Hello Interwebs!
So here we are at the end of February and I've finally found a little bit of my stride with reading. I managed to finish six books in the month of February and aside from one they were all on my TBR, which is great. I read six books: one memoir, one classic, one manga, one YA dystopia and one contemporary fiction with a total of 1,280 pages and an average rating of 4.2 stars.
- Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1981): this is the first book I finished in February and I read it from January 28th to February 10th. This is a novella recounting a murder that took place in a small Columbian town. A woman married a man and was returned to her family that same night after finding she was not a virgin. When pressed she gives the name of a man in town and the next morning her brothers kill him. Everyone in town knew before the murder happened that the two were planning on killing him and yet no one stopped it. This novella was interesting, no magical elements whatsoever but it was a compelling, character driven story that I very much enjoyed once I got my reading mojo back a little. I gave this 4.25 stars.
- Lovesickness by Junji Ito (2021) was the second book I finsihed in February. I read the whole thing cover to cover on Valentine's Day. This is a horror manga about a small town where the custom is to stand on a crossroads, especially on foggy nights, and ask the first stranger to pass by to tell your future. Then a beautiful boy starts appearing at these crossroads and gives mean prophecies, leading to a rash of suicides and obsessions. This is my second Junji Ito manga that I've read and I couldn't help but compare it to Uzumaki which I absolutely adored. The main story in this was good but the other ones included weren't even close to being what I wanted. I gave this a 3.5 star rating.
- The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (2017) is a young adult dystopian novel about a futuristic world where climate change has ravaged the world and robbed people of the ability to dream, except for Native Americans. You follow a teenaged boy named French and his found family as they navigate this new world, keeping their stories and traditions alive as they try to keep hope even in a world that has reverted back to the Indian school model but instead of stealing their culture and identity this time they're stealing their bone marrow and lives in an effort to reclaim the ability to dream. This was my first five star read of 2022. The narrative was lyrical and compelling and I really liked French as a narrator. And more than that I loved the little beam of hope you get towards the end as they start finding communities and reclaiming what's lost. I read this from February 11th through the 22nd and gave it a solid 5 stars.
- Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson (2018). This is a contemporary fiction book about a boy named Sequoyah who is a fifteen year old Cherokee boy in foster care in rural Oklahoma. This follows him as he struggles with his mother's substance abuse and imprisonment and tries to fit into his latest foster home and his relationship with seventeen year old Rosemary, another Native girl living with the family. They form a relationship and in the end it threatens to undo them both. I liked this book but it was dark and heavy and a little bit hard to get through. I read this from February 22nd to the 27th and gave it a 3.75 star rating.
- Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz (2020). I read this book from February 22-28th and gave it a 4 star rating. This is a collection of poetry all revolving around the poet's experience as a Native American and an outsider to society. It was a good solid poetry collection but I'm not really much of a poetry reader outside very, very few but I largely enjoyed it.
- Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot (2018). This is the final book I finished in February and I listened to this memoir on audiobook from the library. This is a memoir about the author's troubled life: her abuse from her alcoholic father, her absent mother who went from man to man looking for love, her troubled relationships with men, one of which got custody of their son, and her mental health concerns. This story really resonated with me and my struggles both with depression and anxiety, especially after my son was born, as well as my attachment issues to others. I loved this memoir a lot, it was dark and deep and beautifully written. I got it from the library but I think I'm going to buy myself a copy of the book to own. I listened to this book from February 19th to the 28th and gave it 4.75 stars.
So that's it, everything I read in the month of February. I enjoyed everything I read in this month but The Marrow Thieves and Heart Berries definitely were the outstanding reads of this month. I finished my last two books today, the very last day of the month which gives me a clean slate going into March.
I hope you enjoyed hearing what I've been reading recently and I hope you've had some good reading of your own. Next up will be the March preview and TBR which I hope to have up tomorrow but I'll definitely have it up by Friday at the latest.
Happy Reading!
Richelle
