Welcome to my month in review! This will be a monthly feature where I highlight the books I’ve read/theatre, films & tv I’ve watched and other exciting things that’s happened!

Books

I read 7 books this month! I had a really good reading month, I enjoyed most of what I read and had a good mix of books. 4 YA, 1 poetry collection, 1 graphic novel and 1 non fiction. This month I read:

• Hold Me Closer – David Levithan [YA}
• Radio Silence – Alice Oseman [YA}
• The Hawk In The Rain – Ted Hughes [Poetry]
• The Argonauts – Maggie Nelson [Non Fiction]
• Wing Jones – Katherine Webber [YA]
• Saga Volume 4 [Graphic Novel]
• A Quiet Kind of Thunder – Sara Barnard [YA}

My favourites of the month were definitely Radio Silence, Wing Jones & A Quiet Kind of Thunder. Actually, A Quiet Kind of Thunder has already topped my favourite books of the year list already! If you would like to know more information, the Goodreads link to each book will be above.

I did a post on three awesome YA books including Radio Silence, Birdy by Jess Vallance and Sara Barnard’s debut novel Beautiful, Broken Things which you can read here.

I also did posts on Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking as well as the books I want to get to in 2017. And just a couple of days ago, I uploaded the Book Buying Tag.

Theatre/Live Shows

Started off the first month of the year with 3 musicals and 2 trips to my favourite troupe’s live show!

• Lazarus @ the King’s Cross Theatre, starring Michael C Hall, a sequel to The Man Who Fell To Earth which I did a review of here. 
• Then I took two trips to the Impractical Jokers ‘Santiago Sent Us’ tour at the o2 arena. First was in the standard seats and on the second trip, I got to meet them afterwards and you can read about why I’m a fan here.
• Half A Sixpence @ The Noel Coward Theatre, which I absolutely loved. You can read about that here.
• Death Takes A Holiday @ The Charing Cross Theatre and I reviewed it yesterday which you can read here.

TV

TV wise this month (and for the next couple of months) I’m trying to clear as much off my Netflix list as I can before Once Upon A Time comes back in March. So far this month I’ve managed to start and finish

• Rick & Morty – which I LOVED. It’s a hilarious “adult” cartoon that reminds me of when I first started watching Family Guy.
• Fresh Meat – I started watching this when it first started on Channel 4 but never caught up with it. Jack Whitehall is in it and I wanted to finish it before I see him at Wembley next month!
• A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I liked. The directing reminded me of Wes Anderson’s directing style. The plots are batshit though, aren’t they?
• And Impractical Jokers came back on Comedy Central and that made me very very happy.

Film

Took two trips to the cinema this month! Seems like I’m about to overtake my total cinema trips last year (which was three… oops.) As well squeezing in a couple of films on Netflix.

Cinema:

• La La Land which I really, really enjoyed. I thought it was beautifully directed and the music was stunning. Emma Stone was brilliant.
• Sing! I adored the animation. It was the first 3D film I had seen in absolutely ages. It was really good fun and I’m glad that a major platform exists for more people to hear Seth Macfarlane’s incredible vocals.

Netflix:

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which I surprisingly enjoyed, considering it got a bad rep when it was released. Lily James was wonderful. It was just really cool to see a popular story take place in a different setting.
• Jack Whitehall Gets Around. As I mentioned before, I’m seeing Jack at Wembley next month and wanted to rewatch one of his previous stand up tours. Funnily enough, this is the exact performance that I saw with my Dad a couple of years ago so it’s always great to get to watch that back.

Other Exciting Things:

• I started my new blogging series “A Girl With A Plan”. This will be a series all about planning/writing/organisation/stationary porn. You can check out the first post here!
• First casting for the West End company of Hamilton was announced! My friends and I  got tickets in the presale for one of the previews in November and I am beyond excited by this casting. I’ve seen a few of them in shows before and I just cannot wait to see them in Hamilton! You can find more information here.
• Also this month, my friend Claire set up an Instagram called CrueltyFreeClairey where she documents what she eats since becoming vegan and it’s so insightful and interesting and makes me crave veggie fingers but I am more than okay with it. Check her out!

Thanks so much for reading, let me know what you got up to this month!

Until next time,