March Wrap-up

After January and February being extremely good reading months for me, I’ve been going strong in March as well. I read 41 books in total, so a little less than in the previous months but still A LOT. Unfortunately I didn’t find as many new favourites as I did in the previous month, but there were three books that I absolutely adored: Show Us Who You Are, Fifteen Hundred Miles From the Sun, and The Midnight Library.

I stuck really closely to my March TBR – there’s only two books I didn’t get around to reading (The Weight of Our Sky and City of the Plague God) and one more I didn’t finish yet but did start reading (Firekeeper’s Daughter).

In this post, I’ll share my Goodreads reviews of my 4 and 5 star reads of February. Want to keep track of my reading in more detail? Feel free to add me on Goodreads!

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Elle McNicoll – Show Us Who You Are

I was part of the blog tour for this book – you can check out my tour stop with my full review here!

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Cookie Hiponia Everman – We Belong

This book just oozes love, it’s beautiful. It’s told in different timelines and storylines, and ends up being so much more than the sum of its part. The book is about a mother telling her daughters bedtime stories and that feeling, the love, the safety, the comfort, was really conveyed in the book. Being Filipino, she’s interweaving Tagalog mythology and her personal experiences as an immigrant in her stories to her daughters, and it was just beautifully done.

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Eleanor Crewes – The Times I Knew I Was Gay

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this memoir, as it seemed quite short and simple. But actually that ended up being its main strength: it’s super to the point in the way it tells the story, but still packs a real emotional punch, and I found it extremely relatable.

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Janae Marks – From the Desk of Zoe Washington

I didn’t review this book, but it was a great middlegrade! Would highly recommend.

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Kris Ripper – The Hate Project

This book is going to be perfect for people who love the grumpy x grumpy dynamic, two people who fight all the time but still they’re cute together.

I’ve been really looking forward to this book as I loved The Love Study so much and I loved Oscar, I thought he had a lot of potential as a main character. And I did love Oscar, and I mostly enjoyed this book too. Not as much as The Love Study, which was a 5 star read for me, but still, I definitely did enjoy it.

What I loved most about this book is how Oscar’s anxiety is represented in an unpalatable way. He’s grumpy, he acts out, he fights with people. His anxiety actually impacts the way he’s functioning. This felt very refreshing to read!

I’m convinced Oscar is somewhere on the aromantic spectrum, by the way. There’s just something about the way his relationship with Jack that felt distinctly aro to me (I’m aro myself, for the record). It’s not canon or anything and it might not have been meant like this/everyone might not agree with me, but that’s what I took from the book!

I want to finish this review with a warning, because Oscar does deal with a lot of body image issues and internalized fatphobia. He’s generally self aware about it and I think this is something a lot of people struggle with and it deserves to be discussed in books, but please be careful if this might be difficult for you to read.

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Beth O’Leary – The Road Trip

After loving The Flatshare and The Switch, I should have known I was going to love this too. I love how Beth O’Leary writes characters: messy, complex and multifaceted, but ultimately kind. In this book, all the characters were so well developed, not just the main characters, but the main side characters as well.

This is a second-chance romance, told in dual timelines: then and now. So you’re basically reading two romances instead of one. I’m not always the biggest fan of second-chance romance, because people usually have a good reason for breaking up and I don’t necessarily want to see them back together, but I did end up rooting for this particular couple, and I liked the growth there.

Throughout the book, I wasn’t always sure if I would end up liking it. Mostly because some of the situations and the ways people behaved were really messy. But ultimately I really appreciated how it was handled, and I loved the ending.

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Sally Thorne – The Hating Game

Spent a really lovely afternoon reading this book!

Do want to add that this might be triggering if you have an ED, because the love interest seems to have one but it’s not really addressed, so please be careful with that!

Other than that, I found this a really enjoyable romance; pretty much exactly what I want from enemies to lovers.

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Lily Menon – Make Up Break Up

I need Netflix to adapt this book stat. This would make such a delightful romcom! And I mean, that’s exactly what it was in book form too. I read this almost in one sitting and that turned out to be an excellent way to spend my Saturday.

If you’ve enjoyed Sandhya Menon’s YA romances, and you enjoy reading adult romance, you absolutely need to read this!

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Aiden Thomas – Lost in the Never Woods

You can read my full review here!

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Jonny Garza Villa – Fifteen Hundred Miles From the Sun

I was expecting to enjoy this, but I didn’t expect to have this many feelings about it. I cried, I laughed out loud, it was such a good read.

At first, I was a little afraid this would be a heavy read, because it does deal with parental abuse. And there were definitely heavy parts. But I felt like they were handled so well, and they were really balanced out by the happy and fluffy parts.

My favourite part about this was the romance, because it’s an internet romance and it’s long distance. For me personally, most of my friends are online friends. And I feel like that’s the case for many people nowadays. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this in YA before, and I loved it.

There’s some great healthy discussions about sex as well that I think are so important to have in YA, and they were told in a funny way too, which was just so well done. It was mostly about gay sex education and it included aspects I’ve barely ever seen YA books touch on but that will be so important for queer teens to read.

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Gail D. Villanueva – My Fate According to the Butterfly

I didn’t review this book, but this was another great middlegrade.

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Cassandra Clare – Chain of Iron

I’m cursed to always love the side characters in Cassandra Clare’s books best.

Honestly, I love this world, and I always enjoy the Shadowhunters books, mostly because I’m so invested in the characters. But this wasn’t quite as good as Chain of Gold. It was pretty boring at times and I would have liked to see more of the side characters.

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Kami Garcia – Teen Titans: Raven

I mainly picked this up because of the art work, and that was a good decision, because WOW. The art work is really stunning, and I’m definitely going to pick up the sequels. I really liked Raven as well, and this was a quick and entertaining read, but it was maybe a little too romance heavy for me.

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Natalia Sylvester – Running

I didn’t review this book, but I’d highly recommend it if you want a YA about politics.

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Lilliam Rivera – Never Look Back

I’ve been wanting to read Lilliam Rivera’s work for a long time, and I’m glad I picked up this one first. I read this in one sitting as I was just so immersed. I love retellings, I love Greek mythology, and I love how the Orpheus and Eurydice myth was handled here. It was a distinctly unique story and it was fun to see the familiar aspects of the myth play out in a whole new setting.

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Alexandra Bracken – Lore

I thoroughly enjoyed this! I loved how brutal it was, it reminded me a little of Circe, in a battle setting.

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Matt Haig – The Midnight Library

Is there a better feeling than knowing you’re reading a new all-time favourite?

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Lauren James – The Deep-Sea Duke

This was the absolute CUTEST sequel!

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Rebecca Barrow – You Don’t Know Me But I Know You

I don’t know many YA books about teen pregnancy, but they’re so needed. This was such a good read, and such a strong, nuanced conversation about the topic. Having loved Rebecca Barrow’s other book as well, I think I have a new favourite contemporary author to add to my list.

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