What I read in February 2024

I never know how many books I've actually read until I do one of these. It's both scary and impressive, especially when you consider the fact that Love is Blind came out this month, I got back into a consistent workout routine, and I played many many hours of Stardew Valley. So I think I hit a new record and read 13 books, am about 30% into both of the tandem reads, and got 30% into a book but decided to DNF. To be fair, since I've discovered Libby, I've been able to listen to books at work! It's been a game changer for sure. 6 of these were audio books, and with all the long commutes to work, I got through a lot of the book that way. Now onto the actual books.

please note that anything with an asterisk (*) was an ARC I received. It didn't change my opinion of the book, but just for transparency's sake

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas - ★★★★★

This series just gets better and better. This book is action-packed and fast paced throughout the entire book. It’s a 700 book that reads like 300 pages. I highly recommend reading The Assassin’s Blade before this one, because the way this book hit so much harder after knowing the details from TAB. I have no other words, and can’t say much more without giving anything away. My love for each of these characters continue to get stronger and stronger. I cannot recommend you start this series enough.

Always the Bridesmaid by Laura Carter -★★★½ *

I can't rave enough about how cute this cover is! It's what immediately drew me into the book. This book is a dual-POV that follows Charlie & Sarah. I wish I had known this was part of a series, because this follows a HUGE friend group (all of which have found their HEA already), and it was difficult to follow along since this was my first time meeting so many of them. If you're someone who's read from the beginning I know you'd love all these glimpses of all these characters making a reappearance and seeing how they all are now. Now, Sara's best friend is getting married and is having their wedding in the UK. Since the death of her husband, Sarah has always found weddings difficult, but you wouldn't know that since she's too busy making her best friend's wedding perfect. And Sarah has no time for grumpy Charlie, who her friends are obviously trying to set you up with). Of course there's only one room rental available. Which leads to her spending a lot more time with Charlie and realizing there's a lot more to him than being the "funny" one in the group.
This one took me a little while to get into, but mainly because I joined in at the 4th book of the series. I fell in love with Charlie's character, and loved seeing his relationship with Sarah change throughout the story. This was a cute, quick read.

Canadian Boyfriend by Jenny Holiday - ★★★¾*

This book was a super cute cozy story. It's a nanny/single dad hockey romance. The story followed Aurora, who grew up as a talented ballet dancer. One day, when she was in high school she met this kid at her job, Mike. As a girl who didn't have much time for anything except for ballet and her job at the coffee shop, she invented a fake Canadian boyfriend. It was her get out of jail free card, if she couldn't go to an event, she would use her fake Canadian boyfriend, Mike, as the excuse. An excuse she continued to use all through college. She never thought there was any harm in making up a fake boyfriend based on someone she met in high school. It wasn't like she was ever going to see him again.

Fast forward a few years, where she teaches dance at her friend's studio, and in walks Mike. The father of one of the girls in her dance class. With Mike struggling to balance life after the passing of his wife, Aurora signs on to help him out by being a nanny to his daughter. To both of their surprise, Aurora seems to be much more than a nanny, but a genuine friend. And things go from there. They delved in to a lot of deeper topics, which I really enjoyed. Overall, I liked this one.

A Duet of Darkness and Dreams by L.H. Blake - ★★★★¼*

This is my second time doing this review (my power went out as soon as I finished it), so firstly, I want to thank LH Blake for reaching out and sending me her ARC! I’ve seen her all over Bookstagram, and fangirled a little when I saw her message. Now this book is the second book to a standalone series. You don’t HAVE to read the first one in order to read this one, but if you do you’ll have a better understanding and love for the secondary characters. Now this dual-POV follows Dave and Isabella. Isabella and Dave can’t seem to catch a break in their own respective lives. Izzy’s dream is to make it big in journalism, while no one at the university newspaper can’t seem to take her seriously. Dave’s dream is to make it big with his band, but it’s been setback after setback. But when Izzy decides to take up her friend’s offer to go to her boyfriend’s band’s gig, she gets hit with inspiration and decides to write an article about the band. And submits it anonymously. And it’s a huge hit. From there, both of their dreams start to take off. His band got a lot of recognition from her article, and her editor starts asking her to write more interesting pieces than just pop culture and fashion. From there she gets an amazing internship and he gets his first national tour! Her first big gig? Follow the band while they tour.

Now throughout all of this, Dave and Izzy start to get close. They have sizzling chemistry and become fast friends. Things start to blur occasionally along the way. Through the ups and downs they’re both there for one another. It’s a beautifully written story, and I enjoyed every second! It’s really quick paced, funny, and I fell in love with all the characters. Can’t wait for the other band member’s books! Now I want to go back and read Beck and Jame’s story.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan - ★★★★

I watched the movie as soon as it came out and was obsessed. I immediately bought the box set for the three books in the series. I got about 30% in, and then never continued to read. Not for any particular reason, but mainly because I was reading so many books at once, and I forgot to go back and finish it. Last month, the audio book was available for this one, and I was so excited. And I had every right to be. The girl who narrates this book is amazing. She is able to do a voice for every character, and literally feels like you're listening to an extended version of the movie.

This book is Gossip Girl/Sex in the City but with Chinese main characters in Singapore & London. While the story follows a lot of POVs, the story mainly follows Rachel (Nick's non-rich girlfriend) and Astrid (Nick's cousin). I kind of wish the movie did a better job at focusing on Astrid's plot line, because she's a fascinating character. I really hope they end up doing a second movie, and I can't wait to read the second book in the series. While I don't think the book ended in a way where it needed extra books, I'm not ready to let go of these characters just yet.

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney - ★★★½

I always feel like it's best to go in dark with a thriller. This book is super hyped up on Bookstagram, but the only think I will say is that there were a lot of twists, but most of them I genuinely didn't care about.

It's Complicated by Camilla Isley - ★★★¾*

While some of you may not have heard of Camilla Isley, I have read most of her books. She was those authors that always had one or two books for free on Apple Books, and when I was a broke high school/college student. There was nothing I loved more than a free rom-com. Especially when they're not badly written. Free e-books were so hit or miss, because some of them were super low quality, but not hers! I was beyond excited when I found out I was getting an ARC for her latest release. So thank you for that!

I feel like Camilla writes cozy quick rom-coms. They don't feel heavy, and I feel like you can always finish them really quickly. There are no slow parts, and this book was no exception. The story follows Lori who had two best friends from college, Aiden and Jace. And of course, she's been in love with Aiden since that point as well. Now, Aiden is getting married and Lori needs a date for the wedding. After a bunch of unfortunate series of events, Lori ends up asking Jace to not only be her date to the wedding, but to pretend that he's head over heels in love with her.

She expected fake-dating to be easy, what she didn't expect were for there to be real feelings involved. Has Lori been seeing him wrong all along? And what about Jace's feelings in all of this.

I really enjoyed this one, I'm a sucker for a fake-dating romance. And it's especially fun when it's dual-POV! If you're looking for a quick fun romance, this is it.

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell - ★★★★

Like I said before, it's best to go in dark with mysteries. This was a super well written, well told story. Was on the edge of my toes the entire time. I did guess some of the plot twists, but it didn't take away from the story. Highly recommend.

Mortgage of Convenience by Dani McLean - ★★★*

This was my first book by Dani McLean, and can I say I was a little disappointed. It may have been this particular story, but when I read the summary I was expecting one thing, but in reality kind of got another. This is supposed to be a forced proximity, second chance, brother's best friend romance. And while some of those tropes hold up, I don't entirely know if it's a true second chance. Bee was a high school-er with an unrequited crush and Sebastian was her brother's best friend. I would consider a true second chance romance to be when they had an initially romantic relationship prior, which wasn't the case for this one.

The pacing was a little weird. The spicy scenes were not for me, they were written in a way where I just wanted to skip them. And there wasn't really enough angst in the forced proximity, again I think the pacing didn't flow naturally. I thought this book was going to have a little more character development. Bee's big thing was that she wanted to be more confident, so I thought it was going to be this deep journey she goes through, which it wasn't. I don't know. Originally I rated this 3.5 stars, but after sitting on it for the past month, I think I would change my rating to 3 stars. I don't know if I would read some of her other work, based on this one. I guess this one just wasn't for me.

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead - ★★★★½

This was a great thriller. Loved the writing style, loved that everyone had secrets and made them a suspect. I also really loved the morally gray characters. You didn't entirely know who to root for, because they're pretty much all terrible people in their own way. It was a thriller that read like a drama, which may be why I loved it so much.

Caught on Camera by Chelsea Curto - ★★★★½

This was my second book by Chelsea. The first was was the novella, Camera Chemistry. I love a well written novella. I think it's so hard to write a well told well developed story in less than 200 pages, but if you do it well, kudos to you! So in Camera Chemistry, you meet the main characters the their best friends, Lacey and Shawn. This story was their love story. This is a fake-dating, Dual-POV, sports romance. Shawn is the coach for a football team and has been really close friends with Lacey since Aidan and Maggie got together (for about 2 years). For one of Shawn's games, Lacey brings a date. When they were doing the Kiss-Cam segment, her date refuses to kiss her. Shawn seeing Lacey's mortification does what any good friend would do, and decides to kiss him herself. And it was a mind blowing kiss, for the both of them! Which leads to them fake dating. She needs a date to her hospital's charity gala and Shawn wants to get his family off of his back. Of course they were already friends before, but when they start spending time alone and getting to know each other on a deeper level, things start to get a bit more serious.

There was no third act breakup, their relationship progressed so naturally, and I loved reading about the anxiety representation. There were also just a lot of really fun things Chelsea added in that made her characters really feel like real people. Overall, I really loved this one, and highly recommend.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - ★★★¾

This a beautiful Greek mythology retelling. I grew obsessed with Greek mythology (I even took a course on it in college). And while I knew a lot about Achilles, I had no idea who Patroclus was. To learn about the relationship between these two, and make it a beautifully sad romance, I ate it up. I listened to this on audio, and really enjoyed it! I do feel like there was a lot of fighting, when I wish there was a little bit more going on in the plot, but it was still a fun book to listen to. Now, I want to check out Circe!

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner - N/A

While I never rate biographies, all I have to say is WOW. I've been wanting to read this for a little under a year now, and was so grateful when Katie gifted me a copy for my birthday last year! I listened to this on audio book (which is the best way to listen to a biography, especially if it's read by the actual author), and I was left feeling so many different emotions. It's interesting, because I feel like a lot of what she spoke about is so relatable. It talks about culture, complex family relationships, and how food makes us feel closer to our culture.

This book really spoke to me, and if you're a minority of any sort, I feel like this book will speak to you as well. I highly recommend checking it out.

I Dreamt About You by Bekki Vowles - DNF*

My first DNF for the year, and also my second DNF since I started bookstagram in 2022! I think I've gotten better at choosing books I think I'm going to rate 3 stars or higher, so it's rare that I genuinely dislike a book enough to not finish it. I felt bad about DNF, especially because this was an ARC sent to me. I had to contact the PR company and tell them that this book wasn't for me, which was honestly a shame. Personally I don't recommend this book from the 30% I did read.

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I really put off writing this post. There were just so many books to talk about at once! How was your reading in February? Are there any highly rated books you recommend I read in March? Let me know! Chat soon xx