After finishing 2022 by reading 54 books, I upped my goal for 2023 to be 60 books and read 6 books throughout the month of January. After taking a bit of a break from non-fiction, I decided to include at least one non-fiction book a month to my list, in addition to my beloved thrillers. I really enjoyed All the Dangerous Things and Anxious People this month. I listened to One Nation Under God by Dr. Kevin M. Kruse and also really enjoyed that one as well. Keep scrolling for a synopsis of each book and my rating for each.
See my favorite reads from 2022 here and check out what I’ve read here.
6 Books I Read in January 2023
All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham
Synopsis
One year ago, Isabelle Drake’s life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room. With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold. However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her–literally.
Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn’t slept in a year. Isabelle’s entire existence now revolves around finding him, but she knows she can’t go on this way forever. In hopes of jarring loose a new witness or buried clue, she agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime podcaster–but his interest in Isabelle’s past makes her nervous.
His incessant questioning paired with her severe insomnia has brought up uncomfortable memories from her own childhood, making Isabelle start to doubt her recollection of the night of Mason’s disappearance, as well as second-guess who she can trust… including herself. But she is determined to figure out the truth no matter where it leads.
Meghan’s Thoughts & Rating
- I loved Stacy’s book, A Flicker in the Dark, a book I was introduced to thanks to Book of the Month, so I was excited to see her newest book as an option for my December BOTM. This book *did not* disappoint.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
Synopsis
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation. However, an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple. They relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else.
Also, a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything. This includes where they want to live and how they first met. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world.
Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious times.
Meghan’s Thoughts & Rating
- When I started this, I was like, “I don’t know about this. ” I thought maybe I just did not get the humor. About halfway through, something flipped and I could *not* put it down. And it ended with me shedding some tears. Definitely lives up to the hype, IMO.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Synopsis
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
Meghan’s Thoughts & Rating
- This was a slow-burn for me and I didn’t want it to end. It’s a story about love, friendship, life, gender roles, disabilities, and racism in a beautifully intertwined way.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Synopsis
Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
Civil is taken by her her first week along a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin. She gets shocked to learn that her new patients, Erica and India, are children. They’re just eleven and thirteen years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy. However, they are poor and Black. For those handling the family’s welfare benefits, that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica, and their family into her heart. Until one day, she arrives at their door to learn the unthinkable has happened, and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.
Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace, and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten. That must not be forgotten.
Because history repeats what we don’t remember.
Inspired by true events and brimming with hope, Take My Hand is a stirring exploration of accountability and redemption.
Meghan’s Thoughts & Rating
- This book was such an important read that is loosely based on a true story of forced sterilization of young, poor, Black women in the South. The story is heartbreaking and one that is important to recognize is still occurring in instances. The only reason I did not rate this 4.75 is because I would have liked a little more about Anne and Civil’s decision.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
One Nation Under God by Kevin M. Kruse
Synopsis
We’re often told that the United States is, was, and always has been a Christian nation. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the belief that America is fundamentally and formally Christian originated in the 1930s.
To fight the slavery of FDR’s New Deal, businessmen enlisted religious activists in a campaign for freedom under God that culminated in the election of their ally Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. The new president revolutionized the role of religion in American politics.
He inaugurated new traditions like the National Prayer Breakfast, as Congress added the phrase under God to the Pledge of Allegiance and made In God We Trust the country’s first official motto. Church membership soon soared to an all-time high of 69 percent. Americans across the religious and political spectrum agreed that their country was one nation under God.
It’s provocative and authoritative. One Nation Under God reveals how an unholy alliance of money, religion, and politics created a false origin story. It continues to define and divide American politics to this day.
Meghan’s Thoughts & Rating
- Dr. Kruse is one of my favorite historians to follow and this book is super informative with the role of religion in lawmaking in the mid-1900s. He incorporates his sense of humor to break up the deep topic as well. Worth a read! This is not critical of religion or those who worship–instead traces the historical relevance of some of the language we see today.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Cloisters by Katy Hays
Synopsis
When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters. It’s a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection. Its a group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.
Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession. Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.
A haunting and magical blend of genres, The Cloisters is a gripping debut that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Meghan’s Thoughts & Rating
- I judged a book by its cover and had high hopes. It’s dark, and I can understand the romanticizing of academia and NYC. But, it was so slow. The last 75 pages were where the real story took place and then it was too late, IMO.
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️
