the year?