I thought about stopping these posts after last year, because it started to feel more like something I needed to do than something I wanted to do. But then I realized how much I actually go back and reference my book thoughts and I knew I'd regret not continuing. In that conscious thought I went back to my instagram and came to the realization that I've been tracking my reading there since #gretchensbooks2015, so that was a fun trip down memory lane.
Anyway, my "reading goal" is more specific this year - to read 52+ physical books. Not because I don't think audio or ebooks count, but because I have a bajillion books and I will never stop buying more because staring at my overflowing bookshelves brings me too much joy and so I need to get to reading more of them! Also, I've essentially run out of audiobooks to listen to. I mean I know there are a quadrillion that I've not listened to, but other than the handful I'm holding for, most of the books on my TBR aren't available with my Libby account and I only like to pay for books I can hold in my hands, not ones that come digitally.
Book 1 of 2026 📖 The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy by James Patterson & Vicky Ward (3.5/5⭐️)
The murders of four innocent college students attending the University of Idaho left us all with so many questions. Now, after more than 300 interviews, James Patterson and prize-winning journalist Vicky Ward finally have the answers.
We know what it was like to live in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022, the day of the cold-blooded killings. We know what the local police and FBI did right. And what they did wrong. We’ve learned so much about the four heartbroken families—the Mogens, Goncalveses, Kernodles, and Chapins. And we have the backstory for Bryan Kohberger, brilliant grad student, loner, apparent incel.
Now you are the jury. The evidence is in.
I was hesitant to read this book for a couple reasons. I worried that it would be exploitative to the families of the victims, and also I knew that it was published before BK was even scheduled to go to trial, which meant that it would be missing a lot of information important to the closure of the case.
That being said, I was surprised at how the story was written in the information gleaned from it. The authors seemed to have a lot of insight into what everyone involved in this situation was going through. I liked that it had the histories of the victims, and a little bit about the suspect‘s background. It told the story of how the investigators found the perpetrator, and the steps they took to gather evidence. I thought I knew a lot about this case, but I did feel like this book gave particular insight into things I didn’t know.
There were a couple things that I didn’t like.
The talk of the church felt very irrelevant. I understand that this whole tragedy was utilized as a tool for the pastor guy, but it had nothing to do with the four lives lost and felt disrespectful to even bring up. Also pastor guy was completely making a situation that had nothing to do with him all about him. Additionally, I felt like all the stuff with the Facebook group administrators was pointless. I understand that the group had a small part in this case, but the backgrounds and drama of the admins was irrelevant to the story.
Now that I’ve finished the book, and I also know how the case turned out in real life (so far, anyway), my thoughts are still similar to what they were before I cracked open the cover. I think it was silly to publish this book before the case had fully closed. If it would have actually gone to trial, there would’ve been a lot more information that would have been important to the story. And even knowing that he plead out, I think that how it ended up playing out would also have been important to have in the story. The book ended, but without the actual resolution, which makes it feel incomplete and like it was being rushed to be published as a money grab before somebody else could publish one.
This was an easy read, and didn’t have a lot of the technical stuff that true crime books often do.
Book 2 of 2026 🎧 Missing Half by Ashley Flowers (4/5⭐️)
Nicole “Nic” Monroe is in a rut. At twenty-four, she lives alone in a dinky apartment in her hometown of Mishawaka, Indiana, she’s just gotten a DWI, and she works the same dead-end job she’s been working since high school, a job she only has because her boss is a family friend and feels sorry for her. Everyone has felt sorry for her for the last seven years—since the day her older sister, Kasey, vanished without a trace.
On the night Kasey went missing, her car was found over a hundred miles from home. The driver’s door was open and her purse was untouched in the seat next to it. The only real clue in her disappearance was Jules Connor, another young woman from the same area who disappeared in the same way, two weeks earlier. But with so little for the police to go on, both cases eventually went cold.
Nic wants nothing more than to move on from her sister’s disappearance and the state it’s left her in. But then one day, Jules’s sister, Jenna Connor, walks into Nic’s life and offers her something she hasn’t felt in a long time: hope. What follows is a gripping tale of two sisters who will do anything to find their missing halves, even if it means destroying everything they’ve ever known.
I’d seen this book recommended frequently, and the name Ashley Flowers has come up frequently in the true crime world, so I thought I’d give it a go.
This was so good! I thought I would predict the twists but then I was thrown when something changed. I found the FML likeable, even though she was clearly struggling with terrible life choices and never seemed to learn her lesson.
Book 3 of 2026 📖 The Widow by John Grisham (4.5/5⭐️)
Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it.
Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn’t commit: murder.
Simon knows he’s innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer….
Ugh. So good. Though I may be biased as I don’t think I’ve ever thought a John Grisham novel wasn’t good. Like most Grisham books, The Widow was a slow burn, until the end when everything seemed to resolve at once. I was rooting for the MC, even knowing he got himself into the mess by being greedy.
Book 4 of 2026 📖 The Hitchhikers by Chevy Stevens (3/5⭐️)
Desperation is a dark road…
It’s the summer of 1976. Alice and Tom set out on the remote Canadian highways in their new RV, hoping to heal after a devastating tragedy.
They’ve planned the trip perfectly, every detail accounted for. Then they meet two young hitchhikers and offer them a ride. But Simon and Jenny aren’t what they seem. They’ve left a trail of blood, destruction, and madness behind them.
Now Alice and Tom are prisoners in a deadly game with nowhere to turn. As the tension builds, the lines blur, and the question becomes:
In whose heart does evil truly lie? What secrets are Jenny and Simon hiding? And who will live another day?
I didn’t love this book, but I didn’t hate it. If I ranked Chevy Stevens’s books this one would be at the bottom of- it was just meh. The storyline felt repetitive and predictable.
I was hoping for a specific resolution to maybe redeem the story, but unfortunately it didn’t happen. The actual resolution was fine, I just wanted more. Though I guess that more was technically given (IYKYK).
Book 5 of 2026 📖 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (5/5🌟)
Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.
Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.
As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.
Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.
I’ve attempted 3 TJR books before, but only actually finished one. Everyone seems to love her stories though, and I figured if anything of hers is going to hook me, it will be the story about space!
Oh my word. I loved this.
I nerded out this whole book. I could never make it as an astronaut, but gosh I wish I could. Even the training sounds fascinating. Meanwhile I’m snuggled up on the couch and it’s negative degrees outside wishing I was in a field with a telescope staring at the stars.
The ending of this made me sob. I have no words. What a beautiful story.
Book 6 of 2026 📖 Happy Place by Emily Henry (4/5⭐️)
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.
They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blissful week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?
Ugh. I need to stop reading books that make me sob. Emily Henry is a fairly new author for me to be reading; I think this was my third book by her. Though I found the male main character to be kind of bland, I did really like the female main character. The premise of this book, and probably the resolution as well, are fairly unrealistic, But I still thoroughly enjoyed the story.
Book 7 of 2026 📖 The Intruder by Freida McFadden (3.5/5⭐️)
Who knows what the storm will blow in…
Casey's cabin in the wilderness is not built for a hurricane. Her roof shakes, the lights flicker, and the tree outside her front door sways ominously in the wind. But she's a lot more worried about the girl she discovers lurking outside her kitchen window.
She's young. She's alone. And she's covered in blood.
The girl won't explain where she came from, or loosen her grip on the knife in her right hand. And when Casey makes a disturbing discovery in the middle of the night, things take a turn for the worse.
The girl has a dark secret. One she'll kill to keep. And if Casey gets too close to the truth, she may not live to see the morning.
After my last two reads, I needed a book that wasn’t going to make me bawl my eyes out. I knew I did not have to worry about that with Freida McFadden!
I’ve read all her books (except a couple of the medical ones, I think) and you’d think I’d have her figured out by now. I mean I do figure it out, but probably at the same time every other reader figures it out 😅
This was a good book, though not the most suspenseful from her. I did like the characters, but I didn’t love them.
FREE on Kindle Unlimited, $15 for the hardcover with the sprayed edges 😝
Book 8 of 2026 🎧 We Fell Apart by E. Lockhart (3/5⭐️)
The invitation arrives out of the blue.
In it, Matilda discovers a father she’s never met. Kingsley Cello is a visionary, a reclusive artist. And when he asks her to spend the summer at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, Matilda expects to find a part of herself she’s never fully understood.
Instead, she finds Meer, her long-lost, openhearted brother; Brock, a former child star battling demons; and brooding, wild Tatum, who just wants her to leave their crumbling sanctuary.
With Kingsley nowhere to be seen, Matilda must delve into the twisted heart of Hidden Beach to uncover the answers she’s desperately craving. But secrets run thicker than blood, and blood runs like seawater.
And everyone here is lying.
I have to keep in mind while thinking about how I felt about this book that it is a YA novel. I LOVED We Were Liars - which I read 8 years ago…much closer to a YA audience age. All that to say I didn't love this one, but I didn't dislike it either. I'm definitely past the target audience, so if any more books come out in this series I won't read them.
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(Summaries are from Amazon, but all thoughts about them are my own!)
Reading Challenge: 6/52 physical books read in 2026
Total Books Read in 2026: 8
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