December Wrap Up + Book Haul

Hellloooooo how are you all enjoying the new year?

I've been spending the first few days of 2015 re-organising my bookshelf and...

DID YOU GUYS NOTICE THE NEW THEME? I spent 6h making it haha. I used the 'Awesome' green Blogger template and mass tweaked it - I spent a good 2h in Photoshop making the background and re-working until I created a pattern I liked. Then it was choosing a colour scheme (Tiffany's blue yay!), creating banners, widget headers and editing code all over the place until I was satisfied with the final result. I'm really happy with this theme, it's much cleaner and fresh, looks hella more sophisticated. My old blue rose one I was unhappy with it from the beginning when I made it but was too busy to do anything about it until now :D

After my Book Christmas Tree came down, I had to re-organise my shelves (new year and what not) and it took me a good 8h+ over the course of a few days. The final result ladies and gentlemen.

Now onto the actual post..

My December wrap up and book haul are a tad delayed this year because I only just came back from holiday last week and already had a few posts scheduled. I almost didn't do this post but then I realised I have so many people to thank because the bulk of this haul is comprised of lovely Christmas gifts!

I only read three books in December as I was doing a lot of gaming catch up and marathoning Charmed lel

• World After (Penryn and the End of Days #2) by Susan Ee - 4/5
• Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits #6) by Katie McGarry  - 4/5
• All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven - 4.5/5

Reviews Posted:
This Shattered World (Starbound #2) by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner - 4.5/5

Other Posts:

• Aussie YA Bloggers Secret Santa Blog Hop
• Top Ten Books I Read in 2014
• 2014 End of Year Book Survey

I was actually quite a good girl this month and didn't buy too many books myself!

Graphic Novels and Manga

• Hawkeye (Volume 1) by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido, Francesco Francavilla, Steve Lieber & Jesse Hamm, Matt Hollingsworth, Chris Eliopoulos - it's a beautiful hardback and I couldn't resist. Hawkeye is a favourite of mine.
• Sword Art Online Fairy Dance vol. 2 by Reki Kawahara - I LOVE SAO <3 if you follow me on Twitter you'd see my weekly tweets as I watch the eps. Season 2 is finished :( I really hope they do a season 3 with Underworld!
• Dengeki Daisy by Kyousuke Motomi - volumes 11, 12, 13 and I need 2 more volumes to complete the series as it's JUST finished. One of my fav manga of all time 

Books

• Legend trilogy box set by Marie Lu - I own the paperbacks and they're different sizes which annoyed me. I love this series enough to buy the hardbacks so they match. ALSO THEY'RE IN COLOUR, DAY'S POV CHAPTERS ARE IN THE COLOUR OF THE TITLE AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL. This box set also came with Life Before Legend, some short stories of June and Day before they met!
• The Nutcracker by ETA Hoffmann - Rebecca from A Word Shaker posted these beautiful new Penguin Christmas Classics editions and when I went to Kino that day I saw them and had to get myself a copy
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - his death affected many in 2014 as he was a fav author to so many people. When I saw this new edition I decided I had to get it and check out his writing for myself
• Endsinger (The Lotus War #3) by Jay Kristoff - I've been waiting for this book 5ever and fk I know Mister Kristoff is gonna rip my heart out again

Review Copies

• The Vanishing Game by Kate Kae Meyers - Bloomsbury Australia
• There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake - Bloomsbury Australia
• Rogue Wave (Waterfire Saga #2) by Jennifer Donnelly - Hachette Australia

Thank you Bloomsbury Australia and Hachette Australia for these review copies!

Gifts

I also received a few gifts from lovely friends and Secret Santa!

Alexa from Alexa Loves Books sent me these goodies. As part of the Maas Thirteen, Bloomsbury USA had given each member a signed ARC of Heir of Fire and the beautiful Crown of Midnight tote bag. They couldn't send to Aus so Alexa sent them to me. We also ordered stationery from May Designs which does personalised notebooks and greeting cards and she sent these with the package. SO MUCH AWESOME. Thank you Alexa!

My Aussie YA Secret Santa who was Nemo from The Moonlight Library got me I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I've been wanting to read this for ages so I was really happy to get this, thank you Nemo! It's in the edition I wanted too.

Mel from YA Midnight Reads got me this beautiful gift - infinity symbol earrings and necklace, beautiful card, Unite Me (Shatter Me #1.5 and #2.5) by Tahereh Mafi and Trouble by Non Pratt. So excited to read both of these *hugs Mel*

The lovely Ellis surprised me with Bunheads by Sophie Flack which I have been dying to read. *Hugs Ellis* thank you so much!

And finally I received this lovely package from my The Broke and the Bookish Secret Santa, Cassie from Cassie the Weird. A cute Mickey Mouse plushie, coloured pens, an awesome procrastination list, A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Such a perfect gift and I have been hearing raving reviews about Ready Player One so YESSS. Thanks Cassie :D

Wao thank you everyone for all the lovely gifts