Review Round-Up | January 2025

To all the readerly ones – I want to wish you the happiest of new years.

2025 has gotten itself off to quite a start! It’s been a busy one in my neck of the woods: school is back in for the little ones, work has been busy with end of the year to-dos, and we had a solid week of illness in our house as one after another of us succumbed like dominoes to a stomach bug that almost took us out! It’s been busy trying to get caught back up with all the essentials since then and we’re only now feeling back into our normal routines.

Even so, I’m feeling a great energy to 2025 so far. There is potential crackling in the air, and I’m going to try and harness as much of it as I can!

One of the things I’ve been using it for is re-imagining what I want this blog to be. Last summer I revived it as an outlet and a coping mechanism for my passion and creativity. And it’s worked! Now I want to broaden the scope of what this place will look like going forward…

We all know things in the digital age change fast, and nothing is as reliable as we might hope. We’ve seen people build up livelihoods reliant on online platforms that can change their rules on a whim, or disappear altogether, shaking the foundations of countless businesses, small and large.

It’s sad to say, but in the end, the only ones we can rely upon, ultimately, is ourselves.

That means I’m going to focus more of my attention here, on this webpage that I have full control over, and use social media to help drive traffic here for those of you who may be interested in what I have here. If you have happened to stumble into this space, I hope you might consider signing up for email updates. I don’t push out each individual review to my subscribers, only posts like these where you can navigate to whatever recent posts might interest you. I would appreciate that support and I hope to really build a valuable community here of like-minded book lovers.


My Month in Reading

I got a lot of reading done this month! I actually really like the balance I struck between reading arc books (obligations) and knocking some books off of my TBR Challenge list.

My copy of Wind & Truth finally came in, and I spent a good chunk of the month buddy reading it with my pal Naomi. That series is so incredible – if you love good, complex story, I really recommend Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series. It’s a hell of a commitment, but so good it’s almost stupid.

I’ve been doing my best tracking my reading on both goodreads (ol’ faithful) and storygraph (the cool kid on the block). It’s a little difficult balancing all the tracking tools I use (I also use notion for my reading and blog tracking), but it’s been manageable so far. Hopefully it stays top of mind so I can keep it up. I’d really love to have some accurate stats at the end of the year that storygraph provides!

I’ve fallen so far behind on my physical reading journal, I’m considering something drastic to get caught back up with it. I really love the idea of having a place to leave myself some detailed notes about what I read in that format, and I have a wonderful notebook already for it…so I want to make this happen! Hopefully I have some better updates on this front next month!


Book Review Round-Up

5 Stars

Babylonia by Costanza Casati Book Cover
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney Book Cover
I'll Come To You by Rebecca Kauffman Book Review
Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor Book Cover
Still Beating by Jennifer Harmann Book Cover
Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano Book Cover
When Alec Met Evie Jenny Proctor

4 Stars

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez Book Cover
Only in Your Dreams by Ellie Wilde Book Cover
Where the Black Line Ends by Meagan Williamson Book Cover
After Life by Gayle Forman Book Cover
The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes Book Cover
Unloved by Peyton Corinne Book Cover

3 Stars

The Memory Library by Kate Storey Book Cover
All the Water in the World Eiren Caffall
The Lodge Kayla Olson

February TBR

I have most of my reviews written for February already, which means I have a little more freedom in my reading (exactly the place I like to be!). I always have a lot of books I want to read, but lately I’ve been absolutely feral to get some of these knocked off my list. Have you read any of them?

  • The Favorites | Layne Fargo
  • Us Against You | Fredrik Backman
  • Wild Dark Shore | Charlotte McConaghy
  • The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot | Marianne Cronin
  • The DaVinci Code | Dan Brown (reread)
  • The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year | Ally Carter
  • Birding with Benefits | Sarah T. Dubb
  • Hello Beautiful | Ann Napolitano
  • Consider Me | Becka Mack
  • Variation | Rebecca Yarros
  • Famous Last Words | Gillian McAllister
  • Tilda Is Visible | Jane Tara

What About You?

How did January go for your reading life? What do you have on deck?
Start a conversation in the comments!