February Wrap-Up: 24/7 Existential Crisis

I said last month that I didn’t have the energy to think about leaving Seattle.

I lied.

I thought about it and I really want to do it.

My mom helped me think up a game plan so POTENTIALLY this year I will finish up my certificate program, pay off my student loans, and move cities.

I didn’t have “massive life change” on my 2022 bingo card.

Barring some intense world events, I had an okay February.

I had some social times, which I always enjoy.

I also read a decent number of books.

February Reading Stats

New thing for reading stats: I won’t be recording my DNFS.

I DNFed A LOT of books last month and it kind of bummed me out.

I might talk about particularly egregious DNFs in the Notable Books section, but I won’t be including them in my stats anymore.

Anyway:

In January, I completed 22 books.

Of the books I read,

• 57% were fiction
• 13% were non-fiction
• 30% were comics/graphic novels

• 17% were physical books
• 48% were audiobooks
• 35% were e-books

• 9% were Young Adult
• 87% were Adult
• 4% were Middle Grade

• 83% were new books
• 17% were rereads

Apparently, I read mostly romance and horror.

WHO AM I?

For moods last month, I went for reflective, emotional, dark, and adventurous books.

I fully blame Eat the Rich and Something is Killing the Children.

My average rating for the month was 4.02, so…not bad! Look at that spread!

I guess when in doubt, read comics.

Notable Books

My friend Sophia gave me a Star Wars-themed “Decide Your Destiny” book called The Way of the Jedi for Christmas.

I had a blast with it. The line “tied together with the power of friendship” showed up MORE THAN ONCE.

At some point last month, my stress levels increased, as indicated by the number of rereads I attempted (6 total.)

This just in: Why Fish Don’t Exist, Someday Someday Maybe, Everything Leads to You, and Far From the Tree are still awesome.

I also tried rereading Milkman, a book I really enjoyed, but the content hit a little too close to home.

Simply being reminded of Chef’s existence was reward enough.

I also tried rereading A Darker Shade of Magic so I could finally finish the trilogy and guess what? I HATED IT. I genuinely don’t get what people see in it!

(It maybe doesn’t help that the audiobook narrator portrayed Kel as a manly man, which is NOT the impression I got from his character.)

(Said narrator also made an ODD character choice for my beloved Holland. I did not have a good time.)

When I wasn’t stressing myself reading horror comics, I was stressing myself out reading literary thrillers.

I can best describe All’s Well as a chronic illness revenge thriller.

I was concerned about how it would end, but Mona Awad stuck the landing.

Such a Fun Age I would describe as hilarious discomfort.

The characters are entirely believable and it’s awful.

(Make no mistake, this is an endorsement. Read this book. Buy copies for your friends.)

I tried reading My Dark Vanessa and COULD NOT CONTINUE past a certain point.

It was stomach-churning. Excellently written but ROUGH.

I read The Comeback later in the month, which handled similar content in a different setting.

That book focused more on the aftermath of abuse, so I had an easier time with it.

My most egregious DNFs for the month were Would Like to Meet and Harrow the Ninth.

Would Like to Meet was, in my view, incorrectly categorized as romance. The love interest is barely in the book – the protagonist spends significantly more time with her abusive employer. (I have thousands of feelings about that choice and none of them are positive.)

I thought the book relied too much on cringe comedy and didn’t like what it had to say about erotica readers. I DNFed once the protagonist’s misfortunes turned the corner into tragedy porn.

General rule: if I’m 82% into a book and have no idea what’s going on, I’m probably not having a great time.

The whole time I was reading Harrow the Ninth, I felt like I wasn’t in on the joke.

I thought this was supposed to be a fun and twisty skeleton adventure, not a meme-filled confusion fest that only Cool Kids understand.

I didn’t ASK to relive my time at Christian school, thank you.

After checking the wiki multiple times and reading reviews to see if I was missing something, I finally bailed.

I think the Locked Tomb series would be a lot more fun if it wasn’t written in a way that feels intentionally confusing.

ALSO, I feel like you all OVERSOLD the gay hijinks. I can’t trust you anymore. Get lost.

Jude Doyle won me over with his book on female “trainwrecks.” Their research is so good! I am continually impressed!

His work appeases my longing for Alex Marzano-Lesnevich’s new book.

A Certain Appeal could have made my Best Of list if it weren’t for the sex scene(s).

How should I put this? The love interest ripped an applique from one of the heroine’s assistants.

My entire body revolted when I read that.

This was followed by a “purple nurple” joke.

Nope. I simply will not.

That was February!

It is almost spring! I am refreshing my favorite tattoo artist’s website daily!

I’m still doing book tags for mental health.

Stay safe out there, everyone.