I know December is halfway over, but I didn’t want to let the year end without sharing everything I read in November! December’s reading won’t be up until the new year, because I know I’ll still finish a few more books before the end of the month. November was a great month of reading, and I even got in a few holiday books before December began. Here’s everything I read last month!
Conform by Ariel Sullivan
After I saw both Grace Atwood and Katie at Beach Reads & Bubbly recommend Conform by Ariel Sullivan, I knew I had to read it, and they did not let me down! It’s the first book in a YA dystopian series that’s kind of a mix of The Hunger Games and Handmaid’s Tale. Society is ruled by the Illum, and those who are genetically superior live in the clouds as the Elite. Those with any genetic abnormalities – like Emeline – live a lesser life, doing mundane jobs like sorting art. But the Elite – and the Illum – are Courted and Mated with those like Emeline to prevent inbreeding. When Emeline is Mated with one of the Illum, who is taking a Mate for the first time in decades, she’s given the chance to temporarily live a different life… but she’s also making a new friend in Hal, who lives below, and is offering her a different kind of life. She has to decide whose view of society, and humanity, she agrees with… and of course it’s going to be messy. I was worried this was going to be too predictable, but I had so much fun reading it! I finished it in just about 24 hours and I’m ready for the sequel like, now.
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
This was recommended to me by a friend almost a year ago, and I can’t believe it took me this long to read it! Janina lives in a remote Polish village, where she stays at housesits for wealthier homeowners. She’s a bit of a recluse who loves animals more than people, and is obsessed with doing everyone’s astrological chart (it’s really funny how frequently she mentions this throughout). One day, one of her nearest neighbors is found dead, and she’s convinced the deer he hunts have sought their vengeance. When other villagers are also found dead, Janina works with her friends to try to solve the mystery of what’s going on in their small town. I love a story about found family, and I was completely surprised by how this one ended!
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
Good Spirits by B.K. Borison
This was such a fun holiday romance – I love things that have a slightly magical twist. Nolan is a Ghost of Christmas Past, who spends the holiday season every year haunting some unsuspecting Scrooge so they turn their life around by Christmas Eve. He’s expecting more of the same when he’s matched with this year’s victim, Harriet, but is confused when she is seemingly the most un-Scrooge-like person he’s ever met. Things get even stranger when, during their trips down memory lane, his magic takes them not to one of Harriet’s memories, but one of his. Harriet and Nolan need to figure out why his magic is backfiring around her, and of course, the more time the spend together, the more time they want to spend together.
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin
I really enjoyed the first book in this series, How to Solve Your Own Murder – and thought that this one was okay, but not quite as good as the first for me. Annie is trying to settle in to her new life at Castle Knoll when the fortune teller Penny Lane stops by one day with a message for Annie that sets off a new mystery for her to solve. This mystery coincides from one back in the 1960s, and Annie needs to get the full story of what happened back then to be able to solve the murder in current-day. I think I’ll still read the next book, but this fell a little bit flat for me.
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi
(Thank you to Libro.fm for my copy.) I love everything I’ve read by Emezi, and I love that they’re writing romance now! This was sexier than anything I’ve read from them before, but I wasn’t disappointed. Galilee was raised by the powerful Kincaid family, yet has known that she’s somehow different than them; that she doesn’t quite fit. Then one night, out with her friends, Gali has a chance run-in with… Lucifer. As in the Devil, the Morningstar himself. Both of them ignore all the warning signs and find them unable to keep away from the other. This encounter starts Gali down the path to finding out who she really is. If you like fantasy romance, I think you’ll love this like I did.
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
(Thank you to Negalley and Knopf for my copy.) I got in bed early on a Friday night and finished this in one stretch… andfelt completely wrung out when I was done. Told entirely over the course of one week, and set in a near-future experiencing some sort of climate crisis, we learn the story of a family living in India. When a thief, Boomba, breaks into Ma’s house looking for food, he inadvertently also steals their passports. The following week unfolds as Ma searches valiantly for the thief and the books, wanting to get out of India to meet up with her husband in Ann Arbor before things get any worse. Of course, their stories are more complicated than they would seem on the surface, and overall it was beautiful and devastating at the same time.
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This takes place sometime around the 1920s, in the Jazz Age, but instead of enjoying any newfound freedom, Casiopea lives with her wealthy grandfather, one of the family technically but treated more like a servant. When she’s left home one day as punishment, she opens a box in her grandfather’s room and lets out an old God, who conscripts her to join him on a quest to take his stolen kingdom back from his twin brother. I love stories about female empowerment, which is exactly what this was, and thought it was really fun.
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
Workhorse by Caroline Palmer
I kept seeing people rave about this book, and I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to the hype, but for me, it did. It’s kind of like a much grittier, realer version of The Devil Wears Prada. It takes place during the heyday of magazines, when you could write off just about anything, and Clo is an assistant who doesn’t have the pedigree of many other magazine staff, but wants nothing more than to fit in. She is willing to cross many, many lines and do whatever it takes to make this happen. It was honestly kind of unsettling to read – I felt like I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop – but also so, so good and engrossing.
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko
I am honestly not even sure where to begin with this book – it is one of the most unique, most interesting, and most confusing things that I’ve ever read. It’s a dark, boarding school fantasy novel set in Russia, with probably the most unique magic system I’ve ever seen. Sasha finds a man trailing her one day on a summer vacation in Russia, and her interaction with him sets off a series of events that leads her to enroll in the Institute of Special Technologies. There, she finds that nothing makes sense, but failure is punished harshly – and taken out on the ones you love. But little by little, things begin to click, and she begins to change in ways she could have never imagined. It’s pretty philosophical – I am certain I did not understand it all – but also pretty mind-blowing!
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
Christmas Fling by Lindsey Kelk
This is basically a Hallmark movie in book form, which is not an insult – I had a lot of fun reading it, and it was exactly what I hoped it would be! Laura goes to check out a new flat that she’s agreed to house-sit at, and somehow leaves with a fake boyfriend, Callum, for the holidays. After an unfortunate meet cute between Laura, Callum, and his parents, Laura agrees to go along with his ruse and spend the holidays with the family at their estate in the Scottish highlands. But from the train ride down, the lines between fake dating chemistry and real chemistry start to blur, and the longer it goes on, the harder it gets to tell what’s for pretend and what’s genuine. There were some plotlines (zany friends) that I didn’t love, but overall it was very cute.
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
This is a Christmas romance with a Groundhog Day twist, and I really loved it. Mae has just found out that she’s spent her very last Christmas ever at her favorite place, a family friend’s cabin. As Mae and her family are driving away, something happens, and when Mae opens her eyes, she finds herself back at the beginning of this year’s Christmas trip. Mae has to figure out why she’s been given this chance, and what she needs to do to make it stick. I just found out this is going to become a movie, and I’ll for sure be watching!
Buy it on: Bookshop.org | Libro.fm | Amazon.com
