📖February Reading!📖

[junch817]

I’m 1/4 through So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls. It’s fun. I’ve read a handful of books about shows/movies (The Office, The Big Bang Theory) and I always enjoy the part where they name drop other celebs who tried out for parts that didn’t make the cut. For instance, they briefly mentioned (auditioning for the plastics) Blake Lively, America Ferrera, Ashley Tisdale, Vanessa Hudgens… At least auditioning as supporting plastics. Jonathan Bennett was actually the #2 guy for Aaron Samuels. Whoever they initially picked (and they didn’t share his name) was basically a douche and showed up to the table read and didn’t give two craps about being there, so by the end of the day, they knew they were going to scrap him and called in their backup (who many of them originally wanted in the first place but they didn’t get the ultimate pick). I just like learning little things like that, which is why I love reading these books about the shows/movies I like.

[dc2london]

Feb 1, 2024 11:28:21 GMT -6 loony said:

Feb 1, 2024 11:15:27 GMT -6 byjove said:

Re romance: sometimes you just need to know there will be a happy ending in this dark, cruel world.

nelzie 's list is great. For historical romance I would add Lisa Keyplas, Georgette Heyer, and Lorraine Heath. There are others that will come to me.

I've gone in a deep dive of Desi/Southeast Asian romances - the plots are always fraught with mother/daughter/family experiences and all end with a "love match" even if it's semi-arranged in the first place.

Semi-formulaic, but heartwarming and fun.

Have you read Sonali Dev's books? She retells Jane Austen stories set in a moder-day Desi family. They are great!

[dc2london]

January was a good month!

Merry Little Meet Cute - 3.5 stars. It was cute!
When I Was You - 3.5 stars, good, page turner, but predictable
The Gospel of Orla - no idea how to rate this one, but I'm glad I gave it a try bc it is so outside my normal reading
Late Bloomers - 4.5 stars
Kids Run the Show - negative 10 stars
Interesting Facts About Space - 4.5 stars
Homegoing - 5 stars
The Bookwanderers - 3.5 stars (This was really cute, DS2 was reading it for school and he brought it to me because he thought I would enjoy it, because he knows I love books and that Alice in Wonderland is my favorite book and movie character. It was a really cute book and the first in a series)

For audiobooks:

Tom Lake - 4.5 stars
Grace: A Memoir - 5 stars (this was written by one of President Obama's speechwriters about the week encompassing the Charleston shooting)
Clark and Division - 3 stars

I am picking up Vera Wong from the library today; I also currently have A Touch of Stardust from the library, and I grabbed a copy of The Housemaid bc it was on sale.

I am listening to The Keeper of Happy Endings and the story is good but I *can not stand* one of the narrators and it is making me less likely to listen.

[loony]

Feb 2, 2024 10:37:15 GMT -6 dc2london said:

Feb 1, 2024 11:28:21 GMT -6 loony said:

I've gone in a deep dive of Desi/Southeast Asian romances - the plots are always fraught with mother/daughter/family experiences and all end with a "love match" even if it's semi-arranged in the first place.

Semi-formulaic, but heartwarming and fun.

Have you read Sonali Dev's books? She retells Jane Austen stories set in a moder-day Desi family. They are great!

She is who I started with!

I also enjoy: Uzma Jalaluddin, Nisha Sharma, Abida Jaigirdar & Alisha Rai.

[clairefraser]

I wish I could do audio books but I find it hard to pay attention when I'm doing other things, i.e. working. And I pretty much work from home so no long commute time where I could listen either.

[junch817]

I don’t read Ali Hazelwood but word is out that Aardvark book club just put out a spoiler that they will be getting her newest book Bride for their March box. Apparently it comes out in just a few days, and there have already been a few different special editions but Aardvark does make amazing quality hardcover books for like $18, so if that’s something you are interested in, you might want to consider that if you have a subscription there and wanted to buy it anyway.

[nelzie]

I finished all of the Improbable Meet Cute novellas. I gave Jasmine Guillory and Ashley Poston's books 4 stars and Sariah Wilson's 2 stars (I've also never heard of this author). The first one, The Exception to the Rule is the definite stand out of them all. I would have loved a full length novel.

I'm now reading Make a Scene by Mimi Grace. I'm trying to not only read romances this month but also more romances by black authors with black main characters.

[thatgolfb]

Feb 2, 2024 12:36:08 GMT -6 nelzie said:

I finished all of the Improbable Meet Cute novellas. I gave Jasmine Guillory and Ashley Poston's books 4 stars and Sariah Wilson's 2 stars (I've also never heard of this author). The first one, The Exception to the Rule is the definite stand out of them all. I would have loved a full length novel.

I'm now reading Make a Scene by Mimi Grace. I'm trying to not only read romances this month but also more romances by black authors with black main characters.

This makes me excited to finish them! I am actually pacing myself to one short story per day. They are the perfect little breaks between thrillers/historical fiction/other more serious books I read.

[nelzie]

Feb 2, 2024 12:46:11 GMT -6 thatgolfb said:

Feb 2, 2024 12:36:08 GMT -6 nelzie said:

I finished all of the Improbable Meet Cute novellas. I gave Jasmine Guillory and Ashley Poston's books 4 stars and Sariah Wilson's 2 stars (I've also never heard of this author). The first one, The Exception to the Rule is the definite stand out of them all. I would have loved a full length novel.

I'm now reading Make a Scene by Mimi Grace. I'm trying to not only read romances this month but also more romances by black authors with black main characters.

This makes me excited to finish them! I am actually pacing myself to one short story per day. They are the perfect little breaks between thrillers/historical fiction/other more serious books I read.

The first one is the longest. The rest are like 40-60 pages so they are a very quick read. They were cute and a nice way to get me out of my slump.

[clairefraser]

Finished Where'd You Go, Bernadette? I have initially given it three stars, I enjoyed it but it didn't wow me.

Next up is Verity by Coleen Hoover. I have about 7 holds at my public library with long wait times. I think I'm going to try working through what I haven't read in my personal collection, both hard copy and ebook as I wait for those holds. Trying to resist the urge to just buy everything.

[byjove]

Feb 2, 2024 13:28:51 GMT -6 clairefraser said:

Finished Where'd You Go, Bernadette? I have initially given it three stars, I enjoyed it but it didn't wow me.

Next up is Verity by Coleen Hoover. I have about 7 holds at my public library with long wait times. I think I'm going to try working through what I haven't read in my personal collection, both hard copy and ebook as I wait for those holds. Trying to resist the urge to just buy everything.

I read Where'd You Go when my youngest was a toddler and the running away from life to commune with penguins really spoke to me

[dc2london]

I finished The Keeper of Happy Endings today. I really liked the story. It requires some suspension of disbelief in terms of character behavior, but, hey, it's magical realism. My belief is already suspended.

[newspapers]

I just finished Paul Trembley's The Beast You Are. I liked some of the stories a lot. The titular story was one of the least interesting, I thought, but still well done. I'm onto The Memory Police now, and The September House after.

[willow]

I finished Murder on an Irish Farm yesterday. 4 stars. I started the second ACOTAR book today.

[wedding]

I read The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels and liked it a lot. The author is the one that wrote the appeal, which was a story told through emails. This one unfolds with text messages, recordings, and notes by a true crime author. The format was hard because I couldn’t stop reading and there was no natural stop without chapters. But I enjoyed it a lot. 5 ⭐️

I also read Happiness Falls and was disappointed. I loved Miracle Creek and this one had great potential but it was overly wordy. 3 ⭐️

Lastly I read The Body Reader by Anne Frazier and enjoyed it. I am going to read the second in the series but I wasn’t a huge fan of the main character so I’m not sure if I will like it. But this one was four stars for me.

[angelashly]

I finished Such A Fun Age and it was good. A thought provoking book that I can see being a great book club book with the right people.

I also got a quarter of the way through the perfect son

[dc2london]

Feb 2, 2024 11:06:23 GMT -6 clairefraser said:

I wish I could do audio books but I find it hard to pay attention when I'm doing other things, i.e. working. And I pretty much work from home so no long commute time where I could listen either.

I listen at the gym or cleaning the mitchen but yeah, it is very easy to zone out

[sweptaway]

Feb 1, 2024 8:38:54 GMT -6 nelzie said:

I read 15 books in January. Favorites were The Drowning Woman, Twenty Years Later, and Little Secrets. Least favorite were Rabbit Hole, The Other Mothers, and Only if You're Lucky.

Oh I have the Other Mothers as my up next read! But I don't expect to be wow-ed. These mysteries are all kinda the same to me. 

[sweptaway]

What is that app you are all using with the cute calendar?

I am halfway through Camp Damascus and enjoying it. It's creepy and some of the writing is a little overly flowery I feel like? But I'm really into the story.

[junch817]

I finished the Mean Girls book yesterday as well as The Many Lives of Mama Love. Mean Girls was disappointing. It started off good, but I guess there’s definitely a difference in reading a book about a TV series I enjoyed vs reading a book about a movie I enjoyed. It was super repetitive. The book also over shared about Lindsay and the character who played Damian, while sharing next to nothing about any of the other characters. There was some stuff about the kid who played Kevin G too, but it was mostly Lindsay and Daniel. I liked the idea of the book way more than the book.

Mama Love was really good. I love a good memoir and I did audio for this, and it was read by Lara herself. She told a great story. I’m glad she turned her life around.

[junch817]

Feb 5, 2024 10:43:18 GMT -6 sweptaway said:

What is that app you are all using with the cute calendar?

I am halfway through Camp Damascus and enjoying it. It's creepy and some of the writing is a little overly flowery I feel like? But I'm really into the story.

Bookmory

[trueblue]

January was 9 finished book, 1 audio book, and 1 DNF.

Read:
The Vanishing - Jayne Ann Krentz, paranormal mystery. 3/5 but good enough that I put the next novel in the series on my TBR book.
Love & Other Words - Christina Lauren, romance 4/5.
Leave the world behind - rumann alam. I cancelled Netflix and had FOMO. 2/5. I think it’s definitely better as a movie because it wasn’t that great as a book - too many loose ends for me.
Iron Flame & The things we leave behind - Rebecca Yaros. I like her writing style and will probably end up reading her whole catalogue.

DNF: the heaven & earth grocery store, my Libby loan expired before I got through it. It’s back on my holds.

Listened to: Tom Lake. 1/5. I couldn’t get through the written book so switched to Spotify’s audio book since I get 10 hours of ‘free’ listening a month. I ended up speeding up the playback to 2x normal just to get through the ending.

I got through 2 books this weekend thanks to being stuck at home with a sick kid:

After I do by Taylor Jenkins Reid this weekend. 2/5. While it was thought provoking to see how relationships/marriage changes through different phases of life I found the ending very unrealistic (a couple agrees to a year separation to decide if they want to stay married, including hall passes to sleep with others which occurs) but maybe I am only viewing it through my own viewpoint on hall passes

On Second Thought by Kristan Higgins. 2/5. It’s the story of 2 step sisters who find themselves widowed and dumped in relatively short order and how they move forward and forge an actual family bond that never existed as a result of their losses. The first third almost made it a DNF, the second third got more interesting, the last third was good enough to get me to finish the book.

Next up is The overnight Guest by heather Gudenkauf. I’ve maxed out holds on both my library cards so I am revisiting things I have stuck on a TBR list. I am not even sure why I added some of them tbh, it should be an interesting month.

[cakewench]

I finished Glass Sword over the weekend (sequel to Red Queen). I liked it, but found the pacing wasn't great. I've heard the rest of the series gets progressively worse, so we'll see what happens (I have the next book coming from the library).

Started Two Twisted Crowns, which BookTok recommended but I didn't realize was part 2 of a duology. So I guess I'll finish this and read part 1 like a prequel? Oops

[junch817]

I’m just starting Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It’s for my decades challenge, 1900s-1910s). It’s a fictional story made up to go along with the real life story of the fire at the Triangle Waist Company in NYC where 146 young immigrant workers lost their lives.

[nelzie]

Keeping up my romance February:

I read The Takeover by Cara Tanamachi and rated it 3.5 stars. Cute, easy read but the pacing was a bit off.

I also read Make a Scene by Mimi Grace. 4 stars. This was really cute and it was a little shorter at 230. There are 2 more books in this "series" and I plan to read them soon.

Now I'm reading Say You'll Be Mine by Naina Kumar and it's great so far!

[thatgolfb]

I’m struggling with Hamnet. The writing is great, the descriptions are lovely, it’s just… slow. I saw that other people had the same complaint. I am about 80% through though so I am going to power through.

I started The Island of Sea Women, hardback, and The Villa by Rachel Hawkins on my Kindle.

[thatgolfb]

And I have read one of the romance short stories almost every day. They are fun!

[thatgolfb]

trueblue from what I recall, After I Do was my least favorite TJR book ever. One True Loves was my favorite from her pre historical fiction era. Maybe in Another Life was also good.

[icedcoffee]

I'm over halfway through We Love to Entertain and it might be a DNF. I find the main character extremely unlikable and annoying and the story is slogging on

[dc2london]

Ahhh I didn't realize Vera Wong is in the 4 Aunties series. I have Dial A and Four Aunties in my physical TBR (Christmas presents). I think I'll return Vera to the library and read her in order