Weekly Wrap Up {Favorite Books of 2021}

Well friends, we did it! Week one of 2022 is in the books. Our week flew by, and I felt a little disoriented most of the week just trying to get back in the swing of things and get myself feeling productive again after what felt like a month of “oh, I’ll worry about that in the new year”

Whoops.

This week, I got started on a new project that I’m really excited to share with you – you can follow along on the progress over on Instagram if you want to watch it unfold. I love getting to tackle room makeovers in friends’ spaces, and it’s especially exciting to get to take on a little girl’s room!

One thing I’m working really hard on this year is purging and organizing in our house. I feel like we have a pretty ok baseline of organization in most of our home, but I really want to dig deeper and whip a few small places into shape. This is the year I hone in on every single closet, cabinet, and storage space in our home and try to create systems that will LAST!

At least, I’m gonna try. We’ll see how long my enthusiasm for this project lasts.

If you’re also on an organizing kick, I wanted to share a resource you may not know I have – an ebook all about how to purge and tidy your home! I went through a massive decluttering kick a few years back, and this book is the product of that. It’s a day-by-day guide to how to purge your home of everything you don’t need in just a month. If you really want to get your home organized but don’t know where to start, this little guide will be super helpful!

On a completely unrelated topic, I had a few questions lately about the books I’ve been reading. I figured the first week of the year would be the perfect time for a quick roundup of some of the books I read and loved in 2021. I’m not the type to stay very on top of new releases – I tend to just bounce around from genre to genre and mostly read what I’m able to get for free from my library or Prime Reading.

Favorite books from 2021

• I spent the first part of the year powering through the Throne of Glass series. It’s by the author of my favorite book series of all times, and it’s a great read if you like the fantasy genre at all. I don’t think it’s as good as her other series, but if you’re looking for a series that’ll last you for a long time, this is it!
• When We Believed in Mermaids – this is a really beautiful, gripping story about a woman whose sister has been dead for 15 years when she suddenly sees her on the news. She travels across the world to track her down and the story that unfolds is really powerful.
• Every Last Secret – I loved this super suspenseful thriller. It felt a little like a grown up “Mean Girls,” and it was a wild ride from start to finish. It’s about a couple who has a seemingly perfect life until some new neighbors move into their affluent suburban neighborhood. Chaos ensues in the best possible way, and there are so many wild twists!
• The Institute – I’m a huge Stephen King fan and have been working on catching up on all of his books I’ve missed in the last few years. This is one of the best ones I’ve read from him in a long time – I had a hard time putting it down. This one isn’t scary, so don’t let the author’s name scare you away! It’s about the journey of a young boy who is kidnapped from his home and brought to a mysterious institute with other children where they are being tested day in and day out. I loved every second of this book.
• Billy Summers – Yes, another Stephen King novel. This one is also not at all scary, just a really great story about an assassin who is completing his last job before retiring and ends up in a bigger mess than he ever expected. It took a lot of turns I wasn’t expecting and was a really fun and interesting story.
• People We Meet on Vacation – I read this book from start to finish in a day while we were on our vacation at the end of the year! It was a really light and easy read, but the story was so great. It’s a love story, but it’s also a story about finding home, knowing who you are, and growing up. It was really beautiful and I can’t wait to read more from this author!
• Apples Never Fall – I’ve never read a Liane Moriarty book that I didn’t adore, and this one is no exception. As always, she caught me totally off guard with the ending, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire book. It’s about a family of adult children and their parents – when their mom suddenly goes missing and it looks like their dad was clearly involved, a lot of family secrets start coming to the surface. It was a lot of fun and a pretty quick read!

And those were my winners in 2021 I also read a few so-so books and a couple that were just plain duds. My goal was to read two books a month, and I just managed it. This year, I’m aiming to spend more time reading and less time scrolling my phone, so I’m aiming for 30 books. We’ll see how I do!

What have you been reading lately? Any recommendations for me?