Here we are. Hello, December!!! One last round of reviews today before I cap off the year with just a few more books and give my list of official favorites from 2019! My November reads were simply amazing—seriously, superb. Three 5-star books and a 4! For real?! This makes me so happy. These books were all total treats in their own right, and also super (duper, duper) different from one another. One spiritual read, one memoir, one historical fiction, one thriller. There just might be something for everyone! My favorite was You Are the Girl for the Jobby Jess Connolly—gah, my soul needed her words!!!—but honestly, they’re all spectacular.
Without further ado, here you go! I’ll have that yearly wrap-up, holiday-gift-guide book list coming at you so soon!
Momentary High-Powered Pep Talk
Some of you might have read my last blog post about falling into a bit of a funk this fall. Well, add this ridiculously inspiring book to the list of things that have helped me climb out of it!!! Ladies, you need this book in your life. Especially if you have big dreams in your heart, from business and family to fitness or ministry. Especially if you find yourself battling the same old fears and struggles and lies. Especially if you grow tired of your own repetitive weaknesses. Especially if you need some good-old-fashioned encouragement deeply grounded in t-r-u-t-h. I cried, I fist-pumped, I laughed, I felt so SEEN and so known as a 30-something Christian girl facing all of today’s crazy pressures. Jess Connolly feels equal parts bestie and life coach in these powerful chapters about walking into your life’s call with courage, confidence, creativity and clear vision. She is beyond relatable and wise far beyond her years. I absolutely adored this book and marked up the ever-loving daylights out of it. I’d kinda kill to fly and meet her for one of her all-day one-on-one coaching sessionsin Charleston, South Carolina. This book would make a particularly awesome Christmas gift for any of the passionate Christian women in your life ages 18-40. I deeply loved it and want more from J-Co ASAP. “You’re the girl for the job. He said so. If you believe Him, believe in His character and power, and take Him at His word—it will change the world.” Five super-bright shining stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Momentary Fantastic Historical Fiction
It’s really that simple—this book is fantastic. One of my favorites this year. Oh, my. How can I put my love into words??? Prior to The Giver of Stars, I had only read Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. So the bar was high along with my expectations. While this book could not be more unlike Me Before You, I absolutely adored it for a million different reasons! Based on the real-life Horseback Librarians of the Kentucky Mountains in the 1930s, the book zeroes in on heroines Margery and Alice, whom you can’t help but love within chapters. Daughter of a moonshiner Margery is tough as the trails, native to risk and anti-commitment—while Alice is dainty and blonde, straight from England, and married to the handsome but increasingly cold and dismissive Bennett, whose father quickly also becomes a nemesis. I loved these two women and their central friendship so much—Margery’s bold spirit and brave brand of femininity for the time, Alice’s swelling courage and newborn freedom found riding horseback through Appalachia. Both of them discover true love, meaning and self-hood through the mission of their traveling library, delivering books to local inhabitants, fighting continually against cruel adversaries, inclement weather and more. I loved the other librarians, too, and felt for each of their stories.
Without giving away too much of the plot, I’ll say that this book 100% has the feel of a timeless classic and the heart of a modern love story. Definite Where the Crawdads Sing vibes, complete with a small-town court drama. This book is a nod to the privilege of reading, female friendship, true love and joy in adversity. I found it poignant, funny, informative, transporting and beautiful. The ending was perfect for me and sparked more than one tear. Book-lovers, get out your tissues. This one is a ride to remember! Now… was the ride admittedly a bit slow at times? You know, yes. Yes, it was. But this didn’t personally dampen my love. I’m still thinking about it all, and I loved that it’s based in historical fact. I adored it. Some long rides are just worth it. I give it five stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Momentary Don’t-Miss Memoir
Wild Game is a striking memoir I simply could not stop absorbing and neither will soon forget. I listened to the audiobook and I think the narrator (Julia Whelan, my favorite) probably took the story to even greater, more unputdownable heights. Right up front, I will tell you, however, that this book is pretty heavy and nearly unbelievable in its sadness! At the mere age of 14, Adrienne Brodeur—“Rennie”—is lured into her enchanting narcissist of a mother Malabar’s affair with a dear family friend. Malabar enlists her bright, loyal daughter to help navigate her liaisons and hide the illicit love from her ailing husband (and everyone else). The story is completely addictive and the writing style, eloquent, fast-paced and fine-tuned in its specificity. The book is as wildly salacious as it is relentlessly smart. I absolutely loved the food descriptions, of which there are many (Malabar is a great chef and food writer).
Wild Game‘s mother-daughter dynamic is so preposterously unhealthy that I found myself wanting to shake both of them at differing points in the story—but in the end, it is a profoundly telling, decades-long tale of family, loyalty, strength, womanhood and resilience. This book reminded me how central the mother-daughter bond is to our whole-person development—and how much I won’t be taking lessons from Malabar’s recipe cards. UM, YIKES. Holy disfunction and sadness, how broken people can’t help but break people. But wow. What very brave and brilliant truth-telling. I loved it. It ignited fire within me to be a wonderful, God-fearing mother the rest of my days. To put my sweet daughters first ALWAYS and love them fiercely as they deserve. Five stars from me! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Momentary Cultish Creep-Fest
Lisa Jewell, you are a genius! After absolutely loving Then She Was Gone this year, I couldn’t get my hands on her newest release fast enough. The Family Upstairs was everything I hoped it would be—utterly creepy, totally addicting and, for the most part, unpredictable. The story delves into several different POVs, but Libby Jones, adopted as a baby, takes center stage as she finally discovers on her 25thbirthday that she’s inherited a mansion in Chelsea, London. Facts about her past unfurl in her quest to discover her history and that of the house. She learns about her birth parents and the frightening apparent cult-suicide that ended their lives 25 years ago—three bodies found, dressed in black, on the kitchen floor, with four children gone missing, and one 10-month-old baby abandoned but kept alive. This darkly entangled story of family and frights is so well-written and executed. My only reason for knocking a star is that I didn’t feel deeply connected to the characters in the way I did while reading Then She Was Gone. (That book is just a lot to live up to!) I definitely wanted a bit more about the book’s main villain—his motivations and his belief system. Things get GNARLY up in this haunt fest and I wanted more reasons why! This is a super-bizarre story, and definitely only for my darkies, but I still really liked it a lot. Four spooky stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What are you reading in December?! I want to know!