So, January is over for this year and it is time for me to provide my monthly review of my reading. This last month, January 2025, I managed to read a grand total of 23 different books throughout the course of the month. What this means is that I seem to be right on schedule for my yearly goals for 2025. I am planning to try and average a total of 20 books a month this year with an end goal of at least 250 books. Hopefully, I can pull this off. I don’t think this is quite what you were looking forward to in this post so let me get to the good stuff. What were some of the best books that I read in January? I’ve picked out three that really stood out to me, each for different reasons mind you, that I want to go over a bit more.
This first one is one that I greatly enjoyed because of how complex it was. My review of it was actually posted earlier this week so feel free to go check it out. I am referring to The Armor of Light by Ken Follett. It is the last book, chronologically, in the Kingsbridge series and is just as complex as the rest of the series. When I say complex, I mean just that. This book tells the story of about a half-dozen different characters over a thirty year span. And it doesn’t just tell their stories, it really makes you feel like you are there. This is the kind of book that showcases intense characterization that is used to create an entire town. We see various viewpoints of different events and see how the after effects play out for different people, some of them good and some of them bad. Both the after effects and the people. By the end of the book, you end up feeling like you really know each of the characters, even the ones that no one else likes. This is the kind of book that I could probably read a dozen different times and each time I could pick up different nuances of the characters and how they think or interact with the other characters. Because of this immense amount of detail this book would also probably be considered epic length. It is not the kind of book you could pick up and spend an afternoon whiling away at it. It is the kind of book you pick up and spend the entire weekend and then some whiling away at it. I’ve always like books that are that long because it means I have more time before I have to try and decide what to read next. I have more time getting to know the characters and their story and I don’t feel like everything is rushing by. As you can imagine this was definitely one of my favorites from last month.
The second book I want to talk about only stood out because of how weird it was and not necessarily because I greatly enjoyed it. I am referring to Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, another book whose review is already posted. Now, this book was probably not something I would have picked out to buy at a bookstore but it was a holiday gift. The reason it stands out to me is because it depicts this rather horrifying, post-apocalyptic world where humanity has been decimated by a disease created by a Christian sect or cult that wishes to wipe out the unworthy. I don’t know about you but that whole concept is really horrifying, especially considering we live in a world where the technology to do that actually exists. Another thing that stood out though is that the disease doesn’t just kill people, that would be bad enough, but instead it twists them physically and mentally into something that is barely human. The descriptions of these creatures, referred to as Graces, is rather vivid and descriptive so you have no issues really picturing what they look like as you read. At the same time though, the book provides vague details, at best, about the potential timeline of these events. It doesn’t seem to give dates, even relative dates, for when this disease was released. Either for us or for the characters. There are a few details that indicate it takes place in the future but not how far in the future from us. At the same time the details about when it happened in the past for the characters are vague as sometimes it seems to be farther in the past and other times more recent. This uncertainty about the timeline rather amps up the general uneasiness I felt about something like this actually happening. Definitely made this book stand out from the others for last month.
This last book is one of the last ones that I read last month and the review only went up earlier today. It was The Woods Out Back by R. A. Salvatore and it stood out for a variety of reasons. One of the big ones was the idea it put forth about being able to fall asleep in the woods out back and wake up in the realm of Faerie. That actually sounds really cool to me and definitely something that would be awesome to have happen, even if I know the odds of it happening are practically non-existent. Another thing I liked about this book is the idea that a hero could be literally anyone. Most books tend to have the hero be ordained by fate, or have some kind of special ability or any of a number of other things. This book’s hero, Gary Leger, is literally only chosen because he happens to have the right measurements to wear the suit of armor needed for the quest. I mean, he does grow into the role of hero but he starts out as nothing special. There is absolutely nothing about Gary that means he is the only one who could be the hero of the story. This caught my attention because I can’t remember very many other stories where this is the case. There is almost always something that sets the hero apart from everyone else and yet here there seems to be nothing. I rather liked that, the idea that the hero could be anyone, provided that they have the right measurements to wear the suit of armor of course. It definitely was a good book to help finish off my monthly reading for January. Feel free to check out my reviews for each of these books and keep an eye out for my monthly reading review for February in a few weeks. Meantime, consider sharing what was the best book that you read in January.