January Reading Wrapped

New year, new books!! As I reflected on my 2024 year of reading, I realized I was underwhelmed by many of the books I read, and the ones I liked the most were often ones I almost didn’t pick up. I only read what I thought I was going to enjoy, or what the populous enjoyed, and strayed little from my comfort genres. But no more! I am determined to branch out this year. I joined 3 very different book clubs to help me do this, and am trying to abstain from reading book-jacket blurbs, meaning I am exclusively judging book by their covers. Let’s see where this gets me.

Books Read: 2
Total Pages: 518
Genres: Fiction
My Average Rating: 3.88

1. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

My Rating: 3.75
Goodreads Rating: 3.79

After spending all of December in my Florida hometown, I felt something akin to affection for the state I used to begrudgingly call home. I felt it beckoned me and welcomed me back with open arms in the form of flea market finds, beautiful weather, and many friendly faces. I’ve anthropomorphized Florida over the years spent away and she now evokes the sense of a who rather than a where when I think of her. This book paired with my blurred perception of the swamp-land I once knew intimately like cheese with wine.

Tallahassee author Jeff VanderMeer’s mysterious and beautiful Area X is inspired by the Florida marshlands, only if you were on acid. This trippy, creepy, sci-fi-esque story was a sensorial delight through and through, though I feel no itch to pick up the next book in the series as the overall plot felt lacking. I would recommend this book to any homesick Floridian expats missing the wild, overgrown, boggy side of home.

2. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

My Rating: 4
Goodreads Rating: 3.74

They say to write about what you know, and I think R.F. Kuang creatively did exactly this by writing about her experience as an Asian author through the perspective of a manuscript stealing, jealousy ridden, and occasionally racist white woman. A unique dissection of prejudice in the publishing industry, internet cancel culture, and thought-provoking discussion of what should or shouldn’t be “allowed”.