Hello Loves!
December ends in a few days but my reading for this month, well mainly for this year is all done and dusted.
Ho gaya.
I got to 225 books and it feels like the perfect number to stop at. So I have stopped and reading will now commence only in the New Year.
So I figured I'd get my Reading Wrap-Up for December out of the way and not save it for the end of the month.
So here we are.
December was a good reading month. I read 12 books. I bought nearly the same amount of new books. I allowed myself to be a little indulgent and buy as many books as I wanted to..within reason of course. I also went to a bookshop and came back with five books, which was so wonderful after over two years of no book shop visits!
I read enough.
I read well.
And I did a ton of bookish posts and overall this was a good month reading wise.
OK, let's jump into all the books I read this month.
BOOKS OF DECEMBER 2022:
1. Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng: I went into this book with my expectations pretty well managed, let me explain, I've read the author's previous two works and I left them feeling with a lot of mixed emotions. I enjoyed the writing very much but something about the characters and their actions and especially the ones we were supposed to root for...didn't work for me. So much of her first two books didn't make sense to me. But this one..this one blew me out of the park. It was so good. Slightly speculative fiction-y and done so well. And so much of this world, that is our world but a little off felt so real and completely believable. I am glad I put aside my misgivings and gave this book a shot.
4/5
2. Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell: This month has been about giving authors I don't exactly love a second chance. Rainbow Rowell is a phenomenally success author and people adore her work. ADORE. She has literal stans. However I am not one of them. I have read two of her books- Eleanor and Park and Fangirl...and I didn't exactly love them and didn't understand the hype. So ever since I read those two books, back in 2015 or so I guess..I have kept my distance. She is not for me. But I saw this collection of short stories and in the beginning of the month I was in the mood for something lighter and fluffy. So I picked this up and I had such a good time with it. It was just what I needed. It hit me in the feels and made me smile. This is a decent collection if you have never read Rowell and want to read her. This is a good place to start. I enjoyed these stories and the art work. Good times.
3/5
3. Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: I read this book in a day or two and I did a review for it too.
I have some additional thoughts that I had once I finished the book and after I wrote that review.
This is a decent book.
Yet....it's nowhere near the level of her earlier work. I know it's perhaps wrong to compare an author's work with her back list, but her earlier work had so much more soul and heart. Something about this books felt lacking. My sister read it and downright hated it. I just thought you should know this before you think about buying it. It's nice. Just not great.
3/5
4. Luck by Dhruba Hazarika: Then I picked up a slim collection of short stories, set in Assam and mostly dealing with men and nature and wild life and the nature of loving something wild and ephemeral. It was quite wonderful and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
3.5/5
5. Under the Tamarind Tree by Isha Sasay: Next I read some non-fiction and a book I have had for a while and I randomly started reading it. This book tells the tale of the young school girls abducted by Boko Haram and how they found their way back home and the things they endured and how their families fought for their release. Moving and harrowing and reading about the impossible situation these girls found themselves in was just so upsetting and the writer does a good job of making you feel like you are right there with them, every step of the way.
3.5/5
6. The Princes by Manohar Malgonkar: More historical fiction for me. This has been such a beloved genre for me this year. This book is mainly about a Prince of an erstwhile Princely State in pre-independence India, his growing up, his family life, the privilege and bubble. It was so interesting to see the world from this perspective. And seeing a slice of India in the 1930s and 40s from this particular lens. To see that not all people wished for freedom and to them this was justified and it also made sense. I enjoyed this book and this fairly unique perspective.
4/5
7. No Way In by Udayan Mukkherjee: The best thing I read this month and a long, long time.
So good.
I want to do a full review of this one.
But for now I just want to say: Pick this up.
It's set in Calcutta in 2014, in a country that was about to change and how these changes affect the people in this story.
It's sooooo good.
5/5
8. Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian: This book has been on my Kindle since it came out, last year I think? I liked how it started. Small town America and an immigrant Indian family in 2006. Nice. Solid stuff. There is some magical realism...or plain old superstition..but then when it moves into 2019, I just lost any and all interest in this fairly melancholic tale of woe.
Nah.
Started strong and then tapered off into something I didn't quite like.
2.5/5
9. I'm The Girl by Courtney Summers: I read and loved Sadie by the same author, but this one was just odd and off. The main lead is an idiot and so incredibly unlikable. Set in a small resort town, it's about the abuse of young girls by those in power and how the rich and powerful get away with literal murder without any repercussions. Important things but just not done quite right, not great.
2/5
10. Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan: More diaspora reads for me. This book starts off in 2000 in a small-town in America, where our protagonist Ayesha is in her senior year of High School and very fresh off the boat. She misses her family back in Mumbai and meets a fellow Mumbaikar, Suresh and they fall in love, very quickly and very deeply. This love leads to an unplanned pregnancy. And then we see Ayesha deal wit this impossible situation the best she can. This makes the first half of the book.
Then we move to 2018 and meet Mira, Ayesha and Suresh's daughter, who lives with her two moms and sister in the US and finds out about her birth mother and wishes to reconnect with her.
I quite liked this book. The first half, with Ayesha in the lead was my favourite and one that I liked way more than Mira's bits.
But nicely done and fairly realistic.
3/5
11. Sold to the Duke by Joanna Shupe: Then I read a short smutty novella...about a fair maiden sold off to a Duke. Then love and steaminess ensues. Fun and short and steamy.
4/5
12. Foster by Claire Keegan: My last read of the month and of 2022 was this wonderful short read by Claire Keegan whose work I love. I adored Small Things Like These (which if you haven't read you absolutely must, it's perfect for this time of the year and is a short read you can squeeze in before the year is up).
This one is set over a summer when a child is sent off to live with distant relatives by overwhelmed and sorta uncaring parents. In her new home she finds love and is seen for the first time and given love and attention she so craves. This book is short but it just crawls into your heart.
So good.
4/5
So there we have it.
Everything I read in December.
A good month of reading and a good way to end my year!
I am so happy I managed to post a Reading Wrap-Up every single month this year.
Go me!
You can read all my 2022 Reading Wrap-Ups HERE.
xoxo
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