February Wrap-up Pt 1

The first full month with my daughter was a learning experience. We had to find our new normal – for the time being, till I return to work – and heal up. I swear those first two weeks of her being home were the hardest thing I’ve ever done (including childbirth), but we’re starting to get there. Consequently my reading was heavy on comics and short stuff.
This is also going up way late, I had to take a week and a half off for things to get settled (again). But better late than never!

So the stuff I finished that I hope to have some posts up on individually, I’ll list first and then we’ll look at the stuff  I had fewer thoughts about.

• The Fruits Basket Series (Books 1-23) by Natsuki Takaya
• Steeple #1-5 by John Allison

And here is the rest!

• So first off, I re-read Burn For Me and then picked up White Hot by Ilona Andrews. Back when Burn first came out I picked it up on a pre-order. I am a big Ilona Andrews fan but fell out of reading her books for a span. Now that the series has some books underneath it I decided to revisit. I checked both out of the library and super enjoyed them – and I’m waiting on on the third book. Once that comes in and I complete it I’ll a series review of these first three.
• My hold of City of the Lost by Kelly Armstrong, a book I tried in one of my Sample Saturday posts. I really enjoyed it! It was almost a closed circle style mystery, and wasn’t too predictable. I was surprised at how well it tricked me. I also quite liked a lot of the characters. The pacing and tension worked great for me overall all. I may do another series wrap-up, when I’ve caught up. I have the second book on hold and I’m waiting on it now.
• Towards the end of the month I picked up In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado and How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones. Both of these were personal, short vignette style memoirs. Dream House looks at an abusive lesbian relationship, told in almost flash fiction stylized segments. It was at times a hard read but one I could pick up, put down, and then return to once I’d thought about it. Fight for Our Lives is another memoir, this one about a gay, black man growing up in the Southern United States. This one was even shorter, but the segments themselves longer. I think this one stuck to me a little less than Dream House, but I recall feeling the moodiness and tension of the writing keenly. It took me quite a while to read while taking care of a newborn.
  Having said that I recommend trying both if you enjoy memoirs

I read more than I anticipated, even with my newborn! I’ll have to finish this up with a Part 2 in another week or two. Thanks for reading!