After agonizing over this post for way too long, I decided to take a different approach to my wrap-ups. So if you were looking forward to a ton of mini reviews, I’m just going to say it’s my blog and I’ll write when I want to. I just don’t know that I’ll always get to writing reviews for everything before the end if the month. Plus my mini-reviews aren’t that mini and teeter on the word count for a long review. So, here it is … my approach to a monthly wrap up. I reserve the right to amend this approach as time passes. In all fairness, I should acknowledge A Literary Escape for the inspiration. Celeste’s monthly round-ups speak to me even if we don’t have the same literary taste.
Books & Book Reviews
I read a total of seven books. Of those, five were paperback (my favorite!), one ebook, and one audiobook. Since getting involved with ARC and book promotion teams, I have a lot more paperbacks available to me and I love that they are signed. I did purchase the two five star Amish romances from Harlequin. I really wish they’d make an Amish only subscription box.
For consistency all review links are to Goodreads but you can also find them on my Bookstagram account and some are even here on the blog. If there is not a link the review is pending and hopefully I’ll get to it soon.
Top Posts
I know I shouldn’t get to caught up in blog stats but I oddly find them fun. As long as I’m not changing the way I write or what I write about just to get page views, I think of this as a way of knowing that I’m improving my writing skills. Especially since I pay zero attention to SEO. Life is too short to get involved with all of that.
I’m sure you all know that giveaways get the most views so the top contender should not be a surprise. I may need to break these down into categories in the future but for now I think we’re good. Without further ado my top five posts by page views are:
- Rescued at Christmas Book Review & Giveaway 241 views
- The Sunday Post #12: Looking My Age 63 views
- My Winter 2024-2025 Reading List 63 views
- Ten Books I Want Santa To Bring Me 59 views
- The Sunday Post #11: Seeking Silence 58 views
Bookstagram
Yes, I’m a little obsessed with Instagram. Other than watching YouTube videos on knitting and crocheting, it’s the only social media account I have. In 2020 I deleted my Facebook account and don’t really care to have one again. When X was Twitter, I had an account when I had my previous blog. I made quite a bit of money tweeting (what do they call that now? Xing sounds all kinds of wrong). It’s also how I fell in love with the opera. I know, really weird for someone who is not a fan of classical literature. The Opera Theater of St. Louis would give me what they called “Tweet Seats” and I’d sit way in the back and tweet about the opera in the dark. It was really hard to do because the opera is so engaging the last thing you want to do is be on your phone. But free tickets and all. Okay, enough reminiscing. let’s focus on the here and now.
- Views: 7,888
- Interactions: 1,000
- Total followers: 1,123
- Top posts: (views shown in black)
As an FYI, Instagram does not bring in any traffic worth mentioning. I’m not sure if that will ever change but right now I’m okay with that. Oh, and in case you do want me to mention, it brought in six pageviews to the blog last month.
Yarn Tales
I have yet to start a dedicated post to my fiber arts progress. The reason being that I’m a mostly monogamous knitter and I’m currently knitting a chevron throw. I probably finished some dishcloths but since they get used or gifted right away, I can’t remember. I do know that my cotton yarn stash still can’t fit in its designated drawer which means there are just random piles of yarn in my office/craft room. I have made some progress with crochet. Here is my finished object (FO) counts for December:
- Knit: 0
- Crochet:
- headband – Pattern | Project Page
- Loom: 0
- Other: 0
Well, that’s a wrap on this wrap…up. I hope everyone’s New Year is off to a great start.
How was your December?
Carla's Book Crush 
Leave a reply to Samantha @WLABB Cancel reply