January '23 Reads

My first reading round-up of the new year! Despite January feeling like a neverending month, I only managed to read three books. And that’s okay. I’m reading at my own pace and I don’t have anything to prove to myself or anyone.

(To be completely honest, the people who manage to read 6+ books a month scare me. I don’t know how they do it.)

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Howl’s Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones, read #1 of 2023

My first read of the year! I was hoping to finish this one before graduate classes started, but alas.

I saw the movie for the first time a few months ago and loved it. I thought it was a cute, magical love story (though I do think Sophie should’ve ended up with Turnip Head). I knew it was a novel, but I didn’t have a strong desire to read it – I’m not a huge fantasy person – until a coworker thrusted it at me one day.

The novel is so much more than the movie. I don’t want to say better, because they’re both so good in their own ways, but they’re very different and the novel holds more. There’s more depth to the novel than in the movie, and I think Howl and Sophie make more sense in the novel than in the movie. Watching the movie after reading the book, all I could do was point out the differences.

Looking at them as separate pieces of media – because truly, they almost tell a different story – they are both beautiful and magical, and one shouldn’t be praised over the other.

Metropolis - Thea von Harbou, read #2 of 2023

I never want to think of this novel again.

My first read for my graduate program (go Argos!) and I absolutely hated it. Maybe 1920s German sci-fi / dystopias just aren’t my thing? To be fair, I never thought they were my thing.

I wouldn’t have picked up this novel in a million years if I didn’t have to read it for class. And I most definitely would not have finished it if I didn’t have to write an essay about it.

It was just so, so dense, and while it was published before the rise of Fascism in Germany, Metropolis most definitely had those “vibes,” which was just off putting (especially when you look into von Harbou’s life post-Metropolis).

I still gave it two-stars on Goodreads, though. Some parts were interesting at the very least.

Very Sincerely Yours - Kerry Winfrey, read #3 of 2023

My third read of the year and my first five-star read of the year!!!

I absolutely adored this novel. I’m a sucker for cliché love stories. Especially ones where the guy has no problem being emotionally open and vulnerable. Honestly, that’s what I want in a partner more than a hot, chiseled body. Show me your emotional maturity and that’ll get me flustered.

But enough about me, let’s talk about Teddy and Everett. A vintage toy shop employee falls for a children’s TV show host who’s also a puppeteer?? Sign me up. Teddy and Everett were a match made in heaven, and I stand by that.

I know that’s the whole point of romances – to have a happily ever after. But every time a happily ever after shows up, they attack my heart and send me into a fit of whisper-screams because of how adorable and perfect it all is.

Teddy and Everett sent me into quite a few fits of whisper-screams. Honestly, they might be my new OTP. (Does anyone still say “OTP” or am I just stuck in 2013?)

Overall, January wasn’t too bad reading and life wise. I managed to start the year strong with both my potential favorite and least favorite books of the year. I’d say that’s a decent start, knocking them out early.