the best books i read this month – january 2021

Welcome to my first best books post of the year! I feel like it has been such a long time since I wrote one of these and this is also my first monthly book post since switching over to using The StoryGraph instead of goodreads.

If you want to look back on the reading goals I set for myself this year you can check them out here and I will be tracking them down at the bottom.

Feel free to follow me here on The StoryGraph, or search me by my username andrea_connors. Let me know if you are there and tell me your username so I can follow you!

Girls With Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeir and Wendy Katzman

Three mothers, three daughters, one early admission spot to Stanford and a willingness to do anything to get the stop. This book is full of secrets, sabotage, and is a very entertaining read when you want to go to a world that is so different than what you are used to.

I found that I was immediately intrigued by the concept and how all of the relationships between the mothers went both with each other and with their daughters.  The book is full of drama, secrets, sabotage, and makes me so glad that this wasn’t my experience.  

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson

I read this book for the Read Harder challenge of reading a book about anti-racism and I hadn’t heard of this particular book before. One of the things that I found this book did well was connect major events/time periods in American History from The Great Migration, the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the election of Obama and how they are all connected to each other. I wouldn’t call the book light, but the way the author wrote made it easy to follow and very interesting.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

This book was many years in the reading. I absolutely love the Lord of the Rings movies, but I had never fully read the series. I read this first book as my Book you are intimidated to read prompt from the Read Harder Challenge as I had started and stopped this book multiple times in the past. I really enjoyed reading this book, putting on the soundtrack in the background and I have committed myself to reading the rest of this series this year.

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

I found out about this book from my friend Katie when she was asking for book recommendations last year and was immediately drawn to the concept of a woman who wakes up every January 1st in a different year of her life. She may be in her 60’s or back in her 20’s and she has to figure out where she is and what her life is like at the time. This book was fun, but it also made me think about things and I loved the way that this book was written and wished it kept going longer as I wanted to continue in this world.

Do Better by Rachel Ricketts

Rachel is one of the people I started following in 2020 and I have learned a lot from her and her social media this past year. I really enjoyed reading her book and how she brought in the spiritual aspects of anti-racism and her writing style is very engaging and I learned a lot.

Reading Challenges

Books Read: 14/52

Book Riot’s 2021 Read Harder: 2/24

A-Z Challenge: 10/26

Around the World 0/12 (1 in Progress)

Feel free to follow me here on The StoryGraph, or search me by my username andrea_connors