January And February Reads

We rank our January and February reads from least favorite to most loved, sharing what worked, what missed, and who each book is best for. Along the way we dig into beautiful prose, comfort reading, and the kinds of stories that make you rethink the choices that shape a life. 
• Arabian Nights style fantasy with jinn, magic, and desert travel in The Stardust Theme 
• gorgeous writing and an illustrated mermaid romance in When the Tides Held the Moon 
• winter comfort read that lands better with series context in Winter Solstice by Elin Hilderbrand 
• historical fiction following Black women seeking freedom and a new start in All We Were Promised 
• lighthouse isolation and a lifetime moral dilemma in The Light Between Oceans 
• midlife “what if” questions and a suicide trigger warning in The Midnight Library 
• time travel historical fiction with CIA involvement and erased events in The Book of Lost Hours 
Let me know if you've read any of these. Let me know what you thought of these, um, and if you have any recommendations of what I should read next. 

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Transcript

Ranking My Recent Reads

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Today, I am sharing with you the books that I read in January and February, from my least favorite to my most favorite, but hopefully some of these will spark some interest for you. The first one that I read was The Stardust Theme. This was recommended to me by a viewer when I talked about how I love descriptive writing, especially when it comes to place. This one was a slight miss for me, but I do think if you like Arabian Night style reading, you will probably enjoy this. This is a trilogy and is where this the Midnight Merchant ends up helping to save the prince and therefore ends up having to go on a journey with him. And there's Jinns and there's magic, a desert, a very dry desert. And um, you know, it was it was a good book, but if you like Arabian Nightstyle reads, I do think you will enjoy this. The second book I read was When the Tides Held the Moon. And this is one of those books that I picked up. I started reading it, the world was going sideways, and I had to put it down for a bit, and then I came back to it in January because of the Goodreads Challenge. I was going through that, and this happened to be one of the books on the list. So I picked it up instead of starting over, I picked it up halfway through and finished it. Um, therefore, I do believe that that kind of affected how I felt about this. It was not gripping for me when I initially started reading it, so it is not like a top-tier favorite of mine. Um, it is beautiful writing. The story is very pretty. The book itself has beautiful um pictures in it, and it is a love story between a mermaid and a young man who um ended up making the cage, not knowing he was making a cage for this merman. It was it was a great story. I think if you like stories about mermaids, you will enjoy this one. The next one is Winter Solstice by Ellen Hildebrand. I think there's another winter solstice, that's why I want to make sure it's um the Ellen Hildebrand one. This is another situation where I messed up. I think if you read all four of these books, you will enjoy it. It's comfort reading for that winter season. I happen to pick up this one all by itself. Yes, you can read it as standalone, but because this is the end of a chapter for this family who owns this inn, I think it would have been better for me to maybe pick one of the other books to start with or to read the whole series. So um I thought it was good. I just wish I had started it from the beginning rather than the end. The next one is All We Were Promised, and this was an enjoyable civil rights style book, um, probably historical fiction, where it follows these black women um who are trying to escape their situation and are moving up to Philadelphia, I believe. Philadelphia. I thought it was a beautiful story. Um, if you enjoy historical fiction, especially um ones that deal with slavery, like The Kitchen House, those types of stories, I think you will enjoy this one. The Light Between Oceans. This was one of my more favorite reads. I really enjoyed this story. This is beautiful writing, and I think this story is for everyone. This is where a couple are on an island because the man, it's kind of on this desolate island where um people don't come and go often. Uh, and they're in charge of, or the husband is in charge of running the lighthouse. And um a boat washes ashore, and there is a baby on the boat, and the decisions that are made surrounding that incident and uh seeing what those decisions mean over a lifetime. Beautiful, beautiful story. And the last one is The Midnight Library. I have heard mixed reviews about this, and I'm not sure why. I love this book. This was a five-star read for me. I do think that it hits much better if you have gone through a lot of experiences in your life and you're in this midlife phase being content with the decisions you've made. But question like, I wonder if I had done this differently, what would have happened? That's kind of the questions being brought up in this story. Um, there is a trigger warning for suicide. So if you deal with depression, this may not land for you at all. And that's completely understandable. But for those of us who just kind of are in this state where we're like, not that we're disappointed with our life, but where you're just like wondering how it could be different. This I think lets you feel good about the decisions you've made. And then the last one is the book of lost hours. And this is by far my favorite book so far this year. The Book of Lost Hours is very similar in a sense to The Midnight Library, where you kind of go into a different space. Unlike the Midnight Library being about a specific individual kind of looking at her past, this one is more kind of historical fiction and time travel, where the CIA is involved and um it's about erasing certain things that occur in time. And I absolutely love this. I thought it was very well written. Um, and think that if you are into time travel stories or into historical fiction, I think you would probably enjoy this. I thought this was great. So those are the I think eight or nine books that I read this month. Let me know if you've read any of these. Let me know what you thought of these, um, and if you have any recommendations of what I should read next.