Reading List: January 2025
New Year, New Books!
Before we begin: The podcast is back! The archives are here! We closed the Patreon and Apple+ and now this is the only place for all the things I make! Some people chip in to keep it going but NBD if that’s not for you, there’s plenty of free stuff (like this episode here) and I’m glad you’re here!
Wow, it’s still January?
This month has lasted a record 9,000 days. Scientists are baffled. The universe is confused. And so am I, because I’m barely getting this out before this month finally — and I hope I didn’t just jinx it — ends.
So what do you do when it feels like the world is spinning wildly out of control? If you’re a geek who lived for her local library, you dive headfirst into a stack of books, the longer the better.
I read a lot this month.
A few months ago, at the urging of my teenage daughter, I listened to A Court of Thorns and Roses on a drive to Las Vegas. This is the fantasy series that has been (among others!) dominating bestseller lists and poolsides for years, and I was…not in love. I mean, I listened to the entire thing but I also cringed so hard my muscles were sore by the end of the drive. It was a retelling of Beauty and The Beast where a poor girl is driven to the castle of a beastly…fairy? In this universe, Fairies are big and strong and sexually magnetic and also magical but this was still a teenage girl falling in love with her captor and calling him her “high lord” and I called Sophie and said, “what did I do wrong that this book spoke to you!”
And she said something like, relax the first book is supposed to be bad! It pays off in the second!
Now, having read every book in the series, I can say that if you haven’t allowed yourself the treat of slipping into an epic series of fairy smut, maybe you should consider it.
Because slipping out of this reality into one where the world was ending because of greed and evil and only unlikely allies and magic can heal it was…oddly comforting. And knowing that these books would take hours and hours of reading time meant hours and hours I was not tempted to unbrick my phone1.
I know there are fantasy haters out there (because I was one) so I’ll keep this as quick as possible and move onto the other books I read this month.
A Court of Mist & Fury (Book 2): definitely redeemed the first book (Sophie, if you read this, YOU WERE RIGHT!) and introduced a hot new fairy and that kind of twists that make you think about what it really means to be a good guy (maybe it’s complicated??) and oh no now her sisters are caught up in this mess!
A Court of Wings & Ruin (Book 3): okay wow maybe the good guy was the bad guy and maybe what our girl did in book 2 wasn’t as good as she thought it was (ugh hate when that happens!) Lots of MAGIC and realizing your power and there’s a HUGE WAR and SO MUCH BLOOD and WHOA the twists! You won’t see them coming! The more stressful the situation, the more sex the characters have, and I’m sorry but I WILL lol when they make wings sexual).
A Court of Frost and Starlight (Book 3.5): BOOOOORING! A short book about the winter solstice that’s just a nothing Christmas story where they’re like, wow, war is over what do I get my immortal beloved as a gift when he’s 500 years old and enormously wealthy and has everything??? Also in this book I realized the girl is TWENTY ONE and WHYYYYYYY couldn’t the author just age her up a smidge? Say in that first book she spent three years in the castle? MUST WE HAVE GIRLS WITHOUT A FULLY FORMED PREFONTAL CORTEX FALL IN LOVE WITH MEN HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLDER THAN THEY ARE??2
A Court of Silver Flames (Book 4): We switch our focus to the mean big sister who has powers nobody has ever seen, and is struggling to fit into this new world. This book is equal parts trauma therapy in the fairy world (CBT, breath work, meditation, empowering female warriors to help heal the emotional wounds left by sexual assault, deeply understanding and sexy men who are committed to Doing The Work) and the most graphic sex scenes I’ve ever read. I was clutching my pearls at some of those passages, but as you may know, you can take the girl out of Catholic School but you will never take the Catholic School out of the girl.3
When Book 5 drops, I will be right there ready to disappear into this world again and yes, I am planning on starting her other series soon!
Okay, I’m done now!
Here’s what ELSE I read this month:
A Better Ending: A Brother’s Twenty-Year Quest to Uncover The Truth About His Sister’s Death byJames Whitfield Thomson read like a novel and a journal all at once. It took Thomson 27 years to truly look at his younger sister Eileen’s death in 1974. He was told (by her cop husband) that she’d shot herself in the chest. But did she? I felt the ache of his loss on every page. Note to my siblings: if I die under mysterious circumstances, please ask at least three questions before 27 years pass, okay?
Making Time by Maria Bowler is a great book for burned out boss babes and boys who feel like they’ve been running on a hamster wheel trying to make it all make sense. I love Maria’s instagram presence for the way she publicly deprograms herself and others from Toxic Productivity. This book was a warm hug for my brain and soul. I have an interview with Maria that I have to edit and share with you soon but neither of us are stressed about it because we are not those panicked little Doers anymore!4
Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle was an interesting premise: a guy who grew up mourning his dead father tastes foods he’s never eaten. They’re messages from the dead, and when he cooks them, the dead return. I’m admittedly not a foodie and pages describing food bore me, but the premise got way too tangly with not enough payoff, and the interstitials between chapters confused me, switching points of view with side characters. I don’t like to talk about books I didn’t love because taste is SO SUBJECTIVE and this book hit a trigger for me: that the dead “can’t move on” until we “move on” and what that means is never really defined?? It had funny moments and touching moments and I’m sure it would make a great screenplay (and has probably already been optioned), where the stickier plot points can be glossed over more easily.
The Mother Next Door by Andrea Dunlop and Mike Weber is a doozy. If you haven’t yet listened to Andrea’s podcast Nobody Should Believe Me, go do that. But only if you can handle stories of Munchausen By Proxy (AKA Medical Child Abuse). Mike Weber (AKA Detective Mike) is the country’s foremost expert when it comes to MBP and law enforcement, and Dunlop’s family was torn apart by MBP (listen to her podcast!). This book read like a Vanity Fair article (a big compliment in my book) and I gulped it down in one sitting even though the subject matter is beyond disturbing. Bonus Read: Andrea’s novel on MBP, We Came Here To Forget.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a book I hadn’t read since high school, but my sixth grader was assigned it in English class and I thought, “hey, I should read it so we can talk about it!” It’s short enough to read in a few hours but that’s only if you aren’t deeply upset by a story about little boys being wrecked on a deserted isle and turning on one another especially when the main character has the same name as your own son!!!
Book Giveaway Time!
If you’re new here, we do this every month. Leave a comment with what you’d like, and I’ll choose winners at random and message for your address5.
Making Time
Aftertaste
A Better Ending
For everyone who has ever asked how I sleep so much, it’s these THC gummies. The DREAM ones conk me out for 8-9 hours, and the UPLIFT ones make me chill and fun. Code NORA gets you a discount but I can’t remember what the discount is!
I got to talk with
about the NY Times Trends for 2025 and share my own (truly dark) trend predictions.
XO,
Nora
I’ve had my phone Bricked since December 24 to “relax” and “be present.” Code NORABRICK gets you 10% off, but it’s iOS only right now (more than one phone can use the same brick, you don’t need multiples for a household!)
And yet! I never stopped reading!
middle-aged woman
At least not as of this exact moment. Ask me again tomorrow.
Book giveaways are a perk for paid subscribers! If you can’t comment, you aren’t a paid subscriber and need to upgrade your subscription!
Making time please! Thanks for your review of A Court of Thorns and Roses! I’ve been skeptical but now I want to give it a shot!
Fairies ≠ Fae
All fairies are Fae, but not all Fae are fairies
JUST SAYING
::pushes glasses up bridge of nose::