 Hello my cuties! How are we doing? How's everyone doing? It's time for another monthly wrap up. It's time to tell about how my reading went in February. February was a strange month. I was really ill at the start of the month. I'd say for like the first week and a half and being ill I struggled to read and I also developed let's not say addiction but let's say a strong affinity for the game Cozy Grove. You're gonna play a game. Girl play it right. And it has been eating up my reading time. So I haven't read as much as February. It was a bit of a strange reading month. I'm hoping in March I will be able to tear myself away from Cozy Grove enough to read more but I can't promise. I can't even promise this. I'm having a lot of fun with Cozy Grove right? Okay everyone it's a lot of fun. It's a fun game and I'm enjoying it. I never used to play games you know so I'm enjoying having a different hobby but anyways if you've been here a lot you know the way we structure these as we do my reading sets first then I just tell you all the books and what I rated them and then we go individually through my disappointment surprises and hits. So let's just get straight into it shall we? Okie dokie. So in terms of number of books read I read eight books. Now for some people eight is amazing right? I want to read at least a hundred books this year but hopefully more like a hundred and fifty and I don't know obviously with eight books you know that's not gonna happen. Ten books lead you 120 so much to think about much to think about. So yeah it's not quite where I want to be I would like to read at least ten books a month really. In terms of the amount of pages I read I read two thousand six hundred and two which makes an average pages per day of 93 which if you hear a lot you know that's under my hundred goal. I like to read on average at least a hundred pages per day. It also meant an average book length of 325 pages which I feel like is drastically more than last month because I read a lot of novellas last month what was last month? 204 pages per book on average. So yeah I did read I'd say I read all novels this month so all normal sized books. My average rating was a 3.68 which is pretty it's what version of the lower end for me. I had a great reading month last month I feel like it was like 3.9 so 3.68 is verging a little bit lower and the average time a book has spent on my TBR was nine months. We had one book that had spent zero months on my TBR. I read it like straight after I got it. We had another book that had spent 44 months on my TBR. It was one of the oldest books on my TBR. It's one of the only books. The only video I've ever privated was my first ever like book haul when really it was all the books on my TBR. It wasn't a book haul but it was all the books on my TBR. It was the first video I ever filmed. It was the third one I ever uploaded but it was the first one ever filmed. It was just bad. So that's the only video that's gone off my channel. There's still a few books on that video. We're coming up to like three and a half years ago I think. Is that the right maths? But I still haven't read so that was one of them. We ticked it off finally. Let's get the bar charts out shall we? Pie charts actually. They're pie charts Megan. Pie charts. You're literally the dumbest person I've ever met. Gives me a bad vibe. Not funny. Okay so in terms of genre I read one dystopian, three fantasy, one historical, one mystery, one romance, one thriller. Have I got them all? Yes. Torsi and I feel like I started speaking really weirdly because I was trying to look and read the things out. Yeah a lot of fantasy again this month. A lot of fantasy last month. I would like to read maybe some more mysteries in March. That's the goal. I was supposed to read a lot of mysteries in February but because I was ill video vlogs just got pushed back so you will see me reading a lot of mysteries in March hopefully. If nothing, touch word. If nothing else goes wrong. In terms of rating I had one 1.5 which I rarely give out. Writing that low. One three, five four stars and one five stars. So this was the month of four stars really. We had one high, one low and then just a lot in the middle in between. But I love a good four star you know. I think that's pretty good having a lot of four stars. In terms of the source of how I read the book six were physical and two were a mixture where I had the physical and the audiobook. So usually I'd say I at least have at least one just audiobook thrown in there and I would have more mixture. But I didn't listen to all the audiobooks this month. I played a lot of Cozy Grove what can I say? Yes. It's a concern in a one way. In Cozy Grove you could listen to audiobooks while playing it but at the moment I'm just enjoying the game on its own you know. It's just such pure vibe. What can I say? I should take you through my progress in Cozy Grove for the month rather than my reading. In terms of audience five were adult and three were YA. That's kind of my usual split nowadays. In terms of where the books were from one was from a book box. Three were gifted to me. Three were books I bought myself and one was from the publisher. I love the symmetry of that pie chart. Isn't that pretty? Wow I like that. That's pretty. In terms of series seven were standalone and one was the first in a series but as we'll get into later I am not continuing on with that series so I haven't started another series. Okay we're fine. We're in the clear everyone. In terms of author stats, four were from authors I read from before and four were authors that were new to me and is there anything else we care about in terms of stats? Here's the publishers. Here's the publication years but we won't read all those out because I don't know if they're interesting. Okay okay let's read out all of the books I read this month and the ratings and then we'll get into Disappointments of Presidents. Okay. First I read The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker which I gave four stars. I read The House Across the Lake by Riley Sega which I gave four stars. I read Book of Night by Holly Black which I gave 1.5 stars. Not good. I read Poster Girl by Veronica Roth from my Patreon book club and I gave this four stars. I read Gallant by V.E. Schwab which I gave four stars. I read Year of the Reaper by Makaya Lucia. Let me hear you say it. I gave it four stars. I read Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbet and I gave this three stars and I read The Mysterious Case of the Appetite Angels by Janice Hallett which I gave five stars. Okay so in terms of Disappointments I would say I have two. First obviously we have Book of Night by Holly Black. I can't remember much about this book. You know what? I'm very forgetful. Okay. Apparently. Apparently I'm forgetful. Yeah. It's the kind of book where it's so bad you just blur it from your memory. So I oh my god. Who knows what this book is about? It's about shadows. Shadow magic. We've got a girlie who like lived a rough life. She used to be in crime and it's crime in crime and now she's like no but she starts going drawn back into it and it was bad. It was bad. I can't remember my critiques. I really just like I pretended this doesn't exist. This was the one that was the first book in a series and I will not be continuing. But I had the audiobook for this and thank god I did because I would not have gotten through it otherwise. I feel like the writing was not good. The plotting, the ideas of it were all a bit over the place. I was so bought throughout. The ending was ridiculous. I have no nothing. Nothing for you. I just think Holly Black had a vibe. It's not the vibe. Stop. She had a vibe that she was targeting and she was like I'm gonna go for it no matter what and didn't quite know the route that she was gonna use to get to said vibe. It just wasn't good. It just wasn't good. It just wasn't good. I feel like it was trying to be an aesthetic. It was trying to be an idea rather than being a book in its own right. Everyone, I feel like almost everyone has not liked this and for good reason. But I feel like everyone struggles to articulate why it's bad. It's just not good. Moving on. I would also say a disappointment for me just because I had such high expectations going into it was highly suspicious and I'm fairly cute by Tally Hibbet. I've given all previous Tally Hibbet's four stars and this was a three. If you haven't seen my video this was a video where I could only stop reading once I got a five star. And if you compare this to the other book in the vlog which was the mysterious KC Albertan Angels. This I did not want to read. I had to force myself to read it instead of playing Cozy Grove. Cozy Grove is the barometer here. Mysterious KC Albertan Angels I did not play Cozy Grove for three days while I read that book. It captured my attention in a way that this didn't do. You know this is a YA romance. It's Tally Hibbet's YA debut and it's best friends to enemies to lovers is kind of the romance trope and they're going on this like competition survival trek in the woods together. But a lot of the book is also just at their homes or at a school you know. There were elements that I did enjoy about this. I thought the plus size rep was amazing. I thought it was realistic to YA-ness but I was just bored. It didn't capture me. I wasn't into the relationship. I wasn't into the romance. I didn't really care. They seemed nice you know good for you if you're getting together you know fine with me I'm not gonna object to it but I wasn't sitting here like rooting for it you know excited to see where the romance goes. You know their dynamic didn't make me like you know giggle and swing my feet and I mean it didn't do that for me it didn't do it for me. And like I said in the video Tally Hibbet borders the line on cringe always always I feel like always I'm I err on the side of not cringe like it's like we're walking the tightrope and usually I'm like okay yeah this is funny not cringe but there's sometimes where we start to teeter we start to teach her into cringe and it just makes me feel uneasy because I'm like Tally H, come on. But yeah it just wasn't I didn't love it as much as her adult stuff basically. In terms of surprises my biggest surprise this month was by far Year of the Reaper. I went into this like not expecting anything this is a YA fantasy standalone and it's very much like royal court I don't want to say medieval but you know what I mean that kind of genre of fantasy you know we've got lords and like castles, moats, drawbidges. It's a bit of a difficult plot to actually articulate it's not a kind of like big stakes kind of book we're following this guy who there'd been a war between two lands he's like is he a prince he's a lord sorry he's a lord he'd actually been imprisoned by the other side and he's gotten out now the war's ended and he's coming home and a lot of the book is about him coming home and his relationships with people and finding himself within this community again but there's also this kind of mystery or like intrigue plot of this person who seems to be trying to hurt the family and the king who now are kind of living where our Lord used to live kind of but I just really enjoyed this I just thought this was a good time I had a lot of fun when reading this you know I really went into it not expecting much it was in wrapped up and this was one of the books I was least excited to read because the synopsis hadn't grabbed me I didn't really know what I was getting into but I really loved the kind of interpersonal relationships in this I loved the look at like trauma and grief that our protagonist was feeling there's like a little romance but because this is a standalone it's kind of it doesn't overtake the plot because it's not like when it's a trilogy and like so much of the book becomes about the romance it's just kind of like this little bit on the side that I liked the amount that the romance took up I don't know I really enjoyed this I thought it was a great YA standalone if you're looking for a YA standalone that's just a fun time I would 100% recommend this I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it and then I would also give an honorable mention in surprises for House Across the Lake by Riley Segarg OI! He's not meant to be in here! As he got in here get out! I gave him his four stars and here's the thing me and Riley have had good luck before you know I love the last time I lied that's a five star for me I give him a few four stars but you know not great final girls didn't love and for me I just went into this with a bit of trepidation because it hasn't been the best received I see a lot of one stars honestly I don't get it so basically oh this is the kind of book that once you've read it is difficult not to spoil so we've got our protagonist who's recently widowed and she has escaped to her family's home on this lake and across the lake she can see this rich couple she can see into their house the house is all glass basically she takes up spying basically and the wife goes missing and it's kind of her trying to figure out what has happened to the wife and I've got to say listen right say good you know he's polarizing not everyone loves him but I loved where this went and I can I actually can't see I you're I think I love it or you're gonna hate it this is a Marmite book it goes there I'm just gonna tell you it goes there and you're either gonna be like what the hell is going on like what am I actually experiencing here are you gonna be like yeah give it to me it just wasn't quite a five-star I didn't have that five-star feeling I feel like the ending could have been tightened up a bit but I loved where this went and I said occasionally with thrillers I accidentally spoiled myself this last happened with big little lies it happened now probably happens twice a year where you're like I'm looking for the next place I'm gonna check in with a vlog I'm trying to find like a good spots check in and I read a page and I was like holy shit oh no and it's bought me for probably the reveal that puts the rest of the book into motion I was like but I still loved it and I loved reading up I was so excited to read up to that point and see how that came about and then read on from there and what did that mean so yeah spoiling it for myself didn't hurt it so I think this is a fun book right just go into it knowing it's a bit Marmite and that you might not love it but I think it's a fun Riley Sager and I always say with Riley Sager you can have a fun time at least if you hate the book you're gonna have a fun hate read it and if it's if you like it's just a fun time you know and then in terms of hits I would say I only had one this month none of the other four stars really were stand out amongst the rest enough for me to put them in hits so my only hit of the month is a mysterious case of the Alpeton Angels by Janice Hallett so I read this and that I can't stop reading till I get a five star thank God thank God I didn't have to read 10 more books I really enjoyed this this is another book that once you've read it it's very difficult to pass through what I can tell you so I'm just gonna look at the synopsis and it'll help me my way so there's this notorious case I think about 18 years ago of the Alpeton Angels who were a cult who brainwashed teenage girl into believing that her baby was the Antichrist and they were gonna sacrifice it it went wrong it ended up in a mass suicide of a lot of the members of the cult the teenagers who were part of the cult got put into care the baby got put into care and the head of the cult is now in prison two decades later our protagonist is a true crime author and she is gonna write a book about it and she's particularly trying to find the identity the identity of the baby this was really fun the protagonist perspective is really fun to read from it's funny because she is like a journalist you know she's a cutthroat journalist this is why I ended up not wanting to go into journalism because I don't want to work with people like this but she'll be like saying one thing to someone else to try and get them to tell her something and saying something else the other person like there was one point where it's all emails but oh I didn't tell you this is mixed media sorry so it is all like text messages interviews emails that's what the whole book is and there was one point where like she was telling two films were made based on this around the same time they took very different kind of creative directions and she was telling each of them that the ones were the better one and the other one sucked and I loved the mixed media I loved that we finally with Janice Hallett had a mix of mixed media so her previous books have always been like one thing like just emails or just voice notes and I really loved that this was a mix I thought the way that the mystery played out it wasn't like at the end there was a big twist like a big reveal it was kind of like you slowly understood what was going on your eyes was slowly open to more and more of the scene I didn't mean that by the end this is a fairly complex mystery like I feel like there's a lot of moving parts in order to get you there but I just loved it like I had so much fun reading it ignited my fun receptors it was drama it was creativity it was elegance extravaganza it was like everything it did it for me do you know what I mean it just I had so much fun and I think Janice Hallett I really appreciate what she's doing in the mystery genre at the moment kind of boundaries that she's pushing it's always really imaginative and I always look forward to her releases she has got a Christmas one a Christmas appeal I think with the characters of the appeal coming out in October and then her new one will come out again she pushes one out at the start of every year pretty much I have been saying I think you want to try and read this in like a day or two I read it in like three and I think I was a bit stretched out if you could read this in one sitting I think it'd be perfect because there's so many people that she's emailing texting getting information from they're all saying different little bits of information it's like a jigsaw and they're all putting little parts they're giving you one piece of jigsaw you know and you really have to try and piece it together and that's hard when it's spread out like I forget so I would recommend reading this in one sitting although it's like 400 pages like like I said it's just like interviews and text so it does read quicker than a normal 400 page book so yes this did it for me this month so there we have it that was my February wrap up I hope you enjoyed it let me know what you thought of any of these books I read this month I would love to know also let me know how your February went your disappointment surprises and hits I would love to know let me know all that down below thank you guys so much watching and I'll see you very soon in the video bye