⏱️ 60-Second Reviews of All 15 Books I Read in January
Hello, and welcome to Pleasure Reading. I'm your host, Amelia Ruby. And this is a podcast about the pleasure of reading, where I share curated reading lists, author rankings, chats with my bookish friends, and more. If you too take pleasure in reading, I hope that you will subscribe and share the show with a friend. Cheers to your next best book.
Amelia Hruby:Hello, hello, hello, and welcome or welcome back to Pleasure Reading, a podcast about all of the pleasurable aspects of reading from our favorite books to the things our friends recommend to, in this episode, midnight release parties that are super, super fun. I'm your host, Amelia Frooby, and on this show, I talk about my favorite books, and very soon I will be talking to some of my bookish friends about their favorite books as we invite our first guests onto the podcast. But before we get to that, I thought I might experiment with a bit of a monthly wrap up episode. So at the end of last year, I did an episode with 32nd reviews of all 150 books that I read in 2024, which was a wild ride at the time, and, honestly, I'm not sure I ever wanna do it again. It was very long, and it took quite a bit of time to edit.
Amelia Hruby:And I was thinking that instead, I might recap my books at the end of each month or every couple months depending on how much I'm reading. So we're gonna try that out with this episode. Maybe I'll love it, maybe I won't, maybe you'll love it, maybe you won't, and we'll just see how it goes. Maybe this will be the first of many 32nd review episodes. Maybe it will be the first and only 32nd review episode.
Amelia Hruby:We will see how it goes. In the month of January 2025, I read 15 books. This is fascinating to me because I spent the entire month believing that I was in a reading rut. I said it to myself. I said it to my partner.
Amelia Hruby:I said it to my friends. I was like, I am just not reading right now. And when I look at this list, I am like, Amelia, that is obviously a lie. You read 15 books in 30 days because I'm recording this on the 30th, and that is a lot of books. So I don't know why I thought I was in a rut.
Amelia Hruby:I think what I was actually in a rut about was reading for content creation. So I had these sort of visions of some different reading projects that I might take on this month. I thought I might read more dark academia, which I think I will in February. I thought I might do a whole bunch of new romance reading, and none of that just quite came to be. Instead, I just did some pleasure reading.
Amelia Hruby:I let myself be a mood reader. I let myself read whatever I wanted, and I dabbled in quite a few different genres and sorts of things this month. So now we'll move then to the parts where I tell you each book I read and give you a quick 32nd review. So the first book I read in 2025 was Bloom by Delilah S Dawson. This is a horror novella.
Amelia Hruby:It features a queer couple, Rosemary and Ash. They meet at the farmer's market. They have really cute and a little bit weird kinda courtship, and then some shit goes down. So I can't tell you anything else about it, but I gave it 5 stars. I was super into this.
Amelia Hruby:I thought it was very fun, very well paced, and a very quick read, and I really liked it. Because I liked that so much, the second book I read in 2025 was Guillotine by Delilah Estasan. I talked about this book way back in my pink horror TBR, I think in October of 2024. And after I recorded that episode, I proceeded to not read any of the books on my pink horror list. And if you didn't listen to that episode, pink horror just meant that these were horror books with pink covers.
Amelia Hruby:It wasn't that deep. But for some reason, this month, I actually read 2 of my pink horror books. So I guess January was the month that I actually wanted to do that. And, again, the second book I read this month slash year was Guillotine by Delilah s Dawson. This had a very fun premise.
Amelia Hruby:We have our main character, Des, who has started dating this super rich dude. His name is Patrick, and she kind of manipulates her way into an invitation to his family's private island for the weekend. And they go to the island. And the weekend they go to the island, she discovers the staff is planning to revolt. So there is some shit going down.
Amelia Hruby:The title guillotine is a sort of eat the rich illusion, and then that gets a little literal. Well, maybe not literal. I don't think anybody eats anybody, if I remember correctly, but it does get violent. So this book was definitely a fun read. It felt a little bit like it had a sort of reality TV kind of vibe to it, and I really enjoyed it.
Amelia Hruby:I think I liked Bloom better, but both of these reads really got me into Delilah s Dawson's horror novellas, and I would read more of them. After that, I read Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle. This was recommended to me by my friend, Caro. I had bought this book when it came out and never read it. So I was really excited to read it this month.
Amelia Hruby:I loved it, and I'm not gonna say any more about it because I'm gonna talk a lot about it in an episode coming out very soon about my all time fave romances. So more to come on expiration dates by Rebecca Serle. I have essentially the same thing to say about my next book. The 4th book I read in January was Even Though I Knew the End by CL Polk. This is a sapphic period romance meets mystery detective noir meets urban fantasy monster story.
Amelia Hruby:There's a lot going on in under a 150 pages and it was a huge surprise and delight to me how much I liked this book. It's another one I'm going to talk about in my 5 star romance episode that is coming, I think, next week. So you have to wait to hear more of my thoughts on this book, but you don't have to wait very long. Up next, I read All Systems Red by Martha Wells. This is the first book in the Murderbot Diaries series, and it was so much fun.
Amelia Hruby:I did not know going in that it was written from the perspective of a murder bot, which I guess I should have based on the name of the series. But anyway, I really enjoyed the POV in this book. I liked the world building that they did, and we're gonna talk about this one a lot more in our first guest episode that is coming up, I believe, in March. So more to come on All Systems Red by Martha Wells. After that I read 2nd Night Stand by Corellia and Faye Stetz Waters.
Amelia Hruby:This is a writing duo and they are a couple. They are a queer couple and I was just so excited to read this book. I had read another book by Corelia Stets Waters called Satisfaction Guaranteed, and that was a super fun queer romance about the owner of a queer sex store. And so I hoped that this book was gonna be just as fun. The sort of setup for this book is that we have 2 main characters who are part of different types of dance troupes, and they're competing on a reality show, essentially to find the best dance group in the US.
Amelia Hruby:And the winner of the show will get, I don't know, a $1,000,000 I think. It's like some large amount of money. And both of our main characters really need that money. They're the leaders of their troops, they need the money for different things in their lives, and so they join this competition. They meet after the auditions for the show, and they don't know that each other are in different groups at that point in time, and then they both make the show.
Amelia Hruby:When they arrive for the 1st day of filming, they see each other and they're kinda like, Oh shit. They had a great hookup that was meant to be a one night stand, and now they are going to have to be encountering each other, engaging with each other, and competing against each other for the upcoming weeks. I really loved the setup of this and I thought it was just a really good time. This was a very like feel good, 4 star kind of romance for me. After that, we get to the midnight release party part of this episode, because after that I read Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yaros.
Amelia Hruby:I did go to a midnight release party. It was hosted by the very, very, very, very cool small bookstore in my town, and there were a ton of people there. I think like almost a 100 people came through, which where I live is a lot of people in one bookstore. I took my dad to this launch party and it was so much fun. We did a little scavenger hunt, we had some hot chocolate, we had some snacks, and then I got my book and I went home and I got in bed and I read the prologue and I fell asleep.
Amelia Hruby:So that was the beginning of my Onyx Storm journey. But I spent the rest of that week reading this book and I enjoyed it so much. I understand why a lot of people don't love 4th Wing, don't love the Empyrean series. That's fine. You don't have to like it.
Amelia Hruby:I'm not even here to ride for it as, like, great literature. I'm not even sure I'm here to ride for it as, like, a good book. I just think it is so fun to read. I do believe that Rebecca Yaros is great at pacing and plotting her books. I don't know that she's like the best writer in the world, and sometimes I think her characters are a little flat, but Onyx Storm is the 3rd out of 5 books in this series.
Amelia Hruby:And even though it was a middle book, which I feel like middle books always kind of suffer from a sort of stagnation of the plot, This really worked for me. I enjoyed it. And I think that if you are open to 4th wing and reading the series, I do recommend it. After that, as a little palate cleanser, I went for a romance. I read 7 Days in June by Tia Williams, and this book is going to get a big, big, big shout out in next week's 5 star romance episode, so you can wait to hear about why I gave it 5 stars then.
Amelia Hruby:Apparently, after I read a bunch of romance and romantasy in a row, I really wanted to go the absolute opposite direction, and I read 2 extreme horror novellas. And what I discovered in that process is that extreme horror is not for me. I just I don't need to be grossed out while reading a book. I like to be scared. I like to read horror.
Amelia Hruby:I like ghosts. I like supernatural things, but I I just don't really like when humans are super violent at each other to each other with each other. It's just like it's just not for me. So I read Rest Stop by Nat Cassidy and Bluejay by Megan Stockton. And I think that each of these were, like, well enough written.
Amelia Hruby:They had a strong enough plot. I don't know that, like, I would critique them in terms of what they intended to be and what they were, but they were extremely not for me. And that's what I learned by my, like, toe dip into extreme horror. I kinda like backpedaled a little bit into some You horror slash true crime slash mystery with my next read, which was Dead Girls Talking by Megan Cooley Peterson. This is a book that I had gotten from the library like a 1000000 times and not read.
Amelia Hruby:I just kept requesting it on Libby and then putting it on hold after I didn't read it and then checking it out again, then putting it on hold again and then checking it out again. I think I did this for, like, 6 months, essentially since last fall. I have been doing that with this book. And I was like, I am finally going to read this book. So the general premise of Dead Girls Talking is that this teenager, Bettina or Bett, Bett's dad killed her mom.
Amelia Hruby:He's been in prison for a really long time, and this has been the subject of a ton of podcasts, books, murder tours, and it's just like haunted Bettina her whole life. And at the opening of the book, another woman is killed and is killed in the same way that her mother was killed, which has made some people believe that maybe her father didn't do it after all. And so in this book, Bettina teams up with one of her classmates, Eugenia, and they investigate the crimes and try to figure it out. So it's definitely like a murder mystery. It's got this sort of pretty dark setup, to be honest.
Amelia Hruby:And for some reason, just something about it didn't quite land for me. The book had a really dark sense of humor, which I thought I was gonna like. When I started reading the book, I liked it. And then over time, I just, like, felt like all the characters were deflecting all the time, and I didn't really get anybody's motivation to do anything that they did. And there were some, like, red herrings that just felt like red herrings.
Amelia Hruby:And when we got to the end, I was like, I don't even like how this ended. So I have had this issue before with You books that include fictionalized true crime, and I think that I just need to stay clear of that going forward. I don't like to engage with true crime content writ large. Like, I don't listen to true crime podcasts. I don't watch true crime TV shows.
Amelia Hruby:Something in me thought that, like, I would enjoy the fictionalized version of this, but I had a similar reaction when I read A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson last year, and I think that this just isn't for me. So I'm just gonna call it good with true crime, nonfiction or fiction, and especially when it's You. I'll just leave it be going forward. Okay. Four more books, and 3 of them are romance.
Amelia Hruby:I think after all that darkness, I was like, we're just gonna have a light rest of the month. So my next read was Just Some Stupid Love Story by Caitlin Doyle. This is another one that was recommended by my friend Caro. Caro is basically my romance go to. And this book is a romantic comedy about someone who writes romantic comedies.
Amelia Hruby:So Molly Marks writes Hollywood romcoms, but she does not believe in love. She's only fallen in love once, and that was with her high school boyfriend, and she ghosted him after high school. And the book opens at their high school reunion where Molly encounters that boyfriend, Seth, for the first time since she ghosted him. And he is the life of the party, he's a romantic, he's super personable, and she's just sort of a Debbie Downer sort of type. And they reconnect at this reunion and make a sort of wager about 5 couples there.
Amelia Hruby:Basically saying like, do you think these people are gonna break up or stay together or get together by our next reunion in 5 years? And the 5th couple on the list is the 2 of them. Basically, Seth is, like, carrying a torch for her and puts them on the list to be like, we're gonna come to the next reunion together. And Molly's like, absolutely not. We are not.
Amelia Hruby:So the book takes place over the next 5 years between these reunions, and we get to follow their love story and what happens throughout that time. I have to say, I never thought I would say this and I can't believe I'm admitting to this publicly, but there is a sexting scene in this book where they are, like, sexting on their phones, sending texts and then videos, that I thought was just, like, one of the hottest things I have read in quite a while. So this is definitely a sexy leaning into smutty romance, but that's not like a huge part of the plot. There's just a couple of moments or scenes like that. But one of them I just thought was so well done, and I really enjoyed Just Some Stupid Love Story by Caitlin Doyle.
Amelia Hruby:Next, I read Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale, Small, Smell, something like that. And this is another book that I read for our upcoming guest episode, so I will not blurb it here, but I will say that I really liked it. And if you're interested in books with time travel and books with great neurodivergent representation, you might wanna check this out and we'll talk more about why in the upcoming episode. Okay. Last two books for my January reads.
Amelia Hruby:I read The Night Guest by Hilder Knuttsitter. This was another book that was on my Pink Horror TBR. You might've seen it floating around the internet if you are a person who likes to read horror. It came out last fall and was very popular. And the sort of premise of this book is that our main character wakes up every morning super exhausted, and she can't figure out why.
Amelia Hruby:And eventually, she realizes that she is walking miles and miles every night, and she doesn't remember it at all. And over the course of the book, which it's a novella, so it's, like, over the course of the next 100 pages, she has to uncover what is happening. Where is she walking? Why is she walking? How is she walking?
Amelia Hruby:All of this has to come out through the course of the book, and I think that it definitely kept me intrigued. Like, it kept my interest. I really wanted to know what was happening. I just don't know if it sucked the ending. I have to be honest.
Amelia Hruby:So if you have, like, an hour, honestly, maybe 2 hours to give to an interesting horror novella and decide what you think about it, this is definitely worth your time. I don't know if I loved it or if I will return to it, but I still feel intrigued by it, which is always a good sign. And then my last read of the month was Beg, Borrow, or Steal by Sarah Adams. This is the 3rd book of the Win in Rome series, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. The first one was about this famous pop star, I think, who tries to run away from her life and ends up in Rome, Kentucky and falls for somebody there.
Amelia Hruby:And the second book is about, like, her sister and how her sister falls for the celebrity's bodyguard or something like that. And this third book was about 2 feuding 2nd grade teachers and neighbors who find themselves teaming up. This is Arrivals to Lovers Romance. It is also set in Rome, Kentucky. I enjoyed figuring out how it tied into the other books, even though I read those a while ago and didn't totally remember them.
Amelia Hruby:And it was just like a good read. If you have never heard of that series and you love romance, you might wanna check it out. And if you don't like romance or Kentucky, then maybe don't read it. Not that Kentucky plays a huge role. I think it's just a nice little pun for the name.
Amelia Hruby:So that was my reading for the month of January. I read 15 books in January 2025, and even though I felt like I was in a rut, I actually got a lot of reading done. And I think part of that is because a lot of these were novellas, right? Literally half of my reading in January was novellas, 7 out of the 15 books. And this was a nice reminder to me that even if I'm not feeling super motivated in my reading, even if I don't, like, have a project kind of guiding my reading list for the month, it is so satisfying and pleasurable and enjoyable and stimulating for me to pick up a short book and just, like, spend a couple hours reading the whole thing before I go to bed one night.
Amelia Hruby:That is definitely how I've been spending my winter and I am loving it. So if you wanna check out any of these books, they are all linked in the show notes. If you make a purchase through those links, I will receive a small affiliate payment, which I take as a little tip in gratitude for the book recommendation. If you like this episode, please consider leaving us a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you review on Apple, you can say that you like the monthly review episodes and that'll let me know that I should make more of them.
Amelia Hruby:Or if nobody likes them, then maybe I won't. Who knows? I enjoy doing this, but I'm not sure if I wanna do it every month, so we shall see what happens. Thank you again and so much for tuning in to Pleasure Reading. I hope that your January was also full of great books, and I will be back next week with a romance episode just in time for Valentine's Day.
Amelia Hruby:Until then, here's to your next best book.