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Four people who frequent the same coffee shop travel back in time to reconcile or reconnect with a loved one. Although nothing the time travelers say or do changes the future, each of them experiences a change of heart. Bittersweet and gently moving.🔸#decemberreads2021

This debut novel tells the compelling story of Korea‘s struggle for independence during the Japanese occupation. Through the decades (from early 20th c. to the 1960s), several characters lives‘ are unexpectedly woven together in a vivid tapestry rife with seams of heartbreak, fragility, loss, and betrayal. Beasts is an intriguing portrait of a tumultuous time in Korean history when the nation‘s very existence was at stake.🔸#decemberreads2021

This short novel about a woman who moves back in with her parents as her father faces the onset of Alzheimer‘s is an amazingly delightful hybrid of lighthearted and bittersweet, like a middle grade novel written for adults (💯 my jam!). The MC‘s sweet, humorous first-person POV reads like she never lost her childlike wonder and appreciation for every small thing she observes.🔸#decemberreads2021

This slim novel, written as a collection of vignettes, follows the story of two friends in 1960s Reykjavík, Iceland: an aspiring writer working as a waitress and a gay aspiring theater costume designer working as a sailor. Both struggle to be socially accepted as their true selves. I loved and hated the bittersweet ending.?#decemberreads2021

Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew, started writing a diary in March 1941, while living in an increasingly restricted Amsterdam, until she was voluntarily deported to Westerbork in 1942, where she wrote letters to friends. Hillesum‘s fierce optimism and unquenchable joy for the beauty of life in the midst of such adverse circumstances are astounding. I learned so much wisdom from this beautiful soul whose short life burned brightly.🔸#decemberreads2021

Summarizing these captivating books that I read at the end of 2021 is a challenge, but here goes!🔸#decemberreads2021