Long ago, I used to write monthly book reviews. It was a challenging post to put together, and I could never figure out if people were reading the posts. Last year I started a bookstagram account where I write reviews on my books, and I decided to stop writing my blog book reviews. But then I realized that I missed writing and compiling them all in one spot, so this year I decided to write a quarterly book blog post reviewing all the books I’ve read that quarter/season.
But guess what? I’m gonna change that up again and go back to monthly posts because just the thought of writing this post and linking up all the 34 books I’ve read so far this year is wildly overwhelming and honestly, who wants to read a blog post that reviews 30+ books? No one.
So, for this post I will stick to reviewing what I have read so far this year, and starting next month I’ll go back to monthly book reviews on the blog!
Phew, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get started!
I also started to use The Storygraph this year to track my reading. I still use Goodreads because I find the app to be far more user friendly and a bit more interactive with bookish friends than The Storygraph. But one thing that I love about StoryGraph is the graphs. Here is my 2022 reading so far as graphed on StoryGraph:
First up: what moods I tend to read. I would say this is completely accurate. Emotional, Lighthearted and Reflective take up about half of the pie while allllll the other things take up the other half:
This one is also interesting to me, as apparently I read mostly medium paced books with slow and fast coming in almost a tie. This one I find more arbitrary because a book that I fly through might be a slower paced book for someone else.
Again, I clearly know what books I like to reach for….and they mostly are in the 300-499 page range!
This one was skewing more equal until I hit March, and then I have read about 14 fiction books. I guess it’s time to pick up a nonfiction read soon!
I know what I like, and that is what I read. LOL. Honestly, though, this graph is my least favorite because it seems like if the book has any content related to that genre, it gets a point. I record any Children’s books on my Storygraph, so I have no idea why that is so high. And I don’t read fantasy or LGBTQ literature, so those book marks seem a little off to me.
Well, this comes as no surprise. I read 97% of my books on paper. I think that this will change come summer when I’m out and about with the kids more and will listen to books on audio more instead of print. There is also a category for e-books, but I don’t think I’ve ever read an e-book, so I don’t have any of my pie dedicated to that!
I like this graph to see how my book/page number compare to the last month. I’m surprised my March books and reading are so high, to be honest. But it’s been a pretty good reading year so far!
And the final and most important graph: what I rate and review the books! Let’s do a deep dive into this chart so that you can get some actual book reviews in this post!
Books with 1.5 star rating:
Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Amazon Summary:
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.
Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young―but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?
My Review:
This book got so much hype, and it even won Annie Jones’ March Madness book bracket, but I HATED it. It is about four friends who are trying to figure out how to grow up, essentially. They struggle and whine and complain and have sex every other page. And that is the whole entire book. I kid you not. I DO NOT understand why people like this book?
Books with 2.5 Star Ratings
Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop
Amazon Summary:
Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people’s fortunes—or misfortunes—in tealeaves.
Ever since she can remember, Vanessa has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottom of their teacups. To avoid blurting out their fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the ones of those around her. To add to this plight, her romance life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai.
After her matchmaking appointment, Vanessa sees death for the first time. She decides that she can’t truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. When her eccentric Aunt Evelyn shows up with a tempting offer to whisk her away, Vanessa says au revoir to California and bonjour to Paris. There, Vanessa learns more about herself and the root of her gifts and realizes one thing to be true: knowing one’s destiny isn’t a curse, but being unable to change it is.
My Review: I loved a previous book by this author, so I really wanted to like this one. But it just fell flat. I had so many questions that weren’t answered in the plot of the book, and that just left me feeling confused. I felt like things just quite didn’t make sense, even in a fictional/magical realism world. I will still continue to read this author, but this was a total miss for me.
The Underground Railroad
Amazon Summary:
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.
In Colson Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.
As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman’s will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.
My Review:
I wanted to like this book so much. It won a Pulitzer, so clearly I am in the minority here! But this book was a total drag for me. It wasn’t because of the content of the book, although there were several parts that were graphic and stomach-turning. I think that reading about our history is so valuable and necessary. I especially appreciate when an author can turn reading about history into fiction. But this book was so slow and very scattered. I had a hard time keeping the characters straight and the plot was back and forth and around and around, so I found myself reading about something that had already happened in the middle of a chapter about something that was happening now and then a paragraph that suddenly jumped into someone else’s perspective. It honestly took away from the content of the book for me, and that is why I really struggled to like this book.
Books with 3 Star Ratings
The House in the Cerulean Sea
Amazon Summary:
A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.
When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.
But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.
An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place―and realizing that family is yours.
My Review:
Well, this was a good book. It was whimsical and sweet and the characters and found family aspect were heart warming. I wish that I had read some more reviews and realized that the main relationship was between two men. I know that we are now in 2022 and this is a book of age, but it was not for me for that reason. Again, I could have avoided this review if I just did my research and not read the book in the first place, so perhaps this review is not fair. But if you, like me, needed that warning: here it is!
Jane Steele
Amazon Summary:
“Reader, I murdered him.”
A sensitive orphan, Jane Steele suffers first at the hands of her spiteful aunt and predatory cousin, then at a grim school where she fights for her very life until escaping to London, leaving the corpses of her tormentors behind her. After years of hiding from the law while penning macabre “last confessions” of the recently hanged, Jane thrills at discovering an advertisement. Her aunt has died and her childhood home has a new master: Mr. Charles Thornfield, who seeks a governess.
Burning to know whether she is in fact the rightful heir, Jane takes the position incognito and learns that Highgate House is full of marvelously strange new residents—the fascinating but caustic Mr. Thornfield, an army doctor returned from the Sikh Wars, and the gracious Sikh butler Mr. Sardar Singh, whose history with Mr. Thornfield appears far deeper and darker than they pretend. As Jane catches ominous glimpses of the pair’s violent history and falls in love with the gruffly tragic Mr. Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: Can she possess him—body, soul, and secrets—without revealing her own murderous past?
My Review: I was in search of a Jane Eyre retelling, so I picked this one up. And it was indeed a retelling, but it followed the original story way too closely for me. If I wanted to read-read Jane Eyre, I would just pick up the original book, not a “retelling” that tells the exact same story. At about 1/2 way through the book, we took a turn away from the original Jane Eyre and went on a long rambling feminist manifesto on how women can do everything, especially saving the world. It was kind of dark, it was quite far-fetched and I just didn’t enjoy it at all.
Books with 3.5 Star Ratings
Beartown
Amazon Summary:
By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
Under that heavy burden, the match becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown.
This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
My Review: Well, this book was quite the journey. It was beautifully written and masterfully crafted. I felt like I knew the characters and lived in the town. I felt like I was living the ups and downs (mostly downs) of life with them. However, this book was also pretty dark and very depressing. As an empath and a highly sensitive person, since I felt like I was living this life with them, it was a very dark book for me. I didn’t like many the decisions that were made and I wanted someone to bring some kindness and life into this town. Again, this is a beautiful book and I absolutely see why it has gotten so much hype, but it was not my favorite type of book to read.
Virgil Wander
Amazon Summary: The first novel in ten years from award-winning, bestselling author Leif Enger, Virgil Wander is a sweeping story of new beginnings against all odds that follows the inhabitants of a hard luck town in their quest to revive its flagging heart. Carried aloft by quotidian pleasures of kite-flying, movies, fishing, baseball, necking in parked cars and falling in love, Virgil Wander is a swift, full journey into the heart and heartache of an often overlooked upper Midwest by an award-winning master storyteller.
My Review: If you are wondering why the synopsis for this book is so short, it it because it has no plot. HAHA. No, but truly. This is a character driven novel through and through, and if there is anything I’m learning about myself, it’s that I do not prefer character driven books. Lief Engler is another masterful writer who makes works literally come alive. Reading his books is an experience. But we are not here for a fast moving plot or page turning stories. This one was cold, it had a lot of emotions and it just wasn’t my style. Great book, but not a favorite for me.
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
Amazon Summary:
Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.
A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.
Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.
My Review:
As soon as I heard about this book, I knew I wanted to read it. It sounded like exactly what I needed: to hear some hope and some tips about what to do when life feels like it’s in a winter reason for no reason at all (or no reason within my own control). I also wanted to cozy up with this book during a cold January day and just feel the peace that I am not the only one who struggles in the winter. However, this book did not meet the expectations set up for it. It ended up being entirely memoir and not full of cozy tips on how to get through the winter- both literal and life seasons of winter. I had a hard time connecting with the author’s experience because she seemed to be a completely different life stage than me and the ways she coped would absolutely not work for me (hello, I need to secure childcare before I can do anything by myself, while this woman seemed to be a lot more free to just go off by herself). I think overall it was a good book, but it just didn’t meet my expectations.
The Perfect Couple
Amazon Summary:
It’s Nantucket wedding season, also known as summer-the sight of a bride racing down Main Street is as common as the sun setting at Madaket Beach. The Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: the groom’s wealthy parents have spared no expense to host a lavish ceremony at their oceanfront estate.
But it’s going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons after tragedy strikes: a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony-and everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews the bride, the groom, the groom’s famous mystery-novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, he discovers that every wedding is a minefield-and no couple is perfect. Featuring beloved characters from The Castaways, Beautiful Day, and A Summer Affair, The Perfect Couple proves once again that Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer beach read.
My Review: Ah, the perfect fluffy chick lit. That is Elin Hilderbrand for you! This was a little bit of a twist from her typical romance that had more of a cozy mystery aspect to it. I liked it well enough when I read it, but it was easily forgettable!
Kill Reply All: A Modern Guide to Online Etiquette, From Social Media to Work to Love
Amazon Summary: How do you reply to your colleague’s weird email? What would Emily Post say about your Tinder profi le? And just how do you know if you’re mansplaining? In this irreverent journey through the murky world of digital etiquette, Wired’s Victoria Turk provides an indispensable guide to minding our manners in a brave new online world, and making peace with the platforms, apps, and devices we love to hate.
The digital revolution has put us all within a few clicks, taps, and swipes of one another. But familiarity can breed contempt, and while we’re more likely than ever to fall in love online, we’re also more likely to fall headfirst into a raging fight with a stranger or into an unhealthy obsession with the phones in our pockets. If you’ve ever encountered the surreal, aggravating battlefields of digital life and wondered why we all don’t go analog, this is the book for you.
My Review: This was a fun little nonfiction read about online etiquette and manners. I found I knew most of it (don’t hit reply all on a work email) and some of it was irrelevant (like the romance and dating part….phew, am I glad I am not dating in the time of online dating!). I did enjoy reading some of the chapters about social media and I learned a thing or two as I read.
Weather Girl
Amazon Summary:
A TV meteorologist and a sports reporter scheme to reunite their divorced bosses with unforecasted results in this electrifying romance from the author of The Ex Talk.
Ari Abrams has always been fascinated by the weather, and she loves almost everything about her job as a TV meteorologist. Her boss, legendary Seattle weatherwoman Torrance Hale, is too distracted by her tempestuous relationship with her ex-husband, the station’s news director, to give Ari the mentorship she wants. Ari, who runs on sunshine and optimism, is at her wits’ end. The only person who seems to understand how she feels is sweet but reserved sports reporter Russell Barringer.
In the aftermath of a disastrous holiday party, Ari and Russell decide to team up to solve their bosses’ relationship issues. Between secret gifts and double dates, they start nudging their bosses back together. But their well-meaning meddling backfires when the real chemistry builds between Ari and Russell.
Working closely with Russell means allowing him to get to know parts of herself that Ari keeps hidden from everyone. Will he be able to embrace her dark clouds as well as her clear skies?
My Review: I feel like my rating of this one may be a bit low, because I really did enjoy it and I can see why it has so much hype. The characters are very real and could live in real life, which I loved. Our protagonist struggles with depression, and it’s not just a quaint side point- it’s a real member of the plot (kind of like it can be in real life!). Our male protagonist also has some real-life challenges and when two people who both have challenges come together, it can cause some drama. I loved those aspects of this romance novel. However, I did not understand the whole situation with the bosses. It really rubbed me the wrong way and made me want to just tell them to report to HR or quit and find a new job in a less toxic situation.
Winter in Paradise
Amazon Summary:
rene Steele shares her idyllic life in a beautiful Iowa City Victorian house with a husband who loves her to sky-writing, sentimental extremes. But as she rings in the new year one cold and snowy night, everything she thought she knew falls to pieces with a shocking phone call: her beloved husband, away on business, has been killed in a helicopter crash. Before Irene can even process the news, she must first confront the perplexing details of her husband’s death on the distant Caribbean island of St. John.
After Irene and her sons arrive at this faraway paradise, they make yet another shocking discovery: her husband had been living a secret life. As Irene untangles a web of intrigue and deceit, and as she and her sons find themselves drawn into the vibrant island culture, they have to face the truth about their family, and about their own futures.
Rich with the lush beauty of the tropics and the drama, romance, and intrigue only Elin Hilderbrand can deliver, Winter in Paradise is a truly transporting novel, and the exciting start to a new series.
My Review: Again, another decent chick lit novel, but nothing extraordinary. This is part of a three part series, so the ending feels very cliff-like.
Subpar Parks: America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors
Amazon Summary: ubpar Parks, both on the popular Instagram page and in this humorous, informative, and collectible book, combines two things that seem like they might not work together yet somehow harmonize perfectly: beautiful illustrations and informative, amusing text celebrating each national park paired with the one-star reviews disappointed tourists have left online. Millions of visitors each year enjoy Glacier National Park, but for one visitor, it was simply “Too cold for me!” Another saw the mind-boggling vistas of Bryce Canyon as “Too spiky!” Never mind the person who visited the thermal pools at Yellowstone National Park and left thinking, “Save yourself some money, boil some water at home.”
My Review: I thought the idea of this book was SO FUNNY. People writing bad reviews about our National Parks just tickles my funny bone. And this book was pretty funny- but it ended up being more a travel guide than a presentation of funny reviews. There was a page with an illustration of each park and a guide to accessing it and what to do there, as well as the subpar review. I wish that it had included more reviews and less travel guide, but for sure this book made me want to hope in a vehicle and start traveling around!
Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus
Amazon Summary:
Becoming a member of a church is an important, and often neglected, part of the Christian life. Yet the trend these days is one of shunning the practice of organized religion and showing a distaste or fear of commitment, especially of institutions.
Jonathan Leeman addresses these issues with a straightforward explanation of what church membership is and why it’s important. Giving the local church its proper due, Leeman has built a compelling case for committing to the local body.
My Review: I liked this book and found myself nodding along as I read it. I do think that the importance of being a member in a church can be a confusing and difficult topic to approach, so this would be a great starting point to start that discussion!
Since this post has now become the longest blog post in history, I’m going to stop here and come back tomorrow with my 4 and 5 star ratings of the year so far!
Remember, if you are interested in following my book reviews in real time, you can follow my bookstagram account here: nomundanebook
If you want more book content, I have lots of it! Check out these blog posts:
A Whole Post Dedicated to My Wacky Reading Strategy
For a Month, I Quit Reading Books
Finding Time to Read as a Busy Mom
I’ll be back tomorrow with my 4 & 5 star reads and a check in with some of my reading goals for the year!