February Review

February has come and gone, despite being the shortest month it felt like it was long... Perhaps that was just due to all things that happened this month, so I apologize for the lack of content.

I went on vacation for four days during Contemporary-a-thon, There were three birthday's and we unfortunately had a beloved family member pass this month, which put me in a weird state of not wanting to think at all for a weekend proceeded by a need to show him honor by fishing with my brother and my boyfriend, which was very therapeutic.

I am currently reading Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie and The Secret Lives of Color by Kassie St. Clair, this one I don't plan on finishing soon, as I'm reading a story a night, and there are quite of a few stories with in the book. I am also listening to Educated by Tara Westover.

I put out a tbr at the end of January for February of books I wanted to read this month/for contemporary-a-thon.

My Contemporary-a-thon TBR consisted of:

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde
Giant Days Vol 2 by John Allison
and
Love Letters to the Dead by Ave Dellaira

Of those four I read one and am still in the process of reading another.

For my February TBR it consisted of the above as well as:

The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III
Dear John, I love Jane by Candace Walsh
Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett
Giant Days Vol. 3 by John Allison

Of those four I read three.

Over all I read 8 books:

2- Graphic Novels
2- Children's
1- YA Fiction
1- Adult Fiction
1- Bizarro Fiction
and
1-Historical Fiction

Of those only one was an audio book

All books accumulated to 1397 pages which averages to about 49.9 pages a day.

For my star ratings I had

3- five stars
3- four stars
1- three star
and
1-2 star

My Average Star rating for this month was a solid four

I have completed 5 challenges of the Around the Year in 52 Books Challenge, including challenges:

1. A book with the letters A, T and Y in the title.
5. A book inspired by real events
9. A book that has a body part in the title
21. A book in first person perspective
and
50. A book with a warm atmosphere

Alright, let's get started with the books

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Published September 2017, by MCD Farrar, Straus and Giroux

This book follows Lois Clary, she's a software engineer who recently moved to San Francisco. With the long hours and repetitive as well as the pressure to get code done, Lois finds herself in a bit of a constant stress. Until she finds a menu on her door for a rather unconventional restaurant. After feasting on their spicy soup and home made sour dough Lois finds herself relaxed and able to sleep as well as no stress cramps. She continues to order from these two brothers to the point where they call her their "number one eater." Unfortunately the brother's work visa's are up and they are to leave the country, but before they go they leave their sourdough starter with Lois. Finding herself taking care of a living thing Lois dives into the culture of baked breads, markets and the Lois clubs.

This book was really interesting, and boy did I want bread through out this whole book. There were interesting little facts through out, not just about sourdough but also software and ovens, just little tid bits here and there as you we met more along Lois's journey. The issues I had with this book was that I found the ending a bit....random? forced? It ties in with another issue in that I never really felt connected with Lois. The book is from her point of view but everything just kind of felt mono-tone. When she did express feelings it was fairly limited, when there was a problem she had to work through she was very calm and collected for the most part and she took a break found the solution then fixed it, which is fine, but even with her happier emotions it wasn't really expressed. How this ties into the un-satisfying ending is that it was mentioned/suggested she go visit someone due to having feelings for them....this felt odd. Because yes it was hinted a little in Lois and there correspondence back and forth but we only saw it from their side, Lois never mentions it in the story nor expresses it otherwise, so it just felt like I missed out on something, like there needed to be more emails to see, more feelings to digest.

This book completed challenge 21. Read a book in first person perspective.

Over all fun, I now need to make sourdough....four out of five stars.

The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III

Published September 2006, by Eraserhead Press

Steve loves Stacey, but Stacey has a haunted vagina. Steve finds this odd and unnerving, Stacey doesn't seem to mind it, until one awkward moment during sex where a skeleton crawls out of Stacey's pubic region. Stacey has a door to another world in her vag and she's managed to convince Steve to go explore it, in which he finds it will be difficult to return, and he meets and attractive girl named Fig.

This book....So I expressed in a previous post that I thought this would make me laugh....Yeah it wasn't funny when I read it. I've heard it described as "smut" and yes there are sex scenes, but with every one something happens that's just so odd every time (never the same thing) that just kind of takes you out of the situation and go "...the fuck?" This is hands down Bizzarro Fiction like it says on Good reads. For the most part it was interesting enough for me to get through it. But it fell a little flat, it answered what it could but felt rushed. If this was a full on book, I think I would have enjoyed it a little more. but as it was it was just kind of "meh"

This book completed challenge 9. A book with a body part in the title.

Two out of five stars.

Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

Published April 2017, by Simon Pulse

Bailey Rydell is a major film buff. Known as "Mink" to her online friend, "Alex", she met on a film lover's website, they've been talking for months, and Bailey truly believes there is something there. However, Alex and Bailey live on the opposite coasts of the United States, that is until Bailey moves in with her dad to on the West coast, the same time Alex claims to live. Bailey doesn't tell Alex about her move, despite her strong feelings for him, she is skeptical about if he's the real deal or not. So when she's not working at the Cavern Palace Museum (a local tourist trap), she's scoping out the area to see if she can figure out who Alex is in real life. But a co-worker, Porter Roth, that Bailey has deemed her "arch-nemesis" gives her trouble, and has been since the job orientation. Soon she's unsure of her feelings towards Porter, is he really the bad guy she made him out to be? Can she make it work with him? And what about Alex? Does she abandon what she thinks they had? Did she ever have a chance?

Going in this book had "re-write of You've Got Mail" all over it's reviews. I'm not sure if Bennett had stated that this book was indeed a re-write of the famous movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Needless, it did have elements of that in this book. I have a full review of this book HERE, but what I will say here is that I felt very wishy washy through out the whole book. Yes it had similar elements like that of You've Got Mail but I felt like they could have been executed better. Most the book I felt Bailey was just kind of a let down, she did have certain elements about her that I enjoyed, her trauma and pin-up/old Hollywood fashion sense, aside from that her character fell flat for me. Porter was interesting at first but kept losing marks the more we went on with the story.

This book completed challenge 50. A book with a warm atmosphere (love, summer)

A very "meh" book for me. 3 out of 5 stars.

Don't Blink! by Tom Booth

Published June 2017, by Feiwel and Friends

If you haven't noticed by this second month review, and this being my second picture book, I enjoy picture books. More specifically I enjoy the illustrations in the picture books I tend to buy, that's the whole reason why I buy them. The idea of this book was cute, essentially that you're having a staring contest with this child and slowly animals show up to join in the contest, SPOILER: you win. Other reviews thought this book was rather boring, I thought it was entertaining enough for a child, but I can't say for sure because I have yet to read it to one...we're see if my niece can stick through it. Otherwise I thought it was cute for what it was, I mean a staring contest isn't exactly a huge spectical to witness. But what I was more impressed with was the illustrations. I thought the child was over all really well rendered in a style that reminds me of Pixar's Up, but still unique, there's shadows and tints to give the characters form, how each layer is represented makes me feel like these very detailed pieces were put together like cut outs, giving a 3D as well as a 2D element. Mostly I'm impressed with the texture and stylization of the animals, I am in love with the spirals on that turtles shell, it just looks like I could feel those ridges if I ran my hand over the pages. The stylization of the animals and the girl is realistic enough but stylized enough to make them fun. Exhadurated in the right areas to really emphasize their features. The turtle looks rough, solid, sturdy while the fox looked elegant, soft, and light. This book was just over all fun. 5 out of 5 stars.

Contemporary-a-thon Round Two Reveiw

So for this round of contemporary-a-thon I didn't do so well, it was a busy week at work and I left half way through the week to go on vacation in which I did no reading on my travels.

But I did finished two contemporary graphic novels:

Giant Days Vol 2. by John Allison, Illustrated by Lissa Treiman and Max Sarin and colored by Whitney Cogar

Published April 2016, by BOOM! Box

For contemporary-a-thon I read Giant Days Vol. 2 the first one intrigued me enough to want to continue on with the series. It follows three girls who become fast friends in their first year of college, and explores their time in college, their heart breaks, themselves, and college life in general. This volume, I still enjoyed it, the art style is fun, and pleasing, but there were a couple things that I didn't quite agree with. Susan bugged me a bit in particular in a portion of this where Esther is baking cupcakes to make up for something that she didn't really have much control over, Susan throws the cupcakes out the window not wanting Esther to comply with 1950's standards and that her boyfriend should be making her cupcakes. I admit that it really wasn't in Esther's control of the situation she's trying to apologize for, nor should she really be apologizing for anything, but to try to enforce not enforcing "old school" standards of women is ridiculous to me. If it's my choice to bake cupcakes for something I feel bad about, then that's on me. Fuck you if you toss that hard work out the window because you don't want me "submitting" myself as a "lesser" role. What if baking provided a therapy for Esther and she just happened to want to share it with her boyfriend? And what the hell is wrong with baking cupcakes as an apology?! Fine! I wont bake you something the next time I'm at fault, your loss my cupcakes are delicious! It was just very judgy and a terrible way to say "Hey, Esther, you really didn't do anything wrong. But if making cupcakes makes you feel better, I support you."
This wasn't the last time Susan irritated me. At another point she starts avoiding her friends because of a relationship she doesn't want them to know about. She claims it's because their love lives kind of "suck" right now and she feels it wouldn't be helpful to them to be in a relationship around them. I would understand this if she just wanted alone time with her boyfriend, but to just lie and avoid hanging out with your friends because you don't think they can handle you being in a relationship seems ridiculous.

Susan wasn't really my only problem with this volume, there were a couple choppy bits where I wasn't too sure what was going on or why someone was acting a certain way, and due to lack of explanation it was just kind of lost on me. But over all I still enjoy'd the volume and will be continuing with the series.

I'm going to say this series completes challenge 1.A book with the letters A, T, and Y in the title.

4 out of 5 stars.

Giant Days Vol 3.

Published October 2016, by BOOM! Box

This one I read on a whim to get something else read during this read-a-thon. I definitely liked this volume a bit better than Vol 2. We see some character development as they handle different situations to a point where strain is put on their friendships and relationships with others. So that was nice to see, but not all the questions were answered in this volume which makes me eager to read the next.
5 out of 5 stars.

I kept reading the books I was still in the middle of, despite contemporary-a-thon being over I still wanted to finish them.

Yellow Kayak by Nina Laden Illustrated by Melissa Castrillon

Published January 2018, by Simon Schuster

This was the month of wonderful children's books. In terms of illustrations anyway, but the content and text themselves stood up very well on their own. The illustrations are what draw me in though, and this book didn't stand a chance. I got this book just after coming back from my vacation, and after seeing the Newport Aquarium the nautical creatures struck a chord and I felt like I had to get it. The illustrations are elegant and beautiful, dramatic but cute and you get what they're supposed to represent. The text was a cute poem and the illustrations gave it adventure and magic. 5 out of 5 stars.

Hearts of Resitance by Soraya M. Lane Narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden

Published January 2018, by Lake Union Publishing

This book follows three women: Rose, Hazel, and Sophia, through out a small portion of World War II. Each of them from a different country and telling their story on how they wanted to help with the war and their part in the resistance movement.

I over all found this book really enjoyable to listen to, I loved Knowelden's voice and I could tell the difference between each of the girls, particularly when they were all together, but I did find myself listening to this book on a loud volume because Knowelden tended to have a soft voice in general, and when she emphasized whispering it was hard to hear, particularly in the car.

I found the book interesting over all, but wanted more detail towards the end, I felt like it kind of ended abruptly.

This book completed challenge 5. A book inspired by by real events.

Over all 4 out of 5 stars

And that is it for my February Review! If you have read any of these let me know what you thought, I'd love to talk about them!

Until next time!

Litta