Read It! Challenge: January Books and February Picks!

Okay I read 4 books in January- 3 from my list and one that I forgot came out and read right away... so I'm going to do mini reviews for what I read in January and what I'm planning to read for February!

I'm going to rank the books from 1-4!

1)Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightening Theif by Rick Riordin

I think this was a great start to the year- I regret not rereading this last year because it reminded me of why I love reading to begin with. This book paints the picture in my head of exactly what's happening more than any other book... and I love that. I also love the characters in this book and all the adventures they get into. I have never finished the series- but this book is pretty much perfect and definitely a favorite of mine!

2) Heartstopper Volume 5 by Alice Oseman

I LOVED this volume of Heartstopper more than any other volume of Heartstopper. I just love how serious Nick and Charlie get in this one and all the flirty bits in it are really cute. I think this book could have helped me if I had read it while I was in high school. A lot of the teenagers in this book have similar insecurities that I had when I was a teen and I think this would have just made me feel more comfortable with myself.

3) Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

This was a really cute book and it was really spicy. This is a sapphic love story about a college girl who hooks up with an older woman at a bar on a weekend that happened to be parents weekend... and the woman happens to be her best friend's mom. They thought it was going to be a one time thing- but the best friend insists the girl comes over during winter break and... it turns into more than one time. The ending of this book was cute and it was really great overall. I think they dragged out the beginning part just a little bit and the ending just felt like the characters weren't as well developed and some of the story just felt a little rushed. I still really liked it- it was a fun book and a cute read for sure but it wasn't a perfect story.

4) The Honeys by Ryan La Sala

I wished I liked this book a little bit more because I love Ryan La Sala on TikTok- I think he's hilarious and there were parts of this book that I genuinely loved. This book follows Mars- a gender fluid teenager who's twin sister dies under somewhat mysterious circumstances. He goes to the camp that she went to to investigate it and follows her friends- a group of popular girls called The Honeys... and although he befriends them- he thinks maybe they are hiding something.

I loved how this book dealt with Gender and the summer camp setting really showed the contrast between boys and girls. There are a lot of things you can do with that kind of setting. I didn't like the ending of the book as much... but I could appreciate La Sala's writing style. It just kind of became straight up sci fi and it felt like Kurt Vonnegut and I think that might be what La Sala was going for.

That being said... I think this would be a perfect book if it was 250 pages or something. I think this would be one of those weird books you just can't put down. I think the 340 pages in this are a little too much and some of the pacing of this book just ends up a little off.

I unintentionally read a lot of queer authors this month- which was not done on purpose... but it was good to read all of them together. I think all the queer books I read were written by non binary or gender fluid authors- again that wasn't on purpose but I liked the coincidence.

Okay- so with that- here are my four picks for February.

1)Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordin - this was a no brainer for sure! I'm finally going to finish the Percy Jackson series and I'm really excited!

2) This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron- this is the follow up and I believe the conclusions to one of my favorite recent reads: This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron. The first book was one of the best books ever- I loved the world it was set in and all the magic and Greek mythology. I have a few books from Kalynn Bayron and I think I'm going to read them within the next few months. I wanted to make sure to read a book from a black Author in February. I might read more... but I'm excited to read this one for sure!

3) Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

I don't know much about this book but I think it's a hockey/ Ice dancer romance and it looked cute! I wanted to read it in February and when it's cold out.

4) Fire and Flight by Brianna R Shaffery- So this is part of a series called the Heirs to Tenebris series and the author is local to me and I met her during a book signing at Barnes and Noble while buying some last minute Christmas Gifts! She was very nice and I've already started this book. I think this one might take me a longer time to read because I'm not that into sci fi and it is 400 pages... but so far I like it!

5) Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang- I almost forgot about this book! It looks so cute and I wanted to read something for Lunar New Year! Plus I'm into graphic novels!

So I'm sure I will read at least 4 of these this month- hopefully I can finish all 5 this month! It is the shortest month and I didn't really pick all short books.

I hope you like this!

Bye!

-Shannon