2019 Goals in Reflection

It's now 2020, but we still have to wrap up 2019. One hell of a year. Literally, hell is a good word for that went down and sadly the new decade doesn't look it will change much.

1. Read a book a week: Technically no, but in the sprint, I did this. I finish a book for 48 weeks out of the 53 we covered this year. 
2. Finish 12 series: "Okay, I would be happy with five because that's more than last year." I did not manage this. I finished three. There was another one I caught up, that might never be a finished series. So another goal I'll carry. 
3. Read More of My Own Books: I read 37 books of my own books, but I only read 13 books that I brought this year. Though, percentage-wise that is better than last year. This is a win on technicality basically.
4. Stop with the Insane Book Buying:  I have brought 133 books this year. Though it has been 52 days since I brought any books and I brought 255 books last year. I could do better as I was hoping to get that number back under the hundreds. 
5. Write a Review a Week: I have finished this year with books unreviewed for the second time. I did not do this. I think I did do more reviews this year. 
6. Write a Post a Week: No.....
7. Write More in General: Noooooooooooo... Did almost managed to do NaNoWriMo. Okay, Maybe I kinda did this one. 
8. Published a Video a Week: No. 
9. Do More Complicated Videos: Nope.
10. Continue Bullet Journaling: I did this. Not to the most specific details, some months but all months were covered. 
11. Exercise Most Days: No. This started strong but went out of the window with Kidney swapping that happened in January. I stopped doing a lot of things after. Strong starts to nothing happened a lot last year. I did do some walking, but not a lot of cardio. 
12. Apply for things: I applied to one thing, did not get it. This is better in that I finally did make myself apply. But I still procrastination the application meaning it could have been better when I submitted it. There were other things I could have applied for as well. 

I read a lot this year I guess. Moving on.

Book Review: Whiteout by Gabriel Dylan

Ski Trips: For the rich kids to die on.

Charlie hopes that the school ski trip will be the escape from his unhappy home life he so desperately needs. But there is something wrong with the remote ski village of Kaldgellan. Something is out there, something ancient and evil, among the pines and the deep untracked drifts, watching and waiting. 

And when the storms blow in, Charlie and his schoolmates wake to find the resort deserted. Cut off from the rest of the world far below, as night falls the few left alive on the snowbound mountain will wish they were somewhere, anywhere else. Only ski guide Hanna seems to know of Kaldgellan’s long-buried secrets, but whether Charlie can trust her is another question…


This is the second Red Eye book to featuring snow storms that cause isolation and with it having other similarities I couldn't help but compare them, especially as 'Fir' is one my favourite Red Eye books. I was pretty excited for this concept, as Teen "30 Days of Night" which oddly is one of the vampire films not mentioned in this.
                                                 
This book has third person narration that closely follows a few different people in the group. Charlie is the main character and gets a sort of romance. There are lot of characters at the start with this meant to be school trip, with thirty pupils so probably has two or three teachers with the group, so it's slightly confusing with all the girl names thrown around. We have other characters such as Tara who is the spoiled ex-rich girl; she is a terrible person, that's her deal and she only there to undermine everyone else. She meant to be the character you dislike the most, but guess who I dislike the most?That's right, Nico. My notes involve telling Nico to go die in the snow. Nico is your toxic geek stereotype with side of sexism. This sexism comes in his first introduction so that I was able to confirm that this quote made it to the finial book by using the Amazon Preview: "Ellie’s blue eyes were locked on to Stefan, a glint of admiration hovering there that gave Nico a twinge of envy. She was pretty, although he wondered if she’d be even more attractive without so much make up."

Yeah, Ellie is described as breaching her hair and wearing fake tan, and skiing with hooped earrings so is probably in that awkward phrase of make-up but it's makes me dislike Nico immediately because girls are judged for their make-up use even when it's fantastic. There's other comments by Nico through out the book make me dislike him for his toxic geek culture. I think these comments are meant to make him relatable but he just makes me think of those guys who quiz girls when they say they like Star Wars and deny that girl geeks exist. You can have shitty characters or flawed characters, but it doesn't add to the character or more importantly challenged. So with that sexist comment, I started counting how often the characters cry, 3:1 when comes to girls to boys. One of those times Tara cried for no reason and then never again. Maybe that was to show she was attention seeking. It's really minor thing, they are diverse side of girl characters so can just ignore Nico if you want.

Another thing to mention about Nico is that lot of his geek references feel slightly dated, I mean he plays World of Warcraft which isn't much of thing anymore. Also it's subscription based game, with it being £10 a month. It does have a free mode and these kids are on a ski trip so maybe they parents would pay that a month for game but it's seems more likely they would be messing about on Gary's Mod or Skyrim. I don't think MMORPG are much of thing anymore or I don't think any fantasy games really have online player mode. Films are mentioned as well but films can be randomly discovered that game with pay wall wouldn't. Though, no date is actually state. They have phones but are never described so I guess this could easily take place when I was a teen and not going on the sky trip where someone smuggled weed into several other countries. I don't think they went to Austria.

I love vampires, and was really excited to hear that a Red Eye book would be tackling them. They're done okay, somewhat old school with side of sort of original myth. The final conflict was decent and with Red Eyes being established as having no win situations sometimes the states were pretty high till the end.

Overall, I give this 4/5 stars for h. A lot of filler characters, but there's one character with strong motivation so that's fun. I guess I don't like the ending, it's not terrible but it meant to be a redemption for these characters that didn't feel earned for at least one of them well at least for me. . I get what their arc was meant to be, maybe it would have been better to focus on less characters for this story. I guess they all like 16 or something anyway. It's a decent horror story, in probably in the middle for me of the other Red Eye books which I have reviewed all of them.

I received e-arc of this book for free to do an honest review.

2019 Goals

Back again, once again, here we are again.

Okay, let's get into my hopes and dreams. I'm trying to be realistic with goals and I know January is not going to be a good starting month for anything due to family members going to have surgery and will have recovery times. It's going to be stressful, by the time you have read this the surgery will have happened. So let's get into the goals:

1. Read a book a week: This one is straight forward. 
2. Finish 12 series: Okay, I would be happy with five because that's more than last year. I keep buying full series and then I don't read them because go me. I need to actually finish series, though it's hard when authors often randomly bring more books later in the series.
3. Read More of My Own Books: So I read 34 of my own books this year, having read 120, I would like that number to be higher. I think ideally what I read should be from half my books. 
4. Stop with the Insane Book Buying: I feel like I should ban books until I finish editing the book hauls I have lol. It's not about book hauls, it's just I buy a lot and don't read a lot of them. I would like to more read books than unread books.
5. Write a Review a Week: Straight forward, share my thoughts on a book or film. Probably mostly books.
6. Write a Post a Week: Having a self imposed deadline I think would help me, it did in the past, but it's keep slipping away from me so easily. I guess I'm more self-conscious about writing.
7. Write More in General: I guess I want to actually work on a novel. I have ideas and it's still something I would like to do. 
8. Published a Video a Week: Not sure if I should put this as two weeks as that would be more realistic, but I want a better scheduled for myself. I just have to edit things through again. I also know that this will be a fail in the first two weeks of the year due to a session of family surgery, the family who go through surgery together stay together. I'm not having surgery, it's other two other family members this time but obvious stressful and have to do stuff in preparation and it won't be great environment to get anything filmed or edited probably. 
9. Do More Complicated Videos: I think part of the problem is that I'm bored just doing standard BookTube videos and should actually follow through with ideas. I'm sitting on two ideas with two series I still want to do. I just need do stuff.
10. Continue Bullet Journaling: I like the process and tracking how many pages of a book I've read that day and my process of actually doing stuff. 
11. Exercise Most Days: I'm going to try and exercise at least 20 minutes everyday, this is me trying to create new and healthy behaviour. Sometimes I might not time or have a major flare ups meaning I can't do much, so will have to save my energy for just moving around the house. I want to become fitter and honestly lose weight in the hope that make me feel better. It won't solve my issues, part of the reason I've struggled with exercise routines is because of fails up. Another big problem is not finding a exercise that works for me. I can't do jogging because the cold air makes me immediately out of breath (thanks asthma) and I feel awkward doing that. I don't like team supports and strict times don't work for me. I would join a gym if there was one than ten minutes away. I brought exercise bike, I know I need more methods of exercise than that, but it's a good start. 
12. Apply for things: I want to go to college or get in a training programme. I've had two years on the sidelines and it's getting me nowhere so I'm going to actually finish Application forms. The family thing has finally happened so time to do things. I'm still tore but let's me more involved in the universe.

If I actually do the last goal, I wouldn't mind letting other thing slide. Like I said, January is not the best month to start anything, there will be messed ups and that's okay. I think the important of goals is just keep going. I will hopefully see you next week, because life is busy.