It's time for my very first monthly wrap-up — aren't you so excited?!
I like watching and reading people's wrap-ups because it's obviously a lot more interesting to find out what someone thought of a book as opposed to what they think they're going to think about a book, as you get in a TBR or haul or whatnot. Plus, it's a nice excuse to give yourself a little pat on the back.
I read 10 books in January — well, technically, 10.5. I did unfortunately DNF one book about halfway through it, the very last one I picked up. I'll include it in this post but only as a DNF — not in the demographic stats or the overall number of how many I read, nor will it count toward my yearly Goodreads goal.
Details, thoughts, and ratings below!
Six of the books I read in January were adult fiction — one classic, one contemporary fiction, one historical fiction, one short story collection, and two thrillers. Of the four young adult books, three were fantasy and one contemporary.
Eight books were by women authors, two by men. Four were by authors of color, six by white authors. (As a note: Obviously, you can't always be 100% certain of an author's gender or racial identity, but I go by the information available, and most of the time it's easily determinable. And it would be pretty inappropriate to, like, tweet at an author and say, "Hey, I loved your book! By the way, what's your racial background?" So my stats are as accurate as they can be based on an author's bio, interviews, etc.)
Years of publication: 1811, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 x2, 2016 x3, and 2017.
Shortest book clocked in at 237 pages, longest at 527. Three books came in subscription boxes, three were purchased online, and four were purchased in a brick-and-mortar bookstore.
Star ratings:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: One book
⭐⭐⭐⭐: Five books
⭐⭐⭐: Two books
⭐⭐: Two books
(I almost never give a book one star, because honestly, if a book is poor enough that it would get only a one-star rating, I'm likely to just DNF it — as I did with one this month.)
OKAY! Now for the actual books and some thoughts! Because I'm lazy as fuck, I'm not going to go into a lot of plot detail here — you can click through on the title links for that — but rather just tell you what I liked and didn't like, what worked and what didn't, the overall rating, etc.
(These are in chronological order.)
1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
This was my first read of the year, and it was a good way to start out! As a bookish feminist lady, of course I adore Austen in general, but I don't love all of her books equally. This one I did enjoy a good deal, and is probably in third place of her six major novels. The writing is classic Austen, witty and sharp, and she does such a great job at really conveying a character's personality through their dialogue. It's also a little bit of a comedy of errors, where a whole lot of pain and strife could have been saved if folks were just a little more open and honest, or if, say, someone showed up five minutes earlier or later.
I loved the main characters, Elinor and Marianne; their sisterly relationship felt authentic and true-to-life, and familiar even having been written over 200 years ago. And of course, as a spinster misandrist queer chick, I loved the crap dudes being called out as crap dudes. And yes, I was also glad when people got their happily ever afters ... sometimes you just want your bookish people to get what they want!
⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill
This is a young adult fantasy novel following a girl named Britta who is attempting to hunt down her father's killer, a task which will save her own life if she is successful.
Unfortunately, this book really fell flat for me. It felt very basic and rather derivative. I didn't find anything new or unique here; as a friend of mine noted, it is very Fantasy 101. There are a lot of tropes here, and just too much jammed into one plot. Dead parents, evil rulers, tough young girl, forbidden romance, mystery, magic ... like, dial it back a little, and focus on making a better book rather than a more complicated one. The magic elements seemed so out of place to me, and the romance was wholly unnecessary (and boring).
I did appreciate that Britta was allowed to be both a tough fighter who can take care of herself, but also to have emotions and to show them. Often we only get one or the other in female YA protagonists, so it was nice to see a character that felt a little more real in that way. But otherwise, this was mostly forgettable.
⭐⭐
3. I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
This is an adult thriller which does something a little different that I really liked: Rather than the twist (because there's always a twist) coming near the end of the book, it actually comes about halfway through, and we then get a story that is quite different than what we thought we were reading. It was sort of Sixth Sense type moment, where I went, "But wait, what about ... and there was also ..." — but you go back and realize that, no, the author actually wove the first half of the story in a way where you couldn't see the hints at first, but once you know the real story, they become apparent.
So I totally dug that, and I also appreciated that while the twist would seem to make our sympathetic protagonist turn into a villain of sorts, it's a lot more complicated than that, and you still find yourself on her side. A scared and desperate woman, a dead child, and a really big secret ... it might not sound original, but the execution is great, and the feeling it left me with stayed for a long time.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4. This Side of Home by Renée Watson
This young adult contemporary novel touches on some serious and important topics, which don't often find their way in teen books: the intersection of race and class, gentrification, how society tries to shape our identity. I did appreciate this book for its portrayal of the Black female experience told through the eyes of girls who are still learning who they are, let alone who the world thinks they are. And the main character, Maya, does grab your heart pretty easily.
But overall, this was another one that fell short for me. The teens at times act quite young and seem somewhat formulaic, and then at other times are speaking in textbook-sounding speeches. There were a number of scenes that felt so forced — a whole lot of telling rather than natural showing. And I just wish it had gone a little bit deeper into those crucial topics it discussed. It almost felt closer to middle-grade, even though the main characters are around 17 or 18 years old.
⭐⭐
5. Island of a Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera
I labeled this one as historical fiction, though that may not be quite accurate ... but it's also not a regular contemporary novel, either. It's a saga told over many years of the violent upheavals in Sri Lanka, and how the turmoil affects two girls and draws them into its dangerous vortex.
I really enjoyed this — the writing is gorgeous, the imagery is powerful, and I came to care so much for the characters, even ones who end up on quite a dark and violent path. You don't agree with the choices they make, but the author helps you understand at least a little why they make them, how their lot in life led them to do unthinkable things.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
6. Heartless by Marissa Meyer
Oh, man. This was my single 5-star read this month, and I LOVED it. I'd never read anything by Meyer (though I do have another of hers on my TBR shelves) and I'd heard somewhat mixed things about this book. Not exactly "people either love it or hate it" but more like "people either love it or are kinda 'meh' about it." Well, I thought it was fucking great. In this story, you're following the Queen of Hearts as a teen girl, when she was just a princess who dreamed not of becoming a queen but of opening a bakery with her maid/friend. I thought Meyer created such a terrific world and cast of characters, using the source material well but not overdoing it. There was plenty here that was her own creation, and it was really brilliant.
I know some people said they didn't enjoy this because they thought it didn't make sense that this sweet, kind-hearted girl would grow up to be the super angerpants, horrible woman we all know from the films. But I actually thought the book did a superb job of showing how that happened. Yes, in the beginning, Cath is nothing at all like the caricature we know of her later years. But as the book goes on, and as she is treated so poorly and had her dreams stomped on, her life determined for her by others, you see over time how she morphs into a darker, angrier young woman. It read very true to me, and the writing was also whimsical and funny and enchanting — just how it should be for a story based on Wonderland!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
7. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
So, my apartment is nice and all, but damn, reading the descriptions of homes in this book made me hate rich people. (Not really ... but kind of.) Other than that, I liked this okay but didn't love it, and felt like there was potential for this book to have been a lot stronger. We follow a Chinese American woman who goes to visit her boyfriend's family in Singapore and discovers that he and his circles are, as the title suggest, crazy rich. The plot basically centers around her entering this totally alien world and trying to learn its customs, while the families around her engage in a whole lot of gossiping, sniping, plotting, and also being really fucking rich.
I liked our main characters, Rachel and Nicholas, and a few of the others, and I really liked Kwan's sharp insight into the uber-wealthy society and all of its drawbacks. But there were just so many damn characters, and we spent too much time with people who were just not interesting to me. The chapters switch perspectives, and some of them I just didn't care about. Plus, after a while, the 2-3 page descriptions of fancy houses or cars or whatnot just got boring. Like, okay, we get it. Crazy rich. So I liked a good portion of this, but it suffered from others. Not totally sure if I'll continue with the series, will have to see what others say about the second book.
⭐⭐⭐
8. Sister by Rosamund Lupton
I have absolutely no idea how or where I heard of this book. It had been on my TBR for a long time, I don't think I've ever seen a single person on Booktube mention it ... so who knows. And this is one of those books where I didn't hate it or anything, but I certainly could have skipped it and not really missed anything. It's sort of a thriller? Kind of? About a woman, Bee, who hears that her younger sister Tess has gone missing and comes home to try to find her, and we soon discover that she's actually been killed. Bee tries to take on the investigation because the police and others are convinced her sister committed suicide, and Bee is adamant that she didn't.
The story is told in an interesting way — essentially, Bee is writing the novel as a letter to Tess, telling her about the experience of learning of her disappearance, her death, and working with the police and so on. And the narrative jumps from Bee telling her story to the lead investigator back into the actual events she's relating. (It's less messy than it sounds.) And the twist near the end was an interesting one, not a huge surprise but also not something I predicted. But again, it was just ... OK. Not terrible, not great, not one I'm probably going to think much about or specifically recommend.
⭐⭐⭐
9. Hunted by Meagan Spooner
I was put off by this one when I first heard of it, because I'm hesitant with all the retellings that have come out in YA in recent years. But this, like with Heartless (though not as strongly as that one), did quite well in using the source material without relying on it more than on the author's own creativity. This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but is markedly different from the story we know, which would be the Disney animated film for most of us.
It's darker and much more ... serious? Heavy? Something like that. Yeva, aka Beauty, does indeed have the power to save the Beast, but that involves something much more than just loving him and thus turning him back into a TigerBeat coverboy. I liked Yeva a lot and appreciated her cunning and determination, and I thought Spooner did a good job with infusing magic into the story without it seeming silly or out of place. Also, this book made me want to learn archery, but there's no way my atrophied muscles could manipulate a bow.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
10. The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
I was excited to pick this one up, even though short story collections can be so hit or miss for me. I loved Marra's novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, so that gave me a little more hope for this one. And overall I did like it a good deal — his writing is brilliant just on a technical level. I love the way he thinks to phrase things and the dry humor he works in. Plus, these stories were somewhat interlinked, and I always appreciate that because it avoids the jarring feeling I often get from hopping from story to story.
A few of the stories were not quite so interesting to me as others, and were a little too slow. But overall, as we follow the story from the Soviet Union in the 1930s up to almost present-day Eastern Europe, the darkness of Siberia and Chechnya, and of authoritarianism and the inherited damage of political oppression, I did really enjoy the world and the saga the author created.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
DNF: The Reader by Traci Chee
Ugh, I'm so bummed about this one. It sounded so promising, but I got about halfway through and realized I was just ... bored and annoyed.
So, in this book, in the world in which it's set, there are no books. No one reads. In fact, there is no written language or even the concept of a written language. That right there was so hard for me to suspend disbelief enough to accept. This is not some super long ago primitive time. They have guns and ships and buildings and such. How could the people never have invented a written language? Is it only this portion of the world that lacks one, or all the other lands as well? If other lands do have writing, how would this society never have come into contact with it? How did things like laws and deeds, bills of sale, trading of goods, and so much else even get done without ever writing anything down? I felt like that whole central element was itself a huge plot hole.
And when our main character Sefia opens the strange item her parents left for her — a book — at first she sees the letters inside as just odd markings. But then she eventually figures out that they are representations of language and teaches herself to read. But how?? If she has absolutely no framework to start from, no alphabet, no concept of the idea of putting spoken words into written characters, then how would she know how to pronounce any of the letters or combinations of letters? The first phrase she susses out is "This is a book." But how, for example, would she know how to pronounce the "th" sound? I just could not get myself to let go of how little sense any of this made, even in the context of a fantasy novel.
Plus, I was just mostly bored. Not much really happened even when I was 200 pages into the book, and all we know is there are scary bad people who want the book Sefia has and she's trying to get away from them. That's not enough for me.
🚫
So, that was my January in books! Have you read any of these? What was your favorite book you read in January? Were there any surprises, either good or bad? Do tell!
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