Recent Reads: December 2018

Sunglasses: Tiffany & Co. | Necklace: Tiffany & Co.
Turtleneck: Stradivarius | Book: Fear of Flying

Welcome to the new format of my reading roundup! Instead of cluttering the post with all of the books I bought and borrowed, I’m only going to focus on the books I’ve actually read. Therefore, I can give you more information on all of the books so you can decide if you want to read them, too! This post will go live towards the middle of every month, and I’ll continue to include challenge progress at the bottom.

I’ll still be tracking my purchases in my reading log spreadsheet, though. Learn about the spreadsheet and other ways that I track my reading in this post. Additionally, I’ll be introducing a new post that focuses on what I’m planning to read, or books that I’ve added to my TBR. I don’t want there to be too much overlap, so I won’t do that one every month, but will definitely share when I come across some exciting finds.

This blog is heading more and more in the book blog direction, which I kind of love, but I’m going to keep producing other content as well. So, if there’s anything you’d love to see, make sure you leave me a comment or send me an email so I can consider it!

Recent Reads: December 2018

I haven’t posted a reading roundup since August 2018, so we have a lot to catch up on. Therefore, below, I’m not including everything I’ve read since then, but instead a sample of books that I’ve loved/want to share/need to talk about. I’m not including my reading challenge stats because I’ve kind of abandoned those, but they’ll be back 2019!

The Christmas Sisters by Sarah Morgan

★★★★★

If you’re looking for a book to read while hiding away from family this Christmas, make it this one. I adored this family story so much and, although I don’t have sisters myself, felt that I truly understood their bond and how it can wane and grow stronger over time. Here are some more festive reads for the holiday season.

Click here to purchase The Christmas Sisters

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

★★★★★

I listened to this on Audible after it was a Reese Witherspoon book club pick and absolutely fell in love with every character in the family. Rosie and Penn have five boys and their youngest, Claude, wants to be a girl. The book explores the family as they learn to accept Claude for who he is, from keeping it a secret to running away from it to finally being honest with each other and the world. I found it to be an absolutely beautiful story and think it’s one that everyone should read.

Click here to purchase This Is How It Always Is

Circe by Madeline Miller

★★★★★

I don’t know why I so scarcely love Fantasy when I love reading about different worlds so much. I listened to Circe on Audible and soaked up every second of it; honestly, it felt like I was being read a fairytale whenever I put my headphones into my ears (which, by the way, are now AirPods – I love them!). I don’t know much about mythology – though now I want to know more – but I enjoyed the story of Circe so much, from her uniqueness to her isolations to her finding out who she truly wanted to be. It was a beautiful story, beautifully told.

Click here to purchase Circe

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

★★★★

Home Fire is powerful and eye opening and extremely relevant. I’m not at all surprised that it’s the winner of the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Isma, Aneeka, and Parvaiz are three siblings that have been through a lot. Their father left them and their mother passed away, so Isma, the eldest, pretty much raised her younger twin siblings. When they’re old enough to be on their own, Isma finally takes the opportunity to follow her own dreams and moves to America. Then, Parvaiz goes in pursuit of his own dreams, which involve proving himself to the jihadist world that his father was a part of; and, when he realizes he may have made the wrong choice, the whole family begins to fall apart. Beautifully written, very timely, and an absolutely heartbreaking story about how far we will go for those that we love.

Click here to purchase Home Fire

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter

★★★★

This was unlike anything I’ve read before, so I was pleasantly surprised when I really enjoyed it. The End We Start From is a dystopian novella set sometime in the near future in Britain and follows a woman and her baby as they try to escape a flooding London and survive in a panicked world. It was written in little snippets instead of chapters, which I found a bit hard to get used to. However, once I could look past that I found that it was a beautiful story.

Click here to purchase The End We Start From

Are you planning to read any of these books now, or have you read any before? Leave your thoughts in the comments below! Also, if you’re looking for a new read, consider checking out one of these posts:

• The Best Christmas Reads of 2018
• Books I Want to Read Before the End of the Year
• 2019 Diversify Your Reading Challenge
• Previous Reading Roundups