Another week, another list of five books I read last year, complete with one- or two-paragraph reviews of each. This week’s collection is, as usual, quite eclectic with some books I loved and some I most emphatically did not.

A friend gave me this one at my last baby shower, so I dove into it shortly after she was born. At first I wasn’t so sure about it — the author seemed to spend a lot of time overly reassuring her audience that she was a good egalitarian and that the fact that she’s writing especially to mothers does not make her sexist, which rather annoyed me.

But once the book got past that part and actually delved into the real purpose of it — laying out the ways that the seemingly-mundane actions of motherhood can be seen and used as worship and spiritual discipline — it became incredibly practical and encouraging. In a season where I myself was struggling to prioritize my relationship with the Lord (I had a newborn, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old!), it was good to be reminded that the small things of my life are truly a part of serving Him.

The final stop on my re-read through the Holmes canon did not disappoint, of course. The mysteries are strange, the stories are engaging, and of course Holmes himself is as genius as ever.

I think the reason I gave this collection five stars is that my favorite of the Holmes short stories, The Dying Detective, is contained in it. This story is just so delightful and never fails to make me grin, no matter how many times I read it. Plus, of course, it’s always bittersweet to bid farewell to Holmes and Watson, even though I know that I can always go back to the beginning and start re-reading all over again.

This was our book club book for the month, and it was something of a disappointment. It’s not that it was terrible, it was just sort of okay.

I was excited by this book, and the synopsis sounded like a sure thing — a young girl besting the Nazis by way of a secret code in a hidden book? Yes please! But unfortunately, the story itself fell flat. I didn’t care for the main character, the romance didn’t seem to fit or have much depth, and I just found it to not be compelling overall. And it wasn’t just me — this was the general consensus of book club. Would not recommend or re-read.

I got this at the library to continue my discovery of Liane Moriarty’s novels, and I devoured it. Next to Big Little Lies, this might be my favorite of hers.

She just has such a talent for pulling the reader into the mind and the life of not just one character but multiple characters. In this book in particular she takes someone that we ordinarily would not see as relatable and is able to get you to sympathize and understand where they are coming from. I also appreciated the view of romance in this book — the protagonist sometimes has doubts about her relationship because it isn’t perfect or doesn’t always make her feel a certain way, but the book comes to the conclusion that that can actually be okay, or even good.

I read this because I was awake in the middle of the night and it was on my Kindle app for some reason. I have no idea why or where it came from. It was okay. I enjoyed certain parts of it and the author definitely had some really good ideas, but I just found myself unable to ultimately get into the story. In the midst of the good ideas, there are lots of cliches and I never found the relationships very compelling.

And that’s it for the week! Lord willing, I’ll be back with five more next week. In the meantime — have you read any of these? What are your thoughts?