What I Read in December

I read 13 books in December. !!! One of my highest reading months in a really long time. I credit having the last week of the month off work and listening to more audiobooks than usual (4). I’m not going to give you detailed reviews of all of these books, but I picked out 5 to discuss. The other 8 will get a short review snippet. 🙂

Overall Favorite Read of December

Writers & Lovers by Lily King (★★★★★) – You guys, I am shocked by how much I loved this book. I honestly expected to hate it because it gets mixed reviews and is a character-driven novel. Character-driven novels don’t always work for me, but this one most certainly did. I think listening to the audiobook definitely helped, as I could just dip in and out of it while I was driving around and doing things around the apartment. This book is about Casey, who is an aspiring novelist. She spends her mornings working on her novel and her evenings working as a server at a restaurant. Her life is in upheaval, following the sudden loss of her mom and an unexpected breakup. She’s just trying to keep her life together, and she doesn’t always do a great job of it. Some reviewers mentioned that Casey is a hard character to like, but I found her to be so fresh and relatable and easy to root for. I could see so much of myself in her, between her writing aspirations, her money woes, her relationship with her mom. When I finished this book, I just let out a happy sigh because I enjoyed it so, so much. I’m glad I gave this book a try because it ended up making my favorites list in 2021!

Favorite Romance of December

In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren (★★★★★) – The fact that I read this book a few days before Christmas was probably the main reason I loved this book so much. I was deep in my holiday feels and this book gave me everything I was looking for. In this novel, Mae is leaving her annual Christmas celebration with her family and the two other families that have been celebrating the holidays together since Mae was born. She’s in a funk, so she sends a plea to the Universe: “Please. Show me what will make me happy.” And the next thing she knows, she wakes up on a plane and it’s as if the last week never happened. She continues to loop back in time, again and again, as she tries to figure out how to get out of this Groundhog Day scenario and find her true love. It’s a really sweet, sappy romance with a truly amazing setting (a snowy cabin in Utah!) and great characters. I just loved it so much! It’s not going to be for everyone, but it gave me the holiday romance magic I was looking for.

Other Favorites of December

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas (★★★★☆) – A prequel to Thomas’s smash hit, The Hate U Give, Concrete Rose tells the origin story of Star’s father, Maverick. When he’s 17, he finds out that he’s the father of a 3-month-old baby—a baby from a woman who is not his girlfriend. Maverick tries to juggle new fatherhood (he becomes the sole caretaker of the baby), finishing his last year of high school, and life in a gang, but he’s drowning fast. Then, tragedy strikes and he’s not prepared for what comes next. This story is a difficult one, a hard one, but a hopeful one, too. I know from reading THUG that Maverick gets his life together and becomes an all-around amazing dad to his kids. I know that his girlfriend eventually forgives him, marries him, and gives him a few more babies. I listened to this book on audio and it was excellent. I could really feel Maverick’s emotion and heart in that format. As another reviewer said, I don’t know if I would have enjoyed this book as much as I did if I hadn’t already developed a fondness for Maverick from THUG, but it was still a great read that I’m glad I got around to in 2021.

Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy (★★★★☆) – For some reason, I thought this was going to be a book about pregnancy, but it was more a study on the history of the obstetrics field. And it was fascinating. It delves into how women’s bodies developed to be able to push a human baby out of them (fun fact: that’s why babies are so helpless in their first few months of life; their brains can’t grow any bigger or else women wouldn’t be able to push them out!), the history of the C-section (stay for the story of the woman who performed HER OWN C-SECTION AT HOME), and how the obstetrics field evolved throughout the years (there was a time when a doctor would go from patient to patient without washing his hands, leading to lots of disease and death that was blamed on women). I was utterly enthralled by this book and everything women had to go through before an actual obstetrics field was developed and standards put in place.

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (★★★★★) – What an astounding collection of essays. I listened to this on audio, read by the author who has such a lovely, soothing voice. In this collection, Villavicencio talks about the plight of undocumented Americans—and not the ones you might expect. She spends time with day laborers, learns about 9/11 volunteers, and forms relationships with undocumented children and teenagers. I found the essay about the Flint water crisis to be particularly hard-hitting. There is so much about Flint that we don’t know about, and I think the author did an exceptional job of drawing us into the plight and the reverberating effects. I was also touched by the essay on the difficulties faced by the aging undocumented population. While I don’t have an aging parent yet (my mom is only 56), I do think about what it will mean to be her caretaker when she is elderly. Those with undocumented parents face an array of difficulties, though, that I won’t need to worry about and many children find that their parents want to move back to their home countries during this period of their lives. This book was truly excellent. It taught me so much, revealed some of my own biases, and renewed my fervent desire for immigration reform.

More December Reads

• Dear Roomie by Kate Meader (★★★☆☆) – A steamy romance with a grumpy hero, a sunshine-y heroine, and a sweet dog in the mix. Not a standout, but a fun read nonetheless.
• The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradel (★★★☆☆) – I liked this book, but I grew tired of the long paragraphs about beer making.
• An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn (★★★☆☆) – This was not Julia Quinn’s best work. Benedict is manipulative, demanding, and a straight-up asshole at times, and Sophie can do a whole lot better.
• Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy (★★★★☆) – A fascinating thriller with tons of twists and turns I wasn’t expecting. If you love a good twisty thriller, pick this one up!
• The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (★★★★☆) – A really terrific thriller rec from Meredith at Currently Reading. It was insanely smart, with an ending I didn’t expect.
• Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of ’80s and ’90s Teen Fiction by Gabrielle Moss (★★★☆☆) – This book was total nostalgia. I liked it but wish it had more depth and reflection, rather than just summarizing the plots of books.
• The Hating Game by Sally Thorne (★★★★★) – Third time reading, third time loving. This remains my #1 romance.
• The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd (★★★☆☆) – Parts of this book were super interesting and compelling, parts of it were super boring and a slog to get through. All in all, I liked but did not love this book.

December Book Stats

• # of books read: 13
• Fastest read: Paperback Crush by Gabrielle Moss (3 days)
• Slowest read: An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn (12 days)
• Star average: 3.9
• % of books by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community: 23%
• Sources: Libby (5), Amazon (5), library (1), Thriftbooks (1), Book of the Month (1)
• Formats: print (6), e-book (3), audiobook (4)
• Abandoned books: 0
• Goodreads goal check-in: I did not make my goal of 150 books, but that was a huge stretch goal. My Goodreads goal for 2022 is set at 135.

What’s the last great book you read?