Monthly Recap [January 2015] - Finished First Exams!

So this month started out stressful. Everyone was cramming for exams, teachers were scaring the crap out of us. I wish I could say that it was the usual. It wasn't. I'm in grade 9, or my first year of high school. I had all these questions about exams and now that I've done them, I can say that I've learned a lot.

First, teachers will try to scare you. All my teachers told me how much I needed to study. And I was going to do it! But my parents told me to take it easy; that I can't cram 3 months of information into my mind in two weeks. Either I knew the material or I didn't. Thankfully, I walked into that exam room with minimal studying and my grades are looking pretty great. My gym mark's a 90, French is a 95, Math is a 95 and English is an 85. But English at my school is hardcore. We had to write a full two-paged [legal paper] monologue in estimated twenty minutes as part of the exam.

I also was able to volunteer at my middle school. I helped out in the library and in my grade seven classroom. Got around fifteen hours towards the forty hours that I need to graduate! Whoo!

Lastly, yesterday, I started second semester and it's so weird because it feels like the first day of school again. My entire schedule got messed, which is so annoying. My first teacher sucks so much but the geography teacher I was supposed to have [that I hate] got swapped with another, so it isn't all bad. Also, I didn't think this would happen, but I LOVE my religion class. The teacher seems so chill and all of my friends are in that class. I guess there's always good in the bad and bad in the good.

 

Review

This month was great for review copies! I didn't think I'd be getting anything at all because I'd been gone so long. I guess publisher contacts don't expire! I sent out a bunch of emails and got confirmations but since the books I requested are coming out in 5-6 months, the delivery will have to wait. Instead these were the lovely books I was so lucky to get.

Thank you Scholastic for The Sin Eater's Daughter and The Dogs.
Raincoast contacted me asking of I would mind reviewing Fairest and I jumped for the chance. Thanks for the finished copy, guys!
Then I got this awesome pack of three ARCs from Penguin. Thanks so much, guys. I'll definitely enjoy reading A Book Of Spirit of Thieves, Like it Never Happened and Survive the Night.
I was also pretty lucky on Netgalley. I was able to score copies of Seeker and When Reason Breaks. I'm probably going to DNF Seeker [oh my God, I don't think I can take this much longer!] but When Reason Breaks was decent.
Lastly, I went on Edelweiss to see some new Harper ARCs so I managed to snag Crash! For those who have seen the reviews, I didn't really love the first two books in the series, but I'm definitely excited to try the last one!

Library

A lot of schools have libraries, right? That's like a normal thing. However my school doesn't have its own library. We're right beside the public library. This means a huge selection of books, including YA. It also means awesome WiFi, but that isn't the point.

Anyway, I haven't really been using the library, since I'd only really started blogging this January. So now I'm proud to declare that I've taken out five books from the Library since January [which is a big deal for me!]

• Welcome to the Dark House - Laurie Faria Stolarz
• Burn for Burn - Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian
• Ashes to Ashes - Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian
• Dorothy Must Die - Danielle Paige
• Push - Eve Silver 

Honestly, January has been such a great month and I'm so excited for 2015. I'm currently fifteen books ahead of schedule on my Goodreads challenge [which is 50 books!] I'm also preparing for a chance to fix up all my old posts. That's going to take a while. In any case, I'm excited for the new things to come and for all the awesome people whose blogs I now follow and for the people who have started commenting on my blog too! You guys are making me feel so loved. I appreciate it so much.