Previously: August-December 2016

Previously on We Live and Breathe Books is an end of the month wrap up post. Previously allows us to recap all our posts from the past month and discuss what's going on in our lives, including what books we're reading, any fun things we've been doing, and a TBR for the next month. Our inspiration for this meme comes from Midnight Madness Newsletters created by Melanie at YA Midnight Reads.

Posts from August - December 2016

Normally, I would break these down into months, but, honestly, breaking it down by month looks really pitiful. But it's ok! Voila - five months of posts!

Review: Whatever. - S.J. Goslee
Waiting on Wednesday: Spontaneous - Aaron Starmer
Review: Seven Ways We Lie - Riley Redgate
Double Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne
Blogger Interview with Chayse from The Book Reaper (SBPT)
Review: Nevernight - Jay Kristoff
Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkins
Stuffed Animal Saturday: Furthermore - Tahereh Mafi
Review: Boys of Summer - Jessica Brody
Review: The Smaller Evil - Stephanie Kuehn
Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set in a Fantasy World
Waiting on Wednesday: Furthermore - Tahereh Mafi
Review: The Geography of You and Me - Jennifer E. Smith
Review: Furthermore - Tahereh Mafi
Top Ten Tuesday: Books that Have Been on Your TBR Since Before You Started Blogging
Waiting on Wednesday: Empire of Storms - Sarah J. Maas
Review: The Wrath and the Dawn - Renee Ahdieh
Review: Mosquitoland - David Arnold
Review: Tales of the Peculiar - Ransom Riggs
Blog Tour + Cover Cosmetics + Giveaway: Nemesis - Anna Banks
Review: A Shadow Bright and Burning - Jessica Cluess
Review: Poisoned Blade - Kate Elliot
Blog Tour Review: Holding Up the Universe - Jennifer Niven
Review: Gemina - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Review: Let It Snow - Maureen Johnson, John Green, Lauren Myracle
Review: The Sun is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon
Waiting on Wednesday: The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas

Keeping Up with the WLABBers 

WLABB has a new co-blogger!

Everyone please give a warm welcome to our new co-blogger, Sam!

Greetings! I am Sam, (Sam I am) and I am thrilled to be a contributor for WLABB. An avid reader and science nerd, I would describe myself as a fiction lover. I do tend to read a lot of contemporary romances, but I also like to mix it up. I also love discussing books in reader groups and on Instagram.

Find Sam on social media: Goodreads | Twitter | Instagram

Kiersten

When I was first thinking about writing this post, I was like, "What am I going to write? Oh, you know, another semester. It's senior year. Blah blah." But then I realized that actually I did a bunch of things? So I will talk about the things now.

Before going back to school, WLABB had a bit of a photoshoot hang out and we took some pretty cool photos (thanks to Noor's mad photo skillz). Me and Amrutha were in desperate need of new profile pictures.

I mean, our hangout wasn't entirely to have a photoshoot. We went for brunch at this cool dinner with amazing pierogies, and then we went to Asbury Park to walk around the boardwalk and eventually get ice cream in Ocean Grove. Asbury Park boardwalk is where we took all our photos since there are a ton of cool murals. Lots of Insta-worthy pics!!!

Once I got back to school, I was working on a hip-hop ballet called Le Diable Amoureux. In the show, Alvaro and his fiance Christelle challenge the devil to come between them. The Devil, intrigued by this challenge, with the help of her sidekick Raoul, travels to earth to try and seduce Alvaro using three different incarnations of herself: the Siren, the Exotic, and the Innocent. I got to play the Siren and dance as a part of the ensemble, and it was really awesome!

We even had a super cool photoshoot for promotional profile pictures and cover photos for the show! It was really fun going out into the city near school and finding cool places to pose. The one above was taken in this really random back alley that we found next to a building through a parking lot. It was seriously gorgeous, and such a great find.

In addition to dancing in the show, I was also the costume designer! It was seriously exhausting to be in rehearsal everyday, go to class, go to work, and work on all the costumes for the show at the same day. I didn't get a lot of sleep, but I managed to pull it off! Below is a picture of me as the Siren and the choreographer (who played Alvaro) in our costumes! If you want to check it out, a full recording of the show is posted on YouTube here (it's less than 45 minutes long, so not a huge time commitment, and it's really cool I promise)!

After the show was over, things ~sort of~ slowed down a bit, but school has a way of always giving you a lot to do. One fun highlight was making duct tape outfits for a party with my friend Ashlee. Peep the lyrics to Closer on the side since we're obsessed with that song.

Other than that, it was mostly just the same stuff as other years, except it's weird because it was my last fall semester of undergrad. I'm still a part of DanceWorks as a dancer, choreographer, and costume coordinator, but it's weird thinking "for the last time." Yikes. Anyway, I am excited for my final semester at Syracuse (although I am applying there for graduate school, so who knows). Although I know sorority recruitment is going to be exhausting at the beginning of the semester, I'm excited for the DanceWorks show as well as a play that I'm lighting designing. It should be a great semester!

2017 Reading Goals

I kind of did a pitiful job with reading in 2016, so I guess my goal this year is to just do better? I'd like to read some cool books. Some books that are definitely on my radar to read this year are Empire of Storms, which is seriously overdue, A Court of Wings and Ruin (obviously), and the final Illuminae Files book (I need this asap). I'd also like to get back into bookstagraming more often! The main reason I usually don't is because my room is messy, so if I clean my room, it's a double win.

Noor

Who am I???? Am I even a person???? Have I Ever done Anything in my entire Life?????? Literally never!!!!!!! (okay maybe 0.5 of a thing but like...barely)
I am going to divide this into sections!!! and lists!!!! amazing!!!

Life Things
I started school again after taking a year off and the semester actually went really well!!! I had some really amazing professors and met some hella cool people and didn't immediately feel disenchanted with the idea of higher education as I'd been feeling before so like...A+ to Fall 2016 (I hope I'm not jinxing myself for the spring)

Fun Things
In August, right before my semester started, I took a trip to New Jersey, which is when I took those pictures of Kiersten that she posted in her section, and now that it's winter break, I'm down in Dallas, writing this post from the sunny 70 degree Texas winter (disgusting, I know). I never miss an opportunity to plug my Instagram so if you want the cutest shots from all my trips follow @looonylovegood but for your convenience I will share a select few from the WLABB photoshoot here (mostly bc if I had to pick and choose from /all/ my photoshoots I would never get anything done ever and I gotta share something because y'all know I love attention)

This is Kiersten and I being angry (probably at Amrutha and/or Marlon)

(This is NOT the WLABB photoshoot but it's a fun mural during the same trip so like...fight me)

Also, a couple of pics from my ongoing Dallas trip including this beautiful one of my son and I (for more baby pics follow me on Twitter @abnoormality):

Birthday

My birthday is the most important day of the year so it gets its own category. I conquered my fear of skirts and did not look Terrible so 21 is looking like it's gonna be a good year. #wild

I tried not to be as rambly or as obessive with the photos as I feel like I often am, mostly because I am HELLA sick right not and have taken like three different cold and flu medicines and probably forgot to mention something and may or may not be dying so I'm not really sure if anything is even real but happy new year friends!!!!!

2017 Reading Goals

Listen. I feel like 2016 was not even a real year. Did I read a lot??? Did I read nothing???? Did anything even happen????? ANYWAY, I am going to just not think about this past year and think about this upcoming year instead!!!! Wooo!!!! #lit

I'm not really good at "goals" but, after reading Kiersten's section, the bookstagramming thing is definitely something I want to focus on a lot more!! The problem for me is that I always think about taking pictures but I''m often busy during the daytime and I don't really have good lighting after the sun sets so these winter months with 4pm sunsets are really doing me dirty. I really liked the month where we did bookstagram challenges and I definitely want to do at least one again this year!

As for specific books, there are like five million 2017 books I want to read and five million pre-2017 I need to catch up on so like my goal is to not fall into reading slumps and to keep reading and keep blogging while I'm busy with school and stuff.

This is probably as concrete as I'll be able to get but I wish you all a good reading year!

Amrutha

So like??? A lot of what Kiersten and Noor have are photos to be fair I am not nearly as aesthetic as either of them so I'm going to randomly intersperse (did I use that word right who knows) photos of my self in between random life updates so that things seem spaced out and well organized.

The pic above is from our WLABB photo shoot, the universe knows I can't take a picture I like without professional make up from Kiersten and aesthetic instagram pic taking from Noor. I've seen Kiersten like 2.5 times since our WLABB hang out but am still waiting on Noor's Next Visit 2k17.

Here is another pic of me being the nose because Amrutha "nose" best...yes I am that lame. So this year I'm doing a thing: I'm an RA now in these really nice new apartments at Rutgers so I spend a lot of time doing Reslife things. The good news is I actually like my staff and my building and my residents so it's been a pretty swell time. 

On the left you will see a group pic where we are standing under a cut off Ocean Avenue sign. #WeTried. In other news though, I am slowly but surely trying to figure out what I want to do post graduation which is looming in the horizon (Spring 2018). School has gotten a lot more exciting since I've been able to connect it to solid goals for the Future so we'll so where that takes me.

In terms of fun things I think I've actually learned to cook like an adult, thanks to my new kitchen in my aforementioned apartment. I've done some more of my monthly projects, which included how to make healthier(ish) versions of my favorite not so healthy foods and spending a month forcing people to register to vote. The last few months have been pretty interesting so look out 2017 new year same me is coming @ you.

2017 Reading Goals

Uh. So clearly, from my lack of posts, you can see that I haven't read much these past few months. Also, I didn't read much from January to May. Surprisingly, my reading goal of 2017 is to read more. Butttttttt, a specific goal I have is to read more classic award winning books and also read more magazine/newspaper/literary journal articles. I just want to learn hella things and be as cultured as possible. If you have suggestions hit me up @ruthlessram on twitter!!

Sam

The whole full-time job thing does not leave me as much time for fun as I would like, but my 3 hour commute does give me lots of QT for reading. 

I had set a GoodReads reading goal of 250 books, and well….

Mission accomplished. The biggest difference in my reading habits is that I added audiobooks to my repertoire. I listened to 105. (I hope to have a discussion post about this later.)

Other than reading, I went and saw “Le Diable Amoureux”, which I enjoyed very much. I am not a super-creative person, therefore, I am very impressed by those who can create and create well. I also was lucky enough to see a two shows at Paper Mill Playhouse as I have a subscription. I saw The Producers, which was hilarious, and The Bodyguard. The Bodyguard was such a nostalgic experience for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed the show. 

2017 Reading Goals

I set a goal of 5 books a week or 260 books for the year. In addition to the GoodReads challenge, I signed up for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, the Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge, and the Monthly Motif Reading Challenge. I was looking for a way to change up my reading habits, and I think these challenges will help. Keep an eye out for my Reading Challenge post. I will continue my reading goal of finishing series and reading books I own (why is this so hard!). I also hope to attend more bookish events. Before Kiersten left for college, we used to attend many signings and releases. Now, she is too far away (sad face), but at least I have tickets for BookCon and it’s back in NYC (applause, applause, applause). 

What have you been up to last month?

Let us know in the comments!