Today’s post covers the second half of the books I read in January 2023. Because of a few books I did not finish, I started out with less books read at the beginning of the month, which I shared here. I ended up reading a lot of books I loved, which I shared here. In the end, I read a normal amount this month for me! (If you’re new here, yes, I know I read a lot). The Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. If you’ve read any of these books or are interested in them, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Title: When In Rome
Author: Sarah Adams
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Dell, 9/20/22
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review / Buddy Read
My Rating: 4 Stars
While you might be misled to think this takes place in Rome, Italy, it actually takes place in Rome, KY, where singer Amelia goes to escape the pressures of being famous. This small town is home to Noah and the bakery he owns, as well as his sisters, who he is very close to.
“Amelia Rose, known as Rae Rose to her adoring fans, is burned-out from years of maintaining her ‘princess of pop’ image. Inspired by her favorite Audrey Hepburn film, Roman Holiday, she drives off in the middle of the night for a break in Rome . . . Rome, Kentucky, that is. When Noah Walker finds Amelia on his front lawn in her broken-down car, he makes it clear he doesn’t have the time or patience for celebrity problems. He’s too busy running the pie shop his grandmother left him and reminding his nosy but lovable neighbors to mind their own damn business. Despite his better judgment, he lets her stay in his guest room—but only until her car is fixed—then she’s on her own. Then Noah starts to see a different side of Rae Rose—she’s Amelia: kindhearted and goofy, yet lonely from years in the public eye. He can’t help but get close to her. Soon she’ll have to return to her glamorous life on tour, but until then, Noah will show Amelia all the charming small-town experiences she’s been missing, and she’ll help him open his heart to more. Amelia can’t resist falling for the cozy town and her grumpy tour guide, but even Audrey had to leave Rome eventually.”
This opposites attract and slow burn romance was fun, if not memorable.
Title: White Elephant
Author: Julie Langsdorf
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Harper Audio, 3/26/19
Source: Giveaway win / Library Audio
Why I Read It: Was waiting on my shelf
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded up to 4)
I won this book in a giveaway and never got around to reading it. It is about a neighborhood full of drama, mainly focusing on 3 couples and their respective children. It was hard to keep straight who went with which family!
“The white elephant looms large over the town of Willard Park: a newly-constructed behemoth of a home, it towers over the quaint houses, including Allison and Ted Millers’ tiny hundred year old home. When owner Nick Cox cuts down the Millers’ precious red maple—in an effort to make his unsightly property more appealing to buyers—their once serene town becomes a battleground. While tensions between Ted and Nick escalate, other dysfunctions abound: Allison finds herself compulsively drawn to the man who threatens to upend her quietly organized life. A lawyer with a pot habit and a serious mid-life crisis skirts his responsibilities. And in a quest for popularity, a teenage girl gets caught up in a not-so-harmless prank. Newcomers and longtime residents alike clash in conflicting pursuits of the American Dream, with trees mysteriously uprooted, fingers pointed, and lines drawn.”
This book was pretty character driven and good for those who like neighborhood dramas. It does include infidelity.
Title: Figure It Out, Henri Weldon
Author: Tanita S. Davis
Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books, 1/17/23
Source: Storygram Book Tours
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
Figure It Out, Henri Weldon by Tanita S Davis is about Henri, who struggles with math. Switching to a new school and making new friends causes a rift between Henri and her older sister, and their relationship is a large part of the story. Apart from math tutoring, Henri also has a pet snake, finds she enjoys poetry, and wants to join the soccer team. She gets very busy, but she can figure it out!
“Seventh grader Henrietta Weldon gets to switch schools—finally! She’ll be ‘mainstreaming’ into public school, leaving her special education school behind. She can’t wait for her new schedule, new friends, and new classes. Henri’s dyscalculia, a learning disability that makes math challenging to process and understand, is what she expects to give her problems. What she doesn’t expect is a family feud with her sister over her new friends, joining the girls’ soccer team, and discovering poetry. Henri’s tutor and new friend, Vinnie, reminds her to take it slow. One problem at a time. If Henri Weldon has twenty-four hours in a day, and she has two siblings who dislike her four new friends, two hours of soccer practice, seven hours of classes, and three hours of homework . . . she has:
A. No free time
B. No idea how to make everyone happy
C. No time to figure it out, Henri Weldon!”
While the description mentions mainstreaming and dyscalculia, those topics were not specifically mentioned in the text. I loved this affirmation from Henri’s teacher: “You are not bad at math; math concepts are simply a challenge for your brain to process and understand.”
Title: The Girls Who Disappeared
Author: Claire Douglas
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 1/10/23
Source: TLC Book Tours
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
This book is about Olivia, who was in a car crash 20 years ago. There were three friends with her at the time and they disappeared. Jenna is doing a podcast about the case and Olivia may finally get answers.
“A car accident. Three missing girls. A twenty-year mystery. A woman on the verge of discovering the truth . . .In a rural Wilshire town lies the Devil’s Corridor—a haunted road which has witnessed eerie happenings, from unexplained deaths to the sounds of a child crying in the night. In this bucolic stretch of Southwest England famous for its otherworldly sites, nothing is more puzzling than the Olivia Rutherford case. Four girls were driving home. After their car crashed only one—Olivia—was found. What happened to the girls who disappeared? On the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy, journalist Jenna Halliday has arrived in Wiltshire to cover the case. The locals aren’t happy with this outsider determined to dig into the past. Least of all Olivia. Soon, Jenna starts receiving menacing notes. The locals have made it clear she’s not welcome. But someone is going to make her leave one way or another. Jenna’s been warned: she must get out of this town before she suffers a dark fate . . . and becomes another mystery attached to this place.”
There are segments of the story that take place in Thailand and at first you didn’t know how those tie in. When they do, it all makes sense! Once everything seemed wrapped up, the reveals kept coming!
Title: Sun Keep Rising
Author: Kristen R. Lee
Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Crown Books For Young Readers, 1/24/23
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded up to 4)
This was the story of B’onca, a young mom who has been accepted into college but isn’t sure how she can go while her family is struggling to pay bills and their home is at risk.
“B’onca always knew how to get by. And then her daughter is born. She wouldn’t trade Mia for anything, but there is never enough cash to go around. When their gentrifying Memphis neighborhood results in higher prices and then an eviction notice, B’onca’s already fragile world spirals. Desperate to make things right, B’onca forges a risky plan to help pay the bills. But one wrong move could cost B’onca—and her family—everything.”
This book is about poverty, gentrification, and the difficulties faced by young parents needing to work to survive. I felt for B’onca and her sister and what they had to go through just to live. Ultimately, the story is about community and the support they had for one another, but there were some loose ends and no real resolution, which made me wish the book had been longer – it is short enough to read in a day.
Title: We Are Called To Rise
Author: Laura McBride
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio, 4/28/15
Source: Little Free Library / Library Audio
Why I Read It: Was waiting on my shelf
My Rating: 4 Stars
I found this book in a Little Free Library quite awhile ago and in my quest to read the oldest books on my shelf, I listened to the audio of this one. It was a book with 4 main narrators with intertwining stories – Bashkim, an 8 year old who writes to Luis, a soldier, Avis, a mom of another soldier who returns with PTSD symptoms, and Regina, who volunteers helping children who have issues at home.
“Avis thought her marriage had hit a temporary rut. But with a single confession in the middle of the night, her carefully constructed life comes undone. After escaping a tumultuous childhood and raising a son, she now faces a future without the security of the home and family she has spent decades building. Luis only wants to make the grandmother who raised him proud. As a soldier, he was on his way to being the man she taught him to be until he woke up in Walter Reed Hospital with vague and troubling memories of how he got there. Now he must find a new way to live a life of honor. Every day, young Bashkim looks forward to the quiet order of school and the kind instruction of his third grade teacher. His family relocated to Las Vegas after fleeing political persecution in their homeland. Now their ice cream truck provides just enough extra income to keep them afloat. With his family under constant stress, Bashkim opens his heart to his pen pal, a US soldier.”
There is an incident that ties the stories together and it is a difficult one. I thought the end of the story wrapped up in a way that may have been too easy, but at the same time I didn’t think it finished one of the story lines. I liked the narration, but thought the voice for Bashkim sounded too old!
Title: How To Be a (Young) Antiracist
Author: Ibram X. Kendi & Nic Stone
Genre: Non Fiction
Publisher: Kokila, 1/31/23
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
This book was basically a recap of How To Be An Antiracist, but summarized for younger readers. In what I thought was an interesting choice, the book is written as if Nic, the narrator, is telling Kendi his life story. He is addressed as “you” and at first I was confused – was he addressing himself? Was the “you” meant to be the audience? I wasn’t sure if this style helped the book to be more understandable for young readers. For me, a recap of How To Be an Antiracist wasn’t a bad thing!
“The New York Times bestseller How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi is shaping the way a generation thinks about race and racism. How to be a (Young) Antiracist is a dynamic reframing of the concepts shared in the adult book, with young adulthood front and center. Aimed at readers 12 and up, and co-authored by award-winning children’s book author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist empowers teen readers to help create a more just society. Antiracism is a journey–and now young adults will have a map to carve their own path. Kendi and Stone have revised this work to provide anecdotes and data that speaks directly to the experiences and concerns of younger readers, encouraging them to think critically and build a more equitable world in doing so.”
In this book, Kendi reflects on a speech he made while in high school and how that speech reinforced racist beliefs. At the end of the book, suggestions are made as to what he could have said differently to change his speech to acknowledge that what he was saying was were racist ideas and not truths. I think this book and his other books make can make you acknowledge times you upheld racist beliefs and think about what you could have done differently.
Title: The Year We Turned Forty
Author: Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Dreamscape Audio, 4/26/16
Source: Bought / Library Audio
Why I Read It: Waiting on my shelf
My Rating: 4 Stars
This was another book that I have owned for years and decided to listen to. It was about a group of 3 friends who are turning 50 and are sent back in time to the year they turned 40. They each have things they hope to change – Jessie had a baby with another man and her husband left her so this time she wants him to stay with her. Gabriela wants to convince her husband to have a baby. And Claire wants to fix her relationship with her daughter, plus get her mother cancer treatment sooner.
“Jessie loves her son Lucas more than anything, but it tears her up inside that he was conceived in an affair that ended her marriage to a man she still loves, a man who just told her he’s getting remarried. This time around, she’s determined to bury the secret of Lucas’ paternity, and to repair the fissures that sent her wandering the first time. Gabriela regrets that she wasted her most fertile years in hot pursuit of a publishing career. Yes, she’s one of the biggest authors in the world, but maybe what she really wanted to create was a family. With a chance to do it again, she’s focused on convincing her husband, Colin, to give her the baby she desires. Claire is the only one who has made peace with her past: her twenty-two year old daughter, Emily, is finally on track after the turmoil of adolescence, and she’s recently gotten engaged, with the two carat diamond on her finger to prove it. But if she’s being honest, Claire still fantasizes about her own missed opportunities: a chance to bond with her mother before it was too late, and the possibility of preventing her daughter from years of anguish. Plus, there’s the man who got away—the man who may have been her one true love. But it doesn’t take long for all three women to learn that re-living a life and making different decisions only leads to new problems and consequences—and that the mistakes they made may, in fact, have been the best choices of all…”
It was interesting to see the growth that each of the women experienced with their repeated year. Throughout that year, they had to all decide whether they wanted to continue this altered version of their lives or jump back to being 50. It couldn’t have been an easy choice!
Title: The Circus Train
Author: Amita Parikh
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins, 12/6/22
Source: Book of the Month
Why I Read It: Waiting on my shelf
My Rating: 4 Stars
The Circus Train takes place before, during, and after World War II and features a group of performers from a circus train. The main character, Lena, had Polio as a baby and uses a wheelchair. Her father, Theo raises her and a boy they find on the train, Alexandre.
“1938. Lena Papadopoulos has never quite found her place within the circus, even as the daughter of the extraordinary headlining illusionist, Theo. Brilliant and curious, Lena—who uses a wheelchair after a childhood bout with polio—yearns for the real-world magic of science and medicine, her mind stronger than the limitations placed on her by society. Then her unconventional life takes an exciting turn when she rescues Alexandre, an orphan with his own secrets and a mysterious past. As World War II escalates around them, their friendship blossoms into something deeper while Alexandre trains as the illusionist’s apprentice. But when Theo and Alexandre are arrested and made to perform in a town for Jews set up by the Nazis, Lena is separated from everything she knows. Forced to make her own way, Lena must confront her doubts and dare to believe in the impossible—herself.”
Part of the story takes place at Theresienstadt, which was not a place I knew much about previously. I found the story somewhat long and thought it dragged towards the end. One thing that I wondered was why the Nazis didn’t want to capture Lena as well, as she had a disability. That question was not answered for me. All in all, it was somewhat interesting and a unique choice of a setting for a book to take place.
Title: Behind The Scenes
Author: Karelia Stetz-Waters
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Forever, 1/31/23
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
A last minute 5 star read this month that didn’t make it to the favorites post! I was so excited to received this book because I loved her previous one, Satisfaction Guaranteed. And I loved this one too! This was a sweet love story that includes a couple that actually communicates! Rose is a business consultant (and an ASMR actor) with 3 sisters and 2 pugs. She is hired to help Ash with a film pitch and while the two have a quick attraction, there is a slow build up due to their care and concern for each other.
“Business consultant Rose Josten might not have officially reached ‘pug lady’ middle age, but she’s already got the pugs—along with their little Gucci coats and trash-lovin’ appetites. Still, life is good, with her work, her sisters, and a secret hobby creating incredibly tactile (if surprisingly sexy) mindfulness videos. So why does it feel like it’s not quite enough? Which is exactly when former filmmaker Ash Stewart enters camera left, and Rose’s world suddenly goes full technicolor . . .Ash never looks at anyone. Not since her ex ripped her heart from her chest in Spielberg-esque style, crushing Ash’s reputation, dreams, and directorial career in one brutal blow. But Rose is altogether different. She’s curvy, beautiful, and just so damn put together. And her business expertise might be Ash’s best bet for getting her last film—and her last chance—financed. Now if they can just keep their attraction under wraps, Ash’s lost dream could finally come true. But are they creating movie magic . . . or setting the stage for disaster?”
I loved that this book included sexual dysfunction, as I don’t think that has been in many other rom coms I’ve read. It also included PTSD, a car accident, a bad ex, and parental loss.
Title: Sorry, Bro
Author: Taleen Voskuni
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Berkley, 1/31/23
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
This rom com took a look at Armenian culture and how bisexuality is received in the community. It is about Nareh, who is dealing with a jerky boyfriend. Her mother convinces her to go to some Armenian cultural events to meet men, but she ends up connecting with Erebuni, one of the organizers of the events.
“When Nareh Bedrossian’s non-Armenian boyfriend gets down on one knee and proposes to her in front of a room full of drunk San Francisco tech boys, she realizes it’s time to find someone who shares her idea of romance. Enter her mother: armed with plenty of mom-guilt and a spreadsheet of Facebook-stalked Armenian men, she convinces Nar to attend Explore Armenia, a month-long series of events in the city. But it’s not the mom-approved playboy doctor or the wealthy engineer who catch Nar’s eye—it’s Erebuni, a woman as immersed in the witchy arts as she is in preserving Armenian identity. Suddenly, with Erebuni as her wingwoman, the events feel like far less of a chore, and much more of an adventure. Who knew cooking up kuftes together could be so . . . sexy? Erebuni helps Nar see the beauty of their shared culture and makes her feel understood in a way she never has before. But there’s one teeny problem: Nar’s not exactly out as bisexual. The clock is ticking on her double life—the Explore Armenia closing banquet is coming up, and her entire extended family will be there, along with Erebuni. Her worlds will inevitably collide, but Nar is determined to be brave and to claim her happiness: proudly Armenian, proudly bisexual, and proudly herself for the first time in her life.”
I really liked learning about Armenian culture, including about the Armenian genocide and how it effects the community today. I enjoyed the relationship between Nareh and Erebuni as well. This was a closed door romance.
There you have it, the rest of my January reading! This post included 11 of the books I read in January. Of these books, 9 were print and 2 were audio books. Genres included rom com, contemporary, thriller, non fiction, and historical fiction. 2 were YA and 1 was middle grade.
Have you read any of these books or do you want to? What have you been reading lately?