January Reading Wrap-up!

 Hello! I'm back with another reading wrap-up. So as I mentioned in an earlier post, I am trying to read 100 books in the year 2021. Apparently, in order to do this I would need to read an average of 8-9 books per month. 

I think I'm off to a good start because this month I read 9, and there were quite a few surprises. 

1. The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan

This book is the third book in the Detective Cormac Reilly series and honestly it was just as fabulous as the previous two. I don't want to say much since this is the third book in the series, so obviously there are a lot of things that carry over from book to book. I 100% recommend this series if you are a fan of well-written detective novels with great, ethical detectives. Also it takes place in Ireland, if that for some reason changes things for you. 

2. Deathtrap by Ira Levin

So let me give you some backstory as to why I decided to randomly read this. Basically, there is this other thriller novel called Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson, in which the main protagonist investigates murders that occur based on murder methods in famous books. The main protagonist makes a list of 8 books/stories/etc that feature super ingenious murder methods. So I was not super interested in reading the book itself, but I was interested in reading the 8 books that feature these super ingenious crimes, per say. One of these was Deathtrap, which is a play, not a novel. Okay back to the actual point. 

This was absolutely fantastic. I'm not sure why I don't read that many plays, but honestly I'm going to change that this year. The play is a comedy-thriller, which is a genre that I would read anything from. The basic premise of the book is that there is a man named Sidney who was once this super famous playwright, and he is experiencing a major writing slump. He is mailed a manuscript from this young man who took this seminar that Sidney once taught and this man wants Sidney to basically proofread and give him some feedback on his play. Sidney reads it and is like whoa, this is great, I want in on this play. He wants to be a co-writer of sorts, and the story goes from there. It is super short, but really well paced. HIGHLY Recommend. 

3. Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayliss

Why did I read a Christmas themed romance in January? I don't know. But it was good, so that's really all that matters. 

The story follows this woman named Kate whose friend signs her up for this program that sets her up on twelve dates with twelve different men. Yeah...this book is literally a Hallmark Christmas movie. I feel like you know exactly who Kate will end up with by the end, but you are just excited to see how it plays out. I found Kate to be super relatable and funny. I enjoyed that there was a lot of depth to all the relationships featured in the book. Kate's friends and neighbors were so cute when they were keeping tabs on how her dates were going. The pacing was good. The romance felt believable. It was just an all around fun, Christmassy love story.

4. The Victim by Saul Bellow

Fun fact, this is the only book I read this month that I physically owned.  So yeah, doing great on that challenge to read all the books on my shelf that I own. We're working on it! 

Saul Bellow is considered one of the great Jewish-American writers of the 20th century. The man won a Nobel Prize for Literature and his bibliography is insane. This book, one of his earlier works, released in 1947, tells the story of a man Asa Levanthal. Asa lives a relatively unremarkable, mundane life in New York City, when one day he gets approached by this man who claims that Asa ruined his life. The book doesn't really have much of a plot, but rather is a character study looking at how one's internal self-perception is quite different than the one they project. It is quite slow paced and drags a little in the middle. However, there are some incredible monologues that may just make you perceive life a little differently. I will definitely be checking out more by Saul Bellow. 

5. The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne

Suppose the man who wrote Winnie the Pooh also wrote a murder mystery? What do you think it would be like? Well look no further, because the man who wrote Winnie the Pooh not only wrote a murder mystery, he wrote a REALLY GOOD murder mystery. 

I won't delve much into the plot of the book because I think you should go into it without too much knowledge. The basic premise is that there is a murder that occurs in a house and a man named Antony, who is just visiting, decides to investigate it. Antony works with his friend Bill during the investigating, and their detective pairing is hilarious and wonderful and I want a full series of novels of these two.  

6. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

I'm not sure why I read as many detective novels as I did this month, but I did and I loved this. 

Our main protagonists were a husband and wife named Nick and Nora Charles. Although Nick is the actual detective, him and Nora both investigate the murder of a young woman at the behest of several of his friends. The best part of this book was the relationship between Nick and Nora. They riff off of each other SO WELL. They are so funny and Nora is so witty and I just want their marriage tbh. Investigator couples only, from now on please. Thank you. 

7. Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo (translated from the Hungarian by E.P. Dowdall)

Surprise, I read another play! Surprise 2, it is not a mystery! Where did I find this play, you ask? Well I watched this 1940 movie 'The Shop Around the Corner', which was based on this play and I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I read the source material. The play focuses on the employees of this perfume store. The main protagonist is George Horvath, an employee at the store, and he is in love with this girl he has never met, but with whom he has been corresponding with for several months through letters. He ends up finding out that the girl from the letters is his fellow employee at the store, Amalia, whom he hates. The story goes on from there.   

I'll be honest, the movie ruined the play for me. The movie is more of a romance, while the play focuses more on the characters at the perfume store and their relationships with each other. Although there is a semi-focus on George, we spend a lot of time with other characters, so it feels less like a romance. The movie, is literally all about the romance. That being said, I enjoyed the play. I love books/storylines about people sending letters to each other without actually knowing who they are sending the letters to. But George and Amalia needed to spend more time in real life being nice to each other, for me to properly ship them. In the play it seemed to be coming out of nowhere, another reason why I liked the movie more. 

8. Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

Raphael Bob-Waksberg is the creator of the show Bojack Horseman. If you enjoyed the show, you will love this book. 

It is a collection of short stories about relationships and love, not necessarily romantic love, but love in general. The book is humorous and heartbreaking and has an element of the surreal in it as well. Very much in the vein of the dark-humor featured in Bojack Horseman. I felt this book in my soul, yo. 5 stars. If you ever want to read a book that is funny and light, yet will still make you emotional (I'm not sure how that works, but roll with it), this is that book. 

9. Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

This book falls into the category of millennial fiction that seems to be super popular now. Also people kept comparing it to Normal People by Sally Rooney so I just had to check it out. I'll be honest, it was pretty lackluster. 

We are following the story of this young Irish woman, Ava, who lives in Hong Kong, and works as an English teacher. Ava is kind of confused about life and doesn't know what she's doing and is struggling to find friends in Hong Kong. She meets Julian, this British guy who is a banker and they start a friends with benefits relationship. Julian leaves for England on business for a little while and then Ava starts a relationship with this woman named Edith who is from Hong Kong. The remainder of the story follows how Ava decides to handle her relationships with both individuals. 

I don't know why, but I found Ava to be slightly annoying and very bland. I just read an entire book from her perspective but I could not tell you one thing about her? I was not invested in either of her relationships, nor did I really care about her problems. She seemed to just perpetually keep digging herself into more holes because she couldn't be straight up at first? The most interesting thing I found about this book was that it took place in Hong Kong and clearly the writer had lived there before because they seemed super knowledgeable about every district and its restaurants. I will say I did enjoy Naoise Dolan's writing style. Would I recommend? No not really. Did I hate it? Kind of yes, maybe? 

A couple of housekeeping things, before I completely wrap up:

I've decided to try doing bi-weekly wrap-ups rather than monthly ones, since a). I struggle to remember what my feelings were about a book I read at the beginning of the month and b). If I am planning on reading 8-9 books a month, it would just be easier to split it up over two posts. What do you think? Let me know if you have any strong opinions on this. 

I've also thought about doing more themed reading months. For instance, February is Black History Month, so it would be cool to focus on reading books by African American authors. Similarly March is Women's History Month, so maybe I'll focus on reading books written by women in March. If this sounds interesting to you, do let me know. Maybe we can do some group themed readings. 

So there you have it folks, nine books in the month of January. Hope you enjoyed this (long!) wrap-up. Happy reading!