BOOK REVIEW: JANUARY EDITION!!!!!

   I started 2023 with a major resolution in mind: to actually read. I have so many books, so I resolved that I was finally going to start reading them. How? I set a goal for myself: 50 pages a day. Sometimes do more, only do less if what I'm doing that day doesn't give me much reading time. Turns out, when you read 50 pages a day, you fly through a book. Say a book is 350 pages; read 50 a day and you're done in a week's time. Less than a week if you go over that quota somedays. That's how I was able to read five books in January, and plan on pulling similar numbers for the other eleven months of the year and perhaps even beyond 2023. 

    Well, I should be fair. I technically only read four books in full in January. The first one was one I started in 2022. But I finished it in January. So I'm going to count it. It's my blog. I make the rules. Don't tell me what to do.

   For this year, I will do blogs giving rankings of each book I read and discussing them, spoiler-free in case any of y'all wanna read any of them. The blogs for each month will come out on the first day of the next, like how this January ranking will come out on the first of February, February's will come out on the first of March, and so on.

    One last thing before I get into the January ranking: I'm going through a cycle of the kinds of books I read. I go from one kind to the next, then circle back to the top. Here's that cycle:

1. Non-Fiction: By a celebrity or otherwise famous person. I have a lot of these so I needed to give them their own category.

2. Fiction: By Stephen King. I have a ton of his books, almost a full bookshelf of them, so they needed their own category as well.

3. Non-Fiction: Historical, mostly presidents but not entirely. I need to crack down on my massive collection of these books.

4. Fiction: I don't have a ton of fiction novels that aren't Stephen King, but I have enough to last a while and can always get more. I need to explore worlds of fiction that aren't strictly only written by the same one guy, as much as I enjoy his work.

Anyway, let's get into the January ranking!

In fifth and last place of January's five, and I hate to do this to him, is Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me by Ralph Macchio. 

Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoyed this book. I just enjoyed the next four more. This, by the way, was the one I started in 2022 but finished in January. Maybe the fact that I took longer to read it than the other four contributes to why I rank it lower than them. 

   Ralph Macchio for those outside of the dojo, is the guy who plays Daniel LaRusso in the Karate Kid movies and the Cobra Kai sequel series. His book does a great job describing his journey and what the role has meant for his life, as well as the people he has come close to because of it. However, my complaints are that he spends too much time talking about life as an actor and doesn't come across very relatable, and I like when actors go out of their way to show that they're just like us. And he spends a lot of time saying things like "more on this later". Dude, it's your book, talk about what you wanna talk about when you want to. Still a really good book though and it made me like Ralph Macchio even more.

Next up, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry.

   Addiction. That's what the big terrible thing is. Now you don't have to read the book! Just kidding. You should. We all know Matthew Perry as the tv funnyman who played the undebatable best character in Friends, Chandler Bing. But a lot of us don't know what he's been through, or at least the extent of it.

   Perry does into excruciating detail about his struggles with addiction and mental health in general, as well as his career, before, during, and after Friends. It's not for the faint of heart, but I commend him for opening up so much, and even moreso for overcoming his demons and helping others against theirs.

Next up, Carrie by Stephen King.

   With as much as I love Stephen King, I figured it was time I finally read his debut novel. So I did. And I can understand why it launched his career and started him on the path to being as prolific and famous a writer as he is today. 

   The climax made me gripped to the story, and genuinely had me feeling pretty scared. It's intense and is definitely a page-turner, especially near the end. Don't bully someone who has telekinetic powers. Actually not just that, just don't bully anyone.

Next up, Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka.

  I watched the new movie starring Brad Pitt and loved it, and didn't even know it was based on a book until I went to a book store with my mom and sister and one of them pointed it out on the shelf. So, having learned that a movie I love is based on a book, I had to read the book. 

  From the get-go I could tell that the book and its movie adaptation were vastly different. But the book is great in its own ways. That being said, there are some things I think the book did better than the movie, but also some things I think the movie did better than the book. 

   This book, like the movie, was a thrill from the first page that never tired, and, as I read the last page, I said aloud, "what a cool-ass ending!".

And finally, my favorite book I read in January 2023, was In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

  In 1959, two men broke into a Kansas family home and demanded a safe that wasn't there. When they found out there wasn't a safe, they murdered all four family members who were there, in cold blood, in the middle of the night. A man, his wife, their only son, and their youngest daughter. They fled and were eventually caught and hanged years later. 

   Guess what? This actually happened. This isn't a work of fiction, not entirely. Truman Capote spent years after these murders researching the case and interviewing those who surrounded it to piece together a novel that chronicled the events of the murders and the aftermath. It's a novel, yes, and it's written like one, but it's all true events. 

   Knowing that while reading it made it all the more haunting. I wasn't reading some story where some artificial characters were killed off; I was reading the story of a family whose lives were cut short in the middle of the night by a pair of psychopathic cowards. It's a gripping story, and one that will have you desperate for the next paragraph, even the next sentence, just to know what happens. What becomes of the men who killed the Clutters, and how they were busted. Any true crime fan should love this book.