Looking Ahead: A Comfort List for 2018 by Barbara Morais

Welcome to Smugglivus 2017! Throughout this month, we will have guests – authors and bloggers alike – looking back at their favorite reads of 2017, looking forward to events and upcoming books in 2018, and more.

Our next Smugglivus guest is Barbara Morais, a Brazilian YA author, writer of the trilogy Trilogia Anômalos, published by Editora Gutenberg. All three books are out now in Portuguese!

2017 sucked and I don’t want to talk about it.

Alright? Alright.

Instead, I’m going to focus on the future: 2018 is right around the corner! I know that it will be a hard year in Brazil, because it’s an election year and we’ll have Tropical Trump running for presidency with actual chances of winning, but I don’t want to think about that. I want to think about the World Cup! I want to think about how amazing some movies will be! I want to read tons of fun books!

I made a Comfort List for 2018 and I decided to share it with you in this Smugglivus.

1) MY HERO ACADEMIA

My Hero Academia was one of the biggest surprises of 2017. When the 1st season was released, it was not licensed in Brazil yet. Only this year Crunchyroll made it available, along with season 2, and OH MY GOD. HOW MUCH I LOVED IT!

It has all the elements I love in a good shounen anime, but handled with care. Deku is such a cutiepie and I LOVE TODOROKI SO MUCH. Season 3 comes out in April and I can’t wait to watch my favorite heroes in training being amazing.

Also, it’s so good to gush about it with the kids when I do school visits!

2) Black Panther

I. AM. SO. HYPED.

It dawned on me that we are less than 2 months away from this movie and I have absolute faith that it will be HUGE. Everyone I know is talking about it, even people who are not tuned on to Superhero Movies. “Everyone I know” is not a good measurement, I know, but I think it’s such a cultural mark, such a great statement, that everyone will want to check it out.

I saw the same thing happen with Wonder Woman – people who don’t usually watch superhero movies on theaters finally feel like there’s a movie for them.

3) A Megalomaniac Reading Project

In 2015, I only read SFF books written by women. It was an amazing experience and I want to do something like that again. So, for this year, I decided I’ll only read books written by women, LGBT+ folks and/or non-white people. Also, I’ll try to read more books that are not originally written in English or by authors that are not American or British.

I want to diversify my reading in different ways. As a Brazilian woman, it’s a huge symptom of cultural dominance that 90% of the books I read are from US/UK authors – and it shapes not only worldviews, but also writing styles. I feel that by diversifying the nationalities of my reading, I’ll improve my craft and have access to different realities.

It will be a fun year.

4) Replaying all Dragon Age Games

I love Dragon Age. I came across the games in 2013, when I bought an used copy just because it was cheap. And quickly I fell in love with the world, the characters, everything. It felt like this was the game I’ve always wanted – if I had made it myself it wouldn’t be more perfect. I played in weird order – origins, inquisition, DA2 – and I want to replay it in the right order. The best part about Bioware games is that every gamethrough feels like a whole new game, so you can replay it however many times you want without getting bored.

And maybe, after that, I’ll replay Mass Effect just because I love Garrus so much I’ll miss being away from him too long.

5) ROYAL WEDDING CRAZINESS

I’m not royalty obsessed, celebrity obsessed nor wedding obsessed but Harry and Meghan’s wedding will be AMAZING. All right, I lied, I also obsessed over William and Kate’s wedding but it’s not my fault that they are so adorable! I’m sure the other royal wedding will be as much fun and cute to watch and I’ll spend some quality time discussing dresses and how Harry’s face lit up when he saw Meghan coming down the aisle.

6) WORLD CUP

World Cup is like christmas out of time for me. The feeling is the same: everyone becomes friendly and hopeful. Friends and family get together to watch matches, even if they are at ungodly hours (Japan/Korea World Cup was a trial, sometimes we woke up at 3 a.m.), bringing food and drinks, hoping that Brazil will finally get it’s 6th title. Brazillian twitter also becomes THE BEST THING EVER — from jokes to live tweeting of the matches, there’s everything and it’s so fun.

Sometimes when things get hard we lose track of what makes us happy — and I feel that making a list of good things that I love and I want to see puts everything into perspective. In the midst of caos, it’s good to know you have a silly little thing to hold onto!

Do you have a similar list? What are your plans for 2018? What are you expecting?