Welcome to my February 2024 Favorite Books post! This monthly post is where I share the 5 star books I’ve read so far each month. I had a few 5 star reads this month that I am excited to share. You can see the first half of my February reading here and I will share the rest next week. The Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission.
Title: Alphabetical Diaries
Author: Shelia Heti
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Macmillan Audio, 2/6/24
Source: Audio Publisher
Why I Read It: Sounded good
My Rating: 5 Stars
This creative memoir has me intrigued and inspired! The author took ten years of her journals and sorted the sentences alphabetically. The sentences are well written and I think reading them chronologically would have been an interesting look into the author’s life, but hearing them alphabetically was even more creative.
“Sheila Heti kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing, these are her alphabetical diaries.”
You don’t get a straight story in this way, but instead you get an idea of the author’s life through sentence fragments, repeated sentence starters, and patterns that emerge. This year I’ve been recording a sentence a day in my planner and I tried alphabetizing them to see how they would read and it did turn out interesting – now I wish I’d kept those childhood journals to delve into this further! The author is Jewish and there are some Jewish references which I enjoyed. Many of the sentences are sexual. Overall the diaries share human experiences that are relatable and quotable.
Title: Interesting Facts About Space
Author: Emily Austin
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Atria Books, 1/30/24
Source: Book of the Month January Pick
Why I Read It: Sounded good
My Rating: 5 Stars
For my January Book of the Month I chose Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin. I chose this book because I tend to enjoy books with quirky protagonists and the main character in this one is Enid, who is definitely quirky. And I did love this one.
“Enid is obsessed with space. She can tell you all about black holes and their ability to spaghettify you without batting an eye in fear. Her one major phobia? Bald men. But she tries to keep that one under wraps. When she’s not listening to her favorite true crime podcasts on a loop, she’s serially dating a rotation of women from dating apps. At the same time, she’s trying to forge a new relationship with her estranged half-sisters after the death of her absent father. When she unwittingly plunges into her first serious romantic entanglement, Enid starts to believe that someone is following her. As her paranoia spirals out of control, Enid must contend with her mounting suspicion that something is seriously wrong with her. Because at the end of the day there’s only one person she can’t outrun—herself.”
Enid finds comfort in facts about space, which she tells her mother each time she feels guilty for interacting with her estranged half sisters. Her father left Enid and her mother and Enid always found herself loyal to her mother, so whenever her sisters attempt to befriend her, she feels guilty. Enid also finds comfort in listening to true crime podcasts, but the gory details may be making her a bit paranoid. Enid finds women to date online and finds herself falling for a particular woman, but she is unsure about letting her in. Also, Enid is scared of bald men. Why? She doesn’t remember. Enid was deaf in one ear and seeing the ways she was mistreated for not hearing people at times was an interesting look at that disability. There are also depictions of PTSD and the book kept me reading to find out what happened to Enid in her past to make her who she is now.
Title: The Search Party
Author: Hannah Richell
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Atria Books, 1/16/24
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
I did not expect to love The Search Party by Hannah Richell as much as I did! This takes place on an island with a storm and involves families – including kids – who are reuniting for a weekend.
“Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race with their twelve-year-old son to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. Eager for a dry run ahead of their opening, they invite three old university friends and their families for a long-needed reunion. But the festivities soon go awry as tensions arise between the children (and subsequently their parents), explosive secrets come to light, and a sudden storm moves in, cutting them off from help as one in the group disappears.”
While a cast list is included at the beginning, I didn’t have trouble keeping the characters apart. There were a lot of jerky guys in this one! It includes assault, a missing child, a child with selective mutism, and infidelity. It was quite a page turner for me!
Title: The Women
Author: Kristin Hannah
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, 2/6/24
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
I’m sure you’ve seen this book all over and I’ll join in the chorus saying I loved this book. The Women by Kristin Hannah was a powerful tribute to those who served in Vietnam, especially women.
“Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances ‘Frankie’ McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets―and becomes one of―the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost. But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.”
Frankie and her friends Barb and Ethel served as nurses and they saw much loss along their journeys. The book shows how the service members were treated when they returned from war – they were personally blamed for the government’s decision to be in Vietnam at all. The women were told there were no women in Vietnam, which they knew to be untrue but was a form of gaslighting that certainly didn’t help them with PTSD. This book contains difficult topics including alcoholism and addiction and miscarriage. Frankie dealt with a lot – I kept feeling that the author was putting her through too much! But I loved her story and the way it concluded.
Title: The Catch
Author: Amy Lea
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Berkley, 2/13/24
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
I have loved all three of the books in Amy Lea’s Influencers series (and I still need to read her YA!) The Catch is her newest, which I loved as well. The Catch is a grumpy / sunshine opposites attract romance in which Melanie, a fashion influencer, meets Evan, a rugged Air B&B owner and fisherman who mainly wears flannel. After a boating accident, Melanie says she is Evan’s fiancé in order to accompany him at the hospital, and then agrees to a fake relationship in the hopes of bringing together his feuding family. Melanie has family commitments of her own and when the two fall for each other, their competing responsibilities become a problem.
“In a last-ditch effort to rescue her brand from the brink of irrelevance, Boston fashion influencer Melanie Karlsen finds herself in a rural fishing village on the east coast of Canada. The only thing scarier than nature itself? The burly and bearded bed-and-breakfast owner and fisherman, Evan Whaler—who single-handedly disproves the theory that Canadians are ‘nice.’ After a boating accident lands Evan unconscious in the hospital, Mel is mistaken for his fiancée by his welcoming yet quirky family, who are embroiled in a long-standing feud over the B&B. In a bold attempt to mend family fences, Mel agrees to fake their engagement for one week in exchange for Evan’s help with her social media content. Amid long hikes and campfire chats, reeling in their budding feelings for each other proves more difficult by the day. But is Mel willing to sacrifice her picture-perfect life in the city for a chance at a true, unfiltered love in the wild?”
I enjoyed this relationship a lot and appreciated the loss and grief each dealt with as a way that they connected to each other.
Title: The Rom Con
Author: Devon Daniels
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Berkley, 11/7/23
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
The Rom Con by Devon Daniels is a cute story about Cassidy and Jack who work for rival online publications. Cassidy uses old fashioned dating advice to try to bring out Jack’s chauvinism. The story is an homage to How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
“After a particularly brutal breakup, Cassidy Sutton has had it with dating. So when her grandmother gives her a 1950’s dating guide entitled 125 Tips to Hook a Husband, she decides to turn the retro advice into an ironic “What not to do” article for Siren, the popular online women’s publication she writes for. And who better to secretly test the old-fashioned tips on than Jack Bradford, chauvinistic creator of rival men’s site Brawler? She’ll write an article that will entertain female readers everywhere and embarrass their sexist nemesis at the same time. Two birds, one stone. But her perfect plan soon proves to be anything but. Those vintage courtship tips Cassidy was so quick to poke fun at? They actually seem to work, calling her most closely-held beliefs into question. Even worse? Jack isn’t falling for any of her tricks—and it’s not long before their ‘fake’ relationship starts to feel like the realest one of her life. As her cat and mouse game starts to spiral out of control, Cassidy has to decide if she’s playing to win, or if she’s willing to lose it all for love.”
This story was fun and funny and I enjoyed both Cassidy and Jack but Cassidy’s grandma was the best! The pop culture references were fun and I really enjoyed the epilogue. I also loved the NYC setting!
Title: Sam
Author: Allegra Goodman
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Books On Tape, 1/3/23
Source: Publisher / Library Audio
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review / Waiting on my shelf
My Rating: 5 Stars
I decided to listen to Sam by Allegra Goodman as it had been one I wanted to get to for over a year. I really enjoyed the book and thought the audio narrator did a great job as well. Sam is not my usual type of book because it is pretty character driven, but I do like coming of age novels. This follows Sam from the age of 7 through 19.
“Sam is seven years old and living in Beverly, Massachusetts. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind Sam that if she studies hard and acts responsibly, adulthood will be easier—more secure and comfortable. But comfort and security are of little interest to Sam. She doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. She doesn’t care about jeans or rules. All she wants to climb. Hanging from the highest limbs of the tallest trees, scaling the side of a building, Sam feels free. As a teenager, Sam begins to doubt herself. She yearns to be noticed, even as she wants to disappear. When her climbing coach takes an interest in her, his attention is more complicated than she anticipated. She resents her father’s erratic behavior, but she grieves after he’s gone. And she resists her mother’s attempts to plan for her future, even as that future draws closer.”
Sam’s father is alcoholic and generally absent and her mother struggles to raise her and her younger half brother. Sam takes on a lot of responsibility, but finds her passion in rock climbing. She climbs at a gym and continues to climb actual rocks as well. She falls in love with geology and yearns to follow her own passions, rather than what her mother hopes for her. I’m glad I picked this one up!
Title: The Partition Project
Author: Saadia Faruqi
Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Quill Tree Books, 2/27/24
Source: Storygram Book Tours
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
I loved Saadia Faruqi’s book Yusef Azeem is Not a Hero, and I loved The Partition Project just as much. This one is about Maha, who interviews her grandmother for a school documentary project. Dadi has just come from Pakistan to join Maha’s family in Houston. She teaches Maha about the Partition, a historical event in which the Indian subcontinent was partitioned and formed into India and Pakistan.
“When her grandmother comes off the airplane in Houston from Pakistan, Mahnoor knows that having Dadi move in is going to disrupt everything about her life. She doesn’t have time to be Dadi’s unofficial babysitter—her journalism teacher has announced that their big assignment will be to film a documentary, which feels more like storytelling than what Maha would call ‘journalism.’ As Dadi starts to settle into life in Houston and Maha scrambles for a subject for her documentary, the two of them start talking. About Dadi’s childhood in northern India—and about the Partition that forced her to leave her home and relocate to the newly created Pakistan. As details of Dadi’s life are revealed, Dadi’s personal story feels a lot more like the breaking news that Maha loves so much. And before she knows it, she has the subject of her documentary.”
Maha learns how history effects the present and she learns how the Partition directly effected her grandmother and how it has lead to generational trauma. The book takes place during Ramadan, which provided an interesting look at Muslim religious traditions. It was wonderful to read Maha’s growth throughout this book. As a side note, the librarian recommended The Night Diary to Maha as a book to read on the topic of Partition, which I previously read as well.
Come back next week for the rest of my February reads!
Do you have a favorite book you’ve read this month?