January Reads

of everything that i read in january, here's the very best.

In the first month of 2026, I read 18 books. It would be overwhelming to try and write about all of them, so instead - here are the titles that I cannot stop thinking about. The glittering gems during a difficult period in time.

Groundskeeping, Lee Cole

Over the summer I moved to Kentucky — an unexpected turn of events for me. When I told people, there was a lot of “huh?” as a reaction. What I wish I could have done, in lieu of a response, is show everyone what I’ve come to love about this place. Share the gut feeling that I had when I first saw where I’d be living, pass it around like party favors. Everyone should be so lucky to know that they’re exactly where they ought to be.

Groundskeeping is the first Kentucky book that I’ve read since becoming a Kentuckian. It’s a rich, complicated novel, set during 2016, in the run-up to the election (capital T, capital E). The narrator, Owen, finds himself aimless in his own life and decides to move back to his hometown in Kentucky, specifically in his Grandpa’s basement, under the same roof as his Trump supporting Uncle. He takes a job as a groundskeeper, in exchange for a free writing class, and it is there that he meets Alma, a fellow writer with a completely different background.

“Whatever you think about a person, they’re always more complicated than that. It’s a good rule of thumb to follow, in fiction or in life.”

I loved the way that this novel examines a point in culture where things shifted so significantly. It really highlighted the way that the extreme divisions we’ve come to know as our reality unfolded. But the conversations run deeper than just a political divide. This was a nuanced, beautifully-written novel and certainly won’t be my last from the author.

Valentine, Elizabeth Whetmore

One of the most exquisitely written novels that I’ve ever read. Some of the writing in here clamped my heart shut, tight. I mean, I was really bowled over by it.

Set in Odessa, Texas, in the 1970s, it opens with a young girl being brutally assaulted in an oil field, escaping only by running up to a ranch house nearby and being let in by the woman inside. From there we shift perspectives across different women in the town.

“Men die all the time in fights or pipeline explosions or gas leaks. They fall from cooling towers or try to beat the train or get drunk and decide to clean their guns. Women are killed when they get cancer or marry badly or take rides with strange men.”

I found this to be a haunting narrative, showcasing the necessity of community and the resilience of women. How we’ve knit together, from the beginning of time, and will continue on doing so, indefinitely.

The Bombshell, Darrow Farr

Oh, how this one surprised me. If you would have told me that I’d spontaneously pick up a book about a kidnapping gone wrong and somehow find a new favorite love story, I’d…certainly need a little more details, to be sure.

Severine Guimard, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a politician, is kidnapped before graduation by a militant trio fighting for Corsican independence, and is then held for a large ransom. As time passes and it’s clear that the group’s plan isn’t going as expected, the four become a kind of found family. Unlikely housemates. And then, stranger still, Severine is radicalized, asking to join the group, officially.

And there’s kissing!

“She loved him and always would. He had both ruined her life and made it extraordinary.”

Despite the whimsy I may have just painted, I did also think this was simply a well-crafted book. It doesn’t romanticize kidnapping, or anything so frivolous. It’s both serious and doesn’t take itself seriously. The writing is lush, the world and relationships tangible. Loved!

Almost Life, Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Two young women, Erica and Laure, meet by chance during a summer in Paris, 1978. What transpires is a fling, which is obviously not a fling for either of them, but is presented as such, initially. We follow them throughout the course of their individual lives, watching as they intersect, time and time again, each time asking them, will you finally choose each other?

I’m notoriously a sucker for anything that spans decades, reflects real life. What I appreciated most about this novel is that it really did feel real. The conversations ran themselves dry. The conflict felt personal, like I was involved in every large or small disagreement. There were times where I felt frustrated by Erica and Laure’s actions—wanted to shake them. But I loved them, loved their story, and really hope everyone picks this up when it releases in March.

Fat Swim, Emma Copley Eisenberg

Fat Swim, the follow-up to one of my favorite novels of all time, was highly anticipated for me. After being unable to put it down from the moment that I started it, I’m happy to report that everything I so loved from Housemates found its way into this collection as well.

It’s a series of interconnected stories, following a range of characters navigating a moment / experience in their lives. All revolve around the exploration of bodies, queerness, sex and identity in a really fearless way.

The characterization in here was out of this world. Every single character was immediately knowable to me, carrying an intimate shard of my own being. Even still, I was unable to predict how my time would close in any given chapter. This was a total breath of fresh air — tender, brave, remarkable. A must-read come April.

Unlikely Animals, Annie Hartnett

There’s a lot happening in here. And I’ll be the first to admit that I actually DNFd this book the first time that I tried it. In large part, this is due to me not picking up on the (frankly obvious) sense of humor, the first time around. Go figure.

“No one ever stops loving their high school best friend, no matter how we lose them. Some of us at Maple Street had lost our childhood best friends to world wars, to polio, to childbirth, to other violent ends, or just to plain old boring time and separation, but we’d all taken a piece of that love to the grave. That first love. It had shaped us all.”

When Emma Starling is born, she is pronounced a healer. And so, the obvious course in life for her is to go off to med school and become a doctor. Only, this doesn’t quite work out. Now a med school dropout, she moves back home to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease and hallucinating small animals. And all of this is being told from the collective perspective of the ghosts in town. Like I said, a lot is happening.

But it’s so charming. And funny and surprising and heartfelt. There’s a mystery thrown in? A real fox? All of it works. I loved this.

The Keeper, Tana French

My love for Tana French’s writing is endless. I’ve been reading her Ireland-based true crime novels for my entire adult life. The Keeper is the third and final instalment in her beloved Cal Hooper series — which follows a former Chicago cop named Cal, who retires early and moves to a small town in Ireland, hoping to escape everything he’s leaving behind. But, if you’ve read The Searcher (the first in the series), then you know that this lasts approximately two seconds.

I adored The Searcher. Finishing that book was like unwillingly being ripped from a whole other world that I was comfortably living inside. But the sequel, The Hunter, was a little too slow for my taste. I still found it beautiful, but I wanted more from it. In The Keeper, I feel like I got what I was hoping for. An emotional but satisfying conclusion for characters that I’ve really enjoyed following along with. My only caveat is that it was a pinch (!!!) too long, but I think that’s just the author’s style.

Gunk, Saba Sams

An absolutely electric novel. I’ve so rarely read anything this perfect, from start to finish. Gunk had me by the throat, from the moment that I cracked the spine.

Divorced from her husband, Leon, for the past five years, Jules still works alongside him at Gunk, a grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. When he hires Nim to work alongside her at the bar, she finds herself suddenly jolted awake, experiencing life for the first time in a while. And then Nim sleeps with Leon and finds herself pregnant, offering to give Jules the baby.

What follows is an unconventional story about family that I really adored. When I started it, there was a certain undercurrent that I worried would fizzle out (I can’t say more than that), but it was every bit as weird and lovely as I hoped it would be.

Boys in the Valley, Philip Fracassi

What happens when you mix a story, set at an orphanage run by priests in the 1800s, with a dark and stormy night, and also maybe a curse? Damn good horror, as it turns out. This was bone-chilling—so eerie and cool and nightmarish. I grabbed it from the library before the Snowpocolypse and read it under a pile of blankets.

I Know A Place, Nat Cassidy

This f*cking ruled. I’m talking, stay-up-late, afraid to fall asleep, reading under the covers kind of scary. In the rarest of all experiences, this was a short story collection where I did not want to skip a single one. I was absorbed by each page, practically holding my breath in places, unable to tear my eyes away.

If you want to be afraid of going into a gas station late at night ever again, I highly encourage you to put this one on your radar! Out in May!

Until next time…happy reading!