This month was a little spare for my normal reading amount. I blame influenza, which left me feverish and unable to focus on reading for almost a whole week, and the fact that February is a short month. 😜
I’m happy that I managed to read 63% books by women, but I am BUMMED about only reading 38% diverse books (it was 73% last month!). Definitely going to try to improve this for March.
Without further ado, here’s what I read in Februray 2017:
A Kiss for Midwinter – Courtney Milan | Though not my favorite of the series, this was a fun little novella in the Brothers Sinister series focusing on Dr. Grantham and Lydia. I’m constantly amazed at how deft Milan is at handling prior trauma for her characters – just really excellent. I love this series for its fantastic banter, strong ladies, and guys that grok them. This one felt a little rushed and sometimes I wanted to smack Lydia for what seemed like beligerent ignorance of Dr. Grantham’s affections. 3/5 ⭐️
Dark Matter – Blake Crouch | This was one of my Book of the Month picks from last year – everyone on my book feeds were losing their minds of this book! So there were definitely high expectations. I liked it fine, the multiverse science and the questions it inspires are always interesting. I felt like the ending was phoned in, alas. This book reads like a movie though (and if doesn’t become a movie or TV show I’ll be SHOCKED – he is also the author of the Wayward Pines books that became TV). If you’re looking for a fun SF thriller that you can get swept up in, you should check it out. 3.5/5 ⭐️
Mooncop – Tom Gauld | I heard about this on Litsy and I think All the Books, so when I saw it at my library I snatched it up quick. Perhaps I was just not in the right mood, but I liked it fine, but didn’t love it like others have. It’s very spare and quiet, a tad depressing yet whimsical? Side note: I’m soooo glad that I got this at the library because it would have been a $20 10-minute-read and I think I would have bee quite frustrated with that. 3/5 ⭐️
The Revolution Where You Live – Sarah Van Gelder | This sounded really interesting – Van Gelder is one of the co-founders of YES! Magazine, and decided to take a camper on a 12,000 mile journey to talk to people in communities either actively resisting terrible things (environmental destruction, long histories of racism, etc) or actively trying to transform their communities through the arts and other avenues. Her basic argument is – resist in place. You can make huge strides by trying to change/improve the place where you are – seems simple and obvious, but it isn’t, really. I liked this book, but I had some reservations. Read my review on GR for a deeper dive into my criticisms. 3.5/5 ⭐️
Scrappy Little Nobody – Anna Kendrick | I listened to this on audio, and Kendrick narrates it herself which is AWESOME. It’s basically like having a friend tell you stories of their childhood and early adulthood, but your friend is super funny and neurotic and self-aware and great. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Not quite as emotionally vulnerable as say, Yes Please by Amy Poehler, but a laugh-out-loud look back on Kendrick’s life on the stage and screen, and lots of behind the scenes as well. 4/5 ⭐️
Iron Cast – Destiny Soria | This is a cool YA read set in 1919 Boston, just a bit before prohibition hits the country (but it’s on the horizon). The twist: in this world, a smallish percentage of the population suffers from “hemopathy” – a disease of the blood – where they canNOT tolerate being around iron and also have a kind of gift that can affect the perception of others. Some are wordsmiths who recite poetry and can make people see visions; others are songsmiths who can play an instrument or sing in a way that can make people feel very strong emotions or forget things. Hemopathy has just been made illegal (using it), and our two protagonists are just trying to survive and create a family in a world that does not welcome their kind. At its core, its a story of the friendship of Corinne and Ada, of growing up, of clear-seeing, and finding one’s place in the world. For about 60% of the book, I thought it would be a 3-star read – it was a bit slow, there seemed to be a million plot threads and characters. However around the 60% mark it picked up for me, the threads started to come together in a satisfying way, and in the end I gave this one 4/5 ⭐️.
Faith Volume 1: Hollywood & Vine – Jody Houser | This was kind of a weird read for me – I had the privilege of reading the first two issues as ARCs via NetGalley about six months ago. I remembered liking it fine and wanting to see where the story went. Fast forward to this month and my library had the graphic trade (4 issues of the comic), so I grabbed it to see where the story went. Meh. I really like Faith, I love how she is a fat superhero and that is not even A Thing, really, I love the geeky references and the fake BuzzFeed place that she works. But the plot of the overall story was just kind of – trite? It just feels like its been done a lot, and it was kind of silly and far fetched and forgettable. This was my first comic in this world (Faith comes from the Harbinger comics originally, I think). I gave issues 1&2 4/5 ⭐️ , but overall this was a 3/5 ⭐️ read.
The Baker Street Peculiars – Roger Langridge | I am officially DNF-ing this, which is something I don’t do often, maybe just a couple times a year. I received a copy of this via NetGalley in exchange of an honest review, and I forced myself through 50% but I just. Can. Not. This graphic novel sounded really cute – a gang of unlikely kids (and a dog!) solving crimes in Sherlock Holmes London. The art is ok, not my fave honestly, but the real crime is the font/resolution of the text. It is *terrible*. No matter what I do in terms of size or orientation on my iPad, the text is fuzzy, in places soooo tiny, and it often borders on indecipherable. The story wasn’t compelling enough for me to keep fighting to read this, so I’m throwing in the towel. 0/5 ⭐️ aka Bail.
In the Woods – Tana French | I just squeaked this read under the wire for February. The first installment of French’s loosely linked series The Dublin Murder Squad, this thriller/mystery was INTENSE! It’s Dark and gritty, with two cases – one cold, one recent – constantly competing for the story’s attention. I wanted to kick the protagonist, Rob Ryan, often, and I’m still wondering if that was intentional on the author’s part or if he just rubbed me the wrong way. If you like psychological thrillers, this is a good pick! 4/5 ⭐️
What were your favorite reads of Februrary? Let me know!
Leveled Up Reading 