February 2023: A Month In Review

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February has been my best reading month during a school semester (or just generally) in a while. I find myself returning to the pattern that I fell into as a kid. When my life gets overwhelming or I get sad, I've started to once again retreat into books and fill all my spare time with reading. It's honestly made me feel a lot better. Over the winter, I've transitioned the time I spent on TikTok to more time with my Kindle in the morning, at night, and while I'm waiting outside classrooms. And now, I'm adding in audiobooks in place of a certain amount of TV time. While reality TV will always own my heart and I love my Bravo marathons, shifting my focus has also helped how I'm feeling. 

Despite being an exceptionally short month, I read a record number of books. I haven't read this many books in a month since I started college, and the only time I've read more in recent memory was April of 2020 when I was trying to escape (at least mentally) from COVID lockdown. That's definitely translated to better blogging habits too, and I've fully fallen back in love with being a part of the online book community and with book blogging. Having it be squarely a hobby is really helpful for that. I'm not necessarily posting a ton, but I currently have a backlog of 5 reviews to be edited and posted in the coming month. I'm glad that even as I started writing again, I'm still able to keep up my reading habit as well.

Books I Read In February 
February was a great month for both finishing books and finding books I really enjoyed. I finished 7 books, 6 ebooks and an audiobook, for a total of 2,331 pages read. I also added 3 books (Begin Again, Anna, and Pizza Girl) to my running list of Favorites for 2023. This was a huge relief since none of my January reads made that list. And even bigger than that, I gave my first 5 star rating of the year. While most of these book reviews aren't out yet, I'm so excited to share my thoughts about them with you. It's been fun to read across genres and age groups too–remembering why I love YA, venturing into horror (a bit unwittingly), continuing to expand my knowledge of literary fiction, and going back to nonfiction. Here's an overview of the books I finished as a preview of the reviews coming soon:

by Emma Lord
Rating: 4.5

by Coco Mellors
Rating: 3

Bunny
by Mona Awad
Rating: 4

Everything Leads to You
by Nina LaCour
Rating: 4

Pizza Girl
by Jean Kyoung Frazier
Rating: 5

Anna: A Biography
by Amy Odell
Rating: 4.5

Happy Hour
by Marlowe Granados
Rating: 3.5

Blog Posts In February







TBR
To combine some sections, I did purchase one book this month, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I never stop talking this book, so you probably already know that I've read and loved it. It's a gorgeous book, and I'd wanted a copy of my own long enough that I finally gave in to get a copy to annotate. The next time I hit a reading slump, it'll be at the top of my list. 
At the moment, I've been powering through my library holds that flow in just as I finish the current book that I'm reading. Especially with Libby's 7 day skip the line loans that show up at any random time, I'm always changing up the order of the books I'm planning to read, but generally, here's where I'm at with reading going into March. 
To begin with what I'm currently reading, I started Cultish on the train home yesterday as an audiobook. I've been enjoying it so far, which isn't surprising given how mind blowing Montell's first book, Wordslut, felt when I was younger. I'm not loving this one quite so much, but I'm intrigued.  
For my ebook reading, I just downloaded on time constrained loan I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki which has popped up all over bookstagram lately, and before I found out about that loan, I'd just downloaded A Novel Obsession. I've gotten the chance to read A Little Life a few times now, but I keep deferring the hold because I've heard how absolutely devastating this book is, and I'm honestly a bit scared. And this month I've added Careering, Early Morning Riser, The Woman Destroyed, Babel, and The Body Keeps Score to my holds list.

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