Books & Bubbly Book Club: January Books Review
Hey, y’all! We’re over a month into 2022 and I’m loving moving into a new month! With that new month comes a new reading selection from the Books and Bubbly Reading club! As a refresher, I put together a list of 25 books to read in 2022 and each month, I ask my Instagram followers and TCB community to give their input on which of the two selections they’d like to read as a group. Check out the two January books and my reviews below and then see what everyone voted on for February (hint: it’s in the image hehe). As an FYI, I won’t be sharing any spoilers in the reviewz - just my overall thoughts and impressions!
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE BY ANTHONY DOERR
Set in France and Germany during World War II, this historic and beautiful novel follows the story of two main characters, Marie-Laure, a blind girl living in Paris with her father, and Werner, an orphan who lives in a German mining town. As the war continues to build momentum, each character presses to find themselves.
As the Nazis occupy Paris, Marie-Laure and her father, who works at The Museum of Natural History, flee to her great uncle’s home in Saint-Malo and carry with them what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. Werner is recruited to a Nazi school because of his expert ability at building and fixing radios and receivers. He is then instructed to use his talents to track down the Nazi resistance as a soldier.
How Anthony Doerr weaves these two stories and paints a haunting, beautiful, and informative narrative for readers is enticing.
SHOP THE POST
This book has been on my reading list for quite some time and I knew that it was going to be great based on the amazing reviews, awards (hello, Nobel Peace Prize #casual), and excitement I was hearing from others who had read it. I added it to the Books and Bubbly Reading List for 2022 because it was a different genre than I’m used to and I love learning about this time in history. While it feels like a different world to most of us alive today, in actuality, it wasn’t that long ago, which is pretty scary and haunting to think about.
Most of the World War II novels I’ve read focus on the Holocaust or share the story from a Jewish person’s perspective. While that experience and education of their stories are extremely important, I liked that this book took place in several locations and told stories that I hadn’t learned much about. While the actual novel is fiction, I can imagine that most of the situations are completely plausible and something the author drew from history. So, let’s get into it!
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
☆☆☆☆☆/5
As I mentioned above, the notoriety and awards this book has received is why I chose it. I knew the story would be compelling, the character development would be impeccable and the historical accuracy would be dependable. My rating of five stars reflects all of those things, but I’m not going to lie. This book is long and requires patience. You have to get through a good chunk of it before you truly appreciate the story, but because of that story-telling, character development, artistry in writing, and historical elements, you are enveloped in its pages.
I love when a book allows you to root for and not like a character at the same time, but this author does an incredible job at humanizing aspects of people we never want to see as humans. He writes in a way that helps you understand how difficult, complex and scary it must be to be blind. The heartbreak and emotion that filled those war-filled years and the notion that just because someone identifies in some way doesn’t blanket their entire being as being wholly defined that way.
Both Marie-Laure and Werner showcase that to the readers in different ways and you begin to understand that time, the attitude toward the war from all sides, and many aspects of the complexities of each side that are not often talked about. The chapters are short and the story alternates between Marie'-Laure and Werner so it keeps you interested throughout. It flips between certain times and you learn details from each perspective in a unique way that keeps you turning the page.
I definitely recommend checking this one out if you want to learn more about WWII, occupied France, and the different elements of war that the current generation have not witnessed or even know about today. As an important time in world history, this novel not only teaches us those lessons, but also to appreciate the most important aspects of life for us all: family, honor, and against all odds, to be part of the good in the world no matter your situation.
THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO BY TAYLOR JENKINS REID
One of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the golden age of movie-making, Evelyn Hugo, is now an aging and reclusive woman living in New York City. When an unknown magazine reporter, Monique Grant, receives an offer to tell her story from Evelyn herself, she’s stunned to understand the reasoning behind it.
Known for her seven marriages and life of glamour, Evelyn agrees to hold nothing back and share the stories of her life with Monique. As Evelyn shares the stories of how she made her way in Hollywood, her love life, and traumatic events in her past, Monique begins to understand that there is more to why she was picked to tell this story.
A goal of mine in 2022 is to read 25 books this year and in order to do that, I have to read about 2 books per month. This one was my second choice from the reading list and I LOVED it. An obvious departure from the WWII novel above, this story is enticing, clever, truly filled with star power.
THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO BY TAYLOR JENKINS REID
☆☆☆☆☆/5
This book was highly-rated and as a New York Times bestseller, I knew it was going to be a fun one. What I didn’t expect was how incredible this storytelling would be. One of my favorite things about the book is the deep and complex character development that the author spent time on. The reader truly understands every angle of the situations happening. You can love and hate the person at the same time, while also being surprised at what happens next. Filled with twists and turns, this story follows Evelyn’s life throughout the 1950s and into her late life. Switching between her stories as she tells them to Monique and Monique’s perspective interviewing Evelyn, as well as her own personal life, you are never bored.
This book is definitely one of the most well-written novels I’ve ever read and I was in awe of the human and complex nuances the author was able to bring through to the characters. You felt like you knew them, understood them, and felt their emotions as you were reading. It was genuinely magical. I also really appreciated the subject matter of this book. At first glance, you might think it’s all glamour, smut, and Hollywood phonies from the premise of the book, but you’ll be presently surprised to learn about what life was like for these characters in a time that was not as kind and glamorous as every movie makes it seem.
You’ll walk through issues of race, sexuality, morality, honesty, abuse, and public perception with these characters, and over the course of several decades, there are a lot of aspects of Evelyn to learn and witness. As I reached the end of the novel I found myself feeling there was a bit too much of those aspects in the story to make it as believable as I wanted it to be, but I suppose that’s what makes it fiction, right? Regardless of that small critique, this has been one of my favorite books in a long time!
I hope y’all like these reviews and can join in on the reading fun this year! Check out the 2022 Reading List and be sure to follow me on Instagram to keep up with The Books and Bubbly Book Club! We vote each month on the book we’re going to read from the list and share our thoughts together! February’s book was voted to be Greenlights by Matthew McCoughnahey. You can find it here! I’m really excited to have some autobiographies in this year’s list as I think we can learn so much from other’s people’s stories about our own selves. I hope you’ll join us! Happy Weekend, y’all!
