February TBR

 Hello Interwebs!

So it's already February 9th and I'm just now getting to my TBR, which considering I haven't finished anything else this month is looking less and less promising as I go. So at the end of January I got invested in own voices Native literature and got a bunch of books from the library as well as from Barnes & Noble. This is pretty much everything that's on my TBR for the month of February. 

First we have the two books that are holdovers from the month of January. Both were started at the end of January and they're not going as great as they could be, despite the fact that I'm enjoying them. 

1. Voices in the Snow by Darcy Coates (Black Winter #1): this is the first book in a horror series about some sort of cataclysmic event that drives Clare from her home through a forest towards her sister's when she crashes and is saved by a mysterious man living in a manor house in the woods. It's a claustrophobic isolationist horror novel which are some of my favorites but this is a very, very slow burn horror and I keep getting a little bored with it to be honest. 
   
   
   
2. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: this is a classic by a Columbian author about twins who murder the man who dishonored their sister after she's returned by her new husband on their wedding night. It explores why even if the whole town knew their intentions no one did anything about it. It's also good and its very short but it doesn't have good section breaks so I'm struggling with sitting down with time to read. 
   
   
   

And then we have the two book club books for this month that I also am interested in getting to. 

1. Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby: this is a thriller novel about two fathers: one white and one black whose gay, married sons were brutally murdered and the two men team up to solve their sons' murders and get retribution. This is the February pick for BooksandLala's Literally Dead Book Club and one I've been meaning to read for a while. 
   
   
   
2. Spirit Run: A 6,000 Mile Marathon Through America's Stolen Land by Noe Alvarez: this is a memoir by the son of working-class Mexican immigrants who leaves his life in a fruit-packing plants to run in a Native marathon from Canada to Guatemala. This is the pick for Cheryl Strayed Wild Reads Literati book club. 
   
   
   

Finally we have the long list of own voices Native literature that I picked up after finishing Winter Counts in January. There's a large variety of books from poetry to nonfiction to all manner of fiction. 

1. When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through by Joy Harjo, editor. This is a compendium of poetry by Native poets, compiled by US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. 
   
   
   
2. Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford: this is a novel set in the 1970s and 1980s and following a mother-daughter pair on the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and then the oil fields of Texas and their places in the world and relationships with each other and their pasts. 
   
   
   
3. I, Rigoberta Menchu by Rigoberta Menchu: this is a memoir by a Native activist in Guatemala about her work, political and personal, in Guatemala. 
   
   
   
4. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline: this is a young adult dystopian novel where people have lost the ability to dream except for Indigenous people whose bone marrow is the cure for the world. 
   
   
   
5. The Removed by Brandon Hobson: this is a novel about a family's struggles after the death of their son in a police shooting and how they cope as the anniversary approaches. 
   
   
   
6. New Poets of Native Nations by Heid E. Erdrich, editor: this is another poetry compendium consisting of poetry by poets of various Native Nations of North American. 
   
   
    
7. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot: this is memoir about the author's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. 
   
   
   
8. Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson: this is a coming of age novel about a fifteen year old Cherokee boy in foster care in the 1980s while his mother is in prison and the friendship he forges with a girl also living with the family. 
   
   
   
9. Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz: this is a poetry collection described as an anthem of desire against erasure. 
   
   
   
10. Feed by Tommy Pico: this is a poetry collection about the various ways you feed yourself-with food, spiritually, socially, etc. 
    
    
    
11. The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich: this is a book about a Ojibwe artifact (the painted drum) and the way it effects those who come into contact with it through the years. 
    
    
    
12. Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead: this is a novel about Jonny Appleseed, a two-spirt/Indigiqueer boy who has become a cybersex worker who has to return to the reservation for the death of his stepfather about his present and his past. 
    
    
    
13. Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones: this is a coming of age horror novel about a boy who lives with his Aunt and Uncle, all of them half-breed mongrels who belong nowhere who have huge secrets. 
    
    
    
14. There There by Tommy Orange: this is a novel about twelve characters from Native communities traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow and their connected journeys to get there. 
    
    
    

So there's all the books that I have planned for February. It should be worth noting that I have finished exactly none of them so far and I feel like I'm in a bit of a reading slump so we'll see what actually happens this month. 

Happy Reading!

Richelle