What I Read: February 2026

2/2: Raybearer (Raybearer #1) by Jordan Ifuenko (library audiobook narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, 2020) - The 4.31 Goodreads rating is bizarre. The worldbuilding was okay, the character development was nil, and the main message seems to be that the best way to handle a bad emperor is with a good empress instead of no empire? I feel like I'm either misreading this or I'm going insane. 2/5 stars

2/3: Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo by Zlata Filipović (library audiobook narrated by : Dorota Puzio and Janine di Giovanni) - Apparently I got the abridged version, which explains why this was so choppy. Zlata began her diary as just a regular 11-year-old girl living in Sarajevo and going on vacation, but her entries end up reflecting life in a war torn city, demonstrating food shortages, the death of friends, and the fear of the future. I'm glad I listened, but I wish I had the unabridged version. 3/5 stars

2/4: The Secret Life of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry (library ebook, 2023) - Such an interesting premise! During Operation Pied Piper in WWII, children in major cities of the UK were evacuated to places that were less likely to be bombed. After the declaration in September 1939, over eight hundred thousand children were remarkably evacuated in just four days. In the end, over three and a half million children were relocated. Historians  estimate that up to 10 per cent of children in the UK were fully or partially raised by people other than their biological parents during this time. This book posits that a pair of sisters is sent to a rural area and then one of them goes missing. It's also not nearly as interesting as the premise. 2.5/5 stars

(I am writing this on 2/5 and honestly feel like I am 100% in a reading slump. Maybe I don't like books. Reading is something I used to do. Something better swing my way or maybe my entire February Books Read post will be these three subpar books.)

2/7: Ms. Demeanor by Elinor Lipman (library audiobook narrated by Piper Goodeve, 2022) - Jane gets arrested for having sex with a co-worker on the roof of her New York City apartment building. She ends up on suspension from her job under home confinement. She meets another person under home confinement in her building and things go from there. I liked this so much more than I thought I would based on that first chapter. There is so much character development here. 4/5 stars

2/10: Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic (library audiobook narrated by the author, 2025) - Technology adds to and changes language and the internet and social media are no exception. Aleksic and I have differing views on whether these changes are always good, though. Also. I cannot stress this enough. He is an influencer and he reads his own book and hetalksveryfastandnever TAKES abreakexceptto SCREAM atyoueveryonceinawhile. I found his narration stressful and confusing and I hate YouTube. #oldladyout 3/5 stars

2/13: Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone (library audiobook narrated by Alex Finke, 2025) - I absolutely loved this grief + romance novel all in one. Huge thumbs up. 5/5 stars

2/20: In Memoriam by Alice Winn (library ebook, 2023) - Books about war are sad, did you know? 4/5 stars

2/20: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (library, 1920) - CBBC book club. Look, I didn't get it. I didn't love it.  2/5 stars

2/20: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated from the French by Alison Anderson (audiobook I purchased narrated by Barbara Rosenblat and Cassandra Morris, 2006)  - I wished for all these characters to figure it out and start thinking about someone other than themselves when all of a sudden I cared. There was some sort of sorcery in this novel. 4/5 stars

2/21: Sing Anyway (Moonlighters #1) by Anita Kelly (library ebook, 2021) - Novella about love at a karaoke bar. I needed a palate cleanser after a series of tough books and this one provided just that. Not great literature, but sometimes you just need a love story. 3.5/5 stars

2/21: Arrow's Flight (Valdemar: The Arrows Trilogy #2) by Mercedes Lackey (library, 1987) - Our young Herald is in training, but it turns out that she does not have full control of her Gift. How is she going to get out of this?

2/23: The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren (Wren James) (library audiobook narrated by Lauren Ezzo, 2018) - Gripping tale of a young girl alone in a spaceship. Her link to Earth is cut off, but there's another spaceship approaching helmed by a young man named J. How's all this going to shake out? I was invested from the first page because could you even imagine being alone in space? Without so much as a dog or cat? There were some fan fic passages I did not care for, but they did serve an important plot point, so I can't complain too much. There were too many Britishisms for me to believe this child was raised by Americans who worked for NASA, but who knows what happens when all you're left with is YouTube videos for five years? 4/5 stars

2/24 Arrow's Fall (Valdemar: The Arrows Trilogy #3) by Mercedes Lackey (library, 1998) - Valdemar's back, baby! 5/5 stars

Total: 13 books
Average star rating: 3.4/5 stars

DNF:

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson - Someone recommended this because I like books about shipwrecks and stuff. This one is about two scuba divers who found a wrecked WWII U-boat sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey. Unfortunately, the author's hero worship of those two scuba divers was super hard for me to listen to. I'm sure they're great guys, but I was more interested in the historical mystery at play. DNF at 2%. 

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Did you DNF anything last month?