January 2025 Book Review

It’s my first BOOK REVIEW of 2025! Get excited!

All this winter weather has had me cozied by the fire reading more than I have in a few months! I’m loving it! Please please please leave suggestions for books you think I should read, I’m excited to load up my kindle.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

I kicked off 2025 with an unexpected thriller fiction novel! Not my normal go-to genre, as I’m a bit of a scaredy cat, but this one came highly recommended and I’m glad I gave it a try. It was more suspenseful than scary, a “who dunnit” type of novel.

This is a story about two kids that go missing at a summer camp in the Adirondacks, two different timeframes, but many people at play for the suspect in both. The book toggles back and forth between the day a girl goes missing, and years before when a boy goes missing, in the same woods. There are so many suspicions of who, how and why each child disappeared, it kept me guessing the entire book! I enjoyed this book, read through it quickly, but I will say there are a couple character involvements that I don’t agree with, so this is not a book I would recommend to my teenagers.

Next read of the month was…

The Midwife of Auschwitz by Anna Stuart.

It’s no secret that my favorite book genre is World War II historical fiction. I haven’t met a WWII novel I haven’t liked. In fact, they usually prove to be in my top ten favorites. This book is no different. It provided a unique perspective I’ve never given any thought to, the trauma of pregnant women and delivering babies in the midst of concentration camps. This book was devastating and heavy, but at times had me laughing out loud at the few ways these women managed to stay above all of the death and destruction with humor and heroism.

This is a book (inspired by a true story), about a Polish Christian woman who in the midst of helping her friends forced to live in a Jewish Ghetto, soon finds herself being taken away, along with a young Jewish friend, to a concentration camp. Upon arrival in Auschwitz, she declares that she is a midwife, her friend is her assistant, and they are both ordered to the maternity hut.

It is a story about survival, sisterhood and learning to hope amidst the unbearable darkness in WWII Germany. There were surprising moments where I laughed out loud triumphantly at the cleverness these women came up with in order to survive and keep others alive. The lifeline of believing that one day each would be reunited to their families was nothing short of the power of love and hope.

The third book I read this month…

All the Broken Places by John Boyne.

Goodness, this one caught me off guard as it flipped the script of the same WWII era. I’ll admit, it was hard to turn around and read about the other “side” of this time in history. I didn’t feel as if the author was trying to gain sympathy, but rather provide a perspective that is rarely given.

This story highlights a 91-year-old woman’s lifelong wrestle with guilt of her complicit childhood, being the daughter of the commandant of one of the Reich’s most notorious extermination camps. 

Moving back and forth in time, the main character is given an opportunity to save a young boy at the cost of revealing her haunted, dark past.

The fourth book I read this month was…

Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten.

It is no secret that I love memoirs and I am a HUGE FAN of the one and only, Barefoot Contessa. A friend turned me on to her cookbooks early on in my marriage, and then when her TV show came out, I religiously watched every episode. This woman probably single-handedly taught me how to bake, and made a forever impression on me that a recipe is only as good as its quality ingredients.

Needless to say, I was so excited to read Ina’s memoir. As expected, her culinary journey was fascinating and inspiring. However, in this book she gave context to many lifestyle choices I had always wondered about. She explained childhood experiences that effected life choices, and I realized I may have judged my Hamptons-living food icon a bit. Her sweet love story with her beloved husband was just as cute as her show portrayed.

This memoir was a humble nod to where she came from and how she got to where she is now.

It also made me want to buy another one of her cookbooks. Every year my dad would ship a different Ina cookbook to me as a Christmas gift. Now that he is no longer with us, I cherish those cookbooks all the more.

If you want to look back at past books and reviews, you can check out my BOOK REVIEW page.

That wraps up post number TWO for today. I just had to add my JANUARY 2025 BOOK REVIEW to round out the month! I will be back on Monday to kickoff the festive month of FEBRUARY! xoxo