Each day of this month felt like it crawled at a snail’s pace, but the month itself flew by.
I read 9 books this month. I’m trying to take my reading a little slower this year and savor the books instead of rushing from one to the next.
One Night Only by Catherine Walsh
What starts off as a straightforward one-night stand gets a little more complicated when the two leads run into each other at a wedding – in Ireland. This was a fun way to start the new year and I’m looking forward to picking up The Rebound soon.
Shmutz by Felicia Berliner
In this book, a young Hasidic woman wrestles with her growing porn addiction while juggling potential marriage arrangements, college, and work. I saw that Deesha Philyaw described it as “clever, subversive, juicy, and surprising” and that fits it perfectly. (Obviously NSFW!) I loved that I really had no idea how it was going to end.
The Long Game by Dorie Clark
This nonfiction book looks at much of Clark’s own career meanderings and pairs them with pithy suggestions on how to operate your own forward-thinking career journey. I gleaned a couple of useful nuggets as I figure out my own career portfolio.
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
The hype is real! (Nothing I will say about this book matters, you have to read the first one and I’m the last one to board the ACOTAR train so you’ll certainly find better synopses elsewhere 😂) The second book in the series is even better than the first, though it does lag a little in the middle.
Beastly Things by Donna Leon
Book #21 in the Commissario Guido Brunetti series starts off with a John Doe found dead in a canal before taking us into the horrifying world of an Italian slaughterhouse. This series is generally pretty mild in terms of descriptions but there’s a chapter in here that you really have to steel yourself for. Still enjoying this ongoing long-term buddy read with my friend Megan.
Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen
Literary historical fiction at its finest here. The year is 1618 in the Holy Roman Empire, and illiterate widow Katharina Kepler has been accused of being a witch. This book has a few distinct phases, and I loved the first arc, found the second one enjoyable, and the third one middling. The end wraps up too quickly and feels a bit rushed compared to the first parts of the book, and left me wondering what the real message was in the end. (I have to say this book has my favorite cover of this month’s bunch, featured above.)
I Love Russia by Elena Kostyuchenko
After picking up A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen at McNally’s in late summer, I’ve been interested in learning more about modern-day Russia. This one has a very eye-catching title that, in representing this book, is the same way many of us feel about our homelands. We love them despite our critiques. (And Kostyuchenko has many, that she delivers through incisive reporting.) The book alternates personal essays with professional reporting, and some of the stories will haunt my memory.
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
This literary drama looks at one couple’s relationship and the way they, as people individual and together, ebb and flow over the years, and spans many perspectives and years over its few hundred pages. I found the first 100 pages or so very intriguing and it kind of kept going, and going, with a lot of exposition and overwrought miscommunication. I think I’m also biased because the last big family dramas I read (Wellness by Nathan Hill and The Bee Sting by Paul Murray) loom large.
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
Like This Must Be the Place, I was charmed at first – and then this book took a couple of hard left turns that felt too cavalier for my taste. Nonetheless, I wanted to see what happened in the end and I strangely am looking forward to the next book in this series (out today). I think I’ll prefer a plot that doesn’t involve the narrator’s family.
Did you read anything this month that you’d recommend?
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