What I Read in January 2022
January 2022 felt like the longest and shortest month ever. Truthfully, it flew by for once and thank goodness because it was a doozy. It was quite possibly one of the hardest months of my adult life. The only thing that kept me going was using my reading time as a form of self-care. I tend to start the year off on a high note and managed to squeeze in 5 books despite the chaos the New Year rang in.
Here’s What I read in January 2022:
It Had to Be You by Georgia Clark
Goodreads Synopsis: For the past twenty years, Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn have run In Love in New York, Brooklyn’s beloved wedding-planning business. When Eliot dies unexpectedly, he even more unexpectedly leaves half of the business to his younger, blonder girlfriend, Savannah. Liv and Savannah are not a match made in heaven, to say the least. But what starts as a personal and professional nightmare transforms into something even savvy, cynical Liv Goldenhorn couldn’t begin to imagine.
It Had to Be You cleverly unites Liv, Savannah, and couples as diverse and unique as New York City itself, in a joyous Love-Actually-style braided narrative. The result is a smart, modern love story that truly speaks to our times. Second chances, secret romance, and steamy soul mates are front and center in this sexy, tender, and utterly charming rom-com.
My Review: 3/5 Stars
Cute modern romance that follows 5 different couples and explores the way their lives are entertwined through friendship, life after loss, scandal, and identity. It's like a coming of age story for adults with lots of well-rounded and diverse characters. The chapters are super short which made it harder to put down. The narrative switches between couple for each chapter so I had to keep reading to find out what sort of drama happened next! The only thing I disliked was that the tension seemed to build all the way to the end and the resolution was a bit rushed. I wanted to know more about what happened between the end of the story and the epilogue. I'd recommend this book to fans of Emma Straub.
Make Up Break Up by Lily Menon
Goodreads Synopsis: Love, romance, second chances, fairy-tale endings…these are the things Annika Dev believes in. Her app, Make Up, has been called the “Google Translate for failing relationships.”
High efficiency break-ups, flashy start-ups, penthouses, fast cars…these are the things Hudson Craft believes in. His app, Break Up, is known as the “Uber for break-ups.” It’s wildly successful—and anathema to Annika’s life philosophy.
Which wouldn’t be a problem if they’d gone their separate ways after that summer fling in Las Vegas, never to see each other again. Unfortunately for Annika, Hudson’s moving not just into her office building, but into the office right next to hers. And he’ll be competing at the prestigious EPIC investment pitch contest: A contest Annika needs to win if she wants to keep Make Up afloat. As if it’s not bad enough seeing his irritatingly perfect face on magazine covers when her own business is failing. As if knowing he stole her idea and twisted it into something vile—and monumentally more successful—didn’t already make her stomach churn.
As the two rival app developers clash again and again—and again—Annika finds herself drawn into Hudson Craft’s fast-paced, high velocity, utterly shallow world. Only, from up close, he doesn’t seem all that shallow. Could it be that everything she thought about Hudson is completely wrong? Could the creator of Break Up teach her what true love’s really about?
My Review: 3/5 stars
Make Up Break Up was a cute enemies to lovers romance with a diverse cast of characters and young women in STEAM. Oddly enough, I thought Hudson was the redeeming character even though he was Annika's rival app developer. The conflict was fairly predictable, the resentment went on a few chapters too long, and I could've used a little more smut. I enjoyed the beginning of the story much more than the resolution but would still like to read some of Menon's YA novels.
The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary
Goodreads Synopsis: Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend's wedding in the north of Scotland. The playlist is all planned and the snacks are packed.
But, not long after setting off, a car slams into the back of theirs. The driver is none other than Addie's ex, Dylan, who she's avoided since their traumatic break-up two years earlier.
Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, and they've totalled their car, so Addie has no choice but to offer them a ride. The car is soon jam-packed full of luggage and secrets, and with three hundred miles ahead of them, Dylan and Addie can't avoid confronting the very messy history of their relationship...
Will they make it to the wedding on time? And, more importantly... is this really the end of the road for Addie and Dylan?
My Review: 4/5 Stars
This was the 3rd Beth O'Leary book I've read and my favorite by far. It's a forced proximity/second chances romance and generally had so much more raw emotion than The Switch and The Flatshare. I loved the alternating timelines and narrators which can be tricky to get right but I felt like it worked for this story. There were moments that I gritted my teeth in anger at the situations the characters were put in and other times I found myself laughing out loud. I wouldn't say that any of the characters were particularly likeable, but I found most of them at least relatable at times. I also listened on audio and I think Eleanor Tomlinson is such a talented voice actor that it only amplified my reaction to the storyline. I went into this book with fairly low expectations but found myself pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Honestly, it was going to be a deal-breaker for me so now I'll have to plan on picking up O'Leary's next book!
Content warnings: sexual assault, toxic parents, mental illness, breastfeeding, alcoholism
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Goodreads Synopsis: Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.
My review: I decided a couple of years ago that I wasn’t going to publicly review memoirs so I’ll say that parts of this book were quotable and other parts were not for me. Regardless of my feelings about the book, I’m happy that I was able to check another book off of my TBR list thanks to a buddy-read with a fellow mom this month. I’ve enjoyed being able to discuss sections with her!
All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership by Darcy Lockman
Goodreads Synopsis: Picking up where All Joy and No Fun left off, All the Rage sets out to understand why, in an age of so-called equality, full-time working mothers still carry.
The inequity of domestic life is one of the most profound and perplexing conundrums of our time. In an era of seemingly unprecedented feminist activism, enlightenment, and change, data show that one area of gender inequality stubbornly remains: the unequal amount of parental work that falls on women, no matter their class or professional status. All the Rage investigates the cause of this pervasive inequity to answer why, in households where both parents work full-time, mothers’ contributions—even those women who earn more than their partners—still outweigh fathers’ when it comes to raising children and maintaining a home.
How can this be? How, in a culture that has studied and lauded the benefits of fathers’ being active, present partners in child-rearing—benefits that extend far beyond the well-being of the kids themselves—can a commitment to fairness in marriage melt away upon the arrival of children?
Darcy Lockman drills deep to find answers, exploring how the feminist promise of true domestic partnership almost never, in fact, comes to pass. Starting with her own case-study as Ground Zero, she moves outward, chronicling the experiences of a diverse cross-section of women raising children with men; visiting new mothers’ groups and pioneering co-parenting specialists; and interviewing experts across academic fields, from gender studies professors and anthropologists to neuroscientists and primatologists. Lockman identifies three tenets that have upheld the cultural gender division of labor and peels back the reasons both men and women are culpable. Her findings are startling—and offer a catalyst for true change.
My Review: 3/5 Stars
Darcy Lockman’s book All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership is an attempt to explain why mothers who work full-time outside the home still carry the majority of the parenting load.
The book begins with her own life as a case study and then weaves in stories from other women that echo her experience with some science and statistics to validate her findings. I found that it explained WHY modern parenting is inequitable but didn’t offer much in the way of a resolution. In the last few sentences, she reminds the reader that it takes persistent work from both parents to make significant changes.
It’s a book that all fathers should read, not their already resentful wives. Nevertheless, IYKYK and every word will have you nodding in agreement. Being a working mom, managing a household, and parenting is exhausting and we could use a break.
My favorite review on GR has to be this one from a user named Charlotte that genuinely made me cackle…”this is a horror novel and has made me question the value of pursuing male partnership entirely ,, I would like to unread this thanks”.