Everything I Read in January-February 2026
Can you believe we’re two months into 2026?! It’s already time to share my first reading recap of the year. I finished eight books in January and February, including five audiobooks. Three of the books were nonfiction, and the rest were fiction: a mix of literary, romance, and dystopian.
For 2025, my goal was to read 50 books and 14,000 pages, and I exceeded both goals: I read 52 books for a total of 15,044 pages. I haven’t yet set goals for 2026 but I think they will be similar. If you’re also a reader, join StoryGraph and add me as a friend: my username is cottoncashmerecathair! And please share your favorite recent read(s) in the comments.
READ NEXT: Everything I Read in November-December 2025
Everything I Read in January-February 2026
Physical Books
Confessions of a Division-1 Athlete by Olivia Karas and Jim Karas
(Buy via Amazon)
As a college gymnastics fan for well over a decade, I was thrilled to get a (signed!) copy of Olivia Karas’s book that details her experience as a collegiate athlete and how gymnastics shaped her (and really, her entire family’s) life. I loved watching Olivia compete at Michigan and really enjoyed reading about her experience. She describes the ups and the downs and touches on some heavy topics, including body image and eating disorders. The chapter her brother co-wrote is heartbreaking.
Her dad, Jim Karas, co-wrote this book, and I’ll be honest: I cared less about his perspective, and I felt like some of his “interjections” were unnecessary. I’m not really the target audience, though, as this is geared more toward aspiring collegiate athletes and their parents, so maybe they would find his opinions more interesting and helpful.
Ebooks
All About Us by tom Ellen
I started this book during the holiday season and got distracted by other reads to finish this before the end of the holiday season, oops.
Ben is married to Daphne, but lately he finds himself wondering if he should have taken a different path many years ago and pursued a different person, Alice. A chance meeting at a bar on Christmas Eve sends him back and forward in time as he tries to grapple with his life’s decisions and what he truly wants.
If you’re a fan of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, you’ll enjoy this book—it follows the same theme as Ben travels to Christmases past, present, and future trying to figure out what’s really important to him.
Little One by Olivia Muenter
I’m an avid listener of the Bad On Paper podcast, which the author Olivia co-hosts. I read her first book, Such a Bad Influence, and was thrilled to read her latest release! It’s cool to listen to her and Becca talk about the process of writing their books over multiple years and then reading the final versions.
Catharine West is enjoying life in New York City when a journalist reaches out about her past, and she’s forced to confront the truth about what actually happened on the farm in central Florida that she spent her childhood. The story unfolds over dual timelines. If you love literary thrillers, Little One is the novel for you. I enjoyed the pacing of this book, and I did not expect how it would end!
Thank you so much to Little, Brown and Company for the ARC!
Audiobooks
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
I’ve only heard great reviews about this book, and I was excited to listen to it once my library added the audiobook to its collection!
This story is told entirely in letters written by the main character, an older divorced woman named Sybil Van Antwerp (love the name) who has lived what feels like a thousand lives, and in letters written by others and sent to Sybil. There are so few books written from the perspective of an older woman who has seemingly lived through it all, and this one was really well done.
I highly recommend this book; the audiobook narrator is engaging and delightful, and it’s also a fairly quick read. It’s a great read if you’re looking for something literary and heartwarming.
The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman
I never read the 5 Love Languages book, but I’m familiar with the concepts and took the test more than once. I found this audiobook while browsing Libby and decided to listen to it while I worked on performance evaluations.
This book basically adapts the 5 “love languages” to the office and is especially helpful for managers but could also be useful for showing appreciation to colleagues. Of course, the one love language that doesn’t really translate well to the office is physical touch.
It’s a short audiobook and a relatively quick read, though the narrator and content definitely makes it feel more like you’re listening to a textbook and that made it less exciting for me.
My Good Side by Scheana Shay
I’m a fan of the original Vanderpump Rules series on Bravo, though I will admit that I am not deep into the lore and can’t remember most of the first handful of seasons. I was, however, fully locked in for seasons 10 and 11!
Scheana is one person that started off irritating me, but she has grown on me over time. I enjoyed listening to her memoir, though she moves quickly through her early life and spends more time on life on and since the show (not surprisingly).
If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll probably enjoy her memoir, but I didn’t find any of the information to be super groundbreaking. I did like hearing more about her postpartum OCD diagnosis.
You’re Safe Here by Leslie Stephens
I learned about this book via the Bad on Paper podcast a couple of years ago, and it’s been sitting on my library wish list since then. I finally decided to listen it, and I’m kicking myself a bit for waiting so long! I REALLY enjoyed this book.
The audiobook narrator wasn’t my favorite ever, but I still liked the story a lot and would recommend it if you’re looking for a dystopian mystery book. It also feels oddly like something that could actually happen in the future (this takes place in 2060), which is another reason why I liked this book. I was also surprised by the ending (in a good way), and I thought the pacing was also pretty good throughout.
My one qualm was that I had a hard time figuring out the timeline because the story jumps from present to past often and there’s no real delineation between the two in the audiobook.
We’ll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han
This is the third and final book in The Summer I Turned Pretty series. Heads up just in case you’re planning to read the books that I am going to share potential spoilers.
Belly is now a freshman in college—the same one as Jeremiah, the brother she has been dating for a couple of years. They end up getting engaged (a questionable decision for two very young adults, naturally), but Conrad isn’t happy about that and realizes he may not be completely over Belly…
I was very much annoyed by the questionable decision-making in this book, but it’s not surprising considering the characters and how flip-floppy they are. I’m still confused as to how there was enough in these books to create the TV series, lol.
All three books in the series were narrated by Lola Tung (the actress that plays Belly in the TV series), and there were a handful of chapters narrated by Conrad in this book (versus Jeremiah in book two).
