Wrap Up: November 2025

Okay, serious question, where did November go? I swear, it was the beginning of November and then I blinked and the month was over. As always, the end of the month comes monthly wrap up time!

Grab yourself the beverage of your choice, curl up with your favorite blanket and let’s review November!

This was a really solid reading month for me! While I only got to 1 ARC this month, which for sure was not ideal, the majority of my reads were 4 to 4.5 star reads and the 3 to 3.5 star reads were all enjoyable. I knocked another book off of my 25 in 2025, and read 3 books that were on my physical tbr for a while.

I also announced my Taylor Swift Eras Readathon (linked down below) this month, the first ever readathon I’ll be hosting on my own and opening to others. The readathon starts tomorrow and runs for the whole of December and I’m really excited about it! It’s hard to believe we’re headed into the last month of the year, but I really love end of the year content, so I’ll have quite a few blog posts coming up that I’m looking forward to.

I hit my goal of reading 150 books in October and am now sitting at 167 books read, and I’m excited to see what my end of the year number will be.

Books read this month:

Gradchanted by Morgan Matson (4 stars)
Little Thieves by Margaret Owen (reread, 4 stars)
The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers & Alex Kiester (3.5 stars)
Painted Devils by Margaret Owen (reread, 4.5 stars)
Till Death Do Us Tart by Ellie Alexander (3.5 stars)
The Official Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book by Taylor Swift (unrated)
The Fallow Year by Margaret Owen (4 stars)
Play Nice by Rachel Harrison (4 stars)
Live and Let Pie by Ellie Alexander (3 stars)
Death and Dinuguan by Mia P. Manansala (ARC, 4 stars)
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (3 stars)
Holy Terrors by Margaret Owen (4.5 stars)
Never Thought I’d End Up Here by Ann Liang (4 stars)

Blog posts and vlogs I loved this month:

Y’all know I love Gavin’s full series reading vlogs and oh boy was I so excited about his Twilight Saga reading vlog! It’s 4 hours of Gavin breaking down each book and sharing his thoughts on the series, and I ate it up! Also, a huge thank you and shout out to Gavin for discussing the seriousness of the whole imprinting thing and the dynamic between Bella and Jacob in Eclipse as well as the treatment and portrayal of Native Americans throughout the series. Whether you love or hate Twilight, this is another fantastic reading vlog from Gavin!
As a Dark Academia girlie, I really loved Jananie’s video on what makes a good dark academia book. I agreed with a lot of the points that she makes and thought she had a really throughout and well researched examination of the genre.
Speaking of Jananie, this month she announced her 2026 reading challenge, The Anti Brain Rot Reading Challenge. This reading challenge is all about engaging with the media we consume in a critical manner and really thinking about the things we’re reading/watching, as well as helping us develop our own opinions. In this post Jeananie goes into the details of the challenge rules, prompts and general ways to participate. I’m so so excited about this reading challenge; I’m already thinking about my tbr and setting up a media journal.
It’s definitely journal set up season, and I’ve been watching a lot of reading and bullet journal set up videos! My new reading journal isn’t set to ship until mid-December (I know, it’s cutting it very close…), but I’ve been doing lots of prep and planning in the last month and a half (I’ve also been doing this for my personal bullet journal). I’ve been watching a lot of videos, but Erin Smith has been my main source of inspiration (thanks to one of her videos I now know what my February 2026 journal theme will be 🤣) and I’ll for sure be using her videos for reference while setting up both of my journals!

My posts this month:

This was a very busy month for me! I started rehearsals for the play that I’m directing — we actually have our second to last rehearsal before tech tonight — and that’s been going really well. We had auditions, callbacks and casting for the musical that I’m directing, choreographing, and stage managing this month. We start rehearsals for that show on Tuesday.

I didn’t get to make as many new dishes or bake like I wanted to this month, but I did make homemade mac and cheese and it was delicious! I’ve got a lot of recipes that I want to try, so hopefully I’ll get to more of them next month. I finished setting up my beginning of the year bullet journal spreads for my January through June bullet journal and I’m really happy with how it turned out! I’m waiting on the journal I’ll be using as my reading journal to arrive, but once it does I’ll start working on that and will, as always, make a blog post about my 2026 reading journal set up.

The most exciting thing that happened this month though was for sure getting to go to the NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) Championship Match in my hometown! The Championship match was between the Washington Spirit and NJ/NY Gotham FC, who are not only 2 of my top NWSL teams, but also the two teams that I saw our home team, Bay FC, play this season, which I just think is super fun! The atmosphere at the game was absolutely incredible and I had the best time. It was so special to be there, I’m really glad I was able to make it. It’s also a pretty great flex that this year I was able to be at the most attended women’s sporting event (Bay FC vs. Washington Spirit at Oracle Park in August) and the most watched NWSL match ever (1.184 million viewers) in the same year. I’m never gonna shut up about it. The season just ended and I already can’t wait for the 2026 season!

I feel like I really didn’t consume a whole lot of media this month even though I did. This month I rewatched the entire Downton Abbey series, and watched all of the films, and of course was feeling all the feels. I watched Wayward on Netflix as well and enjoyed it. Of course, the main thing I was waiting for was the first half of Season 5 of Stranger Things. Did I watch all 4 episodes on the 26th? Yes. Did I watch them again the next day with my parents? Also yes. I’m really excited to see where the season goes, but am still annoyed that we have to wait another month…

Music wise, aside from my usual stuff, I was absolutely obsessed with Hello My Old Lover by Dove Cameron. I cannot stop listening to it and have it stuck in my head constantly. Kelsea Ballerini released a 6 song EP Mount Pleasant, and of course, I love it. I honestly think that Kelsea Ballerini has mastered the art of the perfect 6 song EP, no one is doing it like she is! Also, People Pleaser? Girl, please let me breathe!

Podcast wise I’ve been watching/listening (I like to watch the YouTube videos for my podcasts) The Women’s Game, most specifically Friendlies and Good Vibes FC. I also discovered Clues Pod with Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore and really liked the way that they covered the cases they were talking about, so I’ll definitely be checking out more of that podcast.