Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I received this box for review
Book of the Month January 2017 Review
Book of the Month is a book subscription box that sends a brand new book for as low as $10.47/month.
On the first of the month, you log into your account and choose between five different books, picked out by Book of the Month Judges. There are authors, editors and more on the judging panel. There is also one guest judge each month. You must make your selections by the 14th, or Book of the Month will pick for you. If you don't like any of the books, you can skip!
Once you make your book selection, you can add up to two books to your account for $9.99/each. Once you get your book, you can log into your account and join the discussions.
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What's in the box? On the first of the month, you will get to select from 5 different books.
I was sent all the January 2017 selections for review.
When you subscribe, your box will look like this.
Here is a look in the regular subscription box.
Each book comes wrapped in plastic, so the corners won't get damaged.
Lucky You by Erika Carter – Judge: Rachel Syme This is an exclusive pre-release, which doesn't it mass markets till March. The book is about three women who are trying to find themselves: Ellie, Chloe and Rachel. They all end up in a rural house in the Ozarks to find their right path.
Book Summary: Three women, early twenties, find themselves aimlessly adrift in Erika Carter’s fierce and darkly funny debut novel, Lucky You. Ellie, Chloe and Rachel are friends (sort of); waitresses at the same tired bar in the Arkansas college town they’ve stuck around in too long. Each is becoming unmoored in her own way: Ellie obliterates all feeling with alcohol and self-destructive acts of sexual promiscuity; Chloe pulls out patches of her hair and struggles to keep incipient mental illness at bay; changeable Rachel has fallen under the sway of a messianic boyfriend with whom she’s agreed to live off-grid for a year in order to return to “health” and asks Ellie and Chloe to join them in “The Project”. In a remote, rural house in the Ozarks, nearly undone by boredom and the brewing tension between them, each tries to solve the conundrum of being alive.
Instead of a separate card, Book of the Month now puts the note from the judge on the back of the bookmark.
Lillian Boxworth Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney – Judge: Nina Sankovitch Lillian is and 85 year old woman, who is on her way to a party on New Year's Eve. She meets many people on her 10 mile journey around the city, which turns into a review in the life.
Book Summary: She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macy’s to become the highest paid advertising woman in the country. It was a job that, she says, “in some ways saved my life, and in other ways ruined it.”
Now it’s the last night of 1984 and Lillian, 85 years old but just as sharp and savvy as ever, is on her way to a party. It’s chilly enough out for her mink coat and Manhattan is grittier now―her son keeps warning her about a subway vigilante on the prowl―but the quick-tongued poetess has never been one to scare easily. On a walk that takes her over 10 miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be, while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak, illuminating all the ways New York has changed―and has not.
A love letter to city life in all its guts and grandeur, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.
The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lyndsey Lee Johnson – Judge: Sarah Weinman This takes place in an affluent part of San Francisco, this story takes place in high school. Before arriving in high school, a tragedy happened in middle school that spread online. Now, Abigail, Dave, Emma, Damon and Calista are each facing struggles and complications in their life.
Book Summary The wealthy enclaves north of San Francisco are not the paradise they appear to be, and nobody knows this better than the students of a local high school. Despite being raised with all the opportunities money can buy, these vulnerable kids are navigating a treacherous adolescence in which every action, every rumor, every feeling, is potentially postable, shareable, viral.
Lindsey Lee Johnson’s kaleidoscopic narrative exposes at every turn the real human beings beneath the high school stereotypes. Abigail Cress is ticking off the boxes toward the Ivy League when she makes the first impulsive decision of her life: entering into an inappropriate relationship with a teacher. Dave Chu, who knows himself at heart to be a typical B student, takes desperate measures to live up to his parents’ crushing expectations. Emma Fleed, a gifted dancer, balances rigorous rehearsals with wild weekends. Damon Flintov returns from a stint at rehab looking to prove that he’s not an irredeemable screwup. And Calista Broderick, once part of the popular crowd, chooses, for reasons of her own, to become a hippie outcast.
Into this complicated web, an idealistic young English teacher arrives from a poorer, scruffier part of California. Molly Nicoll strives to connect with her students—without understanding the middle school tragedy that played out online and has continued to reverberate in different ways for all of them.
Homesick for Another World by Otessa Moshfegh – Judge: Isaac Fitzgerald This is a collection of short stories, but I am not sure from the summary, what they are about. This book has me interested, and it may be one of the first books I read.
: Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel Eileen was one of the literary events of 2015. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. But as many critics noted, Moshfegh is particularly held in awe for her short stories. Homesick for Another World is the rare case where an author's short story collection is if anything more anticipated than her novel.
And for good reason. There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful, and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities. Homesick for Another World is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition. But part of the unique quality of her voice, the echt Moshfeghian experience, is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion. Moshfegh is our Flannery O'Connor, and Homesick for Another World is her Everything That Rises Must Converge or A Good Man is Hard to Find. The flesh is weak; the timber is crooked; people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful. But beauty comes from strange sources. And the dark energy surging through these stories is powerfully invigorating. We're in the hands of an author with a big mind, a big heart, blazing chops, and a political acuity that is needle-sharp. The needle hits the vein before we even feel the prick.
Girls in the Moon by Janet McNally – Judge: Dana Schwartz Phoebe is a poet that is trying to find the truth in her life among everyone around her. Phoebe is determined to find her own truth and path in life.
Book Summary Everyone in Phoebe Ferris’s life tells a different version of the truth.
Her mother, Meg, ex-rock star and professional question evader, shares only the end of the story—the post-fame calm that Phoebe’s always known. Her sister Luna, indie rock darling of Brooklyn, preaches a stormy truth of her own making, selectively ignoring the facts she doesn’t like. And her father, Kieran, the co-founder of Meg’s beloved band, hasn’t said anything at all since he stopped calling three years ago.
But Phoebe, a budding poet in search of an identity to call her own, is tired of half-truths and vague explanations. When she visits Luna in New York, she’s determined to find out how she fits in to this family of storytellers, and maybe even to continue her own tale—the one with the musician boy she’s been secretly writing for months.
This soul-searching, authentic debut weaves together Phoebe’s story with scenes from the romance between Meg and Kieran that started it all—leaving behind a heartfelt reflection on family, fame, and finding your own way.
Final Thought: Book of the Month selected 5 great books this month. I liked that I got an advance copy of a book. I plan to read The Most Dangerous Place on Earth first. If you want to try Book of the Month, check out these great offers: get your 1st month for $5.00 today, just use this link or save 3-Months for $9.99/month plus a free BOTM tote.
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