What I Read in January 2023
Ft. my 1st 5-star rating of the year.
Did I get the year right?
I saw a TikTok where a reader said that they start the year off by reading a lot of short books (think poetry, short story collections, and classics under 200 pages) so that they start the year ahead of their goal. Not only do they feel like they’ve accomplished something but it gives them the motivation they need to keep going. Genius! I might have to try that next year and thought you might like the tip too!
On to the January books…
Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap
Synopsis: Tori Dunlap was always good with money. As a kid, she watched her prudent parents balance their checkbook every month and learned to save for musical tickets by gathering pennies in an Altoids tin. But she quickly discovered that her experience with money was pretty unusual, especially among her female friends.
It wasn't our fault. Investigating this financial literacy and wealth gap, Tori found that girls are significantly less likely to receive a holistic financial education; we're taught to restrain our spending, while boys are taught about investing and rewarded for pursuing wealth. In adulthood, women are hounded by the unfounded stereotype of the frivolous spenders whose lattes are to blame for the wealth gap. And when something like, say, a global pandemic happens, we're the first to have jobs cut and the last to re-enter the workforce. It's no wonder money is a source of anxiety and a barrier to equality for so many of us.
But what if money didn't mean restriction, and instead, choice? The ability to luxuriously travel, quit toxic jobs, donate to important organizations, and retire early? The freedom to live the life you want, and change the world while you do it?
Tori founded Her First $100K to teach women to overcome the unique obstacles standing in the way of their financial freedom. In Financial Feminist, she distills the principles of her shame- and judgment-free approach to paying off debt, figuring out your value categories to spend mindfully, saving money without monk-like deprivation, and investing in order to spend your retirement tanning in Tulum.
My Thoughts: Four days into the New Year I finished my first book of the year! Thank you, audiobooks. The Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy's Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love by Tori Dunlap is a very basic look at finance for beginners. I appreciated the author's note at the beginning that it is best digested in small pieces. I read a chapter at a time and used the online resources and homework to supplement the reading. My favorite chapters were on Debt + Investing. They provided more of a deep dive into finance than some of the others. Overall, this felt a lot like a more refined version of Tori's podcast and a sales pitch for The Treasury and some of her other Her First $100K workshops and products. I'd recommend this book as a gift for college students or recent graduates starting their first job. Skip it if you’re looking for more specific or advanced financial advice.
Thinking back, I started 2020 off by reading The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan and it just seems like the “New Year, New Me” thing to do to read a personal finance book in January. This book is very similar but with more scripts on how women can advocate for themselves in the workplace.
Thank you to Libro.fm for the advance listening copy! This book is out now.
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Synopsis: Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don't you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis's billion-dollar business is really nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors. When his scheme collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan's wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.
In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.
My Thoughts: Emily St. John Mandel's writing is so beautiful and captivating. She's probably the only author that could make me want to read a book about a Ponzi scheme. Her word choice and sentence structure are lyrical and deliberate. I love the way her stories are layered through time and space. Each character is connected to the other in the most intricate and detailed way and she creates all these little hints about events in her other books. I don't know how she does it! I wasn't expecting to have a little mystery at the end. I mentioned to someone that all of her books feel like night to me. They're haunting and atmospheric in a way that defies any specific genre or description.
Of the three Emily St. John Mandel books I’ve read so far, I think I preferred The Glass Hotel over Station Eleven but liked it slightly less than Sea of Tranquility. The Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility were more similar in style and connected through events and characters in my opinion. Station Eleven is still a must-read but in my mind, it feels more like an independent story.
Have you read this book? What are your thoughts on how the whole ESJM universe works?
The Enchanted Hour by Megan Cox Gurdon
Synopsis: A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful, and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.
A miraculous alchemy occurs when one person reads to another, transforming the simple stuff of a book, a voice, and a bit of time into complex and powerful fuel for the heart, brain, and imagination. Grounded in the latest neuroscience and behavioral research, and drawing widely from literature, The Enchanted Hour explains the dazzling cognitive and social-emotional benefits that await children, whatever their class, nationality or family background. But it’s not just about bedtime stories for little kids: Reading aloud consoles, uplifts and invigorates at every age, deepening the intellectual lives and emotional well-being of teenagers and adults, too.
Meghan Cox Gurdon argues that this ancient practice is a fast-working antidote to the fractured attention spans, atomized families and unfulfilling ephemera of the tech era, helping to replenish what our devices are leaching away. For everyone, reading aloud engages the mind in complex narratives; for children, it’s an irreplaceable gift that builds vocabulary, fosters imagination, and kindles a lifelong appreciation of language, stories and pictures.
My Thoughts: The Enchanted Hour by Megan Cox Gurdon is similar to Jim Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook, so if you’re a fan, you might like this book! In fact, the author references sections of the text often. Overall, I preferred The Read-Aloud Handbook because of some of the research and topics but this book holds on its own and adds to the conversation surrounding the importance of reading aloud. Some topics I found of particular interest were the sections on cultural literacy, the modern attention span, and the power of experiencing a book unsullied by film and TV. I loved her example of A Wrinkle in Time. I started the movie but couldn’t get into it because it was so different from how I imagined the book as a child. In the last few chapters, The Enchanted Hour explores the power of reading aloud across age groups, not just to children! I listened on audio (thanks to my library) and the book was beautifully narrated. Cox Gurdon’s voice is so soothing!
Under the Whispering Door by T J Klune
Synopsis: Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.
When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead. But even in death, he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.
Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.
My Thoughts: I knew going into this book it was a little bit of a risk. I thought The House in the Cerulean Sea was cute but I didn’t love it. Under the Whispering Door started out really strong for me. It was humorous and the storyline was unique and captivating. By the middle, I mostly lost interest. It was entirely too long for no good reason. When the Manager was revealed, my interest was piqued enough to keep listening. Klune does a good job of balancing heavy topics with lighthearted wit in his stories. The overall feel is always comforting even though it will have you questioning life after death. I just wish he would push the fantasy elements more. The romance was sweet and subtle and Wallace’s found family was a delight. If you liked The Midnight Library by Matt Haig you might enjoy this book too. Unfortunately for me, the plot wasn’t engaging enough to make this one worthwhile.
My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
Synopsis: Life is hard enough for a teenage girl in 1950s suburbia without having a mother who may—or may not—be a witch. A single mother at that. Sure, she fits in with her starched dresses, string of pearls, and floral aprons. Then there are the hushed and mystical consultations with neighborhood women in distress. The unsavory, mysterious plants in the flower beds. The divined warning to steer clear of a boyfriend whose fate is certainly doomed. But as the daughter of this bewitching homemaker comes of age and her mother’s claims become more and more outlandish, she begins to question everything she once took for granted.
My Thoughts: This was odd but I really liked it! A very quirky short story that explores typical mother-daughter dynamics with a twist... the mother's a witch.
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Synopsis: We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become? In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.
Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?
Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.
My Thoughts: It’s not often I read a book and immediately get the feeling it’s going to be one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s only January and I’m already giving out 5 stars… and to a debut novel no less! Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson was my local bookstore’s book club pick of the month. I’ve seen it all over Bookstagram and with good reason. It absolutely lives up to the hype and I didn’t want my journey through the Bennetts lives to end.
I absolutely loved Wilkerson’s writing. The short chapters fed into the mystery surrounding Covey and worked perfectly to pace the novel. The technique kept me wanting to read more and more. I honestly found it so hard to put this novel down. I was constantly in awe of what was revealed and how expertly all the characters were intertwined through alternating timelines and POVs. There are a lot of characters in this book but the way they are slowly unveiled makes it easy to keep up with who is who. I also felt each character had their own voice and was impressed that came through in the writing. The book also jumps back and forth between the Caribbean, the UK, Italy, New York, and California. It’s so wonderfully atmospheric and well-researched. You feel like you’re right there with the Bennetts.
Black Cake explores deep topics like identity, racism, colonialism, death, and familial estrangement with sensitivity. I never felt preached to by the themes. You also know I love a good food-centered novel and how perfect to have the recipe for Black Cake, a mixture of ingredients and cultures, to symbolize this family. Black Cake was an emotional wave but you just have to ride it. Through all the heartbreak there are so many glimmers of hope and resilience.
The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama
Synopsis: There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life's big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?
Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles--the earned wisdom that helps her continue to "become." She details her most valuable practices, like "starting kind," "going high," and assembling a "kitchen table" of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness.
My Thoughts: If you read Becoming, this is similar but a little heavier on the self-help topics. I listened to The Light We Carry on audiobook because it’s narrated by the author and I find Michelle’s voice so soothing! I have so much respect for her strength and resilience and will continue to read anything she writes.
I started The Secret History by Donna Tartt last week and will be continuing it in February.
Follow along with my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge!