Blogmas | Top 7 Books of 2022!

Hello!

In the beginning of 2022, I created my yearly challenge on Goodreads, where I set the goal to read 40-45 books. The reason why I added on another five onto the list was because I wasn’t just doing one challenge, I decided to mix it up with keeping track of the books that had a movie and/or show out in the world. As of 12/18, I’m still trying to complete the 20 books I allowed for myself for this, and honestly, I really enjoyed having both of them going on at the same time. I’m very proud of myself on these successes, but I haven’t exactly made my decision to continue it once the new year comes, but I’ll be letting you know my plans soon!

When I was getting ready to write this post, I was going to discuss my top 12 books, but I wasn’t sure on the time allotted for this week, so I just broke down and made it the top 7 like I did for the last two years.

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1. The Best of Us by Kennedy Fox

This is the second year in a row where the authors of Kennedy Fox have claimed first place.

I truly loved this story of these characters, and as I mentioned in the review, I am not much into male characters, especially in the romance genre. I’m quite picky but I think the fact he seemed more relatable than Kendall. The story itself takes place after COVID-19 hits, which I think is what drew me into Ryan more because my mom is a registered nurse and worked her butt off in those early intense days. My heart went out for him and his selflessness and struggles during that time.

Besides all of this, it is also set around Christmastime, so it is literally perfect for this time of year. I wish anyone who is still looking for a steamy holiday themed book, this is what you should be getting into next.

Sidenote: I recently found the first and third books in the series for free on Amazon, so when I get in a mood for a little Kennedy Fox, I’ve got these babies to keep me company!

2. Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

This year I wanted to explore children’s books because I still feel the sting of my own struggles with books as a child and it cost me a lot of great stories in the end, so I felt like I needed to explore my horizons and then I found this little gem.

I felt really conflicted to make this #1 because I fell in love with this story of a young girl, who becomes a refugee with her mother after violence in Syria begins. It wasn’t just Jude and her new world that got me, but I also fell in love with the writing style too. It was in verse, and I had never read poetry before, and I liked how the author was able to bring them together like this. It was a magical experience!

3. The Raven and The Dove by K.M. Butler

When I began reading this one, I didn’t really know what I was doing because at the start of the year, I wasn’t into books about the Vikings. I’d tried in the past, but nothing could grab me as inviting until I found K.M.’s debut scrolling through Kindle Unlimited back in January.

The Raven and The Dove is the story about a group of Vikings raiding on small villages in what is now Normandy, France. A shieldmaiden by the name of Halla is a part of the crew and the best way to describe her is restless. She is a warrior, but she doesn’t just want to be that, and while she and a small party go to scope out a village that could be a great way to trade goods, she finds herself put into an odd situation.

She actually volunteers to stay and wed a Christian, Taurien. He is a very conflicting character as he was raised to hate these Northmen, but he also wants to protect his home and its people from any other raids, so he does what any desperate man would do, he decides to wed Halla. Halla oversees her fellow Vikings and attempt to keep the will of the Gods of her people, but that becomes very difficult with their Christian neighbors.

I am all about seeing how the other one lives type of person, and this reflects in the books I read of course, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing these two characters fight their feelings of right and wrong; their faiths and trust for one another are tested many times, but it was still enjoyable as a reader because we still have issues seeing past the other person’s origins and religions. I definitely recommend anyone who loves to be a little nosy at times.

4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

While I was wanting to explore more classics, I knew Little Women would pop up some time, the book is very popular on Jeopardy, and I think that’s why I wanted to just devout myself to it and the best way I did that was through audiobook on YouTube. I had actually found a channel on there that had multiple people acting out the various characters and I loved this type of reading; it reminded me of how they use to tell stories on the radio before television was invented.

This book was lovely and honestly perfect in the springtime. This truly made me happy and excited to see what would happen to these characters–until that chapter about Beth though, boy, did I cry like crazy! After I had completed it, and that was another sad night, because I had grown to dig into it after my mom put me to bed, I tried to read “Little Men” but unfortunately, it didn’t have the same magic as the first but I am willing to give it another try in 2023 because I loved the character Jo so much, I want to see what happens in the later years.

5. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

After I finished with “Other Words for Home” I dove into other children’s books, but my focus was generally on classics. I had read Little Women, the Harry Potter series, and a few by Roald Dahl, so my plan was stay in that lane for a while longer and I ended up reading three and half books of the “Little House On The Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. My favorite among them was the one about her future husband, Alonzo Wilder.

I found this story unique compared to the ones written about Laura and her life. “Farmer Boy” was set in Alonzo’s point of view and even though it was fictionalized, I was still amazed by how this little boy lived in these times; readers get a chance to look into the differences between boys and girls on the prairie. My favorite scene was Christmas, they would spend it with one another in absolute silence and eat apples and popcorn with warm apple cider. I’m not much on any kind of cider but I found this interesting and peaceful.

6. Shield-Maiden: Under the Howling Moon by Melanie Karsak

Apparently, it’s not a book list without a book by Kennedy Fox or Melanie Karsak. This year alone, I read 8 books by Melanie. but only three of them were written by Kennedy Fox.

Anyways, as a couple of months since I had finished The Raven and The Dove, I was itching for another book that discussed the Viking world, but I was still a bit hesitant because I didn’t think I would find anything that could hit that bar and then I went through Melanie’s work and found out she had two series about shield-maidens, so I thought about it a bit, but ultimately went for it.

The story of the shield-maiden Hervor was everything I needed at that time. I love a good badass heroine and Melanie makes a lot of strong but relatable female characters. I was very upset once I was done with the final book, and then I did something totally stupid, I decided to dive headfirst into the sequel “The Shadows of Valhalla” which focuses on Princess Blomma’s children Prince Loptr and Princess Hervor aka Ervie. I was bawling my eyes from the events that happened in “Under the Dark Moon” and then I went into “Gambit of Blood” where they were talking about characters previously featured in the other books and I began crying again. I was truly a mess, and my mom laughed at me! I’m currently waiting on the four and final book in the series as I just finished the most recent installment and I’m already semi depressed about leaving these people for good.

7. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by John Tiffany and J.K. Rowling

I am very happy to say I have finally read all of the Harry Potter books. I did believe I would actually do this because before I went on this journey, I was just a fan of the films, and I was too afraid I wouldn’t enjoy watching them if I read the series. I was forced to read “The Sorcerer’s Stone” back in 2006, and my teacher had us watch the movie a few days after so everything was still fresh in our minds to do comparisons between these formats, so you can understand why I was hesitant going into it in the beginning.

When this book came out, there were a lot of mixed comments about it, the most significant was it isn’t written in the same way J.K. wrote the original seven books. This is a screenplay of the play that appeared in 2016 by John Tiffany It still has the spirit of Rowling with familiar characters jumping in here and there. I found this way of writing better oddly enough. It is different, but after coming out of reading “If We Were Villains” by M.L. Rio, I was able to picture the entire thing in the same way I did when they were doing Shakespeare’s work. I didn’t like this book unfortunately, but I thought it was a lot of help while I was into this one instead.

When I finished “Deathly Hallows” back in July, I felt the epilogue wasn’t that satisfying for me. I wanted to know how Harry and the gang were doing in their lives after the Battle at Hogwarts, and so when I went into this story about Harry’s middle son Albus Serveus Potter and how he deals with being a son of this hero of the Wizarding World, Harry is an adult and father now, so as much as he doesn’t feel like it, his children are faced with making their own legacies or in Albus’s case, attempting to fix a wrong and that in itself was absolutely amazing! It was heartbreaking, between the scene Albus meeting Professor Snape and the final scene at Godric’s Hollow will break you whole, that is, if you weren’t in the first place!

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If I hadn’t waited majority of the month to write this post, I would have made it longer. My original plan was to do Top 12, but I didn’t want to rush getting everything done in a short number of days, so I went with seven books total, and I’m still shocked I was able to shrink it down enough for today.

I am excited on what kind of books I discover in the new year. I do hope to get started on my Goodreads Challenge on the first of January and after that, I will type up my goals for 2023 because I know everyone is wondering on how many books I want to read, if I am truly doing two challenges again, and honestly, I enjoy writing those posts for you too, so be on the lookout for that, okay?

How many books did you read this year? Did you hit your intended goal or not? What are your Top 3 books for 2022 as well?

The Best Movies Of 2019!

Howdy!

For our last post of the week, I will be discussing my favorite movies of 2019!

Since I didn’t do my “Movies I Want To See” series last year, I wasn’t really keeping up with the newer movies but I was okay with it. What I did instead was I basically made a vow to make time in my day (or night) to watch something in my DVR folder or on Netflix. This was probably the smartest thing I did, because I ended up checking out a lot of films in the meantime. I even tried to make this post a little easier because I used Pinterest to keep track of everything I watched throughout the year.

The Hours (2002)

I think this was the most important film I watched at the beginning of the year. It was a story about three women in their different time periods, but it circled around their lives at the time they are reading Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. So, you have Nicole Kidman starring as Virginia Woolf. The time is 1923, and she is in the process of writing the book but you learn that she has had series of breakdowns and attempted suicide in the past. The next character is Laura, played by Julianne Moore and the year is 1965. She is a mother, who is very unhappy. And finally, there’s Meryl Steep, who is Clarissa and we are back in the present which is 2001. She is a bisexual woman, who tries to keep an eye on her former partner Richard and meets his mother after his death by suicide.

It was a heartbreaking movie that I both loved and hated, because at the time I watched it, I was very depressed and since I have had contemplated suicide in the past, it hit me deeply. After I finished it, I literally got out my notebook and wrote in it about how I was feeling and mostly I was full of anger on my situation in life. I cried and cried, but I let myself cry it out and I’m glad I did that because once I was done, I suddenly felt better about everything. I was no longer sad about my life. If anything, it helped me move on. I don’t know if I kept that entry or not, I think I got rid of it around October.

Descendants 3 (2019)

I was really surprised that not only did I watched this movie, but I loved it! A part of me was conflicted at first because I was watching it to honor Cameron Boyce and the other part I was curious to see what the song was during the promos! After the first song and dance routine was over, I instantly got comfortable on my bed and watched the whole thing in one sitting!

If you have not checked out the films, it is about the descendants of our beloved Disney characters, but there’s a catch as the good characters live in Auradon. They have their magical powers and basically live in a place of luxury, whereas the villains all live on a island that takes away their magical powers and isolates them away. At the time of this film, the original descendants of Maleficent, The Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Jabar, and Cruella Di Vill go back to the island and chose four kids to come to be educated and live with their mentors on Auradon.

I am a sucker when it comes to musicals. Disney musicals use to really get me when I was younger, but I kind of thought I was too old to enjoy them again. It was shocking how quick that thought flew away after I heard “Queen Of Mean” sung by Sleeping Beauty’s daughter Prince Aubrey (Sarah Jeffrey). I’m not going to even hide the fact that after I heard for the first time, I rewind the whole song over so I could learn the lyrics on my closed captions! I learned it within a day or so; the same thing happened with “Night Falls” too!

Chaplin (1992)

This one was probably the best I had seen in a long time! I am familiar with the story of actor Charlie Chaplin, but I was not expecting to enjoy seeing Robert Downey Jr. playing him. I was so worried that I would be picturing Tony Stark the whole time, but thankfully I didn’t. He completely took over the man and his iconic role as the “Tramp” to the point where you thought you were seeing the real Mr. Chaplin on your television screen!

The film is all about Charlie Chaplin’s life, starting while he is exiled in Switzerland after being accused of being a communist. He is met with his biographer to discuss what he wants to put in his book. So, we are taken through some things from his young life with his older half brother Sidney and their mother, who had psychotic breakdowns to what led him to create his own production studio and finally the point he meets his wife and love of his life: Oona O’Neil.

It was such a good film! I wasn’t able to watch it in one sitting like I wanted, but it never really left me, I was haunted by the previous scenes so I kept telling myself to go back and once it was over, I was really bummed but wanted to recommend it to anyone who would listen honestly!

For Sama (2019)

I don’t know what drew me to watch this documentary but I did, and I’m happy that happened because it was hauntingly beautiful!

PBS was airing this on “Frontline” one night and I just felt complied to check it out. It made my heart ache for everyone in Syria. It made me think of a friend I had that lived/lives there, and the reason why I said “lived” is because it’s been around four years since I have heard from her. She use to tweet about her father dying and she was having to move with her family, and it just didn’t seem real until I watched this and I began to think of her again and wonder where she was or did she make it out alive?

This film was recorded in a range of two or three years. The title “For Sama” is in dedication to the filmmaker’s daughter Sama, who was born at the height of the civil war in Syria. Sama’s mother is Waad Al-Kaeb, she married a doctor that treated people who were hurt prior and during the bombings in Aleppo. The whole film is in Arabic but English subtitles are provided at the bottom of the screen. You could hear and feel every emotion like pride for their home, worry that they wouldn’t make it, horror to seeing everyday people, children included with various injuries from the aftermath of the bombings and the love in the tone of her voice. It does get pretty graphic but it was real. When you hear about bombings on the news on TV, I feel like for most people (myself included) can switch off their minds to how a bomb that dropped to the ground, on top of homes, that the innocent escaped in time. You will see children die and be born within five minutes of each other.

Detroit (2017)

It was so surprising that it took me two years to finally watch this film. I remember the day I was going through the new movie trailers on YouTube and then coming across this one. I am a lover of real life situations being played out on film. I would rather spend the rest of my days watching them because then I would never forget about our history as human beings. Not everyone has the best intentions for others, much less themselves and I think it is the perfect way to describe the situation of this movie.

Detroit is a story of a time where there was a lot of violence towards the African-Americans and the police department of the 1960’s; there is injustice among the community and everything has hit a breaking point. You are introduced to a group of people who are staying at a hotel and somebody starts shooting at the police as a joke, and since tensions are already high and everybody feels threatened, things get very out of control and the consequences were awful. They could have been better, hell, even prevented as nobody should have been killed in a way these people were and then you realize that even though the times have changed, history has a way of repeating itself over and over again.

I am finally done with this post, but if you’d like to see what else I watched in 2019, you should go check out my Pinterest board. I hope you have enjoyed this post and have a great weekend!

Blogmas | December Playlist

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone that celebrates Christmas is enjoying their time with family and friends.

I’ve decided that today will be my final ‘Blogmas’ post of the year. Since I will be including two playlist in the couple of weeks, I thought it would be smart to schedule this one a little earlier than normally.

Here are my Top 21 favorite songs I listened to this month! I’ve also included 6 holiday tracks at the bottom of the playlist too.

Expectations by Lauren Jauregui
Let It Go (Africanized Cover) by Alex Boye feat. Once Voice Children’s Choir
Everything I Need by Skylar Grey
Black Butterfly by Leaves’ Eyes
Way To Break My Heart by Ed Sheeran & Skrillex
Bet’amen Bel Sodfi by Carole Samaha
Love Me by Stanaj
Post Malone by Sam Feldt featuring RANI
Blndside by Icon For Hire
Gimme Brain by Travis Barker featuring Lil Wayne & Rick Ross
Boomition by Celestina
Teeth by 5 Seconds Of Summer
Outlaws & Outsiders by Corey Marks featuring Travis Tritt, Ivan Moody, & Mick Mars
If We Have Each Other by Alec Benjamin
Lose You To Love Me by Selena Gomez
Silhouette by Krigare

It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year by Andy Williams
Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy by Lindsey Stirling
O Holy Night by Upon Wings *review here
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow by Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra
Somewhere In My Memory by John Williams
Carols Of The Bells by Lindsey Stirling

If you would like to check out the rest of my December playlist, I have added the Spotify link right below because you know I listen to a lot of music 24/7. Enjoy the tunes!

What were you listening to this December? What is your ultimate holiday song(s)?

Favorite Blog Posts Of 2017!

Howdy!

I know I probably should have put up this post last week, but there wasn’t a big enough gap in between Christmas and NYE to put it up, so you get it now! I’ve sort of learned that it’s okay to do this during the first two weeks of the new year anyways, so we’re good!

In 2012, I made the decision that I would write a post everyday of the week for a whole year. As a whole, it wasn’t too bad. I only missed five days out of 365, so I count that as a big positive, but I will NEVER do that to myself ever again. One of the things that I think I finally managed to figure out in the last seven years is a routine. I like the whole three days a week. If I can get two weeks of the new month finished, I can relax for a few days, do other stuff and then get back into it and finish the rest of the month.

I think I did a lot of cool and interesting blogs this past year that I actually liked a lot of posts, but I always do. Thank god! So I think it’s time to share some of my favorites and maybe you can tell me some that you liked too down in the comments too?

• Milk Chocolate Oreo Bark
• Meet Joseph David
• Favorite Non-Disney Films
• A Love Like Gomez and Morticia Addams
• The Definition Of A Love Letter
• When Your First Love Gets Married
• From The Days Of Counting
• Photography 101 | How To Hold Your Camera
• The Pros & Cons Of Updating Your Phone When You’re Disabled
• The Perfect “Vikings” Playlist
• 8 Best Moments On The Vampire Diaries!
• Dear Papaw
• DIY: Easter Wreath
• What’s The Best Version Of Yourself?
• Why We Need A Vegan On TV
• Album Review: “White Light” by Down For Whatever
• Anne Boleyn: More Than The “Second Wife”
• OOTD: Spring Dress
• I’m An Onomastic
• For The Love of Musicals
• What One Band Can Do
• The Wedding | Part Two
• Richard vs, Henry: Who Deserved The Crown?
• The New Royal Baby
• Roaring Of Trains II
• The Memory House
• Mary Vs. Jane: The Real Usurper
• Finding Your Purpose
• The Young Queens
• DIY: Painting Pumpkins
• Am I Still Working On My Novel?
• Places To Visit In England
• Catherine Vs, Jane: The Devoted Wives
• Another Baby In The Family
• Album Review: “The Best Of Christmas” by Celtic Woman
• Blogmas | Dear Santa Claus

I don’t know what 2018 has in store for me blogging wise. I have a few movie posts that I’d like to share because those were pretty fun to write out and I have a couple of “part two” of my previous posts that I did this year and possibly 2015. I’d also like to continue writing my historical essays too. I’m not finished with the ones I’m doing on The History Of Royal Women, so I know that they’ll be first on my list before I figure out what to write next on here.

I’m hoping to contribute on Disability Horizons for their Winter Paralympics articles. I was hoping that they would start last month so I’d get a head start on doing interviews but I’ve been experiencing issues there that are beyond my control, so I might be one of the late ones but I’m okay with that. I’d like to branch out of my comforts with only using DH to publish my articles. I know of a couple other sites that discuss disability issues so I might look into them and seeing if we can work together in the new year.

Which posts are your favorites and what would you like to see more of in 2018 on Got Meghan’s Blog?

 

Best Of 2017 | Film

Howdy!

This is one of my favorite posts, but I don’t know why, I have a tiny theory that it has something to do with the fact that it’s like a mini review to all of the movies I’ve watched this year, but what’s funny is that I only made up last year’s post because I just needed to release my thoughts on how horrible Gods Of Egypt was, but as I was writing the post I realized how fun it was to do that!

I think I will change it up for 2018, because since I create my “coming soon” movie posts twice a year, I feel like I should create another one of these posts so I’m not keeping it all locked up in my head and it’s not so damn long either. I just might do that considering I had over 30 movies on a notepad of all the movies I had watched this year! Oh, and don’t worry next Monday you should have the first half of 2018’s new movies to be released!

I was going to do this in the same way I did last year’s post, but since I have so many movies that it would be really long and I don’t need to be working on this post for days on end, so I’m hoping a simple rating system will suffice for you guys and maybe next year I’ll break them up and it won’t be so damn complicated for me. The rating system will be 1 out of 10, 5 being neutral or so-so.

Underworld: Blood Wars – 7
Split – 9
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter – 8
Logan – 8
Beauty and the Beast – 6
Wonder Woman – 10
Finding Dory – 9
The Legend of Tarzan – 4
Star Trek: Beyond – 8
Morgan – 9
Doctor Strange – 4
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them – 10
Sing – 7
The Comedian – 6
Dirty Grandpa – 6
Jon Wick Chapter 2 – 10
How To Be Single – 10
Mother’s Day – 8
Me Before You – 9
The Secret Life of Pets – 6
La La Land – 6
The Accountant – 9
Inferno – 8
The Arrival – 8
Jackie – 7
Hidden Figures – 9
Passengers – 7

What were some of your favorite movies that came out either late 2016 or all of 2017? Did you have any that you absolutely hated too?