The Home Stretch: My December 2020 TBR

Hello Patrons! 🙂

I am currently listening to Bing Crosby sing Christmas music and am super excited to get back to talking about books!

For the final month of 2020 I want to spend as little money as possible and read some back list books. (We’ll see how that pans out!) I currently have 5 books on my TBR, 3 of which are from my library, 2 are audiobooks, and 1 I bought last weekend and am patiently waiting to come to me in the mail.

Let’s jump into it! Let’s start with the book I’ve already talked about.

Here The Whole Time by Victor Martins

This is my current read. It’s about a fat boy who is excited to be introverted over his winter break from school, but his dreams are dashed when he has to host a boy who lives in an apartment downstairs. The main character, Felipe is such a sweetheart. I will update y’all on my thoughts when I finish it.

Rent A Boyfriend by Gloria Chao

As you all know I really liked Chao’s first book American Panda, but have been putting off reading her sophomore novel Our Wayward Fate. (It’s not a conscious choice though 2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year and messed with my reading preferences).

~Anyway~ I saw this book and loved the cover. Rent a Boyfriend is about a girl who rents a boyfriend from this service to assuage her parents fears that she will die alone (#relatable), but ends up falling for said fake boyfriend. If I end up liking this book, I am going to go back and read Our Wayward Fate later in the month.

The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed

I had this book on an earlier TBR but didn’t get to it. I want to give it another shot. The Black Kids is about Ashley a wealthy black girl living in LA during the 1992 Rodney King Riots. Its about race, and coming of age, and prejudice. It was touted as a read-a-like to The Hate U Give.

I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider

This is the book I am waiting for to come in the mail. Its a graphic novel about all things bookish. I have a collection of books about books and saw this book when I was voting for the Goodreads Choice Awards a couple of weeks ago and knew I needed to have it.

Next, let’s talk about the audiobook I am currently listening to.

A Promised Land by Former President Barack Obama

This is a roll over from my November TBR. I have 12 hours left of this audiobook and am still enjoying it. I am learning about a lot of history that I lived through, but was too young to necessarily understand what was going on at the time. (Obama also goes into the history of government programs such as Medicare/Medicaid, the history of the US and Middle East relations, and other things I have heard about but sounded too “smart people”-y for me to understand). I also just think that Obama narrating the book helps me destress.

On to what’s up next in my listening journey…

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall

I had an arc of this back in January but didn’t get around to it before it was published so I sent it off to my friend Nizza in Brooklyn who I knew would get to it before I could. Hood Feminism is talking about the short comings of second (and third) wave feminism. Some of these short comings are only focusing on white straight women. After listening to and loving Eloquent Rage last month, I want to continue the momentum and continue my education into becoming an intersectional feminist. I just got this on Libby so I will be listening to Hood Feminism soon.

(I also want to finish reading Dearly this month and review it for y’all!).

Anything Else?

Other books I want to read this month; Goddess in the Machine by Laura Beth Johnson (this is Sci-Fi so we’ll see if this actually happens), These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong (1920’s Shanghai retelling of Romeo and Juliet with magic!), and possibly (because the previous two books are chunky), The Blind Assassin by Margret Atwood. I also have a couple of chunky books I asked for for Christmas, so we’ll see how the second half of the month pans out.

Please let me know what your planning on reading or listening to in December! Do you read holiday books? I’ve gotten out of the habit of doing so. No particular reason. Have you read any of the books I talked about? Let me know. As always, take care of yourselves, wash your hands, wear a mask in public, practice some self care, and…

Stay Golden! 🙂

-Leila