What I Read: January 2022

 It's February! February is my birthday month and the month we usually get a big snowstorm. It's also a short month which I think is a kind of a grace since it makes winter feel a little shorter. 

Speaking of grace, I'm going to need some for the first half of the year. I am reading two really long books that I've been wanting to read for a long time. Infinite Jest, of course, and Bleak House are my slow but steady books. Both should be done around the time the kids are done with school, but slowly chipping away at these behemoth books wrecks my monthly reading count.

Bookstagram posts of people who finished 8+ books in January activate my sense of competition. Reading is not competitive...unless you make it competitive...which then sucks all the joy out of it. I am skilled at this. 

So I'm announcing here and now that I won't apologize for a low number of books read in any given month. I will remember that my reading life is mine, and big books that slow me down are something I really love and not everyone feels the same. And it will all be ok. 

In January I read four books. Here they are:


1. These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I listened to this audiobook over the course of a couple of days post new year with a puzzle and mugs of hot coffee. 

The story centers on a veteran, living like a hermit in the woods with his young daughter. The tension kept me hooked and I had to know what happened to cause Cooper and Finch to live that way and what was going to happen next for their little family. 

It got four stars from me because it kept my attention and I found myself thinking about it when I was not listening to it. 


2. Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A bookstagrammer I really like, @gratefulforgrace, does zoom book clubs each month and this was the book for January. 

Into the Beautiful North is about a rag-tag group of misfits who travel to America in search of brave men who will fight the bandits waging war on their small Mexican village. Despite the horrors they experience crossing the border, this book is hopeful and funny. I loved the characters and style in this book. I will be digging into Urrea's backlist soon.

Four stars for teaching me things I didn't know about crossing the border from Mexico to America, making me laugh, and introducing me to a group of characters I fell in love with.


3. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am sad to say that when my book club suggested this for our January read I tried to dissuade them from picking it. In my defense, I had seen people DNF it and complain about how convoluted, complex, and long it was. Couldn't we please read something quick and easy???

But from the first twenty pages I was hooked. The story travels through time and space and there are a few different plot lines to follow. Doerr is telling a story to honor stories. He does so by showing the power of one story, Cloud Cuckoo Land, a fictional Greek fairy tale, that changes people and through those people, history. 

It sounds like a lot but it reads like an adventure tale that you don't want to put down. I gave it 5 stars for the beautiful writing, the submersive plot, and the truth that moved me. 


4. The Maid by Nita Prose

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Maid showed up on the Book of the Month website and I grabbed it quick after hearing Jamie from The Popcast greenlight it. 

Molly the maid works in a big, fancy hotel. One morning she is cleaning and discovers a body. She becomes entangled in the investigation...hijinx ensue. 

I loved this book more for the community of friends Molly builds up around her and the portrait of someone dealing with grief than for the mystery. It also made me very hungry for Olive Garden. 


What did you read in January?

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