Resolutions Recap 2022

 Hello and welcome to my yearly resolutions recap where I remind myself what a failure I am! LOL!

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Add 20,000 words to my WIP novel
4. Write 30,000 words for National Novel Writing Month 2022
5. Break in all my Dr Marten shoes properly
6. Get a new job
7. Learn to drive
8. Get a new car
9. Sew a garment
10. Learn how to crochet
11. Learn how to cross stitch
12. Read 100 books
13. Watch 100 films
14. Go to the cinema 5 times
15. Go to Longleat Safari Park
16. See a show on stage

Yet another successful year as you can see! So we ended up with a new car at the end of July. The old one, a Nissan Micra, broke down fatally while we were en-route to go shopping in June (I totally looked back at Facebook and Twitter for the dates LOL!). It started to slow down, the gears went funny and then we pulled over and it wouldn't restart. A policeman wanting to do speed checks pushed us into the car park of a shut down pub. We waited 4 hours for the RAC in the heat, I got sunburn just sitting in the car. It turned out to be the timing wheel. We looked for a new one but in the meantime I was walking to work in the height of summer, ugh. It could have been worse though, the day after the actual breakdown we'd planned to go to the cinema to see the latest Jurassic World film, a breakdown on the motorway would have been hell!

We eventually found a new car within our meagre budget, a Citroen C1. Where it had been sat around a while we needed to get a new battery straight away but it's OK, it prefers going fast to slow. The gears are a bit clunky and the left indicator has just started playing up but it's got it's MOT in a couple of weeks, a tad overdue, oops!

I ended up with a new job at the end of September. I left the old one on Tuesday 27th, started the new Thursday 29th! Things had deteriorated badly at my old job. I was accused of mishandling a donation, suspended, investigated, thought I was going to lose my job but kept it by the skin of my teeth. A lot of the issue was verbal information and an incorrect date given, I remembered the correct date, they found the details and all was good-ish. This was the beginning of September. My manager then sent through the latest rotas and we weren't scheduled to work together at all up until at least November (that's how far it went at that point). She'd also hired a Sunday Supervisor behind my back when our original plan was share the weekends as we'd been doing and get me an extra day a week. Then she started leaving loads of catty notes about the way I work so it was good timing that I left then.

My new job is slightly better but it's not one I want to stay at. Some days there's loads to do, others there's nothing and you end up tidying. Ugh. When I started they wanted me to stay away from the tills but now I have entire shifts covering the customer service desk. The training was abysmal, I'm only just figuring some parts out. Sometimes they moan when I'm not doing something quick enough but I'm helping customers and covering breaks in between doing whatever I'm doing. The foot pain that started in my last job is also getting worse so I end up limping around which isn't great.

Only one cinema trip this year :( Sing 2. We planned on seeing others but finances etc just never work out. I made it to 152 books read though so I'm proud of that. I can't remember the film number and officially there's still a few days of the year left but it is over 100. NaNo was a fail this year, I didn't even reach 5,000 words. I did absolutely no planning and a depressive funk made me wonder if I was even going to attempt at all.

Everything else was obviously finance and time related. And motivation, I've struggled mentally this year, I'm constantly in a low level of I don't care. Hopefully that might improve soon? Please?

Back Sunday with this year's resolutions! (Though I'll write it up now and then schedule it XD)

Stef Out x

Golem by P.D. Alleva

 

Ebook provided by author for review. Thank you.

3/5 stars

I really enjoyed the concept for this novel, a demon or the devil (wasn't totally clear which) coming to life through a statue who likes to possess children. Also the way the story initially came together with a detective being given a case about a missing child and then being told the story by Alena, the key figure and initial suspect in the original case, his initial disbelief and gradual realisation that it is all true were all great.

The writing itself however could use a bit of tightening up I feel. We got told Alena's backstory twice with very little difference between the versions, just a touch more detail when she was telling the story herself but it's not details that particularly mattered to the story as a whole. There were some instances that felt unnecessarily descriptive, a paragraph about a storm for example. There were also some odd wording choices, a section where Alena, a cisgender woman, was basically described as having an erection. Also this same scene which generally reads quite sexually seems to involve, or at least have present, children which I find concerning, devil possession or not.

The pacing was also a little off for me as well. Some sections felt very slow whilst others felt rushed. The ending felt very abrupt as well. Also I didn't really understand Annette's chapters and how she connected to the larger story.

On the whole a great concept but the execution was slightly lacking for me personally.

Stef Out x