February Wrap Up

 Welcome back, dear reader.

Foolishly, I picked the shortest month to read some of the longest books. Alas, reader, I did not get to all of them. But even if I didn't get to all the books I wanted to, there is always next month (as you might have seen based on my March Tbr list). Thus, let's dive into the books I finished in February.

From left to right: Ex Libris by Anne Fediman, Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire, Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert, A History of Ancient Egypt Vol 1 by John Romer, Calling Rain by Karen Marie Christa Minns, The Silver Chair by CS Lewis, Sawkill Girls by Clair LeGrand, The Odyssey trans. by Emily Wilson, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, The Only Good Indians by Stephan Graham Jones.

Let's jump in, shall we?

First is Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman a book I did not intend to read but which caught my eye and wouldn't leave me alone. It's a collection of essays Anne Fadiman wrote about books and reading and it was one of the funniest things I read in February. I am not, reader, prone to picking up essay collections. But I am easy to entice with books and I was not disappointed. One essay near the start detailed her thoughts about doomed Arctic explorations and the books written about them. It had so many lines I wanted to keep in a commonplace notebook forever. It's short and funny and a wonderful way to start off the month. If you like reading about reading, essays, and dry wit I suggest picking it up.

5/5 pumpkins.

The next book is Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire and is the newest installment of the Wayward Children series. I dropped everything and ordered it in hardcover when I heard it was out. My impulse control is poor, reader, but my love of Seanan McGuire knows no bounds. This book is another stand-alone, following a new child who falls into a world of centaurs and other horse-adjacent creatures. It's a wonderful world and beautifully described. The main character is also intersex, which I thought was well handled but I am certainly not an authority. I enjoyed the book, reader, though I wouldn't call it a new favorite.

4/5 pumpkins

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert is next up and was yet another hit. At this point, I've read all three of the Brown sisters' stories and I have loved each of them dearly. Take a Hint ranks above Get a Life for me only because I can't resist a good Fake Dating situation and a very large man who is a big softie on the inside. Zafir such a good love interest, reader. He's nice, reads romance novels, runs a charity for at-risk youth, and deals with his anxiety disorder in a way that makes me feel very seen, you know? Talia Hibbert has once again crafted a romance novel that even I can enjoy. I appreciate her story structure a lot. She doesn't muck around with drawn-out bouts of poor communication, there aren't any "rivals" or toxic masculinity, and it's diverse in an authentic way. It's the platonic ideal of a romance novel. I'd say I can't wait to read Act Your Age, Eve Brown, but I already read it. Anyway, reader, if you're looking for quality in your romance novels then pick this one up. Pick up all three, while you're at it. 

5/5 pumpkins

The next book is a reread for me. I first picked up A History of Ancient Egypt by John Romer two years ago while I was working at the public library. We have a modest section on ancient Egyptian history, and John Romer's books stuck out because they are thick books. I, reader, cannot resist a large history book. I was not disappointed. Nor was I disappointed on rereading it. John Romer's scholarship is wonderful and he makes sure to let you know how much damage European colonialism caused and just why the conclusions they formed were often incorrect. It's honestly refreshing to find someone writing frankly about this topic. Egypt often gets treated as a mystical and exotic land of other which is absolutely useless should you actually want to examine the peoples who lived along the Nile River. This first volume deals with prehistory up until the building of the Great Pyramids. Check it out should you be looking for a history book about this period.

5/5 pumpkins

Calling Rain by Karen Marie Christa Minns has been on my shelf for a long time now. I rescued it from the university Pride Center when they were weeding their collection several years ago. It caught my attention because it mentioned Bigfoot on the back and my immediate thought was that it was a lesbian romance between a primatologist and Bigfoot, also a lesbian. I'm still waiting for that proto-Chuck Tingle novel, tragically, because Calling Rain was not about that at all. If anyone knows of any  tongue-in-cheek tales about queer romance where one party is a cryptid, please let me know. The straights already have a cutesy animated film where Bigfoot has a son with a human woman and I will not rest until Bigfoot is also a lesbian. Anyway, the actual story of Calling Rain is that a college student hikes up a mountain to stay with a primatologist who discovered and is trying to protect North American Great Apes. I will say this for the book: the romance between the two is not bad and the author does her best to make sure no one feels coerced or taken advantage of. It's small, but from what I've seen uncommon for vintage queer romance novels. The problem comes from the portrayal of Native Americans which is not so much bad as misguided? The book leans into the Mystical Native trope more than is good for it, inventing an indigenous tribe whose job it is to look after the apes. It feels like a genuine attempt at having diverse characters, but like. Minns is a white woman (so far as I can tell) and I don't think she did a great job. It is the first book written by a white person that actually tells you which characters are white, though so I guess there's that? Overall I can't recommend it as a good book. It was a wild right, though.

2/5 pumpkins

Up next is The Silver Chair by CS Lewis the next book in my Narnia adventure. I thought it was just okay. Not my favorite, but it does see the return of Eustace to Narnia along with a girl from his school named Jill. The book takes shots at the nontraditional school Eustace and Jill attend (which did not teach Jill how to curtsy!) which have a very 'back in my day' feel to them. Aslan is there and gives Jill steps to follow in order to complete their quest. Said quest is finding Prince Caspian's son who has been kidnapped by the Green Witch, relative to the White Witch. The fact that Jadis has the power to plunge the whole of Narnia into winter and turn people she disagrees with into stone while the Green Lady can only hypnotize people with a powder must make reunions very awkward. That's such a vast difference in power it's a little baffling. We also learn about the land underneath Narnia which never gets mentioned again apparently. It was just alright, reader. 

3/5 pumpkins

My foray into the horror genre continues with Sawkill Girls by Claire LeGrand. I have come to the conclusion, reader, that I prefer supernatural horror. That is what Sawkill Girls is and I loved every second of it. The story follows three girls, one new to the island of Sawkill, one who's lived there her whole life and is thrall to a hungry entity that needs to eat girls to live, and one who's been living on the island for a little while and whose best friend has become the latest girl to go missing on Sawkill island. This is one of my new favorites. It's got everything: monsters, queer romance, moths, dire warnings, a secret monster-killing society, and grim portents. I finished the book and had to stop myself from just flipping back to the start and reading it over again. I hope this gets turned into a really good miniseries that I can watch and enjoy with my partners who like horror more than I do. You should pick it up, reader, if you're looking for some genuinely good horror.

5/5 pumpkins

Our next book is The Odyssey trans. by Emily Wilson. I've been meaning to pick up this translation since it came out and just never made the time until I started reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt and was seized with the desire to procrastinate. I choose a thematically appropriate book, is my only defense. I might not be cut out for Donna Tartt, a tragic blow to my love of the dark academia aesthetic. I'll muddle through somehow, I'm sure. Regardless, this is the first time I've read a translation of the Odyssey and I quite enjoyed it. I also loved Emily Wilson's introduction to the text in which she discusses the pitfalls of translating any work, especially one so old. She also detailed the places, however minor, where she deviated from other translations. She, for example, kept the number of lines in a given section the same. She also kept the language very simple and modern, since making it sound archaic would be nothing but artifice. A reader might expect something like the Odyssey to sound 'old' but it isn't written in English. It wouldn't sound like outdated English because it already sounds like ancient Greek. I enjoyed it, reader. I recommend this translation should you want to pick it up. 

5/5 pumpkins

Next is first in a series recommended by icon of the blog Nayareadsandsmiles. The book in question is Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. I picked up the paperback 10th anniversary cover edition which I love the look of. I have strange but decided opinions on what cover art I find pleasing to the eye. In my youth, reader, I would choose books at the library based only on cover art. Anyway, this particular book was a delight to read. The neon colors of the cover bleed into the prose making it a joy. I also like the actual plot and characters as well, but even if I hadn't I still would have liked reading about them, just because the writing style was so satisfying. I can't wait to read the next one. I'm not even sure where to begin in terms of summary. Karou is an art student in Prague who has no memory of her past beyond that she was adopted by a mysterious being who runs a shop that seems disconnected from the human world. She collects teeth for her foster father. Then a bunch of angels show up and begin wrecking the doors that lead to this shop. One seems familiar to Karou. He also tries to kill her a few times. From there we learn about Karou and Akiva (the angel)'s pasts and the war that's happening in the plane beyond the human world. I recommend it if you're looking for parallel worlds fantasy. Similar to the Greta Helsing books, but with a more grand high fantasy tone, if that makes sense reader.

5/5 pumpkins

Last on the list is The Only Good Indians by Stephan Graham Jones another supernatural horror novel that was recommended by other blog icon Kat of Paperbackdreams. She just put out a new video, reader, should that entice you to check her channel out. Getting back to the book, this story follows four friends after they hunt and kill elk on land reserved for the reservation elders to hunt on. Years after the fact they all experience a deadly haunting-by-elk. Maybe it's just guilt, they think, a hope that is is proven wrong when the Elk Head Woman shows up and starts taking some revenge. The tension and mystery of this story is excellent. The writing style is interesting, with repeated motifs between all the friends POVs, and the unexpected shifts to the Elk Head Woman's perspective were genuinely unsettling. I thought it was neat.

4/5 pumpkins

Thus ends the month of February. Several of the books I meant to read here were moved to March. Some of them I intended to still get to but have no idea when that will be. Stay tuned, I suppose. Happy reading.

Until next time, reader 🎃