january 2025 reads
I always feel like January ends up being really hectic for 1000 different reasons. Everyone is always motivated to accomplish new goals or completely change their lifestyle, but at the same time it's also tax filing season's beginning end in Japan the end of the fiscal year rapidly approaches. Yet despite all of the craziness that accompanies January every year, I still managed to deal with a lot of the tasks that I wanted to. I've been working away at New Year's cleaning of my whole entire life and the type of intentional consumption that I talked about in my first post of the year is hopefully starting to see results.
I've also been following online magazines more closely since the start of the year, and that's affected how much I'm reading and also what I'm reading. The experience so far has been positive, but also been a source of stress given the monthly nature of one of the magazines. I love the stories that I'm getting to experience though, so I suppose it's all worth it in the end—and it's always great to support smaller publications.
Novels, Collections, & Nonfiction
Time of the Flies by Claudia Piñeiro (tr. Frances Riddle)
This was an absolute wild time of a book from an Argentinian author whose work I've enjoyed before. I loved how the different perspectives intermingled so flawlessly and how actual research on the subject of motherhood and women's rights and feminism were cited. It gave me a lot to think about and I'm really excited to read more of her work. Dealing with the citations must have been A Taskâ„¢ for the translator though.
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers
I listened to the audiobook for this one just like I did for the first book. But I'll admit that I was a bit disappointed with this as a follow up.I was looking forward to seeing how Mosscap and Dex evolved once they entered society, but the whole process felt kind of choppy in a way that the first book didn't—truthfully, it was a bit of a disappointment. I missed the slow buildup from the first book with this one.
In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
As the fourth book in the Wayward Children series, I was really looking forward to listening to this one. I've really liked the other entries and loved learning more about the characters and their worlds. But this book felt a little bit different in tone perhaps. I think that the fact that there were significant time jumps made it hard for me to be excited about what was going to happen next given that Lundy's fate is already known from the start. I enjoyed the message, but the process wasn't as enjoyable as it normally is.
First Love by Rio Shimamoto (tr. Louise Heal Kawai)
I thought this book was phenomenal. The complex relationships between the characters, the slow unraveling the mystery of the main characters past, figuring out why she killed her father, it was all really exciting. I love how the author explored the consequences of domestic and sexual violence, as well as complex parental relationships and how they can twist and warp our humanity. Highly recommend, but definitely worth looking up content warnings for.
Konkon shinchu by You Ashizawa
This is a really cool collection of speculative fiction short stories from an author who typically writes mysteries. This is part of what makes the collection stand out and be so interesting, but it's also really cool because most of the stories were all published in separate magazines first. It's a super cool and experimental collection and I hope the author continues to write speculative fiction. In the mean time, I'm going to read her debut novel.
Manga
I didn't read any of the manga that I intended to read in January. Oh no. Better luck in February.
(Literary?) Magazines
Clarkesworld Issue 220 – January 2025
I decided to subscribe to this particular science fiction magazine because I realized I was spending a lot of time on the website and that the monthly subscription was super cheap. Why wouldn't I financially support a magazine that consistently publishes stories that I love? Personal favourites for this issue were Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak and The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe by Tia Tashiro.
Uncanny Magazine 62
I started getting issues of uncanny from #61 and I've been enjoying my subscription so far. It's interesting to see how tone varies between publications for both fiction and nonfiction. There was quite a lot that I liked this issue as well, but I think my favourites were probably Six People to Revise You by J.R. Dawson and Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch. There's also a compelling short essay on accessibility during events that I also really enjoyed reading. It's not available online yet as I write this, but it will be soon.
And that's it! Here's to January and hopefully I'll read a lot of awesome books in February too! Also feel free to follow me on my Bookwyrm if you want to see my book is updates in real time.
Updated 6Â months, 3Â weeks ago