January Books

Last year I wrote a post at the end of each month detailing what I'd been reading, watching and listening to, but this year I've decided to dedicate these posts solely to books seeing as  I'm finding it difficult to watch much aside from the odd snippet of Baby TV and my Spotify is now mainly made up of white noise playlists. 

I've managed to read a surprising amount in January, thanks mainly to my little one contact napping and doing long feeds before bed and there were some good books to kick off the year with. 

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult // It's really difficult to summarise this book without giving a huge part of the plot away, but it's about a woman who gets stuck on an island in the Galapagos when it locks down due to covid, but not everything is quite as she perceives. I loved this book even before it threw a massive curveball at me; it was such an interesting and gripping read and I rated it a rare 5/5 stars. 

Small Pleasures by The School Of Life // Moving on to the book that inspired this post, which describes 52 small pleasures that you wouldn't necessarily usually give much thought to because they're a part of the everyday. I absolutely loved how this was written and although I didn't agree with all of the pleasures listed, I definitely related to a lot of them and the whole premise of the book resonates with how I want to live my life this year. I rated it 4/5 stars.

The Girl At The Back Of The Bus by Suzette D. Harrison // Set in both 1955 and the current day, this book tells the story of a woman and her grandmother. I love a book that's split into intertwining stories and this was beautifully written. It explores difficult choices, relationships and inequality. I absolutely loved it and rated it 5/5 stars; my second 5 star book this year already! 

A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson // This is a sort of follow up to Life After Life, which is one of my favourite books of all time, but it stands alone if you haven't read that one. This book follows the life of Teddy, the brother of Ursula who is the central character in Life After Life. I did really like it, but I think my expectations were so high for a follow up and it was totally different to what I expected. The chapters jumped around chronologically, which I liked, but time also jumped around within each chapter, which was maybe a little much for me! I rated it 3/5 stars in the end.