February Reads

February was another strong reading month, although I did not read quite as much as January! Will went from being up at least 3 times a night to mostly 2 times, with the occasional 3, so I read a bit less and slept a bit more. Yay! But I still managed to read 12 books! 

Hits

The 5 books above were my favorite reads of the month. You can't go wrong with any of these 5. Everything I Never Told You was a re-read and I think I loved it even more the 2nd time around. The Push was a total page turner about a new mother who struggles to connect with her daughter and wonders if something is off. Code Name Helene was based on the true story of a woman who worked for the Resistance during WWII. I appreciated it even more when I learned how much was based on the life of the woman who inspired the book. I'm Still Here was a quick read about being racial injustice, particularly for women of color. The author is female - her parents named her Austin because they knew when she was older and applying to college/jobs, people would think she was a white male and might have a better shot at what she was applying for. What Could Be Saved was about an American family who moves to Bangkok for the husband's job and their son goes missing. When the book starts off, the sister of the missing boy receives an email saying that her brother has been found. It's been something like 30 years since he went missing, maybe more (my memory of the details is foggy). This was a total page turner for me! 

Pretty good

These books fall into the 'pretty good' category. 

Misses:

Interestingly, 2 of these 3 books - Hamnet and The Song of Achilles - are based on previously written works that I had not read. I think not having read either of the source works impacted my reading experience and I felt pretty meh about them. The same goes for The Jane Austen Society. I actually do not like Jane Austen at all - I just don't understand the hype. I've read 2 of her books and felt so meh about both of them. But I thought this book sounded cute but I'd only suggest reading it if you are a Jane Austen aficionado! 

Paul and Will's Reads:

I love this picture below of Paul cuddled up on the couch with a book my parents sent him for Valentine's Day! He loves books so much and it makes my heart so happy!

And here's Paul "reading" a book about animal tales to William. Such a sweet moment! Will was very captivated as he is quite interested in his big brother!

One discovery I made this month is that Paul has the book, "The Mitten" memorized! We received this Ukrainian book from a good friend at work and it's become one of Paul's favorite books. It shocked me when he took over the reading of it the other night and basically knew every word. These little minds can store so much information. He has memorized other books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, but memorizing The Mitten is a step above that as there is dialogue - it's not just pictures/repetitive phrases like the other books he'd memorized! So that was a very cool discovery!

Did you read anything good this month? Do you remember memorizing books when you were little? My mom talks about how I had the book, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" memorized.