Happy almost March everyone! It’s already time for my February wrap up. I feel like time is flying by so quickly. I always forget that February is really short. Weird that it’s already been one year since I started counting down the days until I could go back to the U.S. And that one year ago there was no lockdown…
Anyway, let’s not talk about Lockdowns. Last month I read eleven books, and this month I read… four. Oh well, there’s good and bad months, and those four happened to be very enjoyable, so I can’t be too disgruntled about the numbers. Besides, I’m still eight books ahead of schedule according to Goodreads. February wrap up
I think that from now on, I’ll also start to include some little life updates in my wrap ups. I hardly ever talk about what I’m doing besides reading (I do actually do other things), and maybe it’ll be fun!February wrap up
But first, let’s talk about the books…
Circe
By Madeline Miller
My Rating: ★★★★☆I started the month by finally picking up Circe. I’m sure that 90% of my coworkers at Barnes & Noble had already read it when I worked there, and mind you, that was in 2019. I really enjoyed it, and that surprised me a little. I don’t normally read this type of fiction; the kind that’s fantasy-but-not-quite, and heavy on character-not-plot. But I liked reading about Circe, and Miller’s writing makes it a very manageable read. When I came to the ending, I had no clue which direction it was going to take, but in the end, the ending it got made sense. It felt like an actual close, and not an open ending open to endless interpretation. Now the question is: do I also pick up The Song of Achilles?
Furyborn
By Claire Legrand
My Rating: ★★★.5☆After Circe, I really felt like reading a classic YA novel, and this one had been on my TBR forever. I looked back at my archived stories, and I bought this book in May 2018. I’ll be honest; the first half felt like a struggle. There are two MC’s, and while I liked Rielle, I did not like Eliana, and thus was not interested in her chapters. I felt the plot was a little predictable, but a lot of YAs are, so that didn’t bother me too much. The second half, however, got really interesting. The world got fleshed out a little more, and I started to like Eliana more. The ending was predictable, but I do want to know what happens next, so I will pick up the sequel sometime hopefully soonish.
Lost in the Never Woods
By Aiden Thomas
My Rating: ★★★★☆ (Publishes 23 March, 2021)Here’s one I got via NetGalley! I was both surprised and excited when I got the e-mail saying I had been approved for a copy. But I waited a bit with reading it, because anytime I read an ARC I want to tell the world what I thought immediately, even if it doesn’t come out for a while… Anyway, this is a Peter Pan retelling which is much darker than the Disney version you know. Wendy has grown up into an 18-year-old, and she and Peter must find out what happened to a bunch of kids that had suddenly gone missing in a very similar way as Wendy and her brothers had gone missing five years before. I really liked this retelling, but there were some inconsistencies still in my ARC version. I’m just going to assume that those will be gone by the time the book actually publishes. If you like retellings, certainly keep this one on your radar! And you can already read my review right here!
A Court of Silver Flames
By Sarah J. Maas
My Rating: ★★★★★I always have a weird relationship with books that are popular before they’ve even come out. Especially with Maas’s books, I always deep down feel like I have to justify why I like them so much. But the thing is, I’m just not a great critical reader. Despite this blog, and the reviews I do, I still read for fun, and I just really liked this book. I did find some things that I didn’t enjoy as much, or that could’ve been done better, but it overall didn’t affect my enjoyment of reading it. I find writing a review for really popular books very difficult, but I will do my best to have one up soon. Anyway, the tl;dr is that I loved it and will probably read it again at some point!
Some Life Updates
There’s not a whole lot going on at the moment, for obvious reasons, but I have been keeping busy. Recently was my six month anniversary of being back in The Netherlands, and I didn’t even realize it, which is probably a good thing. I think it’s mostly because this past month I actually had fun.
Earlier this month, it was super cold, and we had snow and ice. There was one weekend during which we could skate on natural ice, and at the end of my streets is a huge man-made lake/pond/thing (is there a word for something that’s between lake and pond??). My best friend lives in the same town my parents do, and I know her from the ice rink, so obviously we HAD to skate on natural ice. We took lots of photos, and it was such a fun weekend.
The weekend after that it was suddenly 65 degrees, so outside we went. Dutch people tend to massively flock to their yards or parks as soon as it’s only slightly warm. I met up with my friend I know from the U.S. (who I convinced to go to grad school here lmao) and we had great fun just hanging around outside.
I’ve also been more active the past weeks. My jeans got a little tight, and I absolutely refuse to buy new clothes (do you know how many things I would need to replace?!), so it was time to replace my near-daily pasta dinners with some actual vegetables. I followed a workout program by Chloe Ting, and I’m happy to say I did not die. Yet. Plus, my mom and I like to go on bike rides in the weekends. I have an awesome mountain bike, and its finally getting some good use.
Finally, my last semester of grad school started this month. I only have one class, and my thesis to write, and then I’ll be done! I still have mixed feelings about how productive this whole endeavor has been, but that’s mostly Covid’s fault. At least my class is super fun. It’s about China in the global cyber space, and I feel like I’m actually learning something. My professor is really cool too; each week we have to do a mini assignment, and he grades it based on effort instead of content. He does it because he realizes that students are less likely to explore when they have a potential grade reduction hanging above their head. Now we’re free to come up with our own ideas, and even if they’re wrong, we still get points!
As for my thesis… I haven’t done a lot yet since I paused it last December. Someone come and kick my butt so I start writing, lol.February wrap up February wrap up February wrap up
And that’s all for this month! I hope you liked reading about my life outside the books as well. What have you all been up to the past month? Got anything to look forward to? Let me know!
