Returning for five more mini book reviews for my 2021 reads! I’ve already read more books this year than I read last year total, so I’ll have lots more reviews for you next year! But one year at a time. Here are five more snippets of thought about the books I read last year.

The final book in the Little House on the Prairie series, this one reads much differently than the rest of the books. For one thing, it repeats a good bit of the end of These Happy Golden Years. It also just has a bit of a different style to it. From what I’ve heard, Laura was still in the process of finishing this one when she passed away, so she didn’t get the opportunity to polish it the same way she had the others.

I still enjoyed it, though. As with the rest of the series, it’s a fascinating look at a different time and place from our own. And especially now that I am a wife and mother myself, with my own household to look after, my heart ached with Laura as her little family went through so many trials and struggles, from financial failure and the loss of property, to the death of a child. It was a harsh way to live, and yet you get the sense in this book that she learned to embrace it with grace and strength. That is what I want for my own home.

Once I’d finished the Little House on the Prairie series, I decided it would be a great time to listen through all the Sherlock Holmes stories. Yes, I’ve read them many times, but it’s been years since my last perusal. Plus, I was in a season of life where listening to audiobooks was helping me sleep, and I prefer to use books I’ve already read for that so I don’t miss out on anything in my slumber!

This, of course, is a classic and with good reason. As a longtime Holmes fan, I enjoyed geeking out all over again at the first meeting between Holmes and Watson, watching Watson try to uncover the mystery of his new friend’s occupation, and of course the grisly mystery at the center of the story. And since I also love the show Sherlock, I enjoyed getting to mentally compare this story with the television version, A Study in Pink.

(I had to choose the cover image featuring Basil Rathbone, since he will always be the one and only quintessential Holmes in my mind!)

This one is not my favorite Holmes story, though you really can’t go too far wrong with Holmes. The mystery was just okay, and the romance between Watson and Mary Morstan just always seems to me to be lacking in motivation. They are drawn to each other for no apparent reason except that she’s pretty and he helps her, and there’s really no depth to their story, which always just bugs me a bit. But Holmes is still Holmes, and we still get those delightful bits where we get to see mystifying scenes that become clear through his genius explanations!

We read this one for my book club, at my request. I’d never read it before, despite having bought a copy years ago. And it seemed fitting in the times we currently occupy.

It’s a very hard one to rate. I’m not sorry I read it, not at all, but it is an absolutely awful read. Depressing and disgusting throughout, with no redeeming qualities except, of course, as a cautionary tale. The main characters are not admirable and (spoiler alert) there is no ultimate victory or any hope of one.

But ever since I read it, I notice more and more of the ideas portrayed within at play in our society. I constantly respond to news stories or current events with, “Yep, that’s doublethink,” or some such observation. Orwell had a frighteningly accurate insight into the dangers of the ideologies that we are allowing to currently run our culture. I would say you should definitely read it, just brace for a lot of unpleasantness (and a good bit of immorality).

A friend wanted me to read this with her, so I ordered it hoping for some encouragement and inspiration. My husband is absolutely wonderful, but of course he isn’t perfect and there are many ways I often wish I could encourage him wisely and well.

I’ll be completely honest, I don’t remember much about this book. I know I found it somewhat encouraging, but not the life-changer I was hoping for. It mostly seemed to consist of things I already know stated in the way I’ve already heard them. So it might be extremely helpful for some wives, but for me personally it was fairly forgetable.

That’s all for this particular post, folks! Thanks for coming along with me on this stroll through my bookish memory lane, and please let me know — have you read any of these? Do you agree or disagree with my assessments? And come back again soon for reviews of the next five books on my have-read list!