Monday, January 6, 2020

December 2019 Reads


Well, it's time for my last book review for 2019. I love seeing how my year has stacked up and nerdily I want to start keeping different stats going forward. I plan to do a comprehensive post about my 2019 reads soon - I have SO many posts in my head for January, eek! - so any other stat nerds, get excited!

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's finish out 2019! I read 6 books this month bringing my 2019 total to 94 books, 5 of which were re-reads. I don't know if those should or shouldn't count in my totals? I mean I did read them?


The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander - I can only say Holy sh*t about this book. It was eye-opening in a million ways and so thought-provoking. In conjunction with White Fragility I know I need to make changes to my life and how my kids are being raised, and I want to get active in 2020 in anti-racism work. I cannot say enough good things about this book and encourage EVERYONE to read this book. It will change the way you look at race and crime in our country, I promise. I bought both of these books for my dad for Christmas and can't wait to talk about them with him! OR any of you - get reading!


The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - I was gifted this book through a work book exchange in January and because of my dislike of physical books, it took me until the week before another work book exchange to read it. Nevermind that the book itself is probably 10 years old. And I'm kicking myself for taking so long to read it! It follows a couple where the husband inadvertently and against his will time travels. The plot jumps around and goes from the POVs of the husband and wife. The way it was written was fascinating, and I loved every detail of the story so much. It was heart-wrenching, and I never wanted it to end. The last chapter had me feeling all the feels. So so so good!


Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory - I swear everything Jasmine Guillory writes is so fun. This is the 4th book in this loosely-connected series, and I enjoyed it so much. It follows the mother of the main character from The Wedding Party who has a little fling in London over the holidays. It was just as fun and charming as the rest of the books, and I am looking forward to seeing what else she writes.


We are Unprepared by Meg Little Reilly - A little light doomsday reading for right before the holidays is always a good idea, right? Basically a global warming creating super storms concept. It was creepy but not in an overly scary way and I really enjoyed it. It followed a couple as they prepare for a super storm but also how the storms implode their marriage. I read it really quickly - and it was also a PHYSICAL book - my only complaint was I felt like the build-up to the storms was way more of the story than I wanted and the storms themselves were short. I got to the point where I was like 'bring on these storms already!'. 


We Met in December by Rosie Curtis - Cutesy romance set in London? Yes please! I didn't think this was overly cheesy and I flew through it. 2 roommates, Jess and Alex, have instant sparks when they meet but both are in a place where they don't want to date. And in typical rom-com fashion all sorts of things happen to bring them together and push them apart. I liked that this changed POV - I'm finding I really like to get the perspective of other main characters - and I liked that both characters had a little meat to their stories. A really cute and fun one to read!


The Book-ish Life of Nina Hill by Abbie Waxman - I reserved this book based on an IG friend saying she loved it. While waiting for it to become available, I read another book by Abbi Waxman, Other People's Houses, and didn't enjoy it very much. When I reviewed Other People's Houses Natasha assured me this one was worth the wait...and she was RIGHT! This was such a great book to end the year reading. I loved Nina and loved reading her story - she has a very structured life due to her anxiety and everything blows up when she finds out her father {that she didn't know about} died and she has several half siblings who all want to meet her. Throw in a potential love interest from the competition in her trivia match world AND she's a giant book worm? It's like all my favorite nerdy qualities in one! I highly, highly enjoyed this and everyone should read it!

4 comments:

Natasha said...

Okay, I have all the words for you today :) First of all, I LOVE sharing reading with you! And way to go on all your 2019 books!!! Um, yes, re-reads TOTALLY count.

I am making The New Jim Crow a priority in February. Enough is enough already.

HOW have you not already read The Time Traveler's Wife?!?!? It's probably one of my favourite books of all time and you know I don't say that lightly. I should re-read that this year.

I'm so glad you loved Nina Hill. I just fell in love with her and thought the whole book was just fun and so good. I agree everyone SHOULD read this book!

Erika said...

Well dang, I might need to add all these to my TBR list!! Maybe not Royal Holiday, though. I read the first 2 books in that series and they were fine but not my fave, so I lost steam. And I read Time Traveler's Wife years ago but I remember loving it. I actually do own a physical copy of that one and have kept it cause I thought it would merit a re-read one day. And re-reads totally count!!! What I wasn't sure about though, was whether saying that my favorite book of 2019 was A Place for Us is fair, since it was a reread of my favorite book of 2018, bahahaha. But so what? A book that good deserves to be Book of the Year in my heart for two years in a row!!!! :)

Emily said...

Ahhh I’m so impressed you finished The New Jim Crow so quickly! I’ve heard about the Time Traveler’s Wife for years but always dismissed it because the premise didn’t appeal to me; I added it to my TBR though! And I can’t wait to read “the bookish life” - that seems just my kind of book!

Kathryn Bagley said...

I saw we met in december on cloud library and read the synopsis and was like yes! so i need to check it out! Our first bc book this year is CS Lewis The Great Divorce and I can't find it!! blah! Was time traveler's wife a movie? it seems like it should be a movie..ha!