Show Us Your Books - January Reads

Being and having always been an avid reader, I think it's fitting the first post is a book post.  I've gotten many good book suggestions through Show Us Your Books hosted by Life According to Steph and Jana Says, and I think it's time I showed some books back and hopefully give other people suggestions of what they might (or might not) enjoy. 

So, on to what I read in January... 

Really Great Reads that I'd Recommend: 

The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1) - by Robert Galbraith  -- Admittedly, I was drawn to this book for one main reason -- it's J.K. Rowling writing under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. Intrigued as I was, it took me a little bit to get into this book.  Actually I think I stopped reading it, read another library book that became available, and then eventually came back to it.  But the second time around, it got me.  It had great character development and also a great mystery / detective story / whodunnit.  Both huge pluses in my book (no pun intended).  I found myself frequently tapping on words to look up the official definitions (I can use context clues with the best of 'em and could have just kept on reading, it didn't interfere with the story), but there were quite a few words from the British lexicon that I was just plain curious about.  J.K. Rowling either has an extensive vocabulary or is BFF's with her thesaurus.  Either way, I'm glad I came back to this book and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I have the next one in the Cormoran Strike series - The Silkworm - ready to go. Hopefully it's just as good. 

4 out of 5 stars.

You (You #1)  - by Caroline Kepnes -- I just finished this book last night.  Most of the day yesterday I wished I was home reading it, or wished I had thought to bring with me to read during lunch.  I wasn't sure what to expect, having never read anything by the author or heard anything  about this book.  I think it was Life According to Steph's review of the second book, Hidden Bodies, that made me wonder what it was about, why Joe was a psycho and what he was up to.  I definitely wasn't expecting to be as engrossed in it as I was, and I tore through it in a matter of days.  I loved a lot of the recent pop culture references... from Twitter usage to Pitch Perfect, it was spot on. Looking forward to what Joe is up to in the second book.  

4 out of 5 stars

Pretty Good Reads That I Enjoyed:

After You (Me Before You #2) - by Jojo Moyes -- I had a library hardback copy of this book laying around my house for two weeks and didn't read it.  I returned it unread.  For some random reason, I had also reserved an ebook copy through the library as well, although that copy wasn't available at the time.  (I know, shame on me for keeping it unread for two weeks when someone else could have been enjoying it, but c'est la vie, sorry people-in-hold-line-behind-me-at-the-library).  I did, however, read the kindle library edition when it became available.  It didn't make me cry all the tears and feel all the feels that Me Before You did.  I didn't put it down and go "wow" and ask 3 people I know if they've read it yet.  I did enjoy it though, mainly because I was already invested in the characters from the previous book.  Without that, I think it would've just been a so-so read. One thought that kept running through my mind was, "how many weird / tragic / horrible events can happen to one person and the people she knows?".  Maybe my life is pretty uneventful (which is fine by me!) if the alternative is some of the things that happen in this book (and the first one).  I enjoyed (most) of the new characters that were introduced.  Some of them needed a smack upside the head. 

3 out of 5 stars

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - by Mindy Kaling -- I don't read a lot of comedy books, or memoir-type books my comedic authors.  I loved The Office, but it was finally after reading this article online that I finally decided I needed to read one of her books.  The excerpt in the article is from her second book, Why Not Me?, but I felt I needed to read them "in order".  It was a quick read and definitely made me laugh, and some passages were worthy of reading aloud to others. 
I'd give this somewhere between 3 and 4 stars.      

Three Books from Karin Slaughter's Grant County Series... 

Back in the fall I discovered Karin Slaughter, and I've been devouring her books ever since.  I started kind of backwards and read the Will Trent series first, when I really should've read Grant County first, but it hasn't stopped me enjoying them.  Talk about binge reading.  I read these at the beginning of January, and honestly enough time has passed and I read them so quickly that I don't remember the individual plots of each book, they all kind of run together.  In a good way.  I'm waiting on book 5 in the series (I think there's 6 altogether?) and will devour those two also, I'm sure.

Collectively I'd give them 4 stars... while the plots are nothing earth-shattering, they do what they're meant to do as thriller / detective books and the characters are well-developed. 

Kisscut (Grant County #2) 

A Faint Cold Fear (Grant County #3) 

Indelible (Grant County #4) 



That's it for January, hopefully February's books will be just as good!

-Kathryn