There is something about the beginning of a brand new year that just gets me really motivated to read more books. And I had an amazing reading month in January! I finished twelve books, which is the most I’ve read in a long time. I’m feeling good about my goals and the books I managed to read, and it was just a pretty good month. At least reading-wise. Everything else has been kind of a disaster, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that’s not going to be the tone for 2023.

Because I have been so busy, almost all of the books I read this month were audiobooks. I do listen to a lot of audiobooks, but this was kind of a new thing for me. I’ve developed a bedtime routine where I listen to an audiobook in bed and play a dumb game on my phone. It’s pretty relaxing. I’ve also been getting back into knitting, which is fun. And perfect for audiobook listening.

Since I have so many books to talk about this month, let’s just dive right in. Here’s what I read in January:

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

This was a pretty good book to start off the year. It’s a memoir about the author’s experience being queer and mixed-race in a largely white, male field. Sabrina Imbler is a science and conservation journalist, and she tells her story in relation to the lives of sea creatures. I love science books, so I really enjoyed that this memoir incorporates so much actual science. It was fascinating learning about the different animals and their lives and histories.

I ended up giving this book four stars. I think it would have been five if I didn’t have a hard time reading some of the sections about the animals. Personally, I don’t do well with animals getting hurt (which is going to come up again in this post). Humans being murdered I can handle. But anything with an animal that isn’t them living their best, cozy little lives? Can’t do it. Still, I did really enjoy this book. I thought this was such a clever way for Sabrina Imbler to write her memoir and I did like reading it.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

I’m a big Celeste Ng fan, so I obviously picked this book up as soon as it came out last year. And then it sat on my shelves for months. I finally decided to pick it up this month because I knew I’d be listening to a lot of audiobooks, and this one is narrated by Lucy Liu. I was also very curious about this story. It’s about a boy named Bird whose mother abandoned him during a time when Asian Americans are being persecuted. He lives with his father, who stresses being American at all cost, because it is dangerous for them not to. One day, Bird gets a message from his mother. It’s a piece of paper filled with drawings of cats and nothing else. He goes on a journey to find out what it means.

I enjoyed the first half of this book a lot. Bird’s quest to find out what happened to his mother and what the hundreds of cats mean was fascinating. I don’t want to give too much away, but I loved the whole cats thing and where that takes us. Honestly, if we got a spinoff book with more of that, I’d buy it right now. But the second half where we get more of Bird’s mother’s story, I didn’t enjoy quite so much. Which surprised me, because I’m not very into YA anymore and I liked the YA part of this book the most. Still really good, and I’m glad I read it. Another four-star read for me.

Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

Last year, I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and really enjoyed it. Ottessa Moshfegh’s books have a weirdness that just works for me. This one is about a woman who finds a note in the woods about a dead body while on a walk with her dog. She begins to speculate about who wrote the note, and who died, and why. And the whole novel is kind of just stream-of-consciousness ramblings from her imagination. And I was fascinated.

Honestly, I think this might have been a five-star read for me. It was definitely hovering around four or five stars… right up until the ending. Which I hated. Bit of a spoiler, but I cannot handle any animal suffering, and I did not like it at all here. I thought it was unnecessary and it kind of ruined the book for me. So bit of a content warning if you want to pick this up. I think I would read more Ottessa Moshfegh, but I need to be better about looking up the content warnings on StoryGraph before I do.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

One thing about me is that if a book gets a lot of hype, I lose interest in reading it. This book got a lot of hype last year. But for some reason, I was still interested in reading it, so I decided to pick it up. I’m so glad I did, because it ended up being my favorite book of the month. It’s about a female scientist in the early 1960s who becomes a single mother. And then ends up getting her own cooking show… where she teaches the science of cooking to housewives.

I’m probably not describing it well, but trust me, it’s amazing. Honestly, I knew I had to read this one when I saw none other than Stanley Tucci talking about it on TikTok. It was such a great mix of things I love: historical fiction, science, feminism. I had so much fun reading this book. Maybe I should start getting over my weird anti-hype thing and actually read some of these books, because I’m sure they’re great. (Just do not try and sell me on Colleen Hoover, because it’s absolutely not happening.)

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

Over the past few years, I have been getting kind of into Korean horror. There’s just something about it that’s so creepy and subtle that I really love. I’ve actually had an ARC of this one since late last year, but never ended up getting around to reading it. But it worked out that I got to read it in the year of the rabbit. Sadly, I didn’t really like this one very much. I have no idea what it was about this book, but I didn’t connect with it at all. The stories were really weird and I wanted to like them. But despite them being horror, I was just kind of bored? Sadly, not my jam.

I am interested in seeing if this author publishes any long fiction, though. Her short story collection didn’t work for me, but maybe a novel might be a different experience.

Liar, Dreamer, Thief by Maria Dong

Now this book, I have complicated feelings about. I finished it pretty early in the month, and I’m still struggling to really describe how I feel about it. It’s about a woman who is broke and estranged from her family… and kind of obsessed with her coworker, Kurt. One night, Katrina sees Kurt on a bridge. And just before he jumps, he makes it clear that it’s all her fault. Obviously, she freaks out and tries to found out exactly what happened.

This book was weird in ways I wasn’t expecting. The main character is dealing with a lot of mental health issues and they manifest in a way that feels very magical realism-y. It took me a while to decide whether or not it was real, or just in her head. We also have a main character who consistently makes the worst decisions, which kind of drives me crazy in books. I didn’t mind it as much as I usually do, it kind of worked with her whole mental health issues, but still not my favorite. Overall, though, this was a solid four-star read for me. It was weird and different and I liked it. I thought it was impressive for a debut novel, and I’m excited to read more from this author.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

This was a book that came out last year and was kind of on my radar, but not at the top of my list. I think I picked it up on a whim – I probably had no idea what I was in the mood for after Liar, Dreamer, Thief. And I don’t know if it was the audiobook or the book itself, but I couldn’t get into it as much as I wanted to. It’s the story about a woman whose wife returns from a catastrophic deep-sea mission and is… different. It honestly kind of gave me Wilder Girls, but for adults. I wasn’t expecting it to be so weird, and I think it took me a minute to adjust.

I feel like this is one of those books I probably should revisit once I’m in a better space to get into it. Or maybe now that I know what happens, I can read it without being distracted by how different it is from what I expected. Still, I did enjoy it quite a bit. Another four-star read for me. January started off very well.

The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow

Then my friend Kat over at Life and Other Disasters messaged me to basically say I needed to read this novella. And it was free on Prime, including the audiobook, so I decided I didn’t really have anything to lose by giving it a shot. I tried to read The Ten Thousand Doors of January a few years ago, but couldn’t really get into it. I also don’t read much YA at all anymore, so Alex E. Harrow wasn’t really an author I was paying much attention to. This one, though, was great.

Like I said, it’s a novella, so I don’t want to give too much away. I also went into it knowing basically nothing about it, and I kind of liked it that way. It’s a dark little fantasy with maybe a little horror mixed in, and it’s so good! Honestly, from what I’ve read, I absolutely prefer Alix E. Harrow’s adult writing. I want more. So good, and it was a nice quick little read.

Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer

I’m pretty proud of myself for not only getting to several of last year’s releases this month, but also a sequel! I don’t want to jinx it, but this never happens. I read Less back in 2018 after it won the Pulitzer Prize. I enjoyed it a lot, but I never thought there would be a sequel. It just didn’t seem like a series kind of book. But I was intrigued when I saw that a sequel was coming out. Not enough to immediately pick it up, but I was curious,

It could be that I read the first book so long ago, but this one felt quite a bit different. The POV was different in a minor way, and it was a tiny bit distracting. I still liked this book though. This character is so fun, and the writing works so well for this story. I don’t really know how to describe it, but it’s just really clever. This was probably more of a three and a half-star read for me, but I rounded up to four.

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

I was clearly in a mood this month because I’ve just been craving a good mystery thriller. This wasn’t it. But it was pretty fun. It’s about a group of sixty-year-old women celebrating their retirement from being contract killers when they find themselves being the targets of the organization they worked for. I didn’t love this book, but it was kind of exactly what I expected it to be, just a fun little romp of a book. I would totally watch this movie.

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano

This is the third book in the Finlay Donovan series, and it was just released earlier this week. I had an early copy, so I read it throughout the month. And I have to say, it’s definitely my least favorite of the three books so far. I gave it three stars, but that’s probably being generous. It was kind of all over the place. If you’re not familiar, the premise of this series is that Finlay, who is a romantic suspense author, is mistaken for a contract killer and things get out of hand.

This series is a little outrageous, but until this point, it’s been in a good way. This one just had so many moments that did not make sense to me. Like, I know I have to suspend my belief a bit for books like these, but this one went a little too far. I was pretty disappointed. I’ll probably still pick up book four next year because I’m hoping we can get back to the level of book one. Either way, I’m kind of hoping the author tries something new after book four because this series seems to be on its last legs.

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

Despite this being the book I finished most recently, I don’t actually remember how I heard about it. But it sounded good (and I was falling behind on my goal of reading 50% by authors of color this year), so I decided to pick it up. It’s about a teenage boy who is badly bullied because of his lazy eye. He connects with a girl in his class who is bullied as well and they form a bond. I think I went into this feeling like it was going to be uplifting, but instead it made me kind of mad.

I was bullied basically all twelve years I was in school (before college), but if the bullying in this book is the norm for Japan, holy crap! Never before have I read a book where I was rooting this hard for the main character to punch someone in the face. And trigger warning if you decide to check this out, there is a pretty traumatic sexual assault scene. In addition to the severe physical bullying. It was hard to read. I didn’t dislike it (I gave it three stars), but I feel like it’s not a book I’d ever recommend, just because of how triggering it could be. I am interested in checking out more of Kawakami’s work, though. If you’ve read her before, what book would you suggest I pick up next?

And that’s it for January! I am very happy with my reading month, and I’m hoping the rest of 2023 keeps up like this!

How was your reading month in January? Did you read any new favorites? What do you think about this new minimal monthly wrap up format?

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