January 2021 Book of the Month Review and Coupon

I got two books in my January Book of the Month box, one was a free add-on because I reached BFF status. 

*Disclaimer: This box was purchased by See, Shop, Love! Post contains referral links.

Book of the Month costs $14.99 for a new hardcover title. You can select from one of five selections, and if you don't see a title you like you can skip the month and carry over your book credit to the next month. You can also add on as many titles as you want for $9.99 per book.

If you achieve BFF status you'll get to choose one of the Book of the Year finalists and add it to your January box for free. To get BFF status you have to purchase 12 boxes (doesn't have to be consecutively). You'll also receive a tote bag with your 12th box.

I chose The Survivors by Jane Harper as my January title and added The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, which was the Book of the Year winner for 2020.

Here's the synopsis for The Survivors:

Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.

The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.

Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.

When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away...

There were several great titles to choose from for my Book of the Year Finalist add on, but I settled on The Vanishing Half because it seemed like the most fitting for the times:

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

I'm a little behind on my reading and have quite a few titles on my backlog to get through, all from Book of the Month! That's not a problem, though, since I have plenty of time to read during the pandemic.

• Visit Book of the Month to subscribe 
• Use coupon code FEBREADS to get your first ook for $9.99
  

Bottom Line: Book of the Month is one of my favorite subscriptions and is definitely my favorite book subscription. You just can't beat a brand new title for only $14.99.