January Book Report

With a VERY EXCITING announcement! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

She’s a long one this month so you might want to check out the browser version, expand in email, or read in the Substack app 💚

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“Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a gentle start to January and that 2025 is treating you well so far.”

As I spent the month circling back with everyone and everything I postponed in December (don’t roll your eyes at me, you did it, too!), I’ve opened almost every email with the line above.

And while that’s true, I DO hope that January offered a gentle start to 2025 to everyone!, it was absolutely not my lived experience.

I limped into 2025, running on fumes, and I didn’t even realize how burnt out I was until halfway through the month when I willingly chose to get naptrapped with my toddler *multiple times in the same week.*

I had deadlines! I was behind on life admin! The list of chores was…..unfathomable! There were a few Christmas gifts yet to be mailed [Reader, they are still not mailed] 🤦🏼‍♀️. And I could not be bothered to tackle any of it. I kept thinking wistfully of my maternity leave when I spent endless hours with a sleeping baby, reading books.

So, when the toddler started having some separation sleep challenges and needed extra comforting, what was I to do?

All this to say, I had a prolific reading month and I can’t wait to share the scoop with you. I read a few from my personal backlist and went down a deep NetGalley rabbit hole so have a few delicious pre-orders to share with you. As is custom for my reading early in the year, I also followed the TOB shortlist and checked a few off the list. And I’m going to tell you all about all of it!

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But first! I have something very exciting to share with you.

We’re starting a book club!!!

To join, upgrade your subscription here. If you’re already a paid subscriber, you’re automatically in!

As a paid subscriber, you’ll get:

• All book report posts with my monthly book recommendations, all other essay, and paid subscriber posts, plus the full archive

• To participate in quarterly book club! You’ll be able to post in the comments, access the subscriber chat, and join the community

• A virtual discussion of each book we read together (over Zoom)

• And more to come!

More details about Book Club:

• Every few months, we’ll read a book together

• During our book club month, I’ll share weekly posts with discussion questions, you’ll chime into the comments with your thoughts, and we’ll have juicy discussions as we read

• At the end of our reading, join for a LIVE call to chat in real-time with the crew

Are you excited? Ready to start reading? We’ll kick off in March!

Our first two books will be:

• March: The Gifts of Imperfection: Brene Brown (an oldie-but-goodie that I’ve been wanting to revisit— so we’re going to do it together!)

• June: Margo’s Got Money Trouble: Rufi Thorpe (what’s bound to be one of my top reads of 2025— a preview of my thoughts in the book report below.)

Questions? Books you want to suggest? Drop a note in the comments or hit reply to this email and let me know! I can’t wait to read with you all. 🤓📚

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And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming – here’s all the goodness I read in January!