February 2021 Books

I was going to share my March goals post today but I didn't get it done and this one was practically finished (I just had to add in the final book which I finished last night) so here you go -- books I read in February.

It's another book post! Yay!!!! You already had a chance to read about the nine books I read during the #24in48 readathon here. So today I'm writing about the other twelve books I read in February. This is the most books I've read in a month since the pandemic started so I feel like I might finally be finding my reading stride again. Whooo hooo!!!

 

As you know, I've been enjoying Jenn McKinlay's mysteries. Given how much I love libraries and books, you would think that her Library Lover's Mysteries would be my favourite series of hers. However, the characters haven't grabbed me in the way the characters in her cupcake mystery series have. I do like that these books are easy to read though, and have a little more meat to them than my favourite In Death series by JD Robb.

I kicked off our February long weekend by reading two full books and staying up way too late! True confessions: It was the perfect start to a long weekend :) The first book I read was Jen DeLuca's second one, Well Played. These books are great love stories, I was crying by the end (although that might have been because I was tired), and I now want to work at a Renaissance Faire! I think I could be a tavern wench -- hahaha!!!

I didn't mean to stay up way too late reading another book but One To Watch completely sucked me in. I don't watch The Bachelor/Bachelorette but I do know enough about the show that I found this book really interesting and fun/heartbreaking. Also, I've been trying to diversify my reading and I realized this book challenged some of my body stereotypes. I recognized that I need to not only diversify my reading in terms of anti-racism but also in terms of different sizes of bodies. Roxane Gay's book Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body started me down this road but I still have a long way to go. I don't know -- does this even make any sense? It just hit me out of left field that this was such a blind spot for me.

This was the book we chose for book club this month. It is fiction but written as journal entries. It feels very much like non-fiction. One thing I didn't like is that the author used derogatory words for Blacks and for First Nations people which was true to the time of the novel's setting (1875) but I wondered if he could have conveyed the racism in a different way. (And maybe this is my comfort with "less obvious racism" coming through.) While the book was engaging when I finally got into it (I read it in a day), there is a second book in the series that I don't know if I'll pick up.

I read this book on our snow day in the morning. It sucked me in. It's an interesting novel which talks about what line do you walk when you need to honour your family but also honour yourself? How do you use what power you have in a situation where you don't have much at all? And who do you end up trusting?

The subtitle of this book is Birth of a Movement and this book focuses on the growth of the March For Our Lives student group and their activism. It was such a story of hope and students using their voices and power in such positive ways. Another theme of the book was how teens literally have the tools for this work in the palm of their hands through social media and their networks. One thing I found depressing is how ideas that seem to make so much sense still aren't implemented. Again, this was another book I read in a day because I just couldn't put it down.

It's not often I enjoy a sequel more than I enjoy the original but this may have been one of those books. I feel like this second book got into meatier topics and felt more "real." I loved the various interpretations of the title and the ways those interpretations played out in the book. Of course, it's been awhile since I've read the first book so I could be misremembering the power of it but I liked this one. A lot. And it had baseball in it (the Cubs' 2016 majestic run to the World Series) so you know I loved that!

I tend to really like Jennifer Robson's books and this one was no exception. Our school board has now decided that any time the buses are cancelled, the whole board is closed and students have a "Weather Impacted Distance Learning Day." Yep, no more snow days for our kids this year, which is a major bummer. However, we don't expect the kids to do a full day of schoolwork because none of the parents are happy about this decision. Thankfully, Sam and Rachel's teachers tend to assign a lot of "go outside and help shovel/build something in the snow and write about it/ spend time reading/etc" kind of work so that's good. Anyways, all that is to say that when I woke up to our second "not a snow day- snow day" within seven days, I decided to read. I started this book about 6:30am and didn't really move (except to get more coffee-hot chocolate) until I'd finished it. This story about Italians hiding Jews and resisting the Germans and strangers falling in love really sucked me in. I highly recommend this book. I also haven't read many books about Italy during World War II so I appreciated that piece of it as well.

 

I really enjoyed The Truths We Hold. Truthfully, I didn't know much about Vice-President Harris before I started this book and, after reading it, I am just so excited that she is the VP. I line up with her politically on a lot of things and found myself nodding along. Plus, it was just so interesting to see how her childhood and things which happened, shaped her life in positive ways. It makes me wonder, how will my kids see my parenting? And how is it shaping them into the people they will become?

I don't know what I expected from this book, but this wasn't it. While I enjoyed Clara's story of discovering herself and breaking out of the way she'd grown up, this book didn't grab me. I can't tell if I'm biased against the industry it focused on, or if I'm just against casual sex. (I'm hoping I'm just against casual sex but I really don't know.) This book is definitely rated "R" and I just didn't love it.

So there are my February reviews. I have five books half-finished so I think my first March goal should be to finish them! Hahaha! What was the best book you read in February? I think for me it was either Felix Ever After or One To Watch because of the ways they challenged me.