 It was terrible. It was awful. It's a breath. This is the worst thing that I've ever read. Dumb, bad, wrong. I have tried several times now, unsuccessfully, to hold up my wrap-up stack. And I have dropped it three times. And the last time, I damaged two of the books. So that's it. No more trying to hold up the stack. This thumbnail just simply will not have a stack picture. Why? It's so hard this time. I think maybe some of the books are just extra slippery. But it is what it is. Yeah, okay. So I have 12 books to go over. I read 11. One of them I DNF'd because this year I am DNF'ing things. So let's just go through them all in the order in which I read and or give up on reading them. Okay, let's do it. First up, I have a book that I did actually start in January, but I finished it in February. This is a February wrap-up, right? I said that right. Did I say what this is at all? This is my February wrap-up, if I didn't say that. Anyway, My Lady Jane, which is the first in the Lady Janies, I think is what they call it, the Lady Janes or the Lady Janies series. This is the first time I think these authors collaborated. They have now written like five books together. I think there's a sixth one coming out. Or they've written four and there's a fifth one. Before this, I read My Plain Jane, which was the second one because they're not like a contiguous series. They just like take a famous Jane, either a fictional Jane or a real Jane, and then retell it in some magical, fun, funny way. So the very first one they did with Lady Jane Gray, the one that I read My Plain Jane was about Jane Eyre. And I'm very excited because now they've, they did three Janes and now they're doing three Marys. So I'm very excited. This year one of my anticipated releases is their Mary Shelley retelling, which is my imaginary Mary. Anyway, this is their very first one. And when it came out, I just took one look at this pink cover and was like, absolutely not. But I really liked their humor in My Plain Jane. So I went back and gave this a go. And I enjoyed this. I think I liked My Plain Jane better, which, you know, stands to reason this was their first time doing something like this. I thought it was, I mean, their humor really does work for me. I just didn't think the story worked as well as My Plain Jane, as My Plain Jane did. But I think they're sort of like, based on the two that I've read, I think they're sort of honing their style as they go. And yeah, I had, I thought I think I gave it three stars. Because like, I had a really good time, like the humor was very funny to me. And the humor is very sort of like meta and like referential. And it's like jam packed. It's just all kinds of like history and literature references, a lot of which are like completely inachronistic. But like this is the type of humorous book where like that doesn't matter, if that makes sense, you know, it's more like a comedy sketch than like a historical fiction book. So if you're just looking for a light, funny read that plays around with some like historical humor, then I would recommend. Next up is the book that I DNFed and that Angelmage by Garth Nix. I've had two copies of this for since it came out because it came in two different book boxes that I was subscribed to at the time. And I knew it was a standalone and this cover is super gorgeous. Both editions have similar covers. I don't remember which one this is, but they looked pretty similar. I loved the horse and trilogy when I was younger. And since then, this is now the second time I've picked up a Garth Nix book that wasn't part of that trilogy. When it came out last two years ago, I read the left-handed booksellers of London. And I really kind of hated that this he wrote before that this is older. And I actually didn't realize I didn't really know anything about it, except that it was not going to be anything to do with the Old Kingdom series, which is what Sabriel is, and that it would be a standalone. That's really all I knew about it. And then like whatever you can get off of the cover. So then I was I don't know where or why, but I was looking at it. And I realized and I learned that this was inspired by the three musketeers, which I love. I love the three musketeers. So I was like, oh, oh, actually, you know, yeah, let me prioritize that. And I DNF this because like it was, it was terrible. It was awful. It was insulting to three musketeers. And also just like not very good on its own. And like it doesn't make any kind of sense. And it's really like it feels very like, like every single character is now a female. But in that like, really obvious, like, look it, I made them girls now because hashtag feminism, like in a way that like doesn't feel natural or organic or make any kind of sense. It doesn't feel purposeful. It doesn't feel like this author has in mind some like, um, Kirsten Weintz, uh, conquer Saga, where she gender bent Vlad the Impaler, it felt like a very intentional, like what would it do to our perception of this historical figure if they were a female and like how that changes the story? It was like a very intentional, like, there's something in mind with like, what would happen to the story? This was just like, and they're ladies now. Great. Um, so I was just like, ah, no, thank you. And I looked up some reviews to like see if I don't know, I guess I might have decided to undo an effort. If I saw reviews that were like, Oh, it was a rough start, but like, it ends up being really good or something. And I found a lot of like negative reviews that were feeling exactly the way that I was feeling, except they had pushed on what they had to say about the rest of the book. I was like, Oh, yeah, no, not not reading this. So I will now be unhauling both copies. They're, they're really pretty. I really like this cover. But yeah, that's no next step was one of my book at the month club books, which again, I try to read my previous month books in the subsequent month. So I had two in February and I did read both. So the first one of those that I read was the maid by Nita prose. And I actually loved this a lot more than I expected to. I expected to like it because I'd heard good things. And I knew it was like, I knew it was going to be a murder mystery to do with like seeing it through the eyes of the maid, which given I just sort of went off of the fact that we're just knowing that about it. I was like, Oh, okay. So like a lot of murder mysteries have like butlers and nades and the butler did it kind of thing. So it's like, what if it's told from the perspective of the maid? And I'd heard generally like non specific positive things about it. I knew Mara really liked it. And she's, you know, the sort of queen of murder mysteries. So since she liked it, I was optimistic. And I liked the style of this cover. And that's really all I knew. I had no idea that the main character and also your POV character is a neurodivergent. And that is more what this book is about, honestly, than the murder. Like there is a murder. That's what the whole thing is like, it's about her being around and implicated in a murder that takes place in the hotel that she's working at as a maid. But like what the book is really about is about one how her perception of those events is different because of her neurodivergence. So like the way that she perceives the people in the hotel and the people who might be suspects and the people who got or the person who got killed and all that is colored by the way that she perceives the world and then how she is perceived by the world. And so then how she gets like roped into being suspected largely to do with the fact that like her responses to things are like not normal. And so then that is immediately perceived as guilt. So I really got attached to the main character pretty immediately. She was both interesting and also like very easy to empathize with and you sort of, because you, the reader, like I guess assuming you are not neurodivergent, can kind of, even though she's the one telling you what's happening, you can pick up on what's going on and she clearly doesn't. So like even in the way that she describes what's happening to her, what someone is saying to her and then provides to you her interpretation of what's going on and you're like, oh no, that is not what that means. Oh no, oh no. So I found myself like really, really rooting for her and yeah, I just never seen anything like this before. I've never read anything like this before. So I'll give it five stars and I would recommend it. Next, next two are rereads. First is Girl in the Tower by Catherine Arden. This was on my TBR for January. I didn't get around to it, but I wanted to make sure to reread it before the chat on Evie's channel, which was the first weekend of February. So I like snuck it in in the first week of February before that live and yeah, this is still my favorite version of Trilogy. So I love the Winter Night Trilogy. If you haven't read it, what are you doing? And Girl in the Tower is immaculate. And if you want to check out the chat that we did on Evie's channel, I will leave that linked down below. Next up is what is actually also the second book in a trilogy and is my favorite book in the trilogy is Before They Were Hanged by Soever Cromby. Surprise, surprise. So yeah, as I've mentioned like a bajillion times already and as I will continue to mention a bajillion times more, me and Bethany are reading all of the first law books this year and doing podcast episodes on Chapter 3 podcast about them. So February was Before They Were Hanged, so I reread it again. And this is now my favorite book in the trilogy because I do think it is the one that is the most rewarding on reread. But anyway, so we did a deep dive half non-spoiler, half-spoiler chat on the podcast, so I'll leave that linked down below. I have talked about this book and these books on my channel, so like I don't feel like I need to say too much more right now because you can check out the podcast if you want to hear me talk about it for another 45 minutes. Next up is a book that I talked about even longer and that is Norwegian Wood by Herkimer Kami. I mentioned in a vlog that I had filmed a review for this and like after the fact, after filming it, I was like, I feel like I am too angry in that review to post that publicly. Like I feel like I'll get in trouble. And I showed it to Hilary, so because this was a me and Hilary did our sort of like favorite authors swapping buddy reading. So we did American Gods because I love gaming and talked about them in January and so we did Murakami with Norwegian Wood in February and Hilary also hated this. She was like, oh no, like this, I hate that this is your first Murakami because so anyway, I showed her my review and she was like, yeah, as your friend, I cannot let you post this on the internet. So I shared it with my patrons because I didn't want like it to be entirely go to waste that I filmed and edited it. But me and Hilary talked about this on her channel in a live show, so I'll leave that link down below if you missed it. And yeah, this is like I want to say this is the worst thing that I've ever read. I haven't like checked, I haven't gone through like the list of books that I've ever read in my lifetime to like confirm, but I can't think of anything that I've read that's worse than this. So yeah, if you want to know why, you can check out our live show. What suffice to say it is like one of the most like disgustingly and horrifyingly offensively sexist things that I've ever read, ever. And it was also boring and badly written in my opinion. So I can't think of a single positive thing to say about it. Next up was another reread. And this is I think the longest book that I read in February. Oh no, or it's tied then. Anyway, I did read some long ass books in February. Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin. And this is one of the books that I damaged when I dropped my stack. The back, the back of it. Thankfully it's the back, not the front, but it's like a little bent now, which is deeply upsetting. Anyway, this is the for now final Song of Ice and Fire book until such time as we get Winds of Winter. This is again our read along me, Jimmy and Alex. The live show for Dance was on Alex's channel and we talked for our usual three over three hours. So if you missed it or you want to check that out again, that's available on Alex's channel. I will leave that link down below. And yeah, second time around. I actually think like in how I thought of the series, I would originally have said that feast was by far the worst. But in this reread, I really found that I quite enjoyed feast. And I actually thought dance was a little bit weaker. It does have more of the sort of like you get everybody in this, there's no one missing like in feast because of how they split it. But I just ended up feeling like this is just like too long and unwieldy because we're like finishing up what we didn't get in feast and adding new stuff to it. And it's just it's just a lot. And not just in terms of page count, which page count is obviously it's a lot. And I think it could have been edited down a little bit. But it was it was just like so many threads to be keeping track of like feast actually did kind of let you feel more connected with I had the pause because there was like garbage trucks and everything outside. And I kind of forgot where I was with talking about this. I think I was just talking about it being unwieldy. And yeah, there's just like too many threads to follow. So it's just it's just kind of like, I don't know, I can't it's too all over the place. Whereas like feast for crows because we'd like chopped out. And we're like, oh, we're not we're not going to have those perspectives on this one. We're just going to catch up with them in dance. It gave those perspectives that we did have the room to breathe and the room for you as the reader to really engage with those perspectives instead of just like jumping around and around and around and around and around and around. And you're like, oh my goodness, it's too many. It's kind of how I feel about dance. So like, I mean, I know this already happened where like it was too long. So they split it between feast and dance. But like, I think dance should have once again been split because it's too much for one book. And you lose focus. So it's still great. I mean, we talked about for three and a half hours, but it's too much. Next up is the book that my patrons and I did a buddy read for. We haven't chatted about it together yet, other than like in the discord, but we haven't had like our patron buddy read chat. But that is 16 Ways to Defend a Wild City by KJ Parker. I did not like as much as I had hoped to. I do not mean to say that I disliked this. I just felt like so I previously read Prosper's Demon, which is a novella. And I really enjoyed that here at the outset. I really, really enjoyed this. And I would have expected and anticipated this to be a four or five star read. And it ended up being three for quite similar reasons that guards guards got three from me. And that's that, like, there's no denying that the author is incredibly clever and witty. So like almost every single line is like a quotable quote of like some kind of a witty barb. But an entire book composed of nothing but that is exhausting. So I love having a lot of witticisms in my books. But I also I like them to be alongside a story that I care about. And with this in guards guards, I just felt like nonstop cleverness. But like there's a reason that like sketch comedy shows, like or like sketches in comedy shows are only like a few minutes long. Because like, you can't I mean, I guess there are full length comedy films, but less so nowadays. I just feel like having that nonstop humor is exhausting if it goes on and on and on and on for like a full length movie or a full length book. I don't know. I guess we'll see how I do with KJ Parker's other books. So far what I have liked is a novella and I have not loved his novel. And that's my guess as to why that this kind of snark works short form, because it doesn't overstay its welcome in a novella. But in a novel, like I was getting irritated with the snark, the constant snark by the end. Because like, it's still very clever. And like if if page how many pages are there, like if page 250, it was page one, I would be loving the the humor. But by page 250, I'm like, I just I can't be I can't laugh anymore. Like I can't I'm exhausted. I would like there to be a story that I can be invested in, not just clever snark. And it is clever. And it is my taste of humor. Absolutely. And what I most compared it to when I started out was a Guy Ritchie movie, because it has the tone of like the sort of like narrator of a Guy Ritchie movie is sort of explaining the setup to you or like being like, Oh, wait, let me catch you up on how we got here. And then like takes us through in some like snarky way. But that's the thing in a Guy Ritchie movie, like there's also a lot of like dramatic scenes and a lot of tension and a lot of like, you actually like being invested in the movie, it's not just like non stump narrator being snarky at you. This is what this felt like, because it's the narrator of a Guy Ritchie movie was just narrating the entire film to you the whole time, which would drive me insane. So like KJ Parker's humor and his voice is my taste. But it's just it's too much for a novel here. I don't know that I want to continue with this series. But I do want to read there's some novellas that I have on my Kindle already that I want to read from him. And I know Alan really wants me to read The Folding Knife. So I would like to read that. But anyway, that's half a lot 16 weeks. And then the last few books are books that like I read all basically in the last week, because all of the like lives and deadlines for all of them were coming up. So I was just binge reading them all last week. I should not have left them to the last minute. Anyway, Stone of Tears is next by Terry Goodkind. This is now my third time reading this because Bethany and I are doing a year long read along of sort of truth. And I I like this one so so so so much. I give this one. So during this read along, I bumped down Wizards first rule, and I bumped up even higher Stone of Tears. I really enjoy this one. For many, many reasons, me and Bethany, you know, did a live show for it. This time it was on my channel. They were back to Bethany's channel next month, or this month now in March. And yeah, I just had I have a really good time every time I read this. Like I usually compare reading sort of truth books to like watching Marvel films, because it's that sort of like cheesy cartoonish levels of like drama and stakes, but in a way that like really grabs you and is like and it feels like fist pumping and you feel invested and it feels very escapist and it feels just like this like grand adventure that you just like go on and like there's like really lovable characters and great banter and just like a really good time. And that's how I feel about it. And that's still how I feel about it. I feel definitely more that way about Stone of Tears than about Wizards first rule. Wizards first rule is a bit of a rough start. Like it was rougher than I remember it. I was like, ooh, this isn't so good. But I really like Stone of Tears. And I'm looking forward to reading Blood of the Fold in March. Next up is a book that I hate very, very much. Heather and I read it and ranted about it on my channel for like an hour and a half, maybe almost two hours. And that is For the Killing of Kings by Howard Andrew Jones. And I tabbed it the entire time I was reading it. And these tabs signify some anything that is dumb, bad, or wrong. So I've tabbed nearly every page. Like having this many tabs like ceases to be useful because the point of a tab is to like find the one page that was significant, but every single page had something wrong with it. So this is ridiculous. I also annotated it as I was going in pencil. So I couldn't erase it if I wanted to like sell this or something. But and like halfway through, I was like, I should just stop tabbing and stop marking this just so I can finish it before the live. And as soon as I would decide that, that very page would have something heinously stupid on it. I'd be like, well, I have to mark that. So I just kept up the whole way through. It doesn't, this makes it look like the beginning was like better, but it's only because I hadn't decided to start tabbing it yet in the beginning. Once I decided it was not stop tabs. This is one of the worst things I've ever read. Not as bad as Norwegian Wood because Norwegian Wood was also like deeply disgusting and offensive. This was just plain old bad. And it did have some things that were kind of disgusting, like some of the notes in my margins are FU and vomit. Because in particular, one of the characters is like very sexist. And it's kind of like reading about Giselle Dan Luther from the first law, but as written by Giselle Dan Luther, which is to say the author doesn't think there's anything wrong with this, which was like, nauseating. Yeah, I do not recommend this. But if you want to see me and Heather rant about it for like an hour and a half, I will leave that linked down below. Next up, I have the book that my patients chose for me to read and review for them or read and vlog for them. And that was Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. And I'm about to break all y'all's hearts because I did not like it. I did not hate it. It is no Norwegian Wood. It is no for the killing of kings. Like it is better than those for sure. I feel about this, I guess, a little bit the way that I, the way that I talk about Shattered Sea by Robert Cromby, which like, I guess that's high praise of comparing this to Chover Cromby. But Shattered Sea, like I didn't like very much. And I kept saying about Shattered Sea is that it's just like entirely and painfully adequate. Like, I can't rant about it. There's nothing to rant about because there's nothing like horribly wrong with this. And it's not a situation where like, because I think I gave this two stars. But it's like a high two, like I almost was going to bump it up to a three, but I was like two feels truer to how I felt than a three. But a high two, because yeah, it's just in a situation where like, you know, it's really, really good at this. But then like, oh, so, so terrible at this, like every single thing about this basically is just like equally you passed the class, I guess, barely, like it's not memorably awful. In fact, I just feel like a huge amount of nothing for this. I didn't feel invested in it or interested in it. The one thing that it did marvelously well was the prologue. The prologue had me. The prologue, I was like, if this is what this book is going to be like, I can see why it was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locust Awards. Everyone's getting a five stars. The prologue was immaculate. And the prologue also really reminded me of 100,000 Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin, or like that's the vibe it was giving me. And I was like, oh, this is going to be great. And then after the prologue, it just became the most avaragely info dumpy two dimensional characters that are like just enough fleshed out to like not entirely be cardboard cutouts, a world that is fleshed out enough to not be like an entirely cardboard world. But like it didn't feel very lived in. It didn't feel very deep. It didn't feel very interesting. And the characters, same thing. Like I didn't, I just didn't feel anything the whole time. The only thing about it that stands out is the like pre-Columbian non-European setting. And that like, I was in the vlog for my patrons, I was talking about how if I have to choose between a mediocre book that is European and a mediocre book that is non-European, I would rather read a mediocre book that is non-European because at least that part of it then is something new and refreshing that I have not seen before. So at least that has me going, oh, this is new and interesting. But it's still a mediocre book. It's just between the two I'd rather have this. So I don't regret reading it. But like, I do not understand the hype. Per usual. I don't know how many times in my life have said I do not understand the hype. And then my next book is my other Book of the Month book, and that was Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis. I don't remember which one I picked as my Book of the Month and which one I picked as my add-on. I think I picked this as my Book of the Month and then it made it my add-on. Not that it makes any difference. Anyway, I was quite disappointed by this as well. I gave this three stars, but like a low three. So like, I don't like this much better than Black Sun. They're very, very different. I don't want to make this like they're similar. But like, just like, I don't want my star ratings to like give out any correct impression. This is like a two felt too low for it. But like, three seems high. I gave it three, partly because there was like a lot of historical detail in this. And you know what is wild about this book is okay. So if you don't know anything about it, I didn't really. It's historical fiction. I was inspired by an actual like currently existing art collection and museum that was like left by the like patriarch of the family. He was rich in like the turn of the century. And he left his his estate and all the art in it to like the city or whatever to be a museum. So the author saw the museum and saw a statue in the museum and was inspired to write a story based on that and then mixing it with like what little is known about a art model from the same time period. And she was like, what if that art model had crossed paths with this family? And then that's what this book is about. And it's told in a dual timeline. So you have the back then day of like the 19, it's like 1910 or 19, no, like 1919, is that it? 1919. And then you also have the like present day, which is like the 1960s where you have a model from the 60s and she's been hired to do a photo shoot that they're doing at this same estate, which is now by then it is a museum. And so like she's like in the house that in the now and then we're in the back and then in the past were with like the family still living there and the model from who was a real person. But her name has changed here and her life has changed a bit. I don't know how to talk about this because like nothing happens for like three quarters of the book. I was bored out of my mind. And I still think that like the kind of story it's trying to do, I wouldn't have felt that bored if I if the author had done a better job of like writing interesting moments with characters and interesting characters for me to follow. Because I've read I mean, I love books that are often accused of having nothing happening, like the first law, like a lot of Hobbes books have like a long path like long periods of time in the book where like nothing happens, it's just sort of like character interactions. And I eat that shit up. But these characters, I don't think were very well written. A lot of the dialogue doesn't feel like people talking. There's the author does a ton of over explaining and I don't just mean like historical details, which like I guess I understand why you over explain that to like give everyone the proper information. But it's like the character interactions are over explained, you know, like a character will say something that is like hinting at something or should probably be taken to mean that they are trying to insult somebody or is probably meant to be a joke. But instead of just leaving it with that, the author then inserts some mechanism by which to explain to us or to point out to us that that is in fact what is going on. And I just I hate when others do that. I'm just like, I already think the dialogue doesn't feel that natural. And then the fact that you're explaining the dialogue as we go. I'm like, I got it. Like I understand what's happening, you didn't have to explain it. The best written character in my opinion in this book is also a real historical figure, the daughter of the man who left his art to become a museum. She's the one that hires the model back in 1919 to be like her personal secretary. So a lot of the past timeline is about their interactions like her relationship with like, like the models relationship with her employer, this like sort of erratic 30 something year old rich daughter of this rich man. And she's like a very eccentric personality. And she's a real person who did a lot of things in history and like ended up sort of like running the museum after her father's death. So she's a real person. And she was written the most interestingly, but even she was written in a way that didn't feel natural. But anyway, all of that to say, bored out of my mind. But there is a murder mystery that starts in like the last, like maybe the last fifth of the book last quarter, maybe, but more like the last fifth. And after like nothing happening for three quarters of the book. Finally, things start happening both in the present timeline where like things are converging with that past timeline where like they're discovering the same thing at the same time kind of and in the past timeline where the murder mystery is happening. And suddenly things start happening so fast like lightning fast that also feels wildly unnatural, where like they're making connections too fast and like finding people in order to ask them questions too fast. And it's like suddenly turns into like an episodic TV show where you just like zoom over and like figure these things out so fast because like we only have like a few pages left. And I was like, why did we spend the whole of this book at a snail's pace? And then finally we get the mystery going and it's like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And I was like, this is too fast. So the mystery once we had that going, that was interesting. But yeah. So like I feel like this is quite a slog to get through and it's not that long. The mystery is interesting though. And it was interesting like the parts of it. Then I read the authors note about what parts were the truth and which parts she invented. And I'd never heard of this collection, this like house on this estate that is a museum. So anyway, I can't really recommend it, but it's not it's not bad. And last but certainly not least is Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb, which is the third and final book in the live ship trailer series. And it's really long, which is why I was like, I think this might be longer than Dance with Dragons or like same length. Maybe it's shorter. I mean, this is like a thousand pages, but this is also like smaller. So I'm not sure there, but like it's pretty freaking long. And Mara and I are going to be chatting on my channel. We haven't figured out the date yet. We're going to be chatting farce here versus live ship now that we've read both farce here and live ship. But yeah, like what a what an ending. She and I chatted for a while when I finally, because she finished it earlier the month that I did, I finally finished it like on the last February. And I was like, I finished it. I'm gonna talk about it now. I mean, it's the third book in the trilogy. So kind of hard to say anything about it. It's, it's, it's very, very good. Robin Hobb is an amazing writer. Mara and I had some sort of questions and issues with the ending. But overall, it's a staggering trilogy and a staggering book. I'm so excited to read more home. And those are all the books that I read in February. Let me know in the comments down below your thoughts and feelings about my thoughts and feelings. Check out any of the various things that I said that I'd be linking down below that I hope I'll remember to do. Whatever you want, let me know. I post videos on Saturdays, other random times as well, but definitely Saturdays. So like and subscribe, turn on my Patreon if you feel so inclined, and I'll see you when I see you. Bye.