December 2022 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up

Howdy, y’all! It’s time for my December 2022 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up. I wonder if this will help me reduce the number of books on my TBR. Who am I kidding? I’m a reader; of course, I will forever add books. In November 2022, I had 614 books. Today, I have 616. That is a bit of an increase, but not too bad. Yay me! Will my December 2022 Goodreads TBR shelf clean-up help that number drop some?

I saw this Goodreads TBR Clean-Up post at Megan’s Book Stacks and knew I had to try it, and Megan found it over at MegaBunnyReads. Click the titles to go to the Goodreads page for the book, and the image will take you to Amazon.

How It Works:

• Go to your Goodreads want-to-read shelf.
• Use a random number generator to pick a number between 1 and however many books are on the list.
• Go to that book and look at it and the four after it for a total of 5.
• Read the synopses of the books.
• Decide: keep it, or should it go?
• Discuss here.

Books To Be Read: 616

Starting Number: 156; it looks like I’m going through the books I added in Spring 2021

Shelf Sorted: Date Added

Let’s get this December 2022 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up underway!

The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker

Half British Reaper, half Japanese Shinigami, Ren Scarborough has been collecting souls in the London streets for centuries. Expected to obey the harsh hierarchy of the Reapers who despise her, Ren conceals her emotions and avoids her tormentors as best she can.

When her failure to control her Shinigami abilities drives Ren out of London, she flees to Japan to seek the acceptance she’s never gotten from her fellow Reapers. Accompanied by her younger brother, the only being on earth to care for her, Ren enters the Japanese underworld to serve the Goddess of Death… only to learn that here, too, she must prove herself worthy. Determined to earn respect, Ren accepts an impossible task—find and eliminate three dangerous Yokai demons—and learns how far she’ll go to claim her place at Death’s side.

My Thoughts

While I’m not one for fantasy, something about this grabs my attention and imagination. I borrowed this from the library over the summer, hoping to get to read it. Sadly, life happened, and it had to be returned unread. 🙁

KEEP

The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line: Untold Stories of the Women Who Changed the Course of World War II by Mari K. Eder

For fans of Radium Girls and history and WWII buffs, The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line takes you inside the lives and experiences of 15 unknown women heroes from the Greatest Generation, the women who served, fought, struggled, and made things happen during WWII—in and out of uniform, for theirs is a legacy destined to embolden generations of women to come.
The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line are the heroes of the Greatest Generation that you hardly ever hear about. These women who did extraordinary things didn’t expect thanks and shied away from medals and recognition. Despite their amazing accomplishments, they’ve gone mostly unheralded and unrewarded. No longer. These are the women of World War II who served, fought, struggled, and made things happen—in and out of uniform.
Young Hilda Eisen was captured twice by the Nazis and twice escaped, going on to fight with the Resistance in Poland. Determined to survive, she and her husband later emigrated to the U.S., where they became entrepreneurs and successful business leaders. Ola Mildred Rexroat was the only Native American woman pilot to serve with the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) in World War II. She persisted against all odds—to earn her silver wings and fly, helping train other pilots and gunners. Ida and Louise Cook were British sisters and opera buffs who smuggled Jews out of Germany, often wearing their jewelry and furs, to help with their finances. They served as sponsors for refugees and established temporary housing for immigrant families in London. Alice Marble was a grand-slam-winning tennis star who found her own path to serve during the war—she was an editor with Wonder Woman comics, played tennis exhibitions for the troops, and undertook a dangerous undercover mission to expose Nazi theft. After the war, she was instrumental in desegregating women’s professional tennis. Others also stepped out of line—as cartographers, spies, combat nurses, and troop commanders.

My Thoughts

I love learning about women’s impacts on history. So many of the stories we hear about are told from the male perspective. I want to learn more about the strong women who came before me, so I can help shape the strong women to come after me.

KEEP

The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams

Miracle Springs, North Carolina, is a place of healing. Strangers flock here, hoping the natural hot springs, five-star cuisine, and renowned spa can cure their ills. If none of that works, they often find their way to Miracle Books, where, over a fresh-baked “comfort” scone from the Gingerbread House bakery, they exchange their stories with owner Nora Pennington in return for a carefully chosen book. That’s Nora’s special talent—prescribing the perfect novel to ease a person’s deepest pain and lighten their heaviest burden.

When a visiting businessman reaches out to Nora for guidance, she knows exactly which novels will help. But before he can keep their appointment at Miracle Books, he’s found dead on the train tracks.

Stunned, Nora forms the Secret, Book, and Scone Society, a group of damaged souls yearning to gain trust and earn redemption by helping others. To join the society, members must divulge their darkest secret—the terrible truth that brought each of them to Miracle Springs in the first place.

Determined to uncover the truth behind the businessman’s demise, the women meet in Nora’s cramped and cozy bookstore to share stories and trade support. And as they untangle a web of corruption, they also discover their own courage, purpose, and a sisterhood that will carry them through every challenge—proving it’s never too late to turn the page and start over.

My Thoughts

It’s the first book in a cozy mystery series that sounds quite interesting, to be honest. So far, there are six books in the series; I think I should get a move on reading this one.

KEEP

Yoga Pant Nation by Laurie Gelman

Jen Dixon of Overland Park, Kansas—fearless mother of a fifth-grade boy and two thirty-something daughters—is used to juggling a lot, from her mission to become a spin instructor to stepping in as the most acerbic class mom ever (again) to taking care of her two-year-old granddaughter. But when the PTA president throws her a mandate to raise $10,000 for the fifth-grade class, even unflappable Jen is going to need more than her regular spin class to get her through this final year at William Taft Elementary School.

In the midst of new complications—organizing the class overnight to Topeka, an unexpected spin class fan in the form of her husband’s crazy ex-wife, and trying to navigate her parents’ sudden descent into apparent delusions—Jen hardly has the patience to listen to yet another half-baked idea (come on, ladies, another wrapping paper sale?) from WeFUKCT (We Fundraise Until Kingdom Come Team), her fundraising committee. But if anyone can get elementary parents to pull off the impossible, it’s Jen Dixon.

My Thoughts

This is the third book in a series, of which I have only read the first book. But it is a series I want to continue with, as I loved the first one, and it was laugh-out-loud relatable!

KEEP

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin

Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

My Thoughts

This examination of lives is about a topic that has become of interest to me over the past several years for personal reasons.

KEEP

Wrap Up

And that is my December 2022 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up. It doesn’t look like I cleaned my shelf up too much! Out of the five books, I’m keeping five. What did anyone expect? I love reading; how can I easily cut a book off my TBR?

But this was fun. I may do it now and then to help keep my shelf realistic. Last year, I just added books without really thinking about it. Will I stop doing that? Of course not! What kind of animal do you think I am?

What do you think? Have you tried doing something like this to see if you can get your TBR under control?

Looking for some more ideas to read? Check out my monthly reading wrap-ups.