Five Star Friday: January 2021

Five Star Friday is my version of the monthly wrap-up. On the first Friday of each month, I will share my five-star reads from the previous month. Fingers crossed, I have lots of books to tell you about.

I was so worried about January. I wasn't off to a bad start, but nothing was blowing me away, and THEN! It was a flood of 5-star books. This was a pretty emotional bunch of book. There were many tears, and I even cried as I wrote the reviews, but they really touched my heart in a profound way. At the end of the month 5 of the 44 books I read earned all the stars, and I was happy about that. 

   

Love is for Losers

Wibke Brueggemann

In this wry and hilarious queer romantic comedy, fifteen-year-old Phoebe realizes that falling in love is maybe not just for losers.

Did you know you can marry yourself? How strange / brilliant is that?

Fifteen-year-old Phoebe thinks falling in love is vile and degrading, and vows never to do it. Then, due to circumstances not entirely in her control, she finds herself volunteering at a local thrift shop. There she meets Emma . . . who might unwittingly upend her whole theory on life.

This is a laugh-out-loud exploration of sexuality, family, female friendship, grief, and community. With the heart and hilarity of Netflix's critically-acclaimed Sex Education, Wibke Brueggemann's sex positive debut is required reading for Generation Z teens. Think of this as Bridget Jones' Diary, if it were written by Bridget's daughter.

I found a kindred spirit in Phoebe. I just adored her, and her musings about love and life were very humors and also quite astute at times. This was a slice of life story that captivated me from the very beginning. It was filled with colorful and wonderful characters, who I was overjoyed to see playing a role in Phoebe's life. I can't wait for everyone to meet Phoebe! 

Destination Anywhere

Sara Barnard

Perfect for fans of Morgan Matson and Sarah Dessen, this lushly written and heart-wrenching novel follows a teen girl on a one-way trip away from her life and slowly reveals what made her leave it all behind.

Sometimes you have to leave your life behind to find your place in the world…

Peyton King has always wanted to belong. She seizes the opportunity to start over at a new school and finally finds real connections with the friends she’s always dreamed of and even an actual boyfriend!

But after flying high in her newfound happiness, Peyton comes crashing down when reality sets in and the ones she cares about let her down. Peyton’s friends can’t fix her and she can’t help them if they won’t let her. If she wants to find real, lasting happiness, Peyton will have to search somewhere else.

With nothing but her sketchpad and a backpack, she buys a one-way ticket and gets on a plane. How far will she go to change her story?

Barnard never fails to make me feel SO MUCH! This is a story of a lonely young woman, who settled for relationships in which she lost sight of herself. Though she ran away from her life, she actually ran towards recovering some of what she had lost. She found her people and herself on this trip, and I loved every minute of the journey. 

Some Other Now

Sarah Everett

This Is Us for teens, this luminous and heartbreaking contemporary novel follows a girl caught between two brothers as the three of them navigate family, loss, and love over the course of two summers. For fans of Far From the Tree, Emergency Contact, and Nina LaCour.

Before she kissed one of the Cohen boys, seventeen-year-old Jessi Rumfield knew what it was like to have a family—even if, technically, that family didn’t belong to her. She’d spent her childhood in the house next door, challenging Rowan Cohen to tennis matches while his older brother, Luke, studied in the background and Mel watched over the three like the mother Jessi always wished she had.

But then everything changed. It’s been almost a year since Jessi last visited the Cohen house. Rowan is gone. Mel is in remission and Luke hates Jessi for the role she played in breaking his family apart. Now Jessi spends her days at a dead-end summer job avoiding her real mother, who suddenly wants to play a role in Jessi's life after being absent for so long. But when Luke comes home from college, it's hard to ignore the past. And when he asks Jessi to pretend to be his girlfriend for the final months of Mel’s life, Jessi finds herself drawn back into the world of the Cohens. Everything’s changed, but Jessi can’t help wanting to be a Cohen, even if it means playing pretend for one final summer.

The amount of tears I shed as I read this book was downright criminal. It was really emotional and messy, so messy. So, I endorse the This Is Us comparison based on that. It was sad and tragic at times, but it was hopeful too. 

Amelia Unabridged

Ashley Schumacher

Eighteen-year-old Amelia Griffin is obsessed with the famous Orman Chronicles, written by the young and reclusive prodigy N. E. Endsley. They’re the books that brought her and her best friend Jenna together after Amelia’s father left and her family imploded. So when Amelia and Jenna get the opportunity to attend a book festival with Endsley in attendance, Amelia is ecstatic. It’s the perfect way to start off their last summer before college.

In a heartbeat, everything goes horribly wrong. When Jenna gets a chance to meet the author and Amelia doesn’t, the two have a blowout fight like they’ve never experienced. And before Amelia has a chance to mend things, Jenna is killed in a freak car accident. Grief-stricken, and without her best friend to guide her, Amelia questions everything she had planned for the future.

When a mysterious, rare edition of the Orman Chronicles arrives, Amelia is convinced that it somehow came from Jenna. Tracking the book to an obscure but enchanting bookstore in Michigan, Amelia is shocked to find herself face-to-face with the enigmatic and handsome N. E. Endsley himself, the reason for Amelia’s and Jenna’s fight and perhaps the clue to what Jenna wanted to tell her all along.

Ashley Schumacher's devastating and beautiful debut, Amelia Unabridged, is about finding hope and strength within yourself, and maybe, just maybe, falling in love while you do it.

Schumacher combined my love of romance, grief, and books in this story. It was a winning combination for me. The flashbacks were used well to help me understand the weight of what Amelia had lost when her best friend died. I thought putting her on the search for the origins of the book was a brilliant way to start her healing journey, and I loved that Amelia had such a fantastic group of people to take that journey with. I was touched. There were tears, lots of tears. 

And Every Morning the Way Back Gets Longer and Longer

Fredrik Backman

A little book with a big heart!

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here comes an exquisitely moving portrait of an elderly man’s struggle to hold on to his most precious memories, and his family’s efforts to care for him even as they must find a way to let go.

With all the same charm of his bestselling full-length novels, here Fredrik Backman once again reveals his unrivaled understanding of human nature and deep compassion for people in difficult circumstances. This is a tiny gem with a message you’ll treasure for a lifetime.

I was crying before the book even started to play. The author's note was so beautiful and honest. If you have ever loved someone, who has suffered from dementia or Alzheimer's, this will probably strike a chord with you. I have grown to expect the tears every time I read a Backman book, but I also love how touching and lovely all his stories are. I am always awed by how some authors can say some much so few words too. Well worth my time. 

Did you have any five-star reads last month? 
Let us know in the comments!