Hello hello! I hope you had a good start to 2022. This month for me included a ton of arcs, some ups and downs, and a ton of reflection – let’s get into it!

January in General

January was a bit of a weird month for me! I did end up getting covid, and while it was thankfully a milder infection for me, I’ve felt pretty off since then. More brain fog, a whole lot more anxiety, and more fatigue, mainly – which can be a bit frustrating when you’re trying to get caught up! I’m not sure how long it’ll last, but in the meantime, I’m just doing my best to pace myself and make sure I’m not putting my health on the backburner.

But on a much more positive note, I learned this month that I’ll be staying at Barnes & Noble as a bookseller now that my seasonal term is over. After five years of working remotely, working there has been such a positive example of everything I’ve been missing cooped up in my office. And the fact that I can continue my work from home job while remaining there feels like the best thing ever.

And with that, I’ve decided to launch a new review series on the blog, called “Selling Books to a Bookseller.” It’s a series where I read and review books that customers and other booksellers recommend to me. They’ll feature books that either wasn’t really on my radar as well as books that are incredibly hyped that I don’t typically read. I Look forward to sharing what books readers in my area are raving about – and hope I agree!

I also successfully did not buy books this month- who am I? I think I’m going back to the “buy one book for every five read” model since that kind of ban worked well before I cut myself off completely. But in terms of what I actually read this month, it was an interesting mix of surprises, disappointments, and everything in-between! Here’s what I ended up reading this month:

January In Stats

BOOKS BREAKDOWN

January In Books

The Monarchs
Kass Morgan & Danielle Paige
⭐⭐.25

Goodreads | Bookshop

In this thrilling conclusion to New York Times best-selling authors Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige’s The Ravens, the sorority witches are tested when a rival threatens to usurp their place on campus and the forces of hell come knocking on their door.

The sorority girls at Kappa Rho Nu—the Ravens—are determined to restore balance to the world. After destroying an ancient talisman and barely saving their sorority in the process, they’ll go to any lengths to keep their secret as Westerly’s most powerful coven of witches.

Scarlett Winter, a legacy Raven, has finally gotten what she’s always wanted: the Kappa Rho Nu presidency. After the disaster that killed the sorority’s last president, Scarlett is determined that no sister will fall under the sway of wicked magic ever again. But the powers of the presidency have their own pitfalls—and Scarlett has big shoes to fill.

Vivi Devereaux, a freshman, finally knows what it feels like to belong. For the first time ever, she’s got it all: her Kappa Rho Nu sisters and a sweet (and hot) boyfriend. When Scarlett assigns Vivi the coveted role of social chair, Vivi is determined to live up to her Big’s expectations—even if that means dabbling in a new form of magic.

Unbeknownst to the Ravens, new rivals and ancient evils lurk on Westerly’s campus. With Kappa Rho Nu’s future on their shoulders and their pasts still haunting them, will Scarlett and Vivi be able to save their sisterhood once again? 

Sadly I did not enjoy the sequel as much! There was so much miscommunication going on to the point of really bad decisions being made, and I didn’t love the characters as much as I did in the first book.

Mental Resilience
Kamal Sarma
⭐⭐⭐.5

Goodreads | Bookshop

Do you frequently feel stressed, overwhelmed, depressed, anxious? Do your thoughts sometimes have too much control over you? What if you could focus your mind and find peace in any situation?

We all face challenges—complex decisions, difficult personalities, constant demands on our time—but we don’t have to be at their mercy. By developing the skills outlined in this book, which create what author Kamal Sarma calls mental resilience, we become able to meet these challenges with clarity. Both warriors and monks have for centuries made training their minds, developing mental resilience, a key priority. Through this training, they are able to silence incessant mental chatter and live a life of awareness, peace, and focus. Kamal draws upon his roles as a former student of Eastern spiritual practices and a successful Western corporate advisor to present a step-by-step guide to developing mental resilience. Through a progressive program, Kamal provides models and metaphors that help you clear your mind of repetitive, unhelpful thoughts and improve your ability to make decisions. Learn how to reduce stress, maintain clarity in any situation, and discover an abiding calm within. The book includes links to audio downloads that clearly guide readers through with Mental Resilience Training Techniques.

I’m familiar with meditation and used to practice it every now and then, but this book put into perspective for me how beneficial it is.  Plus, I found better strategies for meditation from this book.

Anatomy: A Love Story
Dana Schwartz
⭐⭐⭐.5

Goodreads | Bookshop

A gothic tale full of mystery and romance about a willful female surgeon, a resurrection man who sells bodies for a living, and the buried secrets they must uncover together.

Edinburgh, 1817.

Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.

Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.

When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.

Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.

But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.

This was a really interesting book conceptually, and the ending was one that I didn’t expect – but ultimately appreciated! The one thing that I would have liked was more dimensional chemistry between the characters, as the title is a bit misleading – but still a good book overall. 

Effortless
Greg McKeown
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Bookshop

The New York Times bestselling author of Essentialism takes on the holy grail of human performance: How can we make it easier to get the right things done?

Is there a goal you want to make progress on, if only you had the energy? Do you assume that anything worth doing must take tremendous effort? Have you ever abandoned a hard but important activity for an easy but trivial one? Are you often overwhelmed by the complexity that’s expanding everywhere?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you might be making life much harder for yourself than it needs to be.

In the New York Times bestseller Essentialism, Greg McKeown urged readers to eliminate nonessential activities and focus on the few that truly matter. He’s since talked with thousands of readers about the challenges they face in putting those ideas into practice. The problem, he’s found, is that the complexity of modern life has created a false dichotomy between things that are “essential and hard,” and things that are “easy and trivial.” But what if the trivial tasks became harder and the essential ones became easier? If the important projects became enjoyable, while the trivial distractions lost their appeal entirely?

In Effortless, McKeown offers proven strategies for making the most important activities the easiest ones. For example:
– Streamline your process by mapping out the minimum number of steps.
– Prevent problems later by solving them before they happen.
– Let Go of perfectionism by finding the “courage to be rubbish.”
– Accelerate your learning by leveraging the best of what others know.

By making the toughest tasks just a little bit easier, we can accomplish more of what matters, without burning out.

This was a really helpful guide to how to tackle difficult tasks without wasting too much effort. There were a lot of great action steps that I’ve been incorporating into my work which has really helped me become more efficient! 

Icebreaker
A.L. Graziadei
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Bookshop

A. L. Graziadei’s Icebreaker is an irresistible YA debut about two hockey players fighting to be the best—and the romance that catches them by surprise along the way.

Seventeen-year-old Mickey James III is a college freshman, a brother to five sisters, and a hockey legacy. With a father and a grandfather who have gone down in NHL history, Mickey is almost guaranteed the league’s top draft spot.

The only person standing in his way is Jaysen Caulfield, a contender for the #1 spot and Mickey’s infuriating (and infuriatingly attractive) teammate. When rivalry turns to something more, Mickey will have to decide what he really wants, and what he’s willing to risk for it.

This is a story about falling in love, finding your team (on and off the ice), and choosing your own path.

Although I don’t know much about hockey and don’t read romances often, I really enjoyed this book. Every character, including the side characters, was so incredibly well-developed, and the conversations they had felt so genuine. The conversations on mental health especially were so strong in this book. This was an excellent debut!

The Red Palace
June Hur
⭐⭐⭐.5

Goodreads | Bookshop

Joseon (Korea), 1758. There are few options available to illegitimate daughters in the capital city, but through hard work and study, eighteen-year-old Hyeon has earned a position as a palace nurse. All she wants is to keep her head down, do a good job, and perhaps finally win her estranged father’s approval.

But Hyeon is suddenly thrust into the dark and dangerous world of court politics when someone murders four women in a single night, and the prime suspect is Hyeon’s closest friend and mentor. Determined to prove her beloved teacher’s innocence, Hyeon launches her own secret investigation.

In her hunt for the truth, she encounters Eojin, a young police inspector also searching for the killer. When evidence begins to point to the Crown Prince himself as the murderer, Hyeon and Eojin must work together to search the darkest corners of the palace to uncover the deadly secrets behind the bloodshed.

June Hur, critically acclaimed author of The Silence of Bones and The Forest of Stolen Girls, returns with The Red Palace—a third evocative, atmospheric historical mystery perfect for fans of Courtney Summers and Kerri Maniscalco.

I haven’t read Hur’s work previously but would like to read more after this book. This historical mystery sets the stage so well and the research done behind this is so evident. My only wish was for a little more behind the main character’s backstory, but the other storytelling elements really made up for this.

The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
⭐⭐⭐.75

Goodreads | Bookshop

A tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that, despite its profound flaws, gave the author the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn’t stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an “excitement addict.” Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.

Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town — and the family — Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents’ betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.

What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. Now she tells her own story.

I’m glad to have finally read this memoir. Wall’s story is absolutely shocking, and despite this, she is still able to share some of the good in what was a rough childhood, to say the least. I do wish we had more reflection from Walls on how she was impacted by her upbringing, but overall this was a very well-written memoir.

The Witch’s Heart
Genevieve Gornichec
⭐⭐.25

Goodreads | Bookshop

When a banished witch falls in love with the legendary trickster Loki, she risks the wrath of the gods in this moving, subversive debut novel that reimagines Norse mythology.

Angrboda’s story begins where most witches’ tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.

Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, who Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin’s all-seeing eye. But as Angrboda slowly recovers her prophetic powers, she learns that her blissful life—and possibly all of existence—is in danger.

With help from the fierce huntress Skadi, with whom she shares a growing bond, Angrboda must choose whether she’ll accept the fate that she’s foreseen for her beloved family…or rise to remake their future. From the most ancient of tales this novel forges a story of love, loss, and hope for the modern age.

I wish I had liked this one so much more, but I could not get past the writing. While it picked up in the second half, the first half was very slow. Plus, I felt like the modernized dialogue was distracting compared to the setting, and the frequency of dialogue just made the characters fall flat for me.

February Hopefuls

I have fewer ARCs to read this month so this month it looks like I’ll be picking from my physical TBR more! I mostly just feel like picking books as I go at the moment, but I’m leaning more towards these books:

That’s all for my January 2022 Wrapup. How did your month go this January? What were your favorite reads? Let me know! I’d love to know if you’ve read any of these as well and what your thoughts were!

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