Book Check-In 1/2/21

 First check in of the year! These are actually all books from last year because once I got close to holidays I got really wrapped up in work and then I wanted to relax, so I haven’t been logging my books 😬

I will also be posting a list of my top books I read in 2020, so keep your eyes posted for that!

Since my last check in I read Anxious People by Fredrik Backman and Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore.

Anxious People

Genre: fiction

A group of strangers is at an open house when a failed bank robber fleeing the scene of the crime takes them hostage. As the story progresses, we learn more about each of the individuals who are trapped in the apartment, including the bank robber.

Rating: 5/5 stars

Perks: Really fun characters, including a very cute lesbian couple.

Wild Beauty

Genre: magical realism

For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They've also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens.The boy is a mystery to the Nomeolvides family and to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name.

Rating: 5/5 stars

Perks: fun world building, all PoC main characters, tons of queer rep.

more about why I decided on these ratings (with spoilers) under the cut

Anxious People

This book was very intense. A lot of feelings at all times. It takes really deep dives into the reasons people do things, motivations, from all sides. I will warn, there is a lot of discussion of suicide in this book, and it could be potentially triggering to people. A lot of the book is about people who are in shitty situations and don’t feel like they have good options to get out of that situation (although some of the choices they make are less drastic than others). They do come together in the end, befriending each other as a solution to the problems they’re seeing, and it has a happy ending. I really really loved it and would recommend it.

Wild Beauty

I’ll be honest, I’m not usually very into magical realism. I often don’t feel like it serves a purpose and the authors just throw in some odd quirk to spice stuff up. This book felt more like the magic was grounded and had a purpose in the story. The story wouldn’t have worked without the magic (which sometimes feels not as true in other magical realism books I’ve read). One thing I adored with this book is that it didn’t allow for homophobia. Fel, the boy who appears in this land is from a different time. The girls love another girl, and rather than having him be homophobic as ‘a product of his time’ he defends somebody who he thinks is being attacked for being queer and one of the first memories he regains is that his brother was queer, and even if he was taught that it was wrong, he knew it wasn’t because his brother was good. It was a choice that took more effort to put in, but it made me so happy. The Nomeolvidas family is also a really fun multi-generational family of all women with very sweet relationships between them. The ‘villains’ are the rich white family that owns the land and the evils they had committed there which was very valid. I really enjoyed it and some nights stayed up late because I had to see what happened.

Up Next

Stay tuned for my next check-in! I’m currently reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzzane Collins (prequel to the Hunger Games) and will talk about it there (along with any other books I manage to read before then)

As always, you can see all the books I’ve read on my reading list.