Weekly Snapshot: January 19, 2025
News (!) + everything we read this week.
Before we dive in, we wanted to let you know what we’ve got up our sleeves coming in 2025 (at least so far). We wanted to make a few changes here and there, so this is what you can expect from us:
Free Subscribers: You’ll get two posts each month with bookish topics: essays, lists, maybe a random podcast episode here and there.
Paid Subscribers, this is where the fun starts:
You’re getting a slimmed down version of our weekly snapshot every Sunday,
a monthly podcast episode with everything we read in the month with a deeper dive than you’ve found in our weekly snapshot,
random special bonuses here and there like books we’re excited about and books we’ve wanted to throw across the room, etc.,
AND an invite to join us for a quarterly five star book vibes chat on Zoom!
Paid subscribers are who allow us to spend our time here diving into what we’re reading AND help us support our families. Simple as that. So we want to give you all the goodies wherever we can.
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Now, let’s get into what we read this week. These posts are typically reserved for our paying subscribers, but since we have so many new friends (hi! welcome! we love you!), we wanted you to get a glimpse of what these slimmed down snapshots are all about.
Sarah’s Reading Vibes: Since starting this year, the books I’ve been reading have been fairly mediocre. No NEW five stars yet (though I did have one 4.5 star that I’ll talk about in the monthly recap), and I hope this isn’t a sign of my reading year to come.
Mia’s Reading Vibes: It’s been a rough start to the year as I recovered from being sick and not reading as much as I wanted to. No five star books yet for me either, but I feel like my reading momentum is finally shifting. 🤞
Sarah’s Snapshot
Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison - ★★★½
I had seen this book/series everywhere and when I was watching the snow fall outside I figured I may as well finally give it a shot. It was all very cheesy (as expected), but the friends to lovers trope will never get old for me.
The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa - ★★★ (available April 8)
This is the follow up to The Cat Who Saved Books (which was 5 stars for me), and I was so excited to see it available on NetGalley, but was then quickly disappointed. It felt much more YA than the first, it was repetitive, and it felt like the translation was just… off. I’m hoping it’s a bit more cleaned up and polished in the final version.
Pick-Up by Nora Dahlia - ★★★★
A great first romance novel by this author, we’ve got divorced parents who are forced to work together on a tropical island, the baggage that comes with being hurt in the past, and the much needed conversation on the mental and caregiving load that is forced on mothers, but not on fathers.
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton - ★★★★★
I’m not counting this as a five star read for the year because this is one of my re-reads. In my goals for the year you’ll have seen six books I want to re-read this year and this is the first. I forgot how good this book is. The writing is absolutely superb and the beginning of the book had my heart racing even though I knew what was going to happen. If you’re a cli-fi kind of person and haven’t read this one yet, you really should. Also, Mia co-signs this book!
Mia’s Snapshot
Her Vibrant Heart by Mary Waterford - ★★★★
A billionaire businessman butts heads with the environmental lawyer who is holding up one of his construction projects. It’s your typical enemies-to-lovers trope, but something about this one really moved me. Their relationship felt more realistic than other romances I’ve read recently. Plus, for any GWTW fans, their names are Rhett and Scarlett. 😁
Devil’s Thirst by Jill Ramsower - ★★★
Amelie is a ballerina hiding from her tortured past. “Isaac”, her new neighbor, moves in and immediately inserts himself into every part of her life. Who is he really and what does he want? I had to suspend disbelief quite a bit for this one. But I do love a toxic anti-hero, so I can’t be too mad about it.
The Lake of Lost Girls by Katherine Greene - ★★★★
My first audiobook of 2025 and I loved the ensemble narrator cast. This one has dual timelines. One from 1998 when female students are going missing from a university in North Carolina and a girl named Jessica was the last one. Then, 24 years later, a true crime podcast brings the spotlight back onto the case and her sister is desperate for answers once and for all. I loved the twists and turns this one took. I thought I had it figured out several times and I definitely didn’t.
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I hope you both have five star reads in your near future.