February 2025 Reading Journal
I was surprised to discover that in February I read 13 books. That came out way higher than I expected, and I've realized that even when I feel like I'm moving through a book like molasses, it's usually like four days I've been reading it. I'm dramatic, what can I say. This 13 book total is purely a result of the fact that I didn't have all that much I had to do in February besides write a few articles for publications and exercise. My life, like I mentioned in the January wrap-up, is very small at the moment. My main quest of the month has been visiting restaurants in my town with my friend and trying pancakes. I'm working on a newsletter about the best pancakes in town. We've been to four so far and have six more to try. Really, that's not true. My main quest has been taking the draft of the novel I'm working on from 10k to 57k over the course of the month, but that all feels make believe. I thought I wasn't even seriously working on another book draft and then I was. I say this all for a sense of perspective. If you're currently working full time or studying full time, this number of books would be much, much harder to achieve than it was for me. I'm proud of myself when I finish 4 a month while I'm working. Most of my reading this month, though, felt like a begrudging way to pass time without looking at my phone (which I also did a lot). I wasn't feeling the spark.
I should also say that 7 of the books were audiobooks, so over half this month. I felt like I listened to fewer audiobooks and way more podcasts, but I guess that's mostly been true of the second half of the month. This isn't to say audiobooks are a lesser form of reading, just that I can listen to audiobooks while I do a million other tasks so they take less dedicated attention for me to consume. And, personally, I do feel a different level of accomplishment finishing a nonfiction audiobook I've passively listened to than a book that I sat down and applied my eyes and 100% of my attention to until it was finished. That's just one of my personal reader feeling that don't need to align with yours. I will say, though, that reading Bianca Bosker's two books on audio at the start of the month was some of the most fun reading I've had all year. She does great narration and the books chronicle her learning about a niche world (art dealing, wine) as a total novice seeing her go from clueless to expert. I highly recommend them, and they provided abundant entertainment when I was really struggling to find fiction that could hold my attention.
I think a lot of this comes down to having a hard time finding books I head over heels love and also how anxious I was at the start of the month. I was on a really tough journey from the end of January through, honestly, last week of really living in the future and stressing about the move when there is really nothing I can do in advance. It's hard to be told that there's all these difficult tasks you'll have to figure out all at once when you have no time, but there's nothing to do to help yourself now when you have buckets of time. It is far from the world's biggest problem and is a side effect of an incredibly good, amazing thing, but when you have a brain as anxiety dominant as mine, it can be pretty consuming. A book would have to be pretty amazing to cut through all that noise. So I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled where I could anxious spiral and move my thumb at the same time. I kept getting lost and frustrated in books when all I wanted to do was read.
So I decided to try to change it up this month. I started by picking up a classic. Something about heading for a creative writing program in the fall made me feel like I should be better read on significant literature of the past (whether that's a valuable or true thought is debatable). I picked The Great Gatsby because everyone I talked to seemed to like it, I knew it was short, and I'd involved it in the plot of my novel draft and I figured I should know what I was talking about if I was going to make the reference. I'm really glad that I did because I enjoyed the book quite a bit. There was a lot more relevancy and nuance than I'd expected (apologies for underestimating you, Mr. Fitzgerald). I guess it's because I received a really substandard history education in school, but I'm always shocked by how relatable the classics are. I guess the past is always framed as so significantly different and trapped behind glass, but it's really not. As the saying goes, history repeats itself. So I guess reading this book gave me some very obvious and elementary revelations. I want to try to read at least one classic a month to keep these grand thoughts coming.
Then I didn't read for a long time. I picked up a lot of books where I read 50 or 100 pages before deciding that I couldn't continue. I wasted a lot of time trying to tell myself that it wasn't the book, it was my finicky brain, when, honestly, it was probably a book I wouldn't mesh with on a good day. Eventually, I decided to bail out to another reading trick of mine—rereading. I really just wanted to reread something from Sally Rooney again, but I couldn't decide which one, and I do that too much as it is. So I decided to try My Year of Rest and Relaxation again. I'd read some of Ottessa's newsletter, which gave me the idea. Similar to Rooney, this was one of the first literary fiction novels I read before I really understood the form, so I figured I'd like it a lot more this time around with the benefit of having now read over 200 of those kinds of books and also being older. It's a wonder what a difference the years between 18 and nearly 22 make. I did end up enjoying it a ton and reading it relatively quickly.
Then I needed to read an ARC to not fall behind on my frenzy of requests. Luckily, I'd done a fair amount of pre-reading, so I was on to the March collection of books. I decided after a few failed attempts to go with an author I'd loved in the past who was offering something a bit lighter and more plot forward, Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley. She did a great job of repeating the formula of her last novel in a way that was fresh and unique but checked all the same boxes. I love when an author can do that, and it made for a similar reading experience to the last book I finished this month, We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin. In this book, too, Austin pulls out a similar formula to Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead with the themes and major character ingredients but in a new way. I almost find that a more impressive trick for an author (and far better for brand building) than completely pivoting to something totally alien with every new release. I came across Rats first by seeing Maisie Peter's clutching it in an Instagram post (remember when she ran a book club? A real pioneer on the celeb book club phenomenon) and then I recognized it on the shelf at the library when I'd gone to pick out movies with a friend. I picked it up on impulse and was glad for it. But both books proved to be easy reads that captured my limited attention.
Back in sequence, my hold on Confessions came through earlier than expected. I'd seen Books Upstairs post about their event with the author and some buzz on Bookstagram. Also, it's a new release set in Ireland, so of course I'm going to read it. I did gulp a little when I realized that it was almost 500 pages. Given my unfortunate attention span and general fear of big books, this didn't seem like a good choice for the moment, but I was motivated to finish it within my loan and in enough time to finish my physical loan of Rats before getting on a plane next week, so I actually made good time getting through it. Sadly, it did not disprove my theory like Wellness did that books don't need to be that long.
Weirdly, my reading for February felt unintentionally themed between Get the Picture, All That Glitters, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and Confessions. The art world, galleries, and art dealing were huge themes of my reading this month. Get the Picture and All That Glitters are both about the modern art dealing world and nonfiction, in Rest the main character works in a gallery before she decides to shut out the world, and Confessions features a painter who moves to New York to pursue her art. I can't say that this is a theme I'm disappointed to have spent a lot of time on since I find art to be absolutely fascinating but was random that they all came at once.
To round out touching on what I read, in between the books previously discussed, I read an ARC of Shana Youngdahl's upcoming YA novel, A Catalog of Burnt Objects, because I reconnected with her at a writing conference in my town (you can read my old interview with her here). Then, outside of Bosker's incredible books, the audiobooks I read were pretty mid. For a quick rundown—Fire and Rain, The Siren's Call, All That Glitters, I Like to Watch, and Black Pill. Fire and Rain was a hangover from the Bob Dylan readings of January, Chris Hayes's new book was fine but nothing I hadn't already heard about the attention economy and phones, All That Glitters was weirdly unfocused and hard to follow but got better by the back half, and Black Pill was just depressing and for a girl that's cut the news out of her life to protect her last little shred of sanity, probably wasn't a great choice. With my decrease in audiobook listening, I've been binging podcasts including First Edition and The Book Riot Podcast as well as the Pop Pantheon Podcast (which I interned at when I was in college!). I watched three movies this month. The incredible Tick Tick Boom, which I waited way too long to watch and made me like Andrew Garfield even more; the old Katy Perry documentary since I bought tickets with a friend on a lark (they were really cheap) to see her tour this May; and About Time, a sort of romance time turner movie recommended by Paul Mescal.
Which I guess brings us to the present moment.
I wouldn't say I'm out of the woods on the slump yet, but I've definitely done a better job of calming my brain down. This month, I've broken my rules about staying off Instagram at night and in the morning, which is really bad of me, but I only have so much willpower. I have gotten a ton of writing done, which I'm very proud of, and landed a few paying articles, which is great. I'm hoping that things are starting to look up in a more permanent way. I'm making peace with the reality that I need to take things one moment at a time and that I need to trust it will all work out when it needs to. I've been getting out of the house more, which probably helps, and the gorgeous, warmer, sunny days we've gotten in this fake spring are doing wonders for my optimism.
Making it to March feels huge. It feels like the start of life getting easier in the sense that I'll have less time to stew alone with myself. It's getting warmer and much easier to go outside out here on the frozen tundra. I'll only be a month away from working full time again. Next week, I'll spend a whirlwind 2 days in New York City with my grandma. We're going to see Paul Mescal in a Streetcar Named Desire and traipse around New York. I got such a boost from London and Dublin in the fall that while it was 2 weeks instead of 2 days, I hope I'll still feel refreshed by rejoining the world. I'm already planning my outfits, including multiple in a day to make the most of it. And, of course, I have heaps of bookstores on the itinerary. I'll have to leave room in my bag for book shopping. Over the last few days, I've finally felt able to start savoring the days for what they are instead of wishing them away. I know I'll miss them when they're gone. The sun certainly helps that.
As far as reading plans, the New York trip requires an almost 10 hours cumulatively in the air, so I'll hopefully use the time to read when I'm cut off from the internet. I'm soliciting recommendations. I still have Okay Days downloaded from Europe. I also had my loan of Common Decency come in while I was reading Rats so I'm 8% into that from a few nights and mornings of reading a few pages. Hopefully I'll get into an ARC on the trip and then possibly Ali Smith's There but for the, which I was eyeing at the bookstore on my last trip to town and then had recommended to me by @conversationswithkara on Instagram right after, so that's a clear sign I need to read it, right? I think I'll pick my classic and purchase that as well before the trip, even if I don't read it. I can't decide where to go next, though. I really want to read Middlemarch, but it's forever long, and I think will be my April pick. Maybe Emma or A Portrait of Dorian Gray? I'm very indecisive right now, so I feel like I need to have a lot of books at the ready. On audio, I'm currently listening to Y2K. After the trip, I want to read Fates and Furies off my physical TBR for sure and then whatever I pick up in New York. Fingers crossed that I find my reading groove again in March and that February's anxieties can be conquered. Maybe now that I've had some casual distance, I'll find the reading spark again. Or maybe the eighth anniversary of this blog will be enough to inspire a better reading outlook.
Thanks for sticking with me through this meandering reading journal post. I actually really enjoyed writing this and rambling about some of my stray thoughts from the month that didn't make it into reviews or fit anywhere else. This is honestly a way more fun style to write these posts in for me, so I might keep this up if you don't totally hate them. I'd love for this to be a spot for you to talk about your reading highlights or lowlights and what you're planning on tackling in March. I've been getting a lot more super thoughtful comments on the blog lately, which I love so much. It truly makes my day. I guess to end off, I'll link the newsletter articles I shared this month on Lanie Land and all the posts from February on here.
Lanie Land
Reading, Writing, and Me
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