Let's Talk About the Books I Read in January

At the end of February

One day I’ll do these recaps closer to the beginning of the prior month. But today is not that day.

February is never a great month for me. I don’t like it. Never have, never will. It’s deeply unfortunate that a number of people I love have birthdays in February, but I am a February hater forever and always.

I’m not sure why I am surprised that after losing a knife fight with a surgeon in January,¹ and never having a good February, that I am behind on things. Life things (*cough cough* taxes) and writing things (this newsletter, interviews.)

I was supposed to send this out last week but didn’t, and oh look the Earth did not stop rotating. The one bright spot in this eternally gray February is that I am very motivated to write my novel. It’s all I want to do, to be frank. The long suffering patient lady that she is, my novel deserves this attention.

Like Miley says, buy yourself flowers.

So while trying to give myself more grace, I might be more sporadic here. Who knows. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll just continue sending out lists of chaotic book things. Or maybe I’ll tell you about the Adventures of Fake Mom and Tiny Dog and the Mysterious Beeping Sound.² In any event, I will still try to do my best here, there, and everywhere. It’s all any of us can do.

I read 9 books in January, ranging from graphic novels to actual novels. Unless otherwise mentioned, all books read were physical books. Let’s explore.

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January Reads

Graphic courtesy of TheStorygraph.

1. Carmilla Volume 2: The Last Vampire Hunter , written by Amy Chu, illustrations by Soo Lee and Sal Cipriano.

   I read Carmilla Vol 1 back in 2023, and I did not even realize there was a volume 2. Once I discovered this, I naturally had to get it. This is a graphic novel retelling/adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic, Carmilla. I wrote about this in more detail here, but there’s not like kicking off a new year with hunting some Vampires. Given how this comic ends, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a part 3.

   A Tale of Two Carmillas

2. Punderworld Volume 1, written and illustrated by Linda Sejic

   I’m not the biggest graphic novel fan, but I don’t dislike them. It’s not that I don’t like comics or manga or graphic novels, it’s that I tend to prefer written ones instead. This is a fascinating example of ‘I contain multitudes,’ because college me was thrilled every time there were graphs in my political science readings.³ Less of that scary academic text to read. Punderworld would not have ended up on my radar had one of my writing group ladies not told me that this was a mythological retelling of Hades and Persephone they enjoyed oh and also, CERBERUS IS A DALMATIAN. Instant buy. There wasn’t a whole lot of our Dalmatian friend in Volume 1, but Volume 2 is now available for preorder and I have high hopes. Sejic also writes and illustrates Blood Stain, which is how my friend got hooked.

   

   First few reads of 2025.

3. Sexe et mensonges: histoires vraies de la vie sexuelle des femmes au Maroc, Leila Slimani

   I really like Leila Slimani’s work. Reading it in French as a second language is not only easy for me, but also enjoyable and Slimani is so concise and prescient with her language. I saw her speak in Boston a few years ago, and she was great. This is translated as Sex and Lies in English, and focuses on the sexual lives of women in Morocco. Why is this groundbreaking? Extramarital sex is forbidden by law, which as Slimani explores, creates a whole host of societal problems. She explores the tensions between sexual freedom, individual agency and religion eloquently.

4. When Among Crows, Veronica Roth

   I wrote more about this here, but I am always down for Polish people shenanigans. This is of particular interest to me because I do not know a lot about Slavic folklore. For better or worse, Catholicism eclipsed a lot of those folktales (especially in Poland), so a lot of this is still new to me, even though I’m half Slavic.

   

   The rest of them books, graphic courtesy of TheStorygraph.

5. Ashen, Carissa Broadbent
   A prequel to the book I’ll talk more about later. After publishing her first trilogy, Broadbent started releasing this prequel novella through her newsletter. Then her vampires blew up, and she stopped. So only the first quarter is released, and though it’s possible to see the scope of the story (and you find out what happens in the first book), it was still a bummer to be cut off so soon. Very disorienting. A digital read I got for free from Broadbent’s newsletter, though now that the original trilogy is being republished via a traditional publisher, I’m not sure if it’ll be available any more.

6. Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees, Ada Limón
   I say this with all the respect and love I can muster: poets scare me. Rappers do, too. Their facility and conciseness with language absolutely bowls me over. So whenever a poet writes anything narrative and non-poetry related, I want to read it. And am often intimidated and impressed. Limón wrote this for Everand’s specific imprint, and it’s exclusive there. She writes about the significant relationship trees have played in her life. It’s very lyrical, and makes me like trees even more. A digital read on Everand.

7. Daughter of No Worlds, Carissa Broadbent

   In my continued journey to becoming Carissa Broadbent’s number 1 fan, I continued with Daughter of No Worlds, the first book in the War of Lost Hearts trilogy. Broadbent self published this trilogy first before turning to her current vampires. This book is being re-released later this year, so the indie copies are going out of print, if you care about that sort of thing. My book club is reading these for our next few reads, and oh boy. This book is good but a few warnings: it’s hefty, and it’s the beginning of what we’ve affectionately named the ‘Trauma Trilogy.’ There are some different types of magic and political maneuverings that I don’t often see in fantasy here, but it is super heavy at times.

8. Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros
   

   I Read the TikTok Fantasy Dragon Book

   I read the next installment in the dragon book series. It made me yell a lot because the worldbuilding and plot was nonsensical 80% of the time. We got good character development and humor, which is not for nothing, but as I have ranted to many a bookish friend, I could fix no fewer than 6 problems in this book in under 10 minutes. Will I still read the next two books? Of course, who do I look like? Read more here for what the dragon book and I have in common.

9. Haunt Sweet Home, by Sarah Pinsker

   Also wrote about this previously, so I won’t spend a whole lot of extra time here. Just to say that the cover is gorgeous, Massachusetts is haunted (especially Western Mass), and we shouldn’t take our mortal existences for granted. Also reality shows are weird.
   

   Apparently Massachusetts is Haunted

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No New Books™️ Challenge

Where did we leave off? Me breaking my non-book buying streak again? What else is new.

Anyways, I had to preorder a special edition on the 18th, and once I did that, well. I just had to buy more books didn’t I because I was already buying books. Right? Right.

I’m dogsitting outside of Boston currently, and went to visit the newest bookstore in town, Lovestruck Books. There’s a cafe, so many good trinkets, and it was hopping. I did buy some special editions but that’s besides the point. I didn’t take any pictures, and honestly I wouldn’t be able to top their content, anyways. Go have a visit if you’re in the Boston area.

lovestruckbooksandcafe

A post shared by @lovestruckbooksandcafe

• Longest streak: 38 days (January 1st - February 6th)

• Last streak: 10 days (February 8th - 18th)

• Current streak: 3 days (February 23rd - Present)

Mug Moment of the Week

As previously mentioned, February and I do not get along. In an attempt to make myself less miserable, I went to high tea with a friend over the long weekend. This is Fairy Tea Room, a new tea room in Warren, RI. Their tea is slightly different than the other Rhode Island hot spot and personal love of my life, Sweet Marie’s Tea Cottage,⁴ but no less enjoyable. You can choose your sandwiches, and they also have food besides the high tea menu. Also the decor is adorable.

Fairy Tea Room

This can’t be a mug moment of the week since I didn’t take a dedicated mug photo. Technically, the table in the foreground of that photo is mine, so you can see the teacups there. But since it’s my newsletter and I make the rules, here’s your actual mug moment of the week.

If nothing else, you can see that I like a good theme. Mug + nails + sweater + water cup + sunglasses + calendar + eyeglasses case = fashun baby.

I bought this mug from Hauswitch, a lovely little witchy store in Salem, MA. Yes, that Salem. Which is actually a great place to visit any time of the year other than Halloween. This mug was specifically made by Christina Kosinski in Atlanta. The mug itself is well made and beautiful, my only quibble is that it’s a tad small for my tastes. But this is a personal problem; I need a tankard of tea mainlined straight into my blood at all times.

That’s all from me folks. While everyone bemoaned January, I’m bemoaning February and next we meet, it shall pass.

1. I jest.

2. Points if you know what early YouTube video this riffs off of.

3. Graphs!!!

4. I have been there 8 times. This is not a hyperbole.