Book of the Month is a monthly book subscription box. Each month, 5 curators pick out their favorite new hardcover books, and you can choose which one you want to receive on the first of the month. You can also add up to 2 additional books for only $9.99 each.
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About this Box
The Subscription Box: Book of the Month
The Cost: $14.99 a month
The Product: Subscribers get to pick from a selection of hardcover books each month. Skip any month you aren't interested in. Add up to two additional books for $9.99 each.
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Book of the Month January 2020 Review
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Since we just entered a new year (2020! Can you believe it?) it looks like they have selected their Book of the Year winners for 2019. Daisy Jones and The Silent Patient are both on my reading list so I may have some add-ons next month!
These are the five book choices for subscribers this month. I went for something a little different and chose The Sun Down Motel, which piqued my interest even though it's a bit outside my typical literature wheelhouse.
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James - Retail Value $26.00 (found here for $16.76)
Book Summary from Amazon:
Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.
Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.
Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.
This book was so easy to get into! I absolutely devoured it, finishing it about 24 hours after I started reading (a true feat these days with my 3 kiddos!). It was like a true-crime series that you can't stop binge-watching, but it also had the added elements of ghosts (eerie, but not too terrifying) and even some romance thrown in. It was just so interesting knowing that there was a mystery to solve as they flipped back and forth between two perspectives, Viv in 1982, and Carly, her niece, in 2017 who is trying to figure out where her aunt disappeared to. Their lives begin to parallel one another as Carly rents the same apartment her aunt lived in and even ends up taking over the same position her aunt was working at the Sun Down Motel when she disappeared all those years ago.
The town of Fell seems to have a lot of mysteries and some terrifying unsolved murders of young girls that Viv just can't seem to let go of. Both Viv and Carly are on the trail trying to figure out what happened to these girls, but in their own time. For Viv, who is uncovering this information just after it happened, it could just lead to her own death and disappearance, and for Carly, this might finally give her the closure of knowing what happened to her aunt. The sense of imminent danger, the intrigue of the unsolved murders and the exploration of the circumstances surrounding them was mesmerizing and I felt the storyline was fairly unpredictable. I found myself pondering all of the evidence and trying to figure out how it would all come together, but couldn't stop reading it long enough to form my own thoughts! I thoroughly enjoyed this fast-paced story and definitely recommend it to anyone who may have an interest in the plot!
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Verdict: I am so happy with my Book of the Month pick this month! I love true-crime documentaries and podcasts and this took the idea of that and turned it into a fictional story that I couldn't put down! I enjoyed the spooky elements of the hotel, but for me, the storylines and characters are what really drew me in and those moments just added to the suspense. I also really loved how well the author wove the two girls' stories together even though the time periods were so far apart. It made for a seamless story that I highly recommend!
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this book if you sign up today? No, but it may be available as an add-on next month!
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