monthly wrap up: february, ’21

Hello, friends!

February was my first month back in my internship and it was a bit challenging getting back into a schedule, but I feel like I’ve gotten the hang of it now. I’ll have to adjust again soon, once the new school semester starts, but I like the way the routine looks now and I hope it’s not too much of a change.

I also got a really bad stomach bug during this last week and it was *awful*. I’m feeling better, but I ended up not being able to do much for a few days there, which is why I was behind on so many posts.

HIGHLIGHTS

1. I have to wear glasses now! I’m calling this a highlight but I’m not exactly excited about having to wear them. Basically: I look HIDEOUS in glasses. Honestly. It’s almost kinda funny because everyone in my life agrees, lol. But at least I can *see* the score of a football match on TV now, so that’s a win!

BOOKS I READ

★★★★★

I started the month with a re-read. I talked about Only Mostly Devastated in my favorite books of 2020 and how I was looking forward to revisit the story, and I’m so glad it worked out for this month. I’d watched Grease – the movie to which the book is a retelling of – only a couple weeks before picking it up, so I was able to recognize a lot more parallels/references this time around. I love Sophie Gonzales’ writing and this time around the family aspect was what resonated with me the most. It was special how Ollie didn’t necessarily have a perfect relationship with his parents, but that wasn’t made a huge deal of. It felt natural that they didn’t see eye to eye on everything, but still had love and respect for each other nonetheless.

★★★★☆

The Vanishing Stair is the sequel to Truly Devious, which I read back in 2019. I’m hoping to finish this series this year, and I really enjoyed this installment. I don’t think these characters will be for everyone, as the dynamics are a bit contrived and the characters are overall very weird, but I love them and they’re by far my favorite element in the book. I also enjoyed the pacing of this one better – a lot happened and I was able to dive back into the mystery easily. I really hope to love the conclusion just as much.

★★☆☆☆

While I was excited to pick up this book as I love Jandy Nelson’s The Sun is Also a Star, I was very much disappointed by her debut. The writing is still beautiful and poetic and I love how Jandy Nelson writes such flawed characters, that you still can not help but root for. Still, I was not invested in any of the dynamics – the familial ones were given depth a bit too late into the book and the romantic ones were so insta-love-y I couldn’t bring myself to care for either. It also bothered me how *dramatically* they were handled, as if their relationship was the most important thing in the world when they’d known each other for two weeks.

★★★★★

Dear Justyce is the sequel to one of my favorite books of all times and this one absolutely broke my heart. It’s such a short book, but packs a punch. It was very hard to read, as it discusses topics of abuse, neglect and the prison system in a very vulnerable light. I loved Quan and it was so easy to connect with him. I’ll say, this book experiments with genres and styles a lot (you have the typical narration, and then sequences called “snapshots”, and then the letters Quan writes to Justyce), and I wish that had been more intentional and actually connected to the plot or the characters’ personality in some way, as it felt like there was no particular reason for it to be written like that. It didn’t completely take away from the experience, though, as this book was heartbreakingly beautiful and what I consider to be Nic Stone’s best work thus far.

no rating

I ended up DNF-ing Desolate by Autumn Grey, mostly because I found the pacing of the book to be painfully slow. I am not a fan of slow burn, and I didn’t know going into it that this would be the first one in a trilogy. I mainly wanted to read about the forbidden romance aspect, but I found that the connection between Sol and God and his desire to be a priest to be quite one-dimensional and predictable. I also didn’t vibe with the writing and it felt like I was reading a fanfic at times.

★★★☆☆

Hillbilly Elegy was in my Out of Comfort Zone TBR and it was… a weird read. For some reason, I went into this book hoping to have more insight in the way this population has been failed or opressed throughout the years, which reflects their behaviors and lifestyle. It just happened that there’s no opression at all? Lol. If anything, these people just continue to be the way they are because society enables them, as they’re white. It was bizarre to realize that there wasn’t that much of a societal cause to these communities staying this way. It made a bit harder for me to empathize with the people in this book, but I still found it to be an interesting read overall.

MONTHLY PLAYLIST

In all seriousness, 70% of this playlist is To All the Boys’ soundtrack, lol. I rewatched the first two movies in preparation for Always & Forever and decided to finally listen to the entire soundtrack. Besides that, I listened to a bit of NCT and am thankful for Sophie‘s recommendation of “is your bedroom ceiling bored“, which I became obsessed with.

LOOKING FORWARD

In March, I am most looking forward to the release of the Falcon & the Winter Soldier series on Disney+. I also have some ambitious reading plans, as this will be my last month before school starts. I hope everything works out!

How was your February? Do you have any songs to recommend to me? Let me know in the comments!