Books I've read in 2017

For the past few years I have attempted to keep track of what books I've read. I start January with a list and slowly add to it throughout the first month, but once February hits, it completely goes out the window, and this year was no exception. However the other night, I thought I would attempt to get a list together. So I looked on Amazon at my past orders, looked at my university website at my past modules, and tried to remember the books I read over summer because of YALC and the list was created (however not in order).  I'm pretty sure I have missed off a few I read over summer but overall I read at least read 52 books, and I'm really quite proud of that number if I'm honest! So here it is, all the novels I read in 2017: 

1. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
2. Baumgartner’s Bombay, Anita Desai
3. How Hard Can Love Be? Holly Bourne
4.  Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
5. Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie
6. The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
7. What Maisie Knew, Henry James
8.  The Once and Future King, T.H.White (Not all chapter but most)
9. A Court of Wings and Ruin, Sarah J. Mas
10.  Lord of Shadows, Cassandra Clare
11. Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson
12. The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
13. Tales from a Shadowhunter academy, Cassandra Clare
14. Wing Jones, Katherine Webber
15. Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
16.  Once and For All, Sarah Dessen
17. Always and Forever: Lara Jean, Jenny Han
18. The Upside of Unrequited, Becky Albertalli
19. A Quiet Kind of Thunder, Sara Barnard
20. The Truth about Forever, Sarah Dessen [re-read]
21. This Lullaby, Sarah Dessen [re-read]
22. The Names They Gave Us, Emery Lord
23. Geekerella, Ashley Poston
24. This Raging Light: But Then I Came Back, Estelle Laure
25.  Malory Towers, Enid Blyton
26. Peter and Wendy, J.M. Barrie
27. City of Spades, Colin MacInnes
28. Girl in pieces, Kathleen Glasgow
29. This Raging Light, Estella Laure
30. Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Becky Albertalli
31.  Love & Gelato, Jenna Evans Welch
32.  The Dark Days Club, Alison Goodman
33. Mansfield park, Jane Austen
34.  Lock and Key, Sarah Dessen [re-read]
35.   Under the Net, Iris Murdoch
36.  The L-Shaped Room, Lynne Reid Banks
37. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe 
38.  Disreputable History of Franke Landau Banks, E. Lockhart [re-read]
39. Am I Normal Yet?, Holly Bourne
40. Girlhood, Cat Clarke
41. It Only Happens in the Movies, Holly Bourne
42. Moxie, Jennifer Mathieu
43.  The Exact Opposite of Okay, Laura Stevens
44. Everless, Sarah Holland
45. One of us is Lying, Karen McManus
46. Freshers, Lucy Ivison and Tom Ellen
47. The Loneliest Girl in the Universe, Lauren James
48. The Truth and Lies of Ella Black, Emily Barr
49. The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert
50.   Juniper Lemon’s, The Happiness Index, Julie Israel
51. The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
52.  The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

As you can tell, with my course and my own personal taste, I read quite a range of novels! I had thought I would pick my few favourites, but I honestly am struggling to pick out just a few, so I have put my favourite eleven books in bold, although I would recommend most of these books to anyone! 

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas, surrounded by friends, family and lots of food. I had a lovely few days break, however it's already back to essay writing for me as I've got 6,000 words due in next Thursday! But it makes it so much better being surrounded by home comforts and all my family. I'll hopefully write my year round-up, or 2018 hopes soon. Christina xox

Nearing the end of another chapter

I remember that feeling in the last year of school that you knew it was the last chapter of that part of your life, and I felt so nostalgic and confused. Because on one hand, I was so excited for the next chapter, but also,  I didn't want to leave my school, dance school and living at home and say goodbye to the things that made me feel most comfortable.

And a friend reminded me of that feeling today, and I realised, I'm having it all over again in my third and final year of University. I think that's why I felt the need to document my life over on Instagram by taking a photo every day - to acknowledge to myself and the world, that this part of my life will be over at some point soon, and I'm not quite ready for that yet.

Now this term has not been nice at all. It's included many breakdowns, much stress and a lot of feeling down, I'm not going to lie to you. Third year is F****** hard (I'm sorry about the profanity but it's how I honestly feel.) A part of me just wants to be done with uni, and already be on the other side of the world, meeting new people which I will (fingers crossed) be next year!
 Quite a large part of me also is just so over never being finished with work, always having another novel I need to read and always having something I should be working on. However another part of me is sad (who knew one person could hold all these different feelings!) I had my last seminar with my favourite tutor today and whenever I think of the fact I won't actually be learning new things next year it does make me grateful of life right now. Because I do like my course, however much stress its giving me at the moment, I do really like it. I love reading novels, I love learning about history linking with novels and I love my dissertation topic. So although I am so ready to say goodbye to essays, there is a part of me that isn't ready to say goodbye to studying texts. Then there is uni life - my job at the student union bar and my cheerleading club - things I am no way ready to say goodbye to and the thought that they will go on next year without me is very disheartening at the moment.

Life's weird basically, I have so many contrasting feelings about Uni at the moment. Who knows what life will be like this time next year but right now I just need to get through the next week - write one essay and get a good start on my two other ones, then finally Christmas will be here!