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It’s difficult to believe, but January is already in the books. (Pun intended!) As promised in my 2018 goals, I’m going to be playing with a different format for my monthly wrap ups, giving a very short overview of what I’ve read and a little longer look at what I’ve been most impressed with from other blogs throughout the month. So, onward!
{My January, Books & Blog}
The Cream of the Crop
Books I enjoyed the most…
- Brass by Xhenet Aliu – A beautiful mother/daughter coming-of-age debut. (my review)
- American Radical by Tamer Elnoury – Thrilling account of an undercover Muslim FBI agent. (my review)
- Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee – Story of two sisters and the mental illness that defines their lives. (my review)
- Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan – Life lessons told through funny stories, touching moments, and heartbreaking losses (discussion post)
A Cut Above
Great stories with minor flaws…
- Need to Know by Karen Cleveland – A CIA analyst discovers her husband is a Russian spy. (my review)
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones – Can a young marriage survive when the husband is unfairly sent to prison? (review next week)
- The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah – Immersive story of a family in crisis trying to start a new life in the wilds of Alaska. (review next week)
Subpar
Books I wish I’d skipped…
- Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan – Courtroom drama that really wasn’t. (my review)
- The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances – A mom, her son, his wacko girlfriend, and one big lie. (my review)
DNF
- The Newcomers by Helen Thorpe
- Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon
- How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Top Blog Posts
- Technically, Novel Visits Looking Back at 2017 and Forward to 2018 posted on December 31st, but it still saw a tremendous amount of traffic in January. This new format was one of my goals!
- The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn was a book I didn’t particularly love, but lots of people visited my review.
- Happily, the review with the most traffic on the day it published was one of my favorites, Everything Here is Beautiful.
{From the Book Blogging World}
Favorite Reviews
Links take you to these wonderful reviews…
- In December, I listened to The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas with the idea that I was just listening for me, so I chose not to review it. Last month, Catherine from The Gilmore Guide to Books wrote the review I wish I’d done!
- I’m really looking forward to reading Educated by Tara Westover, so was happy to see a great review by Karen at Reading & Eating.
- The Heart’s Invisible Furies was my favorite book last year, so I loved seeing what Ann Marie from Lit Wit Wine Dine had to say about it last week.
- I haven’t yet read Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang, but Renee‘s review on It’s Book Talk makes me think I should.
Fun & Useful Blog Posts
- My new found love of nonfiction has me wanting to encourage others. If you’re new to nonfiction (or even if you’re not), Katie at Doing Dewy has put together a fabulous Beginner’s Guide to Nonfiction.
- I’m also a recent convert to the joys of audiobooks, so enjoyed reading Literary Quicksand‘s Beginner’s Guide to Choosing a Great Audiobook.
- January started out strong for me, but fizzled at the end with three DNF books in a row. The subject of not finishing books was covered on Death by Tsundoku with Embrace the DNF.
- Do you have trouble staying on top of your books? Forget what you’ve read? Can’t recall the name of that next great book? Well, Sarah at Sarah’s Bookshelves has developed The “Rock Your Reading” Tracker that will solve all your problems and generate amazing stats, too. I use it and love it!
- If you haven’t discovered it already, you’re going to want to check out Novels and Nonfiction‘s weekly Links I Love post. Ottavia does an amazing job putting a weekly post on all things bookish from around the web.
- Tara over at Running “N” Reading writes about books, running, and other topics. Tara and I have very similar reading tastes, so I love talking books with her, but her other posts always leave me with a lot to think about. I especially like New Year, Same Me where she talked about getting off the dieting bandwagon and making friends with food.
That’s a wrap! How was your January?
Disclaimer: There are Amazon Associate links contained in this post.
Thanks for the shout out Susie! I picked up Brass at the library so I hope to get to that soon. I noticed you DNFed How to Stop Time, what were your issues with it? I bought that a long time ago but haven’t tried it yet
I just got bored with How to Stop Time. It seemed to be making progress at a very slow pace and I eventually just lost interest. If someone I trust loves it, I might go back, so let me know if you try it.
I’m looking forward to The Great Alone. I loved The Nightingale, so I’m interested to see what Hannah does next, especially since I felt her last book was such a departure for her.
For me it’s not up to the level of The Nightingale, but I enjoyed much of it.
I’m looking forward to your reviews on An American Marriage and The Great Alone. By the way, I am loving this wrap-up format.
Thank you. I’ll have American Marriage up on the 8th and The Great Alone the following week.
Thanks so much for the tracker shout-out!
And I want to read all your top books of this month! Except Tell Me More since I already read and loved it 🙂
And I like your new format!! I’m making some small tweaks to my format as well…coming on Tuesday. Late as usual…can I blame the flu?
Yes, you can blame the flu!
Thanks for including me! I’m honored 🙂 Definitely going to pick The Great Alone for one of BOTM books for February. I’m in for anything Alaska.
Happy to share, Ottavia. I look forward to your Links post every week. The Alaska angle of The Great Alone was actually what I liked most about it.
Even though I had a really good month of reading, I am super jealous of yours – I am so excited to read/finish ALL of your top picks! American Radical is still holding me hostage in the car (no pun intended!) and I think I may try listening to Tell Me More. My library system has ordered Everything Here is Beautiful and I am first in line – yay! Thank you so much for sharing my post; I’m so happy that it resonated with you.
Don’t worry, Tara. My February is making up for the great January! Glad you’re enjoying American Radical and I KNOW you’ll love Tell Me More.
Thanks for the shout out, Susie! Much appreciated!! I did love The Hearts in a way I haven’t loved a book in a very long time. Like you, Renee’s review of Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance made me keen to read that book. I just started it and so far, so good. I’m really hoping to get to Everything Here is beautiful soon as well. I love your new wrap-up format. I need to start doing wrap-ups. I love the idea of highlighting the posts of my fellow book bloggers.
Of course, Ann Marie. I loved your review. Let me know what you think of Beasts. I’m still a little iffy about the sort of magical elements.
Thanks for sharing my nonfiction guide! It seems like you’ve read a lot of great new fiction and nonfiction this month. I’ve been hearing really good things about Tell Me More 🙂
I always pay attention to your nonfiction recs, Katie. Keep it up!
I just started Need to Know … I think I’ll read your review after. It seems quite unbelievable so far …. but I carry on and will see what I think.