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February is the shortest month, but I didn’t let that stop me from reading up a storm this month! There’s just been so many new releases and good books to look forward to.
Before we get into this post, I’m trying to change up my descriptions for each book a little bit. Instead of providing the official description, I’m writing my own little summary of the book (spoiler free) including my personal thoughts and review! Hopefully this is more succinct and less overwhelming.
Reputation, Lex Croucher: 5 Stars
Version: Audiobook
Publication date: April 5, 2022
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for this Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. This. was. so. much. fun!!!! I absolutely loved being in this Gossip Girl/Mean Girls + Bridgerton crossover event, and I never wanted to leave. I could have kept listening to the salacious gossip, comedic mistakes and delightful romance for hours and hours.
Middle class Georgiana Ellers expects to spend her summer in the hopelessly boring company of her aunt and uncle and their equally as boring friends, when she suddenly finds herself accidentally in the midst of the most secretly scandalous, highest society, friend group of the season. Looking to escape the monotony of her current predicament, George finds herself swept up with Frances (the group’s ringleader) and all her devilishly fun whims, much to the detriment of her character and reputation.
Of course George meets a handsome, kind and extremely wealthy bachelor throughout the fun escapades, but her new friendships and lack of title might just be enough to ruin their match. Please read this and have as much fun as I did!
The characters are ultimately so likable, and I felt like the conflict was something rarely explored in pieces set during this time. I do want to mention this book involves sexual assault and consent, if that’s something you don’t feel comfortable reading about.
The Paris Hours, Alex George: 3 Stars
Version: Kindle
This was the February pick for a book club that I’m in, and we all decidedly don’t like it, haha. It was fine, but I don’t think it’s worth anyone’s time. It chronicles 24 hours of a group of mostly strangers living in Paris in the 1920s. There are lots of famous artists sprinkled throughout, which was really fun. I also appreciated how the flashbacks were weaved throughout the 24 hours to explain the characters a little bit better.
I was confused for the first 20% of the book because I couldn’t remember which character was which. Once I figured it out, things got a lot better, but overall the book isn’t exactly an easy read. Lastly, I did not love the ending for this- it just felt like everything was for nothing.
The Cousins, Karen McManus: 3 Stars
Version: Audiobook
Once a month or so Preston and I pick an audiobook to listen to together when we have a long drive coming up, a puzzle we want to work together, etc., and this was our most recent. I have been wanting to read this book for years, but ultimately I felt underwhelmed. It was probably due to a combination of hyping it up in my head for so many years and not enjoying the audiobook performance immensely.
This book follows three teenaged cousins following an unexpected invitation to work at their estranged, wealthy grandmother’s island resort. There’s immense pressure from the cousins’ parents to get back in their grandmother’s good graces (and will), but the cousins really just want to know why they were invited to the island and ultimately why their grandmother disinherited her entire family.
I loved the setting and the storyline, but I didn’t enjoy the cousins themselves very much. I typically like YA just fine, but something about all their personalities was absolutely grating. I also did not like the romance element to this story at all- I can’t say who between without ruining part of the story. Ugh, I think this one was fine, but I like Karen McManus’ One of Us is Lying series a lot better.
Reminders of Him, Colleen Hoover: 4 Stars
Version: Kindle
This was the third Colleen Hoover book I’ve ever read, and just as usual, her stories stick with me for much longer than the final page. Unlike with Verity and It Ends With Us, this one is an easier read. Verity is absolutely twisted (in a good way), and It Ends With Us is excruciating to read (*TW-domestic violence), and even though Reminders of Him is about a seriously complicated relationship, it was much easier to digest than the other two books I’ve read from this author.
The very first thing Kenna wants to do after being released early from prison is reunite with her daughter, but it’s the only thing she can’t do with her new freedom. She finds an ally with the only person in town with just as much to lose as her, but there’s just something about him that she can’t resist. It both intrigued me and made me unsure of this book when I learned it was about an incarcerated mother- I feel like that’s just a storyline we don’t get very much.
Surprisingly, I really like Kenna and her character arch. I felt slightly aggravated at times because the main complication in this book was just lack of communication (my least favorite trope by far), but ultimately it was more of the journey through forgiveness than failure to communicate so I still rated it high.
Just a warning, this one (along with all Coho’s books) is a little spicy.
The Last Chance Library, Freya Sampson: 5 Stars
Version: Physical
This was so cute! It really reminds me of The Authenticity Project, but I liked this a lot better than that book.
June had big plans for her life, plans that involved actually leaving her tiny English town, all until her mother passed away. Years later, June’s life is almost exactly the same – living in the same house, working the same job, continuously losing the little friends she has left. When June’s beloved library (and place of employment) is threatened with closure, she must band together with an eccentric group of dedicated library goers to save the building that’s been their lifeline for so many years.
The characters in this are just plain fun, and getting to watch June come out of her shell was hilarious and heartwarming. The romantic element weaved throughout was perfectly placed in my opinion too!
Little Secrets, Jennifer Hiller: 4 Stars
Version: Audiobook
I expected this to just be a run of the mill thriller, but I was actually surprised by how much I ended up liking it. There were several twists and turns, and even though parts of it were predictable, I was still never able to get the full picture until the very end.
Marin has everything she could ever want in life until her perfect world comes crashing down the day her son disappears in broad daylight. The disappearance understandably strains her marriage, but Marin doesn’t know just how bad it’s gotten until the private investigator she hired to find her missing son discovers her husband is cheating on her with a much younger woman. Marin goes to great lengths to save her marriage, and lies (from every character) abound.
Every single character in this story was extremely dislikable and made extremely bad decisions- that’s something that usually annoys me more than anything, but somehow it really worked here.
Black Cake, Charmaine Wilkerson: 4 Stars
Version: Audiobook
This was the February One More Page Bookclub pick, and I ended up enjoying it way more than I thought I would.
Byron and Benny’s mother has just passed away, leaving an audio recording of her life story in her wake. With lots of past family drama to unpack, the adult siblings set out on a journey to relearn everything they thought the knew about their mother and her sad journey to arriving in Southern California. Without lacking many struggles of their own, Benny and Byron, along with their mother, learn what it really means to know someone and support those you love unconditionally. Their mother left them one final black cake, her most cherished recipe, with only the instructions to eat it when the time is right- something they have to figure out on their own.
With shifting perspectives and past and present timelines, this book has a lot of content to soak up. I did listen to it on audiobook, and I think that only slightly impacted my experience! Toward the end, things are moving so fast and we’re learning so much about the multitude of characters. The chapters are sometimes really quick, and it could be hard to tell whose perspective I was listening to if I zoned out for even a second.
Otherwise, I really enjoyed the journey this book took me on. It was really sad and troubling that this family essentially imploded and didn’t make real amends when their mother was still living. I did enjoy finding out all the ways the characters’ lives intersected without them even knowing it, and I really didn’t guess a lot of the twists! I highly recommend this one.
Reckless Girls, Rachel Hawkins: 3.75 Stars
Version: Physical Book
This book started out so strongly, but by the end I was left feeling like really??? that’s the ending we’re stuck with? I felt this same way with the same author’s The Wife Upstairs, so maybe I just don’t enjoy her endings very much!
Lux and her boyfriend are hired last minute to charter college friends traveling the world together, Brittany and Amma, to a remote and deserted island. The trip feels simple on surface level, but each passenger has a lot brewing underneath their carefully created facades. With just slightly less baggage than the island itself, the group runs into all kinds of unexpected twists and turns in what was supposed to be a great adventure and much needed escape.
The island turns hauntingly mysterious the longer their trip lasts, and the group’s new acquaintances also seem like they can’t be trusted.
Here’s my issue with this book- the twist was deeply unsatisfying. I thought of so many ways this could have ended throughout, and I have to say I think all of them were better than what the book actually left us with. I wouldn’t say to skip this one- I still really enjoyed the journey, but just know you might be a little disappointed with the ending like I was.
The Golden Couple, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen: 3 Stars
Version: Physical Book
Again, another book that started out so strongly but left me unsatisfied in the end. I really wanted to love it, and I think the cover is absolutely stunning, but something about this was just off.
This could be a result of my expectations going in- I absolutely loved The Wife Between Us by this same duo, and I’m starting to feel like nothing can top that twist?
Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have everything, except the perfect marriage. Avery is a highly successful therapist- except she can’t actually call herself that because her license has just been revoked due to questionable (but effective) methods. There’s nothing she can’t solve with her carefully planned ten step method, and she sets out to discover just what’s wrong with the Bishop’s marriage. Drama emerges at an alarming rate, and deeply held secrets come to the surface through Avery’s sessions.
When Marissa, Matthew and Avery’s lives are all in danger, their work together has deadly consequences.
I kept waiting and waiting for everything to click in to place, but the final arrangement just seemed a little forced to me. I guessed the biggest twist pretty early on in the book, but it was fun to see where everything else landed. These characters weren’t particularly likable for me either, so it left me in a really weird place with this one! I also expected to like the psychologist aspect a lot more than I did, but she just felt like a detective more than anything?
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, Amanda Montell: 4 Stars
Version: Physical Book
I’ve had this book on my list since it first came out- I am obsessed with anything about cults and will immediately sign up to read or watch something and will probably end up binging it. I tried reading this book at night as my only book going, and I fell asleep almost instantly, haha but I think I’m just not good at reading nonfiction at night. I need something that keeps my attention for an hour straight! Once I switched to just reading this during the day and something fiction at night, I sped through it so fast.
If you like anything about cults, I think you should read this. It’s set up a lot differently than most cult content, because this focuses on the language surrounding cults and not really the ins and outs of the cults themselves. There was a lot of content about some of the most infamous cults that I didn’t already know, but the majority of it was focused on how the cult leaders spoke and communicated to their followers to incite passion and how the general public makes casual references to cults without even meaning to.
Some of her conclusions were pretty far fetched in my opinion, I think she placed a lot of confidence in some theories that probably needed further exploration- she jumped to conclusions you could say. Other than that, I thought this book was really well written! It almost read like a really long article you would find in the New York Times, but I think it was worth the read.
The Christie Affair, Nina de Gramont: 3.25 Stars
Version: Audiobook
Admittedly, I was hesitant about giving this one a go because I had just read The Mystery of Mrs. Christie in December, and that one is also a re-imagination of Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance in the 1920s. However, I ultimately decided to give it a go because this one is told from Mr. Christie’s mistress’ point of view instead of Agatha or her husband’s. I wanted to like this, but it was extremely dramatic. I feel like this wasn’t at all what could have happened, and that’s totally fine but maybe just not what I was in the mood for. I liked that the other retelling felt like it could have actually happened!
I just felt like the author wanted us to hate every single character, which is sometimes fine for me but in this instance it just seemed like everyone was so immature for their age and life experience!
The Simple Wild, K. A. Tucker: 4 Stars
Version: Kindle
I loved this story! If you give me anything in Alaska, I’ll love it. Calla hasn’t heard from her dad in 12 years, and she hasn’t seen him in person in double that. When a surprise call sends her on a journey to one of the most remote parts of Alaska, she discovers an entire new side of her family and her self. With a good romance plot and the intrigue of the Alaskan wilderness, this book was hard not to like.
The only thing that really annoyed me was the “boys will be boys” attitude from everyone in the book. Calla, her mom, Agnes and so many others stood up for Wren when he might not have really deserved it. I feel like he never really took responsibility for ghosting his daughter or had a very good reason for why he did it. I’m glad Calla went a reunited with him, but I can’t be the only one who thought he was forgiven too easily. Jonah also acted so inexcusably, and everyone again stood up for him. It was an enemies to lovers plot, but I still just felt like they never acknowledged how badly the men in this book behave haha.
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As far as reviews go, this was kind of an up and down month for me! It seemed like I was reading book after book that I didn’t love, but when I went back to look there were actually a good mix of 4 and 5 stars with some closer to 3s. Hopefully I have a killer March because I just love those months when everything is a 4 or above.
See you guys next month!
All these sound so good!
It was a good month of reading!