January Reflections

In January, I read twenty-one books and watched thirty-two movies. (I won't always include movies in the reflection post. Probably. Maybe.)

I listened to eight books on audio. I read eight e-books. I read five physical books.

Books Reviewed at Becky's Book Reviews

1. The Long Winter (Little House #6) Laura Ingalls Wilder. 1940. 334 pages. [Source: Library][audiobook, historical fiction, classic]

2. Fahrenheit 451. Ray Bradbury. 1953/2011. 194 pages. [Source: Library][5 stars, audiobook, dystopia, science fiction, adult classic]

3. Westfallen #2: Into the Fire. Ann and Ben Brashares. 2025. 384 pages. [Source: Library] [5 stars, series book, mg speculative fiction]

4. Anne of Ingleside. L.M. Montgomery. 1939. 274 pages. [Source: Bought] [3 stars, audio book, classic]

5. Little Town on the Prairie. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Illustrated by Garth Williams. 1941. 374 pages. [Source: Library] [5 stars, audiobook, historical fiction, children's classic]

6. These Happy Golden Years. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Illustrated by Garth Williams. 1943. HarperCollins. 289 pages. [Source: Library] [5 stars, historical fiction, classic, audiobook]

7. The First Four Years. Laura Ingalls Wilder. 1971. 134 pages. [Source: Library] [historical fiction, classic, series book, 3 stars]

8. By the Shores of Silver Lake. Laura Ingalls Wilder. 1939. 290 pages. [Source: Library] [audiobook, j historical fiction, series book, 4 stars]

9. The Running Man. Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman). 1982. 317 pages. [Source: Library] [3 stars, action, thriller]

10. Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte. 1847. 532 pages. [Source: Library] [audiobook, classic, adult romance, 5 stars]

11. The Experiment. Rebecca Stead. 2025. 288 pages. [Source: Review copy] [j fantasy, j fiction, mg fantasy, mg fiction, j mystery, mg mystery, j science fiction, mg science fiction, 4 stars]


Books Reviewed at Young Readers

1. The Animals of Farmer Jones. Leah Gale. Illustrated by Richard Scarry. 1942. 32 pages. [Source: Bought, 4 stars, Golden Books, children's classic, farm stories]

2. Squirrel Sits Still (Board Book). Christianne Jones. Illustrated by Jayri Gomez. 2026. 20 pages. [Source: Library] [board book, 5 stars, animal fantasy]

3. If You Make a Call on a Banana Phone. Gideon Sterer. Illustrated by Emily Hughes. 2025. 48 pages. [Source: Library] [5 stars, imagination, picture books]

4. Traitors in Space. Tim Collins. 2025. 192 pages. [Source: Review copy] [3 stars, pick your own path, choose your own adventure, science fiction, space, aliens]

Books Reviewed at Operation Actually Read Bible


1. The Lawyer and the Laundress. Christine Hill Suntz. 2025. 368 pages. [Source: Review copy] [5 stars, christian fiction, christian romance, christian historical fiction]

2. Pilgrim's Progress Adapted by Anna Trimiew from John Bunyan's classic allegory. 2013. 111 pages. [Source: Bought] [3 stars, children's books, adapted books, abridged books, allegories]

3. The Story of Corrie ten Boom: The Watchmaker Who Forgave Her Enemies. Jennifer T. Kelley. 2025. 176 pages. [Source: Review copy] [5 stars, children's book, biography, history, world war II, missionary]


4. 10 Questions About Pain and Suffering: 30 Devotions for Kids, Teens, and Families. Beth Broom. 2025. 128 pages. [Source: Review copy] [5 stars, christian nonfiction, devotions]


5. 12 Truths Every Teen Can Trust: Core Beliefs of The Christian Faith That Will Change Your Life. Paul David Tripp. 2025. 176 pages. [Source: Review copy] [christian nonfiction, christian theology, teen books, teen devotional]


6. The Fault Between Us. Stephanie Landsem. 2025. 344 pages. [Source: Library] [4 stars, historical fiction, christian fiction]

Bibles Reviewed at Operation Actually Read Bible

none!

Totals for 2026

Totals for 2026
Books Read in 2026	21
Pages Read in 2026	5,119

January Totals
Books Read in January	21
Pages Read in January	5,119

© 2026 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Century of Viewing, January

In January, I watched thirty-two movies (or shows). I did watch Metropolis twice. Once with the original score which earned it 5 stars, and once with a jazzy-loopy-loop that earned it 4 1/2 stars.

My top five favorite movies from January are: IVANHOE, MUSIC MAN, GROUNDHOG DAY, STRICTLY BALLROOM and WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. Honestly, it may be a tie between While You Were Sleeping and Overboard.

Other five star movies include: Bride and Prejudice, Gilded Age season 3, Metropolis, Overboard, The Thirteenth Floor, and VHS Christmas Carols. I would watch all of these happily again. They were solidly enjoyable. (Overboard as I mentioned is SO, SO, SO good).

My four and four 1/2 star movies this month include:

• Escape from LA (4 stars)
• Chaos on the Bridge (4 1/2 stars)
• Starship Troopers (4 stars)
• Marjorie Morningstar (4 1/2 stars*)
• Millennium (4 stars)
• Red (4 stars)
• A Wrinkle in Time (4 stars)

*Honestly I would NOT watch Marjorie Morningstar again but I thought Natalie Wood did a fantastic job in the movie and I am glad I saw it once.

Millennium and Red are movies I would definitely watch again!

I did watch TWO one star movies. I would not watch Camelot or We Three Kings again.


© 2026 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Week in Review #5

This week I read three books.

I reread one of my favorite classics Jane Eyre. I listened on audio. It was wonderful!

I read a middle grade science fiction book, The Experiment by Rebecca Stead! I loved the beginning and middle more than the end, but it was still an enjoyable read!

I read a Christian fiction novel--historical fiction--The Fault Between Us by Stephanie Landsem. It is set in Yellowstone National Park in 1959.

Century of Viewing #5

I did not realize that I did NOT include the Great British Sewing Bee seasons one through three in my round-ups. I don't remember when I finished each season of this competition show.

I also have watched TEN episodes of the Twilight Zone. Seven or eight episodes of Star Trek The Original Series. And one episode of Space 1999. I honestly don't know what to do about individual television episodes.

1980s

• 1985 1918. Horace Foote's 1918. This period drama is emotionally intense. But it is thought provoking. HISTORY and family history often are. You can think *how* did they cope with so many, many losses, so many, many struggles. This one deals with World War I and the influenza epidemic. One really sees how BIG an impact they could have on one community. And this one is set in Texas.

2000s

• 2003 A Wrinkle In Time. It's been ages and ages since I've read the book. I can't tell you if it was faithful to the book or not, but, it was a great way to spend the evening with my best friend. Two siblings (Meg and Charles) along with a friend (Calvin) travel the galaxy in an attempt to save Charles and Meg's father from great darkness. IT must be stopped.

© 2026 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

11. The Experiment

11. The Experiment. Rebecca Stead. 2025. 288 pages. [Source: Review copy] [j fantasy, j fiction, mg fantasy, mg fiction, j mystery, mg mystery, j science fiction, mg science fiction, 4 stars]

First sentence: Nathan had spent the morning re-reading comics in bed before sliding into a long nap that ended when his dad tapped twice on the door and called out, "Are you conscious?"

Premise/plot: Nathan, our young hero, is disgruntled. Just because he grew a tail over vacation and may no longer be able to conceal his alien-ness, life as he knew it is threatened. Several of his other alien friends have already vanished--did they grow tails too???? It is just a matter of time, he feels, until they come for him. His parents--also aliens--do not want to be separated from him, but, how much say will they have when it's time to return to the WAGON?!?!

Over a short period of time--a week, two weeks????--Nathan wrestles with EVERYTHING he knows to be true. Who he is, who his parents are, who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, who is telling the truth, his very reality. And his closest friends may just be his tail--whom he names TUCK--and his best friend, Victor.

My thoughts: I am incredibly conflicted. I am. The Experiment is speculative fiction that does keep you guessing. It isn't that Nathan is an unreliable narrator--far from it. Nathan is just about one or two steps ahead of the reader in what he knows. But both Nathan and the reader are "in the dark" as to what is really going on. Nathan and the reader find things out at almost the exact same time for most of the novel. It is slightly a mystery, but, not a mystery with clues for readers to find. Not really. So there isn't much predicting exactly and precisely what may happen next. Life with all its uncertainties are unfolding one moment at a time.

It IS a coming of age story with plenty of fantastical elements.

© 2026 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

10. Jane Eyre

10. Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte. 1847. 532 pages. [Source: Library] [audiobook, classic, adult romance, 5 stars]

First sentence: There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

Premise/plot: Can a plain, orphan governess find true love and a happily ever after? Yes, if she's willing to speak her own mind, stay true to herself, and fight for the one she loves. Jane's journey to her happily ever after certainly wasn't easy or typical. 

Jane Eyre, our heroine, is an orphan who never in her wildest dreams imagines living happily ever after. Raised by a cruel aunt and taunted by mean-spirited and selfish cousins, she only hopes to escape misery and find contentment--albeit humble. Her adventure--or misadventure--begins after graduating Loward School as she takes the position of governess at Thornfield Hall. There she meets her charming and precocious pupil, Adele, and the brooding Mr. Rochester. The two enjoy each other's company--perhaps because no one else quite understands them. But the two aren't courting--at least not at first. Jane falls for him. But is he falling for her? Could he fall for her? Does she want him to reciprocate her feelings? Could the master of the house and a governess ever marry and live happily ever after?! But it isn't just social class dividing these two--Mr. Rochester has a dark secret from his past that might prove a dangerous obstacle for our loving couple.

My thoughts: Jane Eyre is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite novels to read and reread. I cannot believe it's been five or six years since I last read and reviewed it!

Do you love Jane Eyre too? Do you have a favorite scene? a least favorite scene? What is your favorite adaptation? What scenes do you find essential in an adaptation?

Some of my favorite quotes:

He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze fastened on his physiognomy. “You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?” I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware—“No, sir.” “Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you,” said he: “you have the air of a little nonnette; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean by it?” “Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little consequence, or something of that sort.” “You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features like any other man?” “Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no pointed repartee: it was only a blunder.” “Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me: does my forehead not please you?” He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen. “Now, ma’am, am I a fool?” “Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?”

“You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night.” With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence. “I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night,” he repeated, “and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these can talk. Adèle is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out—to learn more of you—therefore speak.” Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either. “Speak,” he urged. “What about, sir?” “Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of treating it entirely to yourself.” Accordingly I sat and said nothing: “If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed himself to the wrong person,” I thought. “You are dumb, Miss Eyre.” I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes. “Stubborn?” he said, “and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don’t wish to treat you like an inferior: that is” (correcting himself), “I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years’ difference in age and a century’s advance in experience. This is legitimate, et j’y tiens, as Adèle would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point—cankering as a rusty nail.” He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so. “I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir—quite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them.”  

Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me.”

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength. And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it. Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at Thornfield. 

I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.

“He is not to them what he is to me,” I thought: “he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him.

© 2026 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews