Sunday Book Club: January 2020 Reading List

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Your first reading list of 2020! (How many more times do you think I can get away with saying “Your first….of 2020” or worse, “of this decade”? Anyways, Who doesn’t want to start with some reading lists? December was a month where I didn’t do as much reading as I expected, but I really enjoyed everything that I read. Thanks to putting down a lot of meh books (like I mentioned in my currently), I ended up reading a lot of really great reads in my January 2020 reading list.

January 2020 Reading List

Reputation by Sara Shepard

I don’t know why, but new Sara Shepard books are always such a surprise to me. I never hear about them for some reason, they always just appear. But I’m not going to complain, because they keep getting better. (Also, if you can’t figure out why Sara Shepard sounds familiar, she wrote the Pretty Little Liar books.) Reputation was EXCELLENT. It takes place in Pittsburgh at a college campus that sounds like it’s PROBABLY Carnegie Mellon-ish, where a virus causes everyone’s campus emails to go live for the whole world to see. Which unearths a lot of juicy scandals and cheating that no one ever expected. You think that’s the worst part, but almost immediately after that, someone gets murdered. Told through multiple POV’s, I swear this book just keeps getting better.

Supernova by Marissa Meyer

The finale to Marissa Meyer’s three part Renegades series, it was very satisfying. While all of these books give a little bit of background on each of the previous books, you really have to read the previous two books for the third to make any sense. However, I LOVE Meyer’s writing. She can take topics that I have little interest in and make them incredibly enjoyable.

The Little Bookshop on the Seine by Rebecca Raisin

Note: I was given this book as an advanced release copy in exchange for an honest review.
I think we can all agree that anything book that includes the word “bookshop” automatically scares hardcore readers. Why? Well, books about bookshops and bookshop owners are hard. They can get too into themselves in trying too hard to prove their love of books. The description of the smell of books can go on for pages when all the reader really wants is to get to the plot! Little Bookshop on the Seine does not suffer from this affliction though. The characters were fun, the plot was enjoyable, and I could easily picture this bookshop as Shakespeare’s bookshop in Paris while the book went on.

The only issue I had with this book was that the ending wrapped up a little too quickly and neatly. However, I’m interested to look into the other novels in the series, now that I know they exist.

Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis

I’m not a short stories person, so if I enjoyed a short stories series, then I REALLY enjoyed it. Southern Lady Code was filled with a number of short, enjoyable, and ridiculous stories, about, what else, what it is to be a Southern Lady! My only complaint? It wasn’t long enough.

We Met in December by Rosie Curtis

I kept confusing this title with One Day in December so many times, but I promise you, this is NOT the same book. And as someone who did NOT like One Day in December, I can say that that’s a good thing. First, I like both of the main characters. The main male isn’t a total jerkface and you can actually root for the female and her friends the entire time. Second, there’s not really outrageous that happens during the book. It’s just a really enjoyable cute, romance-y novel. And I highly recommend it for a cozy evening.

Dear Girls by Ali Wong

Should I have watched one or two of Ali Wong’s netflix specials before reading this? Maybe? Personally, I think all it would have done it prepared me for the amount of butt humor coming my way. But(t) once you got use to that, it was really good and pretty funny.

The Starlet and the Spy by Ji-min Lee

Okay, this one was good, but it was a little difficult to get through. I actually had to take breaks from it a few times. It’s a short novel, but it’s about a woman who is assigned to be Marilyn Monroe’s guide during her visit to Seoul in South Korea. At the same time, you follow the woman as she revisits her past and time during the Korean war.

Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison

Note: I was given this book as an advanced release copy in exchange for an honest review.

Have I mentioned that I’m really happy to no longer be a teenage girl? If you needed any more reminders that teenage girls are scary things, Good Girls Lie is a great reminder of that. Good Girls Lie follows Ash as she arrives at her new boarding school in Virginia. After both of her parents died in a murder-suicide in England, it only makes sense for her that she try to start over at a boarding school in America. Only, she doesn’t have the easiest time starting over, as other secrets around the school start to come up, as well as the death of her fellow students.

When I was first reading the novel, the shifting point of view confused me, and I found myself going back and re-reading parts. However, as I got further into the book, the shifting view points became less confusing, and significantly creepier. There was always a chapter that you never knew who was speaking and it continued to keep you on your toes. It helped keep the reader suspicious of every character, and like a good thriller, no character could really be trusted.

Overall though, I completely enjoyed it.

Husband Material by Emily Belden

Note: I was given this book as an advanced release copy in exchange for an honest review.

Going into this book, I thought it was going to be this regular old romance book where main character’s dead husband’s ashes also happen to show up at her doorstep. But this book ended up being so much better than that. Have I gotten ahead of myself? Maybe I should take a few steps back.

This novel center’s around Charlotte, a coder in LA who is failing at the dating. After coming home from a friend’s wedding one night, her world is completely thrown when her dead husband’s ashes show up at her doorstep. The twist? No one in her life even knows she was married. Her roommate, her close friends, her work. So now she has to figure out what to do with these ashes and all of the characters who are now coming back into her life.

Husband Material sounds like it might be a sob fest and while it has it’s moments, Belden has managed to create a fun and comedic novel that I couldn’t put down. While it had a few plot points that a reader could guess, there were a few twists that I definitely did not see coming. Any reader who loves a fun read needs to add this to their list!

That’s my January 2020 reading list! What is your first read of 2020 going to be?