January 2025 Reading Wrap-up

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Image c/o Fable

I read 8 books last month! I’m quite impressed by myself, lol. 

Frankly, my only real “resolution” for the year was to do my darndest to pick up a book and read, instead of doomscrolling through social media. Because last year, I realized that I—perhaps with 50% of humanity?—spent a lot of time doing that. Hours in a day. And apart from knowing most of the memes and references because I was terminally online, I don’t know what else that got me. 

Well, unending sources of anger, too. 

So anyway, because I was mostly offline over Christmas and New Year for a family vacation, I realized it’s not really impossible to spend less time on social media. Granted, I missed some viral stuff and also wasn’t aware of everything going on in my large and small worlds, but it didn’t feel crippling.

And then Zuckerberg’s kissing the Trumpian ring sealed the deal for me. 

I’d say I was both successful and not in replacing doomscrolling with reading my books. Successful because, hey, I finished 8 books last month! I would literally tell myself to put the phone down and pick up my book. But also, not as successful as I’d like because though I’ve moved away from Meta (haven’t left; just not posting anything of mine and severely cutting down my visits), I sometimes find myself doomscrolling on BlueSky. 

And this is where I tell myself it’s a process. There are good days and not-so-good days, but as long as there’s some progress, it’s all good. 

This is turning out to be more of a personal wrap-up of the interminable month that was January, so here are the books: 

  1. SINING KILLING by Randy Valiente - winner of the National Book Award for Graphic Novels, which frankly doesn’t always recommend a book, but Sining Killing’s interplay of art, violence, revolution, and family drama is compelling in and of itself.
  2. HUMAN ACTS by Han Kang - This is my first Han Kang. No words. Floored. I don’t always understand why someone wins the Nobel, but I totally get why Han Kang did. Also finished this in time to attend Jessica Zafra’s book discussion on this!
  3. IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES by Katherine Rundell - finally got to this after all the hype. As promised, it was charming and had high stakes, as many great middle grade novels do.
  4. CLEAN SWEEP by Ilona Andrews - Ilona Andrews is a comfort read, but I hadn’t read them in a long time. Despite that, their magic hasn’t diminished. Gobbled this book up like all their others.
  5. THE EXPENDABLE MAN by Dorothy B. Hughes - I thought I should read one of my lovely Persephone Books, and when I started this classic, I was wondering why I should care about this male main character who only seemed to care about himself despite the clearly troubled teen girl he was forced to help. And then the story reveals one very crucial detail, and you realize you read all previous pages with a dangerous assumption, and you’re flabbergasted.
  6. THE THINGS YOU CAN SEE ONLY WHEN YOU SLOW DOWN by Haemin Sunim - Read this to prepare for Haemin’s visit, and though this isn’t my usual genre, I found a lot of kindness in it. Not just for others, but for oneself, so that was a great thing. 
  7. SAY IT OUT LOUD by Ashley Schumacher - This is a Fall 2025 title, which means it’ll be published later this year, in September. I read it because the pitch was a romcom inspired by the experiences of a long-time Twilight fan. I was a Twilight fan. Not a super fan, like the characters in this romcom are, but by golly. I came for the Twilight giggles, and I stayed for the amazing banter and strong emotional core about family and grief. I predict this will become a hit, especially for fans of Emily Henry and Ashley Poston. (No cover yet, so that’s something to look forward to!)
  8. ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey - This one, too: I came for the Booker Prize reading flex and stayed for the beautiful prose emphasizing how strange and  therefore wonderful time and space and the universe and our place in it is.
In short, I read good books the first month of the year! Which is a win, considering the year we’ve been having so far, eh?

Here’s to the rest of it, then!

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