Skip to main content

A Month of Reading: February


Best reads of the past month:

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
This is Marillier's first foray into YA lit and I will confess, I did smile knowingly to myself from time to time, thinking about what the book would be like if she'd written the same story for adults. She's just so good at tension and darkness and the otherworldly that this combination Frog Prince/Twelve Dancing Princesses/Vampire story would make a delicious non-YA. That said, it was a wonderful story and I found myself fascinated to see how she tied together the two familiar (though not necessarily similar) fairy tales, set it in Romania and added in a dollop of vampire lore for good measure. Very imaginative.

The China Garden by Liz Berry
This was part mystery, part fantasy and it kept reminding me of a YA-Mary Stewart novel. Particularly Touch Not the Cat. The rambly old English estate, the family inextricably tied to the land, the ESP. Add some exploration of ancient pagan rites meets early Christianity and you have The China Garden. A fun read.

The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart
Ok, this was pure fluff. But it made for a fun night's reading curled up on the couch with a blanket and some hot apple cider. I saw it recommended somewhere for fans of Carolyn Mackler and the similarities are certainly there. I prefer Mackler's main characters. They seem a little more willing to take control of their lives when chaos ensues. That said, I enjoyed reading about Roo's adventures at Tate Prep and the sessions with her shrink, Dr. Z, are hilarious.

Valiant by Holly Black
I held off picking up Valiant because, though I definitely enjoyed Tithe (its predecessor), I'm a little tired of Tam Lin retellings. I don't seem capable of being fully satisfied with any of them. Just not my fairy tale, I guess. So I waited for Valiant to come out in paperback and then I picked it up. So glad I did. Though set in the same "world" as Tithe, this urban fantasy is a Black original and I enjoyed it so much I missed Val and Ravus and that crystal sword for a week after finishing it.

Best rereads of the past month:

A Woman of the People by Benjamin Capps
I first read this book in my 7th grade English class in San Antonio as part of our Texas literature unit. I loved it then and hadn't read it since. All the research I've been doing on the history of Native American tribes and their interactions with early settlers reminded me of this book and I managed to find a copy to reread (my old one is in storage. sigh). It was as wonderful and heartbreaking as I remember it being.

The Road Home and Life Without Friends by Ellen Emerson White
Sometimes I need good dialogue so bad that rereading a White is the only solution. Guaranteed to cure any reading slump.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

You Might Also Like

Angie's 2026 Must Be Mine

As ever, begin as you mean to go on. And so here are my most anticipated titles of 2026: And no covers on these yet, but I'm just as excited for each one: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 9 by Beth Brower Finest Kind of Fate by J.J. Mulder My Kind of Guy by Sarina Bowen Ravenous by Kresley Cole Mastermind by Sarah MacLean Game of Rogues by Julie Anne Long Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison Villain Edit by Rosie Danan What titles are on your list?
2 comments
Read more

Retro Friday Review: Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Ann Sandell

Retro Friday is a weekly meme hosted here at Angieville and focuses on reviewing books from the past. This can be an old favorite, an under-the-radar book you think deserves more attention, something woefully out-of-print, etc. Everyone is welcome to join in at any time! So this is a book I've spent a lot of time talking about. Chances are, if you've hung around these parts, you've heard me push it. But I actually read it for the first time way back in the olden days before the blog was, well, what it is now. I read it shortly after it was first published, back in 2007, when I was writing monthly posts, mere collections of mini-reviews. So Song of the Sparrow  got shortchanged. I decided to address that situation today. The fun thing is lots of friends have read (and reviewed) it since, and so I was able to trip through their lovely thoughts and remember my own. When I heard about a retelling of Tennyson's " Lady of Shalott ," I was so in. I mean, I'...
16 comments
Read more

Bibliocrack Review | Don't You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane

There's really very little to say, isn't there? I hope you are well, wherever you are. I hope that your loved ones are. I hope that you're finding small ways to stay afloat, to remain connected to something, someone, someplace (real or fictional) that sustains you. Dark and difficult times, indeed. I've rather been holding on to this review. I felt so much, so quickly, so irrevocably for this book that it rapidly became hard to talk about to anyone who hadn't read it. And so I hope I can do it justice, just barely enough justice that, if you haven't, you'll run right out and do so. Now is the perfect time. I feel strongly that this book is what you need in your life at this moment. And so. You might want to prepare yourselves. I'm about to wax rhapsodic. But first, and introductory excerpt: At the end of that session, Fay said, What if it's not what happened with this boy you regret, it's you? It's the  you  who you left behind. It's ...
6 comments
Read more