January Reading Recap
January Reading Recap: 9 Books I Read this Month and 1 that I Didn’t
By: Brittany Shields
I’m starting the New Year strong! Well… quantitatively. My first few books weren’t great, but I ended with a few that I really liked.
I’m still plugging away at the Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge and managed to get 4 more crossed off the list this month.
Three qualified for prompts on the Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge.
And two were on my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2025.
I even managed to get one cross off my reading challenge from 2023! It’s never too late, right?!
I hope your new year of reading is off to a good start! Feel free to share your favorite reads of the month in the comments.
And don’t forget to follow my Facebook page for more reviews, recommendations, and book-lover fun!
1. The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Genre: Historical Fiction
I rarely leave a book unfinished, but I had to do that with this one.
I read 34 pages of this book and I was upset. Disturbed.
So I asked a Facebook reading community for insight on whether or not I should continue based on the concerns I had. Turns out a few people agreed with me, but most of the people loved this book and author and encouraged me to continue, even saying it was one of their favorite books though didn’t really say why or give any concrete reasons for finishing.
Ultimately, I decided not to continue reading it.
I explain my reasoning in my full review.
2. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Genre: Historical Fiction/ Literary Fiction
[Fulfilled ‘A book about an escape’ or ‘A book about twins’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
“She had been acting her entire life, which meant she was the best liar that she knew. Well, second best.”
“You can escape town, but you cannot escape blood. Somehow, the Vignes twins believed themselves capable of both.”
This book wasn’t really what I was expecting when I saw the title. I thought (because I didn’t read the summary and just knew the book was about twins) that one of a set of twins goes missing. They make it seem like that for about the first few sentences of the book but nope. The twins just skipped town.
So The Vanishing Half is not a thriller but a long drawn out look at twin sisters who move away from their hometown in search of a different life. They go their own ways, have daughters, and we see how their choices then in turn impact their daughters’ lives.
Read my full review to see what my main disappointments were, see what the popular themes are, read what I have to say about two ways of living, and get my ultimate recommendation.
3. Like Mother, Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight
Genre: Thriller
[Fulfilled ‘A book about a missing parent’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge]
“I did what I do best: I made the problem go away.”
I’d been putting this one off for no apparent reason and I finally pushed myself to read it and I’m glad I did!
I agree with another reviewer that it would be better not to read the full Goodreads summary before reading the book. So here’s the basic plot:
Cleo, a college student, arrives home to find food burning in the oven, blood on the floor, and her mother missing without a trace. The pair had become estranged as Cleo felt her mom, Katrina— who was a corporate lawyer and ‘fixer’— was overbearing and controlling. As Cleo unravels the puzzle of her mother’s life and past, she realizes there was a reason for her mother’s ‘madness.’
Read my full review to see more details about the book and its formatting, hear my thoughts about the characters, the title, and my content advisory and ultimate recommendation
4. Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full by Gloria Furman
Genre: Christian Living/ Motherhood
“God made me a mother because he jealously and rightly desires praise for his own name, and this is how he saw fit to do it. God aims to glorify himself through my family, and we all get carried along by his grace.”
I wanted to really love this book. The title spoke to a desire I’m currently feeling: I don’t want my busy and exhausting life to keep me from treasuring Jesus.
Do I feel like this book fulfilled that claim for me? Not particularly.
If you’re only going to read a couple books this year, I’m not sure I would convince you this should be one of them.
You can read my full review to see why I had trouble processing the book and applying it to my life, but also see the things from the book that did stick out to me.
5. A Killer’s Code (Daniela Vega #3) by Isabella Maldonado
Genre: Thriller
[Fulfilled ‘A book with a cover the colors of your favorite athletic team’ (aka Iowa Hawkeyes) prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge]
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2025]
“If you’re watching this, I’m dead. And others will be soon if you don’t act fast.”
Maldonado is an auto-read for me. I’ve really enjoyed this Daniela Vega series: A Killer’s Game took Dani into an undercover ultimate escape room style only one person gets out alive situation; A Forgotten Kill has Dani simultaneously chasing down a serial killer and getting to the bottom of her father’s murder.
A Killer’s Code brings back the man she went undercover with in book one (Gustavo Toro): as a hired assassin he kept an ‘insurance policy’ on those who hired him, a treasure trove of evidence and information the FBI would love to get their hands on. With his final days he sets up a ‘treasure hunt’ of sorts with clues and puzzles to lead the FBI to the stash in an effort to keep it safe from those who don’t want to be exposed. From New York to Las Vegas to Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, the hunt is on for the prize.
Like most of her books, this was a fast-paced read and full of action.
Read my full review to get a couple notes on the series as a whole, see which parts I wished had been a little different, and get some of my other random comments.
6. Sparkly Green Earrings: Catching the Light at Every Turn by Melanie Shankle
Genre: Memoir/ Humor
[Fulfilled ‘A that might make you cry (if you did that kind of thing)’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
“Every mother knows the reason Robert Frost took the road less traveled is because he wasn’t traveling with children who needed to go to the bathroom every thirty minutes.”
I was originally planning to read this for my ‘funny memoir’ reading challenge prompt— which it would 100 percent qualify for— but I decided to use it for ‘might make you cry’ because in between all the laughs, Melanie Shankle reminds me how precious it is to be a mom and that the years are indeed short and I can already feel them slipping by as my oldest is 8— the same age as Melanie’s Caroline (in this book) who, like my daughter, got her ears pierced on her 8th birthday.
This was such a fun, entertaining, and relatable book! I read it in only two days because I didn’t want to put it down. I was sad when it was over.
She has a great sense of humor and style of writing and even if you aren’t a mom, I think you’ll enjoy this book.
Check out my full review to get some of the funny snippets from her book and get information on how this book came to be and where you can get more of Melanie Shankle.
7. Broken Bread: How to Stop Using Food and Fear to Fill Spiritual Hunger by Tilly Dillehay
Genre: Non-Fiction/ Christian Living
[Fulfilled ‘Book about food’ for Shelf Reflection’s 2023 Reading Challenge]
“God cares much more about how we eat than he cares about what we eat.”
“A thousand years ago, most of the human lifetime was taken up with the business of getting enough food and cooking it. This is still the case in some areas of the world… We have different challenges to face. Our challenges have to do with decisions, with images, with self-control, with generosity, and with resources. In a word, ours are the challenges of stewardship.”
This is a must-read!
It was written in 2020 but still feels very applicable to the ‘food climate’ today and does a lot to look at how perception of and interaction with food has become complicated— broken. Tilly restores these perceptions and interactions, offering a balanced look at the ‘food pitfalls’ we all find ourselves in and how Jesus speaks into them.
I admit I had put this one off for awhile, but I’m glad I didn’t avoid it forever— turns out there is definitely no requirement to make your own sourdough bread to read and appreciate this book!
I like the balanced take of Dillehay. No one gets a free ride in this book. Which is important because there has been a lot of judgment towards others regarding their food preparation and food eating habits or practices.
The push of this book is not to argue for a specific diet or food preparation method. It’s to help us understand that what we eat is not the ultimate thing. It’s our heart and our treatment of others while we’re eating that matters.
Check out my full review to get more details about what problems Tilly tackles, see what stuck out to me and what I thought was missing, and get more information on how this would work as a group study.
8. One Woman’s War: A Novel of the Real Miss Moneypenny by Christine Wells
Genre: Historical Fiction
[Fulfilled ‘A book with a title that has a possessive noun’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
“Deceiving the Nazis was one thing, deceiving her husband was quite another.”
I was intrigued by the subtitle indicating this being the story of the ‘real’ Miss Moneypenny, the character in Ian Fleming’s James Bond books.
It was just an okay book.
I think the ‘true story’ aspect of the story is what saved it. Without it, it would have been a pretty boring and anti-climactic book because it doesn’t necessarily focus on any one plot/conflict as much as just the lives of these two women who worked in/with British Intelligence: Victoire “Paddy” Bennett, who is the likely inspiration for Miss Moneypenny, and Friedl Stottinger, an Austrian double agent.
Paddy worked as Fleming’s secretary during WWII and was privy to a lot of the spy operations and intel. She even participated in one of Fleming’s major operations called Operation Mincemeat.
Read my full review to find out why I felt like this book doesn’t stand out among the vast array of WWII novels, why the two tensest parts fell flat to me, and what my ultimate recommendation is.
9. Fairest of All (Villains #1) by Serena Valentina
Genre: YA/ Fantasy
[Fulfilled ‘A book told from the villain’s POV’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
I pretty much just read this because it fit what I needed for my reading challenge— it’s not one that would normally draw my attention.
It’s a book written for teens and it definitely reads as such. Even the size of the book lends to that audience. It’s a smaller, square-ish book and is easily read in a day or two.
There’s nothing too complicated about the book, it’s a pretty straightforward ‘origin story’ for Snow White’s evil stepmother— how did she become so evil that she would try to kill the daughter of her beloved late husband?
Since the book is so short, there’s really not a lot of space to go into deep character development or to dredge up all the mysteries of the Queen’s childhood.
If you are a Disney fanatic, then you’ll probably enjoy this book and spending time in Snow White’s story.
Read my full review to see a few more thoughts I had on the book and who I would ultimately recommend this book to.
10. A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall
Genre: Thriller
[Fulfilled ‘A book by an author whose last name is also a first name’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge]
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2025]
“My whole body thrums with fear. It tells me to run. It tells me that the hunter is here, and I am prey. I have always been prey.”
If you like books about dysfunctional families and lots of twists, this is the book for you!
This one is a wild ride where you’re never quite sure who is the hunter and who is the hunted. Every time I thought I had a piece right, Marshall switched it up!
It’s also an atmospheric story as it takes place at an isolated mountain mansion family property around Christmastime where there is of course, no cell reception. The characters stay in their own cabins on the property and the snow is its own element in ‘A Killing Cold.’
Theo, recently engaged to Connor, has two weeks to convince Connor’s family that she is good enough to marry into their rich family. But secrets continue to pile up, not only from her past but from each of his family members. And then Theo realizes… she’s actually been on this property before…
Check out my full review to get a potential trigger warning, some thoughts on the execution of the book, and get the content advisory as there may be some content that affects your wanting to read this one or not.
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