January 2021 Wrap-Up

Hey friends! I hope you all had a relatively good first month of 2021! Lately, I find myself unable to even format my book reviews and post them here on the blog, so I’ve been a bit scarce in the blogging world over the past two months or so. I genuinely want to put together a 2020 wrap-up, especially since I read a ton of amazing books I’d like to share with you, but thinking about writing a post sometimes freezes me up and I haven’t been able to completely get past that yet. I have a lot of fun stuff planned for this year that I hope I would able to bring myself to write about, too. Please stay tuned as I slowly find my way back to blogging again. In the meantime, thank you so much for sticking around and being awesome!

A few months ago, I was posting multiple times a week—reviews, book memes, etc. Sadly, I’ve only had 4 posts in January as I struggled to find balance in my life. During winter break, I literally only go to bed when I was tired and get up only when I could manage to leave my bed. Zero-routine life didn’t do great for my productivity. Now that school has started for a week, I have been sucked into a whirlwind of studies, homework, duties, and research. (In case you are new here, I am a first-year grad student who just switched fields—I used to study antennas and now I am trying to get into space science.) But books keep me going, so I am still happily reading.

I read 120+ sapphic romance last year, and while romance is not my favorite genre, it definitely is what I read to relax since an HFN/HEA is guaranteed. But occasionally, I’d fall into a romance reading slump. It happened in January, so I’ve been venturing into different types of books. This year, I just might cut back a bit on romance and take my reading slower.

Enough of my ramblings. Let’s move on to what I read in January.

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Books I Read

This month, I read a total of 18 books! I have decided to do my wrap-up posts a bit differently than I did last year and briefly talk about each book instead of listing them.

Nonfiction

A long time ago, back when many of us could freely travel without fearing catching a deadly virus, one-third of my yearly readings were nonfiction. Last year, however, only about 5% of the 181 books I had read were nonfiction, and I vowed to return to my usual diet this year. I finished two books I started in 2020, one is the audiobook of Rachel Maddow’s Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth narrated by the author herself, and the other is Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, a book my current advisor assigned our lab to read. I loved Maddow’s narration of her own book, which is about how the oil and gas industry politically impacts the world. As for Criado Perez’s book, I appreciated her work of bringing gender data into different fields of study, but the way trans and nonbinary people seems to not even make it to author’s notes really bugged me, even though I did very much enjoy her arguments. You can read my full thoughts on Blowout here and my review of Invisible Women here on Goodreads.

Literary Fiction

It’s not a secret that I enjoy some good literary fiction every once in a while, and this month, I managed to pick up three amazing—in their own different ways—literary fiction, two of which were related to Taiwanese experiences.

As some of you might know, I discovered my favorite book ever during my first buddy read with Gabriella (her Goodreads) in November last year. It was Carolina De Robertis’ Cantoras (my review). Since then, both of us have been eager to pick De Robertis’ other works, and we buddy read The Gods of Tango this month. I love the book dearly and you can read my short review on Goodreads here.

The first time I heard that K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary is sapphic and Taiwanese-American, I was very excited. I finally got to read it with Kes (their review on Instagram) and without them, I would probably have missed a lot of the ongoing themes. While most of the plot went over my head, I did like picking through the sentences and the grotesque imageries to figure out the story. It was undoubtedly the most bizarre book I have ever read, and writing the review alone made my brain overheat.

If Bestiary was the weirdest book ever, then Chi Ta-wei’s The Membranes came second. Originally published in 1995, this Taiwanese sci-fi novella is casually queer, mind-blowing, and very intense. I read the Chinese original 〈膜〉 and the translated version by Ari Larissa Heinrich at the same time, enjoying both editions. You can read my review of the story and thoughts on the translation here on Goodreads. As a Taiwanese, I am incredibly happy to see this queer story reach the English market. This was also a buddy read with Gabriella.

Adult Sapphic Romance

This month’s sapphic romance reads were a roller coaster ride. It started off with another buddy read with Gabriella of Scent by Kris Bryant, a story told through the first person point-of-view of a stalker and manipulator, which made it impossible for us to root for the romance (my review & her review on Goodreads). Most other readers loved it though. Since I didn’t get my cute romance fix, I finally picked up Alexandria Bellefleur’s Written in the Stars, which Gabriella has raved about for months, and was very happy to find myself enjoying all the detailed writing and the romance! Plus, it made me cry so many times; I love books that make me emotional. My full review is on Goodreads here.

Again I buddy read another January new release with Gabriella, Nicole Disney’s The Clinch. I don’t think I’ve ever read a romance that is both so good on the romance aspect and all the side plots. It’s a rivals-to-lovers MMA romance that doesn’t require any prior knowledge of the sport. I adore Eden and Brooklyn, and this is a book I am sure I would be revisiting very soon! The Clinch also ended up being one of my all-time favorite sapphic romance and one of my best reads this month! You can read my review here and Gabriella’s review on Goodreads here.

Nicole Pyland always delivers romance stories with palpable chemistry, and I knew Path Forward, which is the fourth book in the Celebrities series, would be a treat. I read the ARC for this story about ex-cheater supermodel Jessica and soft butch Val, and I find myself warming up to Jessica immediately and rooting for the romance. My full review is on Goodreads here.

The next two reads were fairly enjoyable, Jenny Frame’s Longing for You (my review on Goodreads), a second book in the vampire series Wild for You, and CJ Birch’s Just One Taste (my review on Goodreads). I really enjoyed Frame’s plot on the power struggle between vampire clans, but found myself a little bit lost amid the very many points-of-view, unable to connect more to the main romance. As for Birch’s contemporary romance, I liked most of it until I reached the inevitable conflict near the end. It was frankly unacceptable and even though I felt chemistry between the main couple, I finished the book feeling unsure if they should end up together after all.

The final sapphic romance Gabriella and I read—yes, we buddy read five books this month—was G Benson’s The Thing About Tilly (my thoughts on Goodreads). I adore all the characters, especially Evie and Tilly’s best friend Sean, and the second half of the book was pure enjoyment.

Fantasy

I read Nghi Vo’s The Singing Hills Cycle last year and admittedly didn’t get either of the stories. Since I have read The Great Gatsby before, I was excited for a queer Asian retelling in The Chosen and the Beautiful. It was an enjoyable read (my review on Goodreads), though I wish I understood more about the fantastical element. Had this book existed when I was younger, I’d choose reading it over the classic.

For the past few months, Morgan @ Morgan Is Reading Again and I have been buddy reading Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. This month, we read In an Absent Dream, which was a very disturbing read (Morgan’s review). The main character Lundy, who we’ve seen in the first book Every Heart a Doorway, is an extremely unlikeable person. I was ready to rate the book meh until the very last pages. In the end, I appreciated this novella quite a lot!

Thrillers

While I don’t often read mysteries or thrillers, my first and last reads this month are actually both in the genre—one adult and one YA. Rachel Hawkins’ The Wife Upstairs was my first finish of 2021, and while it is a very white, very cishet book, I was glad it was an engrossing read (my review). It is a retelling of Jane Eyre, and though I have never read the classic, I am now very tempted to try reading it soon. The other one, Courtney Summers’ The Project (my review), has a very similar vibe to me, and it is one of the very few books if not the first one I’ve ever read that centered around a cult. It was my first Summers’ book, and it certainly would not be the last.

Other Books

The other two books I’ve read this month were alpha reads for SJ Whitby, who has become my friend over the months of me gushing over their Cute Mutant series (my review of vol 1, vol 2, vol 3). If you are enjoying the series so far, get ready for some wild rides, because Cute Mutants Vol 4: The Sisterhood of Evil Mutants (beta read in December 2020), Weapon uWu Vol 1: Godkillers, and Cute Mutants Vol 5: Galaxy Brain have a lot of serious actions going on, and little pieces of the first three books will finally come together!

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How was your January? What do you love most about this year so far? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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