January 2024 Monthly Wrap Up!
I literally just posted my 2023 yearly wrap up, and now it’s time for the first monthly wrap up of 2024?!? I know I say this every wrap up but seriously I don’t understand the passage of time. But ANYway, I had a pretty good reading month!! And I actually watched a lot of tv and movies too. Let’s get into it so I can share all the things with you!
Books I Read
- Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce
- Sleep No More by Seanan McGuire
- The Lily of Ludgate Hill by Mimi Matthews
- Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo
- The Sprite and the Gardener by Rii Abrego and Joe Whitt
- Graceling: The Graphic Novel by Kristin Cashore and Gareth Hinds
- Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu
- Stars, Hide Your Fires by Jessica Mary Best
- Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise by Gene Luen Yang
- Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle
This month I managed to read 10 books! And 8/10 of these were from my physical TBR, which I’m happy about. I counted how many physical unread books I have and it was 198 at the start of the year. Soooo I’m really trying to work on that haha. I also read a good number of graphic novels this month!! I hadn’t read any in a while, and I really need to read more because I do love them. There are so many skilled artists and illustrators that do amazing jobs at bringing depth to stories. All of these reads were enjoyable! I would say the standout from this month was Mammoths at the Gates, the 4th book in the Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo. It was a beautiful novel about grief and how it can change a person. I highly recommend that whole novella series.
Movies and TV I Watched
Movies
- The Equalizer 3
- Momentum
- Four Brothers
- Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
- Top Gun: Maverick
- The Portable Door
- Yentl
- The Boy and the Heron
- The Mirror Has Two Faces
- Nomads
The first 6 of these were ones I watched with my parents. They are mostly action movies, which is my parents preferred genre haha. Not necessarily ones I would choose to watch myself, but I had a good time! The Portable Door was one I’d never heard of before, but it was a cute magical movie that I actually really liked.
Yentl and The Mirror Has Two Faces are two movies directed by Barbara Streisand, who is the featured director on Blank Check (a movie podcast) for January. This is the podcast my partner likes to listen to, and they were both interesting movies. Listening to the podcast also gave me a deeper appreciation for Yentl in particular, which I didn’t love after watching it. Nomads is directed by John McTiernan, which is the next director that Blank Check is covering! It was weird and not my favorite haha.
And finally, for my favorite film of the month! This one I actually got to see IN THE THEATERS!!! I haven’t done that in ages!! I masked of course, and luckily my partner and I were the only ones there since it was in the middle of the week and in the middle of the day. We saw the newest Hayao Miyazaki movie, The Boy and the Heron. It was beautiful and wild and weird, and I absolutely loved it. The Blank Check podcast actually did an episode on this movie too, and it was so cool hearing about the history of both Miyazaki and the creation of this movie in particular.
TV
I started the month (and year) by finishing watching the second season of Bridgerton. It’s a fun show, but I’m not totally obsessed haha. Everyone is kind of silly. The other three shows I absolutely loved. Two are pretty popular so I won’t go into those, but Scavenger’s Reign is one I haven’t really seen talked about at all! It’s a great show set on an alien planet, where a ship crew has been stranded. The creatures and life on the planet were so original and creative, and the storylines of the different characters were all very compelling. It’s on Max (HBOMax) so I definitely recommend it if you have that service!
Things I Did
A few non-media-related highlights from the month:
- going to a reptile show with my family!! we saw a lot of interesting snakes, geckos, chameleons, and more
- skiing with my family in Utah for a weekend!
- getting noodles and boba with friends that I hadn’t seen in about 3 years
- visiting 5 indie bookstores, 4 of which were new to me
- making overnight oats for the first time and really enjoying them
How was your month? What did you get up to, reading and media wise? Did you do anything fun?
I love all this good content for you!! I hope you read and watch lots of good things next month too.
How was Stars, Hide Your Fires? (Also I need to get back to The Strange Case of Starship Iris!! I have been severely neglecting podcasts ever since getting back into audiobooks…)
High five for seeing The Boy and the Heron in theatres! Although when I went, it was pretty busy, and also there weren’t any morning showings, which is my preferred time to go to the cinema. Any time after lunch, I am sleepy, LOL. (And also it’s generally a little less popcorn filled, etc. in the morning… people can be so gross sigh).
Also thank youuu, for the reminder to do overnight oats, hehe. I’ve done them basically ever since you mentioned it and I got the ingredients 😀
I’ve always wanted to check out Mooncakes. Maybe I’ll get to it sometime this year. I’ve never been skiing, but it sounds like such an experience! Glad your month was so much fun. Hope you have a good February!
I feel like January took forever but now it’s gone?? Congrats on starting the year off strong knocking 8 titles off your physical TBR! I read the first two Singing HIills books this month – I really enjoyed them as cozy reads before bed.
It sounds like you had a really lovely month, Mackenzie! I’m so glad about that!! 🥰 Scavengers Reign looks really interesting, I might have to check that out during one of my partner and I’s date nights! And now I feel very behind on Nghi Vo’s series (I’ve only read the first one) but so glad it has your endorsement!!
Love a bookstore filled month! I’m gonna need to use you as inspiration to get through my own TBR lol