February Reading Wrap-Up
What a hectic month February has been. I’ve had a lot going on in my personal life and my work life, which meant less time for reading. Like most of the bookstagram world, I tried to keep my February reads to BIPOC selections in honor of Black History Month, and romance in honor of Valentines Day. BUT! I just want to point out that BIPOC stories should not just be limited to the month of February, and then forgotten again for the year. We should all constantly be reading diverse reads, stories from all kinds of people with all sorts of different backgrounds. That’s how we learn.
Read on for my full February reading list and thoughts!
Perfect On Paper
Run don’t walk to get Perfect On Paper as soon as it hit shelves. Sophie Gonzales just wrote the YA book every single teenager (and to be honest, human) needs to read.
Darcy Phillips loves romance. So, during her freshman year of high school she opens up Locker 89, an unused locker where other students drop in envelopes with $10 and a romantic problem they need her advice for. Noone knew who was behind locker 89 for years, until Alexander Brougham figures it out in desperate need of help.
Under the assumption that she is being blackmailed with her identity, Darcy gives in to help Alexander win back his ex-girlfriend.
Outside of her adventure with Alexander, Darcy is struggling because she’s in love with her best friend, Brooke. And she’s done some sketchy things (as locker 89) out of jealousy to make sure Brooke stays single. Of course, this backfires on Darcy in the long run.
Sophia Gonzales is the representation queen. She manages to write in representation for so many queer identities - Bi-Sexual, Lesbian, Gay, Aromantic, Asexual, Trans, Questioning. And she brings awareness to important topics like bi-phobia, drinking, drugs, toxic parents - but in a way thats completely naturally interwoven into the story so that it doesn’t even feel like you’re learning a lesson. I wish I had gone to this high school where the kids were so open, accepting, and watched out for each other like these characters do.
I’m definitely going to be thinking about this book for a while and recommending it to every single person I know. I loved Only Mostly Devastated, and I loved this one even more, so I can’t wait for Sophie’s next one.
Thanks to NetGalley, Sophie Gonzales and Wednesday Books for the eArc in exchange for my honest review!
Goodreads Summary:
Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.
Darcy Phillips:
Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes—for a fee.
Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham.
Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
Does not appreciate being blackmailed.
However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89—out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service—that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach—at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back.
Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she's not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again.
Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?
The Wedding Date
Jasmine Guillory’s Wedding Date series has been on my radar for a while since it’s been so popular online, so I’m glad I finally got my hands on the first book for February!
Alexa and Drew meet when they’re temporarily stuck in an elevator together. Alexa is on her way up to her visiting sister’s room, and Drew is in town for his ex-girlfriends wedding. A wedding he happens to be dateless for - so he asks Alexa. Little did they know that their one night, fake relationship would lead to something more.
Both of the characters are very likable, and I was rooting for their relationship the entire story (although also sometimes screaming at them for being so frustrating!). I loved that Guillory wrote Alexa to be a modern, strong, independent woman but also incorporated her normal and very relatable anxieties about her body. And I loved that the story centered around an interracial couple and didn’t shy away from the hurdles that can cause and hard discussions that can mean for a couple.
Goodreads Summary:
A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in a fun and flirty debut novel.
Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn't normally do. But there's something about Drew Nichols that's too hard to resist.
On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend...
After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she's the mayor's chief of staff. Too bad they can't stop thinking about the other...
They're just two high-powered professionals on a collision course toward the long distance dating disaster of the century--or closing the gap between what they think they need and what they truly want...
The Lake
This book is perfect for anyone who loves a good “I Know What You Did Last Summer” style thriller.
Esme and Kayla return to their childhood camp as CIT’s after 10 years. But they didn’t return on their own will, they were threatened into it. 10 years earlier, the girls had a mishap in the forest, where a girl may or may not have been hurt. They aren’t really sure.
What becomes abundantly clear after a few days at camp, and a few mysterious and creepy messages, is that something did happen in the forest when they were younger and now that person wants them to pay.
The Lake is a fun, YA, mystery/thriller that kept me turning the pages to see how everything would unfold. I do wish there was a bit more development around Lillian’s story and the events that unfolded that night.
I’m also not sure if this is a stand alone book or meant to be continued as a series. If its a stand alone, then I am very disappointed about the ending being so abrupt and honestly unfinished.
Goodreads Summary:
Esme and Kayla once were campers at Camp Pine Lake. They're excited to be back this year as CITs (counselors in training). Esme loves the little girls in her cabin and thinks it's funny how scared they are of everything--spiders, the surly head counselor, the dark, boys . . . even swimming in the lake! It reminds her a little of how she and Kayla used to be, once. Before . . . it happened.
Because Esme and Kayla did something bad when they were campers. Afterwards, the girls agreed to keep it secret. They've moved on--or so they say--and this summer is going to be great. Two months of sun, s'mores, and flirting with the cute boy counselors. But then they get a note. THE LAKE NEVER FORGETS. And the secret they've kept buried for so many years is about to resurface.
Born A Crime
I think we’re all familiar with the Trevor Noah we see on our TV screens every night hosting The Daily Show but less familiar with the Trevor Noah born and raised in South Africa during a time his very existence was considered illegal.
In his memoir, Trevor Noah writes about his experience growing up during apartheid, being unsure of his place on the playground at school, his first, second and third attempts at love, an abusive stepfather, and his incredible relationship with his mother.
This book hit every emotion for me. I laughed, I cried, I was angry, confused. Born A Crime is an incredible memoir and I would 10/10 recommend this for anyone (not just fans of the show or Trevor).
Goodreads Summary:
The memoir of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
Honey Girl
Grace Porter has run herself into the ground while working towards her PhD the last 11 years. Now she’s finally Dr. Grace Porter, but feels as lost and confused as ever. And things only get more confusing for Grace when she meets and drunkenly marries a stranger during a trip to Las Vegas.
When things get to be too much for Grace at home, she flees to NYC to spend time with the wife she barely knows and to find the best version of herself.
I definitely went into this book thinking it was a romance. While there was a romantic storyline between Grace and Yuki, the story was more about the challenges and insecurities Grace faces with her life path and the importance of mental health.
Morgan Rogers is definitely carving out her place in the book world and I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Goodreads Summary:
A refreshingly timely and relatable debut novel about a young woman whose life plans fall apart when she meets her wife.
With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.
This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.
In New York, she’s able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.