It was a hard month, friends. I can't concentrate and I'm stalled on an audiobook everyone loves but I am not vibing with. Thank goodness for a new month.
2/2: Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin (library, 2024) - Why didn't I DNF this book? No one knows. I'm super over women who need to get their shit together, but they're quirky so no one calls them on it. 2/5 stars
2/8: Dear Fahrenheit 451 by Annie Spence (library 2017) - A librarian writes about books. I mean, what could go wrong? 4/5 stars
2/9: The Long Game (Green Oak #1) by Elena Armas (library, 2023) - Woman is sent to the middle of nowhere to help with a girls soccer team after being a PR embarrassment at her job with a national soccer organization. She just so happens to meet a newly retired hot soccer player there. If you like a slooooow burn with the first three-quarters of the book bickering and the last quarter our hero playing alpha man carrying her all over the place, then this is the book for you. But be prepared for a book over 370 pages long! 3/5 stars
2/13: Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino (library, 2024) - Lovely writing - an interesting look at a coming-of-age. 4/5 stars
2/21: Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher #1) by Kerry Greenwood (library, 1989) - Book club choice for this month. Not my favorite. 2.5/5 stars
2/27: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (library ebook, 2019) - I don't know, friends. This was a collection of short vignettes about different characters and they all eventually meet at an event at the end. I want to like this type of book, but it never really works for me. 3/5 stars
Average star rating: 3.08/5 stars
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What was your best book of February?
Best book of February? Well duh, Blue Castle of course. Lately my reading has been mostly "good enough" books.
ReplyDeleteThe Blue Castle is on my March list because I didn't finish it until March 2! Also, I don't think I loved it as much as everyone else did. Maybe I'm just in a MOOD right now and I'll get over it.
DeleteYou did have a rough month! Lots of 3 stars and below there. My best book of February was Death's End by Cixin Liu. Everything else kind of pales by comparison after that.
ReplyDeleteI think I got so excited by Gone With the Wind last month that nothing can live up to it. Oh, well. I'll always have Rhett and Scarlett.
DeleteI lovvved The Blue Castle, but my absolute favourite was probably The Secret Book of Flora Lea.
ReplyDeleteIt's so nice when you have CHOICES of good books to choose from in answering this question.
DeleteThe Husband's Secret was a reread for me but the sole 5 star read in February, so I guess that. But I loved The Husbands and Summer Fridays, which were 4.5s.
ReplyDeleteYay!! Nice to have a few good reads in a month.
DeleteLike you I found February to be a difficult month. My concentration on books hit an all-time low, so that I've been *reading* West with Giraffes, a pleasant easy story, all month. I'm almost ashamed to admit that.
ReplyDeleteDon't be ashamed. It's hard to concentrate on things right now!
DeleteI started reading Beautyland thanks to you and Mark, and so far, I’m really enjoying it. 💜
ReplyDeleteYay!! I hope you like it as much as we did.
DeleteMy concentration in Feb wasn't great either. I read 8 books (9 if you include the chapter book I read to Paul) but I spent a lot of time on flights staring off into space when I could have been reading... My best books were All the Living and the Dead and Ghosts. I just finished Blue Castle on Sunday as I held off on reading the assigned sections until close to the discussion - otherwise that would have been my fave read of Feb!
ReplyDeleteI finished TBC over the weekend, too, so it will be listed in my March books. I'm actually feeling pretty encouraged right now because I am about halfway through a book and it's good. Maybe things will start turning around for me now.
DeleteI've heard good things about Fahrenheit 451. My fave read from last month was The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver.
ReplyDeleteI found The Poisonwood Bible to be very thought provoking. Maybe not about what Kingsolver wanted me to think about, but thoughts were there nonetheless.
DeleteThe Blue Castle was my favorite! I enjoyed it so much! Now I'm reading (well, listening to) a compilation of Agatha Christie books, and I enjoyed the first one, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
ReplyDeleteIt's always nice to read classics that withstand the test of time, isn't it?
DeleteI really really liked Go As a River. But I just started The Hunter by Tana French. I'm not very far into it, but if all of my little charges decided to nap for 5 plus hours, I'd not mind because I could read my new book. Loving it.
ReplyDeletePeople do love Tana French. I didn't know she had started a new series. How exciting!
DeleteI liked The Searcher and The Likeness, thought In The Woods was pretty good, but I could not get into The Hunter!
DeleteDo we have to wait until April to find out which audiobook isn't doing it for you?! I am so curious. (Nosy.)
ReplyDeleteI think this was a very respectable month, especially given The Circumstances.
Five of the books I read in February were rereads, and three were new books. I liked Someone in the Attic pretty well and enjoyed The Last Devil to Die as well. I did NOT care for The Vacancy in Room 10.
Well, I'm bound and determined to finish that audiobook, so hopefully I can write a review about it some time in March.
DeleteI find it FASCINATING that you read so many thrillers/mysteries. I just get too freaked out! Even in "cozy mysteries," I spend the whole time thinking about how easy it is to die.
I think Eve and I read emily Austin's previous book (mostly because of the cover) and I'm comfortable not reading this one. I have been devouring books the past two months but last night I was looking at everything in my ebook app and not feeling it. Will probably have to read a paper book to avoid a reading slump.
ReplyDeleteI sort of feel bad for my February books. Maybe in a different time I would have liked them better. But I did not care for that Austin book.
DeleteIs your solution to a reading slump to read a physical book? I wish I had a surefire way of getting out of a slump!
It sounds like a pretty good list to me. My most interesting and sometimes revolting was called "The Husband Hunters" by Anne de Courcy, about the women of the Gilded Age who married (or we basically sold by their mothers) for European titles. Actually, I was ready to throw it down because of the excess and waste and tragedy of it. So best? No. But the one that made the most emotional impact, even if negative.
ReplyDeleteYou know what? If you're still thinking about the book, it must have been good. I feel that way about the George Saunders book Lincoln in the Bardo - it was "meh" when I was reading it, but now I think about it almost every day. Powerful.
DeleteAs you may remember, I get pretty bogged down with The New Yorker magazine each week (but there have been some really great articles lately). Besides The Blue Castle, I re-read one of my Victorian novels from college, The Odd Women by George Gissing. I love this book. It explores the beginning of a sort of feminist movement in the late 19th century, made necessary by the sheer numbers of marriageable women who had to either enter the workforce to survive or starve and wait to be married. Each of the women in the novel are in various circumstances and have to decide just how closely they wish to hew to society's customs and their own ideals.
ReplyDeleteIt was a big deal for its time.
I have to admit that my Victorian novel completion rate is dismal. You would be so disappointed in me if I were your student, Nance. The Odd Women does sound like something I would enjoy, but...
DeleteI liked The Flatshare, I need to write my review of it for my blog. Right now I'm reading Ina Garten's memoir, and enjoying it. I don't usually like memoirs, but I'm really enjoying this one. I am listening to The Heart's Invisible Furies, which I'm liking so far...I'm about 1/5 of my way in, so long way to go yet.
ReplyDeleteAH HA!! You are a fan of Irish literature! I'm finally putting the pieces together. I should have figured it out before this!!!
DeleteWhat audiobook is not doing it for you? The best book I read in Feb was Brain on Fire but I also enjoyed The Lion Women of Tehran, A Well Trained Wife and Home Stretch.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm going to finish that audiobook this month (right? right?) and you'll hear all about it soon enough. I've never even heard of any of those books. *sigh* Why are there so many good books out there?
DeleteI'm on a mad reading tear this year and actually finished three books in February. Trust me when I say, that's unheard of (my Goodreads goal is a very modest 20 books). My favorite was "Something Rich and Strange," a short story collection by Ron Rash. I'm always impressed when an author can create a complete story, full of emotion and action, in just a handful of pages.
ReplyDeleteI get so frustrated with short stories. I always want to know more!
DeleteI'm late to the party (i.e., catching up on blogs), but I laughed hard at "I'm super over women who need to get their shit together, but they're quirky so no one calls them on it." Same! I have definitely edged into not wanting to read about 20-somethings figuring their lives out.
ReplyDelete