Reading Wrap Up: December 2020

Welcome to the December edition of, My Reading Wrap Up! 

If you missed November’s reading wrap up – check it out now! 

It’s my final reading wrap up of the year! I’ve loved having this space to share my reads and write reviews. It’s helped keep me on track and I’ve gotten lots of great book recommendations from the blog comments. So thank you for checking out these posts and I hope you continue to in 2022.

As of December 22, I’ve read 69 books this year. My original goal was 50, which I then moved to 60, and have now moved to 70. So with 9 days of the year left, I think it’s safe to say I’m going to reach (and probably surpass) my goal of 70 books.

I noted how I feel about reading goals in my Best Books of 2020 – basically, I like charting my reads and enjoy having a numeric goal, but don’t want to feel pressured to read when I’m not in the mood.

All right, I don’t think there were any themes to my reads this month, so without further ado!

Expecting Better by Emily Oster

Pregnancy/parenting, 336 pages, published 2013

“You’re the one pushing the baby out. It’s your choice to make.”

This is NOT a pregnancy announcement. I am not pregnant but I hope to be one day in the future, and so I thought I would do a little reading on it. Honestly, I was just hoping someone would say I was allowed to eat sushi, and this book did! (If you want the info: Mercury is bad for babies but omega-3 is good, so fish high in omega-3 and low in mercury is optimal. The bacteria potentially found in raw fish is no more dangerous than when you’re not pregnant, so no need to avoid.) I really loved that this book wasn’t about telling you what to do. Instead, Oster presented the data so that you could make an informed decision. She put real numbers to the scary doctor recommendations and it was so reassuring.

Some of the facts were a little dry, but Oster ends each section with a quick recap of what you need to know. The book is also a little dated, since it was released in 2013, so a lot of the data referenced is over 10 years old. I would love to know if more recent data changes any of the findings. Lastly, I did find this book to be a little anti-fat with a fairly cavalier and privileged attitude towards ob*sity and weight loss. If you’re thinking about getting pregnant and you live in a larger body, watch out for some insensitive language around this. I encourage you to find fat-positive, evidence-based health providers, and keep in mind that Oster is an economist, not a doctor.

TW: child loss, anti-fat

Rating: 3.75/5

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Shit, Actually by Lindy West

Essays (film), 272 pages, published 2020

“Yet another example of Hermione saving everyone’s ass by being the only competent person in the building.”

In this hilarious book of essays by Lindy West (of Shrill and The Witches Are Coming fame), Lindy reviews a movie per chapter, giving her critical takes, using a feminist lens, and generally making me laugh out loud. I really looked forward to reading this one and zoomed through the audiobook. I found the first few chapters funnier than the last few, so maybe the concept got old.

I killed myself laughing through the essays on Love Actually (her criticism was so valid but I still love that movie), Harry Potter and The Lion King. Unfortunately, I hadn’t seen many of the movies, which meant I didn’t enjoy the jokes as much. Lindy does a great job of explaining the plot and giving you enough context so you know what she’s talking about, but it would be so much funnier if I had seen all of the movies. And I think that’s mostly on me, for not watching nearly enough of the classics!

Rating: 4/5

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The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

Dark fantasy, 368 pages, published 2020

“Shared or spilled, it seemed that blood did not matter as much as appearance did.”

This was the first fantasy book I’ve read as an adult and I have to say, I really enjoyed it! It took me a minute to get into it and adjust to the world, but luckily there wasn’t too much to learn. I knew I didn’t want a fantasy book that was going to overwhelm me with world building. The Year of the Witching is a dark fantasy with enough mystical elements to be interesting but not so many that fantasy novices like me get lost. Plus, a lot of the fantasy elements are well-known, like witches.

Once I got into this book, I was pretty hooked and always ended up reading more pages in a sitting than I thought I would. I loved how this book dealt with such huge themes and social issues like racism, class structure, feminism, religion and othering. I don’t want to say too much about the plot, as I think half the fun of books like this is being dropped into a different world. But if you’re looking for a strong heroine, witchy vibes, cult-like religion and social commentary, you’ll find that all in this book. I’m looking forward to the sequel!

TW: animal sacrifice, death, violence, sexual assault, blood/gore

Rating: 4/5

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From Scratch by Tembi Locke

Memoir, 339 pages, published 2019

“We didn’t have a shared language to explore all that… Instead, what we had was our time together, especially in her kitchen.”

From Scratch is a memoir about Tembi Locke’s life and journey losing her husband to cancer. In the book, she shares the years following his death, dealing with her grief and connecting with his Italian family, while also flashing back to how they met, their marriage and their daughter.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read and is a love story in every sense of the word. By that, I don’t mean that it’s a super steamy romance; I mean that the love Tembi shares is dripping off every page. Not just the love for her husband, this book explores Tembi’s love for her family, her in-laws, her daughter and the life she has to live after her husband passes. It’s also a love letter to Italy, especially Sicily, and to Italian food. This book almost reads like poetry as the language is so descriptive and beautiful. If you’re looking for a really beautiful and heart-wrenching love story, you’ll find it in this memoir. And pack your tissues; I bawled all throughout the chapter where her husband passes.

This book made me want to go back to Italy so badly!

TW: cancer, death, racism

Rating: 4.25/5

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Cobble Hill by Cecily von Ziegesar

Contemporary fiction, 320 pages, published 2020

“It seemed like a lot of people in Cobble Hill were very busy doing not a lot.”

I feel like this quote perfectly sums up this book. Not much happens! There’s really not a plot and I kept waiting for something to happen. But it never did. And while I don’t mind a character-driven novel, I have to like the characters and find them complex and interesting. Not the case here. The characters were interesting enough that I kept reading, but I wasn’t rooting for any of them. In fact, some of them I really disliked (the retired band singer who couldn’t stop rhyming? He was the worst!). And why did we need to keep focusing on the fact that one woman was fat but, don’t worry, really really beautiful? I did enjoy the inclusion of a non-binary character and the book was pleasant enough to read, but I wouldn’t overly recommend it.

TW: drugs, fire

Rating: 3/5

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Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Contemporary fiction, 264 pages, published 2020

“If I’ve thought of my mother as callous, and many times I have, then it is important to remember what a callous is: the hardened tissue that forms over a wound.”

In contrast to Cobble Hill, Transcendent Kingdom was a character-driven novel I really enjoyed. In this book we meet Gifty, a young Stanford scientist who shares the story of her mother immigrating from Ghana to Alabama, her brother’s drug addiction, her family’s mental health, and the path that led her from a religious upbringing to the sciences. I loved learning more about Gifty’s world, particularly her family and her experiences with religion. I preferred her family stories to her lab stories, as the scientific terms sometimes caused my brain to go to sleep. I enjoyed Gifty’s insights on the literalness of the bible and the gossip culture in churches. The chapters about her brother’s drug use were heartbreaking.

My only major complaint? I did not enjoy the narrator’s voice on this audiobook! I don’t usually read fiction on audio, but a book podcast I listen to specifically recommended Transcendent Kingdom on audio. Well, I’ll have to disagree. I thought the narrator’s voice was really robotic and her accents were distracting. If I ever re-read this one in the future, I’ll be doing it in print.

TW: drugs & overdose, mental illness

Rating: 4/5

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In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

Contemporary romance, 272 pages, published 2020

“You mistake love. You think it has to have a future in order to matter, but it doesn’t. It’s the only thing that does not need to become at all. It matters only insofar as it exists. Here. Now. Love doesn’t require a future.”

This is the kind of fiction I love to read. I love fiction with a heart-wrenching story, great writing (not cheesy but not too “literary” either), realistic dialogue, characters I care about and an interesting plot. Rebecca Serle delivers all of that with In Five Years. I had read Serle’s first book, The Dinner List, last year and loved it. So I was so excited when my hold on In Five Years finally came through at the library.

Serle’s books have an element of magical realism. In this one, the main character has a vision of her life five years in the future and it’s nothing like she thought it would be. But the book isn’t fantasy. I love the emphasis on relationships, particularly in this one between best friends. It felt like the romantic partners were secondary, which was refreshing. The plot line and writing totally drew me in and I didn’t want to put this book down. It was a tear jerker but in the best way!

TW: cancer, death

Rating: 4.5/5

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Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

History (race/politics), 496 pages, published 2020

“To dehumanize another human being is not merely to declare that someone is not human, and it does not happen by accident. It is a process, a programming. It takes energy and reinforcement to deny what is self-evident in another member of one’s own species.”

In this book, Isabel Wilkerson compares what has often been described in America as racism to the caste system in India and Nazism in Germany, arguing that all are caste systems. To be honest, the academia of this book went over my head. I’m not informed enough to know if these systems should be described as caste and whether or not that helps or hurts. But this book shares some horrific parts of history that I think are important to learn.

Here are just a few tidbits I picked up:

• There was no category of “whites” until people started coming to America and there are no “blacks” in Africa
• Nazis modelled some of their race rules on what was happening in the US. In fact, they found some of the US racial laws too harsh.
• White Americans used to send postcards from local lynchings to their family and friends.
• Alabama did not get rid of their policy outlawing interracial marriage until 2000, and even then, 14% of people voted to keep the law.

Overall, the book was super informative and Wilkerson does a great job breaking down theory and sharing examples from history and her own life in very engaging ways. I did find the book to be quite long and had a hard time staying as engaged by the end. I’m glad I listened to it on audio as I think it was easier to pay attention and not drift.

TW: violence, Holocaust, murder

Rating: 4/5

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Aria’s Travelling Book Shop by Rebecca Raisin

Contemporary romance, 384 pages, published 2020

“It’s one of the things I most love about her. That she can consume words like others consume food.”

The premise of this book pulled me right in as it’s kind of my life dream: Aria is a van lifer who runs a book shop out of her van. She travels around France selling books, hanging with her van life friends, touring cities, reading and, of course, falling in love. Sign me up!

I expected this book to be super cheesy but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I absolutely loved Aria’s journey through the different French towns and cities – it stirred up some major wanderlust. There’s also an element where Aria (SPOILER ALERT) reads diary entries from her late husband, which I thought was well written. Some of the dialogue between Aria and her friends and her love interest felt forced but again, not as bad as I was anticipating. Overall, it was a fun read! And I’m ready to pack up and start selling books out of a van in France tomorrow.

TW: cancer & death

Rating: 3.75/5

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Best book of the month

Overall, my favourite book of the month was In Five Years by Rebecca Serle. I really enjoyed this one and hope to find more fiction like it! From Scratch by Tembi Locke was a close second and another favourite.

Annual reading stats update

I usually end my monthly reading wrap up with an update on my annual reading stats. But since this is the last month of the year, the annual stats are in! Head over to my Best Books of 2020 post to see how many books I’ve read this year and which ones are my favourites. I’ll be updating that post again on December 31st with my final numbers.

 

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