February Playlist

Hello!

For the past two months, I’ve been somewhat out of it. I haven’t wanted to blog at all, and for a time it was purely laziness on my part because I rush to get everything done during Blogmas and I don’t get to enjoy everything that makes the holidays exciting.

Just one little thing….

I’ve had this feeling for about three or four years now. I’ve wanted to stop blogging. There wasn’t anything wrong with my content or schedule, I think it’s me. Maybe it’s time to take a break from everything about Got Meghan’s Blog.

For now, though, I will only be on here every other month and publishing new posts within the last two weeks of each month. I may not even go on for six days, it just might be book reviews and playlists, sometimes you may see other stuff. It’ll be interesting how long this idea lasts, whether I continue blogging or not, I’ll always be around and on my social media too. You can find them on the right side of my site.

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Within the last two months I’ve listened to an array of albums.

In January, I was thoroughly obsessed with power/symphonic metal band Kamelot’s older records like Epica (2003) and Poetry for the Poisoned (2010) featuring original vocalist Roy Khan. I really love current leader Tommy Karevik’s voice, but I’ve never really given Roy’s voice a chance, so I started going through their past albums, which hasn’t seemed odd now that I’ve seen they are releasing a new album this year, called The Awakening in March, which sounds really cool, so I’m very excited about it!

The second band I was into, was Sleeping With Sirens. I watched the music video of “Let You Down” with Charlotte Sands and I really enjoyed it, and I’ve never been into male vocalists with a falsetto voice, but once I heard that song and then later on I heard the title track of their new album, “Complete Collapse” on SXM Octane, I decided to give it a chance one night where I couldn’t sleep, and I like it. My favorite was “Us” with Dorothy.

For February, I was pulled into two more albums. An old favorite of mine: Xandra, they are a symphonic metal based in The Netherlands, and they recently introduced their new singer, her name is Ambre, and she does both clean and harsh vocals on their album, “The Wonders Still Awaiting” and I actually love this album. Xandria’s been through a hard road, with everchanging vocalists, but I’m glad to see this band pushing through and releasing a brand-new album for their fans.

The final band I’ve been crazy for is I Prevail. Now I’ve liked certain songs from them in the last five years, like “Every Time You Leave” with Delaney Jane. And I heard their songs “Deep End” and “Body Bag” on Octane, and after getting out of the last three bands, I decided to give their album “TRUE POWER” a shot and again, I loved it! I like how you have the harder and up-beat songs at the front of the record and the ballads toward the end. Since they have two separate vocalists, I find this arrangement gives each person a place to showcases their talent fairly.

If you haven’t listened to any of these albums, I highly suggest you do so! I’ve included several songs in my January and February Spotify playlists. If you want to check out the January list, click here. Now, here are my Top 14 songs for this month, and this is your link for that playlist.

Special by Georgi Kay
Queen by Loren Gray
Brooklyn by MALINDA
Hold Me, Help Me by Halocene
Fantasy by Mariah Carey
Black Sheep by Dorothy
Ghetto Supastar (This Is What You Are) by Pras featuring Ol’ Dirity Bastard & Mya
Lost by Linkin Park
Beaver Cage by Butcher Babies
Get There First by Austin Snell
Drowning by Atreyu
Dead Reckoning by Pop Evil featuring Fit For A King
Bad Man by Disburted
The Reason by Hoobastank

As my final note, I wanted to talk to you about one of my favorite bands ever, Linkin Park releasing a new single called “Lost” for the 20th Anniversary for their second album Meteora, and it’s the first song that the band’s released in a long time. Since the passing of Chester Bennington, they’ve been somewhat quiet as a band. Mike Shinoda released a solo album a couple of years ago and it did very well, but all of the LP soldiers wonder how the band will continue and being able to put something like this little gem was beautiful. One thing I thought was interesting in the first time listening to it, was while Chester was doing the second verse, seemed to bring out some emotional feelings for Chester. Did you notice it too?

What were your favorite albums and/or songs for both January and February? Let me know in the cemments!

Book Review: “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” by Heather Morris

Hello!

So, this is my first official book review of 2023.

If you are somewhat familiar with my routine when it comes to books, I tend to leave anything to do with the Holocaust to the end of the list. I mainly do it because I’d rather not start off the new year with really emotional books, although I’ve had no problem with ones that discuss disability, so think about that for a minute… I definitely don’t regret it because I totally obsessed with this story, but I probably should have planned a little better for it as I was always drained after finishing a couple of chapters.

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A tale based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov.

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.

One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.

taken from Goodreads.

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This book has been on my TBR (to be read) since it came out in 2018. As sad as it, I do have a weakness for books that discuss World War II/Holocaust, but I was ultimately intrigued about the cover –which usually happens, I will always be pulled into a novel because of a captivating cover design. For this story though and based on my knowledge of the people who were imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau, they did not have any hair. It was shaved off once they arrived at the camps in a way to cut down on diseases within the blocks; I always found odd because why would the Nazis care about that if they wanted to get rid of the Jews in the first place. However, once you begin reading this book you will understand why this could happen in the camps.

He, too, has chosen to stay alive for as long as he can, by performing an act of defilement on people of his own faith.

Lale as a whole was an interesting main character, he was a different person compared to what I’ve read about in other books, as he always seemed calm in difficult parts. Of course, he was angry with the Germans, their mythology and everything else. You also get a chance to see Lale as a normal guy in the better part of the 1940’s and how he thoroughly enjoyed being and working around women he was acquainted with on a daily basis, but not in a creepy way though. When you begin reading, you are able to see pieces of his life prior to arriving at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps and see how much he respects his mother and I really enjoyed seeing those scenes play out, everything he did with Gita and the other ladies in the camps was lovely and he seemed to make sure to treat them as women outside of the war and Holocaust in general.

This book is the first in a trilogy, as the next book discusses a character mentioned in this story, her name is Cilka, and she is a fascinating person because she was a favorite to one of the generals of the camp. I may end up reading that one later on in the year, but it’ll depend on how long I will be interested in these types of books. Honestly, I hope I can get out of it before spring, but until then I’ll be going with the flow.

Have you read “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” by Heath Morris yet? If you have, what were your thoughts about it?

The Goodreads Challenge | What I’m Doing For 2023

Hello my friends!

It is time for a brand-new Goodreads Reading Challenge post. Want to learn what I wanted to accomplish with my reading plans for each year? Here are my 2020, 2021, and 2022 posts.

This is my fourth year giving you an insight of what I would like to accomplish for 2023. I actually enjoy doing these types of posts, as it gives all of us (you and me) a chance to write out my intentions for the next 356 days, but let’s get real. there’s no way I will be reading everyday this year. It’s cool for when it happens in a whole month, but after a while it kind of loses its luster.

What is my annual goal?

Just before Christmas, I had a family friend ask me about what my goal would be, and I’m sure everyone wants to know as well. I’ve kept a fairly hush-hush about it; last year I wasn’t totally 100% certain I would actually make it to 40 books, mainly because I tend to forget to factor in the holiday festivities in November and December. They tend to take a lot of my energy and the last thing I usually want to do is read a whole book.

However, I made it well passed 40, I ended up with 54 books. I find it a good thing to not only show myself that I can get it done, but I can surpass the initial goal too. You always hope it can happen, but life can throw you a curveball here and there and everything can take a backseat.

So, for 2023, I am hoping to get through 50 books, but also not discriminating towards its size. I think that’s another thing to keep in mind, the term “book” doesn’t mean you have to read something that’s over 300+ pages. I count any format, whether it’s a novel, short story or audiobook.

What about other certain challenges?

In a way to see if I could handle some pressure in 2022, I decided I wanted to do two challenges. My overall goal was to hit 40 books, mainly having two equal sides of twenty books; I had 20 books of normal titles and 20 more that were focused on classics or had become a film or TV adaption. For the most part, being able to do this was easy, my only real issue was time. I flew passed the first 20 books, but I only managed to reach 19 books on the other list.

For my first time doing something like this, I am very pleased with myself. I figured I would only get to five books, so this was really cool to see at the end of the year. It was fun and interesting to see how much I would enjoy out of these classics, because I tried to stay in and around classics like Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I wasn’t a bookworm as a child, reading wasn’t fun for me in school so to be able to rediscover some of these books really opened my eyes on certain parts of literature.

And with that being said, I will continue with this challenge, and I will definitely put each book into my blue journal where I have the others listed with their mini reviews. This time though, I’m not giving myself a limit on a number, I just want to focus on children’s books, middle grade and other classics for that specific goal.

What do I hope to discover this year?

I want to read more or less the same of the books I’ve been into lately, but I would like to include more of children’s books, mainly fairy tales. I’ve already crossed off three of them; two were written by Hans Christian Anderson, The Snow Queen and Thumbelina and my first story by one of the Grimm brothers: Cinderella by Wilhelm Grimm.

I would love to get out of the historical fiction books sometime, although I’m in no rush to make this happen. I’ve just completed my first of the year, which the review will hopefully come out on Friday, and I’d finish my second if I knew it wouldn’t possibly ruin what could be featured in Melanie Karsak’s final book in The Shadows of Valhalla series. I recently just found a sleuth of Viking Sagas on Kindle Unlimited, and it’s been interesting to see the “origins” of both Hervor of The Road to Valhalla series and Ervie’s section. So, at the moment, I am holding off on it until I can get my toes on the Gambit of Swords this spring.

Speaking of Melanie’s books, I think this might be the year I decide to dive into William Speakeare’s Macbeth as it was part of the original story behind her Celtic Blood series. I know it may not exactly discuss Lady Macbeth as much as Highland Vengeance and Highland Queen, but I might understand the character Macbeth a bit more, at least that is my hope for it. I am prepared for the poetry part of the story, the Viking Sagas are mostly written in verse anyways, so I should be fine on that end, but I am thinking of listening to the audiobook instead of actually reading it.

For Christmas, I did get a large clutch of books – ones bought by family and others I got myself, so I am really going to try to dive into those books, especially the physical as I tend to ignore those unless I am at my mom’s work apparently…

Other than that, I am pretty much open to everything else. If you want to keep up with my overall goal or the books I read this year, you can find me on Goodreads, click here.

What about you, what kind of books do you hope to get into for 2023? And of course, what is your ultimate goal for the new year?

Book Review: “The Raven and The Dove: A Novel of Viking Normandy” by K.M. Butler

Hello!

I am here with my first book review of 2022. I really thought about making you wait until Monday, but I knew I would have to fix everything in my previous post, so I just decided to give it out anyways!

This book was a surprise, even for me, because I am not into reading Viking stories. I’m not even into all of these shows on various channels. I’ve tried reading other books in the past, but I hadn’t found one that really meshed with me, that is until I came across this book at the start of January.

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890 A.D. Shieldmaiden Halla hungers for death in battle and a place in Valhalla until a Frankish sword shatters her expectations of a glorious end. In the space between life and death, she instead confronts the emptiness of a wasted life.

Hiding from the Norsemen among shattered abbeys and abandoned towns in northern Frankia, Christian landowner Taurin fears the day a dragon-headed longship rediscovers them and drags his people away as slaves.

Their worlds collide when Jarl Rollo of Rouen annexes Taurin’s town and appoints Halla as ruler. United in an uneasy political marriage, Halla and Taurin must confront their conflicted feelings and their peoples’ mutual hostility. Tensions strain their fragile marriage. Christians who refuse to obey a woman stoke rebellion. Glory-seeking Norse raiders terrorize Halla’s domain. If they can’t unite, the threats surrounding them will tear apart their new family and swallow both of their peoples in war and ruin.

taken from Goodreads.

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I want to read more historical fiction books for 2022 and I am really glad that I gave this book a chance because it was well written, and it is full of humor too. They each like to make fun of the other, especially when Taurin first meets Halla and her group in the beginning. Despite their large facades they like joke with one another and it is a blast! If you think it doesn’t have any stories of their notorious violence, the author does include the battle aspect of the Norsemen. It is featured throughout the entire book, and it is one of the reasons why Halla takes the opportunity to create a place with both the people of Lilliebonne and Norse farmers together as a larger trading port.

I have always wondered how Vikings died out, what was it that drove them away from their raids, mythology, and general lifestyle, and it was so neat to get a peek into how this could have happened. However, I also thought about how the English natives thought about the Norsemen, I mean, besides grief and horror from the way they have treated them in the past, between collecting the riches and massacring the nearby villages, how willing were they to accept authority from a Norse lord?

“Perhaps we are not so different after all.”

Despite being a fictional based story, this gives you a way to see on everything. The characters were very thought out, based how they saw one another through their gods and rituals. Creatures like Father Norbert are always tricky to me, because he actually has a lot of power among the aldermen and the rest of his congregation. Priests were the only ones allowed to read the bible, so villagers believed anything they said because they didn’t have any other way to guide them through daily life. However, the Norse made their mythology available for everyone. They told celebrated their gods with poems and songs. It didn’t matter on their age or sex; everyone knew the same stories. It was also because of this openness, that they allowed women become part of their armies as shieldmaidens.

Halla and Taurin are opposites on all sides, but they were curious about the other and I found this very comforting. You wouldn’t think these characters would feel anything for each other, but it was interesting to see their perspectives change about the new neighbors. Although Taurin doesn’t fully understand Halla’s world, and he was very vocal about that in certain sections–and it got very boring as we went on, but I think the turning point for them was after the blot. Halla gave a harvest ritual and Taurin’s feelings about the whole thing pretty much ruled the last half of the book, but it was interesting to see Father Norbert’s thoughts about the Norse kind of switch in a way.

I don’t know whether the author will make this into a series, a part of me hopes for the possibility, because I would like to see how these characters move on, but I also thought the way it ended was basically perfect, so we’ll have to see what happens later on in the year.

Have you read “The Raven and The Dove” by K.M. Butler yet? If you know any other Viking books like this one, please send me some suggestions in the comments section.

The Goodreads Challenge | Hopes for 2022

Hello!

This year I am doing something completely different on my Goodreads Challenge. If you don’t know what this is, Goodreads is an app that allows you to find books. You can make up lists or shelves as they call them to categorize all of the books, like fiction and nonfiction. At the start of a new year, they give you a spot to choose a number of books you want to read in the 12 months. I’ve tried to make one in the last five years I’ve had it. Since 2019, I’ve been trying to up the number of the previous year, and even though I did get to 40 books in December, I decided to go for it in 2022.

I like the Goodreads Challenge a lot. I’m not one to make any big goals for the year anyways, so being able to set a somewhat large number of books for one year can be thrilling as a whole. I am always so pumped to start on a new one, but this time I decided to change it up a bit. I had the though back in September of splitting it up to focus on books that have been turned into movies. I love movies, and last year I learned how much I missed making time for them so I thought I could connect the two and hope I could make room for both loves. At the moment, I’ve only done one but I have been very distracted lately so I hope I can up my game a bit as the year goes on.

There is one drawback about this. I am not sharing my thoughts about these books and their film adaptions on my blog. I actually have a separate idea for that, but don’t worry I have two books that I am getting ready to publish–one might be coming out this Friday! I couldn’t just stop creating my book reviews though. I like being able to talk about thoughts on certain books and it just seemed silly to quit on all fronts, so I will continue doing those posts every month.

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Now you’re probably wondering I am doing with the books on my other list. I do have something really cool to share with you today.

Around the same time, I came up with first idea, I was watching a lot of videos on YouTube about these reading journals. I was puzzled by them at first, but then I started watching like 10 a week and I knew I was hooked on the idea of creating a different space away from my blog to talk about my books. I was a bit hesitant at first, but I am always looking for something to be more creative and I thought this would be pretty cool to try out.

I ended up talking about it a lot with my mom and she agreed that it would be a good idea to try something new. Once I found out about monthly trackers, I was pretty much sealed on the deal and basically asked for a brand-new journal, calligraphy markers and pens, and more books that were being turned into movies this year on my Christmas list. I did receive the dotted notebook I asked for and it’s been a learning curve for me so far! I have the markers and pens as well, but I haven’t really used them that much. And out of all the books on my Christmas list, I got one book and it was Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.

In the videos I’ve seen of these reading journals, everyone comes up with a different theme and I decided on Harry Potter, and I hoped to capture a bit of the Wizarding World and place it throughout the different spreads, but I’ve had a rough time just making simple banners, so it is a bit plain in some areas, but I am getting better at it. I also have the standard bookshelves but I totally forgot to include the House colors for the various types of reading, because I want to explore them as well, so, gray is for Kindle while pink is for Audiobook and Print is in the color turquoise. I don’t include the titles on the spines because I write too large to do that and I just want to see which way wins.

One thing I have learned in the past two years is that I am obsessed with words. Every time I found one that seemed unique, or it was used in another way than we normally say it, I wanted to collect it for later, so when I got my journal, I decided I would make a section just for my words and it’s been a fun thing to keep track of, and even my parents have enjoyed them too!

Here were the words I was obsessed with in January, and I have to apologize if any of the words are misspelled as well.

Words included are: synapes. candytuff, cur, filgree, ells, hewed, crux, tedium, signews, skein, bishopric, morose, trounced, brocade, whetstones, alight, coffer, chignon, commencement, gythia, truncated, primsigned, saccade, demesne, vehemence, daub, architaves, granary, manses, crux, hinterland, and picaresque

The last spread I made in my green journal was my end-of-the-month-stats. I want to keep track of everything like how many books, days, pages, and words I would make it to every month. I have these long rectangles going vertically on two pages (I actually have three because I made the boxes too big to include November and December!) and I assign different colors for each one and it’s easily my second favorite thing in the journal.

After hearing me complain about it in the beginning, my mom found a little book called “My Reading Life” by Anne Bogel on one of the people she follows on Instagram and we looked at it because despite my best efforts, I knew I needed some help, so I got it around the second week of January, and the main thing I use in it is the monthly tracker. I really love those pages, because it is so easy, but you have to be really careful because you only get little diamond shapes in each block, and you can feel lost once you get into the thick of a month.

I only have one book written in there already, and it was Still Alice by Lisa Genova. I like to start a new year with disability themes. I just like to get them out of the way honestly! I found this book featured on Kindle Unlimited and it was a great read but I’m so thankful I’ve only watched the film once since it came out in like 2016. There were some changes made throughout, I really like Julienne Moore and Kristen Stewart for both Alice and her daughter Lydia. My second book will be 12 Years A Slave for Black History Month and I have always wanted to watch the film and luckily HBOMAX played it all month long, so I have that to look forward once I’m finished. And yes, I have decided on my March read but I’m keeping it a secret for now.

I am reading rather slowly, and I don’t know why I’m doing this because I’ve always read multiple books with opposite genres at once, but I think it has something to do with the fact I hadn’t published this post out for January and I wasn’t able to relax in between the two areas, so let’s hope I zip right through the incoming books and their respectful movies too!

How many books do you hope to read in 2022? Do you have an app to help you keep track of your books like Goodreads or are you one to use a reading (bullet) journal instead?