What I Read ♥ December 2024

In December, I read four books and rated them either 3 or 4 stars. In case you haven’t already, go check out my Best of 2024 books blog post. None of the books I read this month were featured in that post but that doesn’t mean they weren’t good, they just didn’t leave an impact on me. haha

Make sure to follow me on Goodreads to be updated on what I’m reading and on StoryGraph if you’re curious about my book statistics.

My star reading scale
★★★★★/5 – Loved it! Would reread and recommend it to others.
★★★★/5 – Kept me entertained. I would reread.
★★★/5 – Didn’t love or hate but would recommend to others.
★★/5 – Did not enjoy it and probably skimmed through most of it.
★/5 – I hated it and regret wasting my time with this book.
DNF – Did not finish. This will probably be rare because I like to finish every book I start.

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The Watchers by A.M.Shine ★★★★/5
This forest isn’t charted on any map. Every car breaks down at its treeline. Mina’s is no different. Left stranded, she is forced into the dark woodland only to find a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams.

Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass, and an electric light that activates at nightfall, when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans—and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn’t reach the bunker in time.

I thought this was a good thriller, it was paced well and it never dragged. I was surprised when I thought I had reached the ending and there was still like 25% of the book left. There were two twists, one of them was obviously once it was introduced but the second twist I was not a fan of. I feel like that twist was only included to make room for a sequel but I would’ve preferred The Watcher to be a standalone. Now I need to watch the movie!

You can purchase The Watchers here

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett ★★★/5
A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love in the start of a heartwarming and enchanting new fantasy series.

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party–or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, and the Fair Folk.

I knew very little about Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. I knew that it involved fairies and that it was one of the most read or popular books from last year so I was intrigued. I found the main character charming and relatable but unfortunately, I found this book boring. To be fair, I’m not a fairy person maybe if I was I would’ve found this book more interesting. Reading this made me realize that I’m not a fan of the fantasy genre.

You can purchase Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries here

The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell ★★★/5
From the bestselling author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blend of cultural criticism and personal narrative that explores our cognitive biases and the power, disadvantages, and highlights of magical thinking.

Utilizing the linguistic insights of her “witty and brilliant” first book Wordslut and the sociological explorations of her breakout hit Cultish, Amanda Montell now turns her erudite eye to the inner workings of the human mind and its biases in her most personal and electrifying work yet.

The cover and the title drew me to The Age of Magical Overthinking. However, I didn’t find anything groundbreaking from reading this. I think we already know parasocial relationships are unhealthy, we’re all spending too much time on our phones, everyone has imposter syndrome, etc. None of these concepts were new or refreshing to me. The author came off as really judgemental which I found offputting. I just don’t think we would get along irl. haha

You can purchase The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality here

The Restaurant of Lost Recipes (The Kamogawa Food Detectives, #2) by Hisashi Kashiwai ★★★★/5
We all hold lost recipes in our hearts. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps recreate them…

Chef Nagare and his daughter Koishi serve their customers more than delicious food at their Kamogawa Diner down a quiet street in Kyoto. They can help recreate meals from their customers’ most treasured memories. Through ingenious investigations, these “food detectives” untangle flavors and pore through old shopping lists to remake unique dishes from the past.

From the swimmer who misses his father’s lunchbox to the model who longs for fried rice from her childhood, each customer leaves the diner forever changed—though not always in the ways they expect…

This is the second book in The Kamogawa Food Detectives series which I read last month. It was as lighthearted and delightful as the first book. I love the father-daughter dynamic and all the food talk. There was even a Christmas story which was fun as I read this during the holiday season!

You can purchase The Restaurant of Lost Recipes here

Have you read any of these books? What did you read in December?