Monthly Archives: March 2021

February Recap – Reading, Favorites and Whatnot

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Happy March, internet friends and family! The first week of the month kind of got away from me, but “better late than never” is a thing, so… voila!

The month of February was a good one overall, even though I only finished three books – but I was working on some chunkers, and there was a fair amount of time spent doing other stuff while I was at it. If you’re just looking for the State of the Challenge report, you’ll find it here.

My first read of February was a re-read – for prompt #3, Reread a book that makes you happy, I thought long and hard about what actually makes me happy. I could have gone for a Dresden Files novel, or yet another Wheel of Time reread, but instead I grabbed a contemporary romance that I remembered having a lot of fun with. I was going for light and fluffy – but I’d forgotten that underneath the “best friends to lovers” story, Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie has some pretty disturbing moments where the main character is being stalked by an ex who just can’t take “no” for an answer.

I am a sucker for the friends to lovers trope though – my favorite fictional couple from a TV show has an amazing best friends to husband and wife story that spans several seasons (you got me, Agents of SHIELD fans, right?).

Next up in February was a book I’d been intrigued by for a while. Michael J. Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations series was very enjoyable and doesn’t get nearly enough attention (and BookTuber Jashana is a major fan of his Legends of the First Empire series) so I figured Age of Myth was a great choice for #9, Read a book by an author named Michael/Mike/Michelle or variant. This series is set thousands of years before the original Riyria books, in the same world, and it’s interesting to get some of the history that’s shaped it. If you haven’t checked out Riyria, it’s not actually necessary to read the other series before these prequels, but I’d recommend them anyway!

The story featured a prophecy of sorts that played out pretty much exactly how I predicted it, and several events that while I didn’t actually expect them were overall pretty predictable if I’d slowed down enough to think about what I expected to happen…. however there were some really interesting twists, and the book ended with some events that set up future conflict in the series that I’m really interested to see where it goes.

I was kind of all over the map in picking what category I was going to cover next – one of the things I love about this challenge is that it gives me a lot of flexibility to mood read, or I can fill in the challenge list with what I intend to read for each prompt and go down the list in order if I want. Usually, I don’t want to go in order, and this month was no exception. After I finished Age of Myth, I jumped down to Level 4 and read my selection for #41, Read a book where the main character is elderly: A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L’Engle.

We’ve met the main character of this novel in The Small Rain, which I read for last year’s challenge. In the first book, we see the childhood and adolescence of Katherine Forrester, who is the daughter of a concert pianist and a composer, and well on her way to becoming a pianist of note in her own right. In A Severed Wasp, we see her at the end of an illustrious career as a famous concert pianist, a widow in her seventies who has returned to her childhood home in New York City to try to come to terms with her past grief and traumas. I had mixed feelings about this book, especially about the resolution to the mystery that had been set up early on in the story… but the writing was lovely, and the exploration of the themes of grief, faith, and unconventional lifestyles was thought provoking.

While I was reading A Severed Wasp, my challenge buddy Linz was working her way through the 6th Outlander novel, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, which I’d read before, so she was sending me comments every now and then. Of course, it had been six years since I read it, and I’ve definitely read a lot of other things since, so my memory of the details was fuzzy… so of course I had to follow suit and re-read it for myself. This one was just shy of 1,000 pages, though, so I didn’t manage to finish before the month was done.

In non-reading news, I took a quick road trip up to my best friend’s house for a weekend and got to play some games, do crafts with one of her kiddos, and binge watch most of WandaVision in one evening. We also watched a few movies – an old favorite, Roxanne… a new favorite, Knives Out… and one I hadn’t actually seen before, but I’d read the book – Timeline, based on the novel by Michael Crichton.

Other favorite things of the month included a new Hamilton-related t-shirt that I purchased from Etsy on the recommendation of YouTuber Jessica Braun (this shirt is so soft and comfortable, I adore it)… My first cast iron skillet, which was my selection for my 10 year company anniversary gift (the box said it was lightweight… trying to lift it with one hand determined this was a lie – but it’ll make a great weapon in case of intruders)… And a ’90’s alternative Spotify playlist posted by one of my #TwitterOfTime friends, Rob Christianson. Rob and his wife make a couple of similar t-shirts with Wheel of Time characters, check them out!

The State of the Challenge Report is on Page 2… so aside from that, my friends, talk to me in the comments! What are you currently reading? Did you watch WandaVision? Do you dig ’90’s alternative music, and who’s your favorite band from that genre? And what’s your favorite t-shirt to wear right now?

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