(Random interesting tidbit? I think it’s fun/funny to see how my nails change with each of these book pictures. I change my nails pretty much every week if not more often so … there’s almost always a different nail with every book. You can see the progression of my nails each month along with what I read! LOL)

Hi guys! So I missed my February reading recap post last month.. or actually, it would be more accurate to say that I opted out of making a post last month because I’d really only read two books in Feb. One of them being the PPG book club pick, which you know I never rate on my blog because I want you to listen to the episode. Reading definitely fell on the back burner during February; if I’m really stressed out I find that I can’t read. I need to watch YouTube or TikTok or do something totally mindless to unwind. And there was a lot of that happening in February. BUT!! I totally made up for it this month because in March I read SIX books total. I was flying through them pages like I was starring in Fast & Furious! 😂

the maidens

The one book, other than our book club book, that I read in Feb was The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. I’d read his other book The Silent Patient while in Mexico a few years ago and I LOVED it so I knew I wanted to give this thriller a try. It’s about a therapist named Mariana who finds herself trying to solve a series of murders that have happened on her niece’s college campus. She goes to her niece partly to protect her and partly to get to the bottom of who the killer is… if you like thrillers, you will like this book although I will say that I didn’t enjoy it AS much as The Silent Patient. I think there are a few nods to The Silent Patient in this book, too… but honestly, it had been so long since I’d read it that the references sort of went over my head. Overall, I give the book ⭐️⭐️⭐️ and a half.

the boyfriend project

The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon was the only other book that I’d read in February and it was for our PPG book club. Okay, you know that I normally tell you to go listen to that month’s episode to hear my thoughts on the book club pick BUUUT since this post is late, I’ll just give this one to you as a freebie. This book was terrible. Both Jensine (my podcast cohost) and I did NOT like this book … the premise and all of it was fine, it just fell a little flat. It’s a romcom between a techie coder named Samiah and an undercover FBI agent named Daniel who meet at “work” – it’s work for Samiah but an undercover assignment for Daniel – and JUST ABSOLUTELY CANNOT HELP THEIR ANIMALISTIC ATTRACTION TO EACH OTHER. Hahaha ok no but seriously …. that’s sort of how this story was written. Samiah, after a series of terrible first dates, decides to swear off men for awhile. Daniel is undercover trying to figure out who in Samiah’s company is embezzling funds so he’s really not supposed to be dating any of the employees. BUT THEY JUST CAN’T HELP ITTTT AND END UP DATING. *eyeroll* And of course at some point Samiah finds out about Daniel’s secret identity and it becomes a big fight because she GASP JUST CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE A SPY FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND DIDN’T TEELLLL MEEEEEE. *another eyeroll* All the ingredients for a good story were honestly there but the execution fell flat unfortunately. ⭐️⭐️.

crying in hmart

After the slow reading month I had in February, I was more than ready to jump back into my bookish life in March and I started with Crying in HMart by Michelle Zauner. I cannot remember for the life of me how I’d heard of this book but I do know that the title stuck out to me because … duh, HMart. (For those who don’t know, HMart is a big Korean grocery market chain.) BUT. SOMEHOW. LOL. I missed that this book was not a novel but a memoir. And as much as I love to read, the one genre of books that I have a REALLY hard time enjoying is memoir. Unless you’re Michelle Obama or Corrie Ten Boom … I really don’t want to hear about your life 😬 (says the lifestyle blogger who only writes about her life………). Anyhow, this book was BEAUTIFULLY written, but totally lost on me. I DO NOT like memoirs. I finished this book because I’m not a quitter but I won’t lie, it was a struggle. The author basically wrote about her experience losing her Korean mom (her dad is white) to cancer and then her grieving process afterwards in trying to reclaim that part of her Korean heritage/identity without her mother to guide her. I did cry because I don’t have a heart of stone but I was glad to be done with the book. If you’re a fan of memoirs, though, you might enjoy this one! I’d give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ as far as memoirs go (but PERSONALLY it was a ⭐️ because I never want to read this type of book again 🙈).

gilded

Gilded was this month’s PPG book club pick and to hear my thoughts on this book, you WILL have to listen to our episode. If you’ve never listened to an episode of my podcast, give this month’s a try! We only spend a small portion of the time talking about our book club pick; we always start off every episode with a bit of girl chat/banter and end with a few AITA scenarios plucked from the depths of Reddit. It’s a good time all around 🙂 Anyway, back to the book. Gilded is a retelling of the Rumplestiltskin fairy tale. The author Marissa Meyer is known for doing classic fairy tale retellings and I LOVED her series The Lunar Chronicles, which had retellings of Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel.

finlay donovan knocks ’em dead

After our book club pick, I read the much anticipated sequel to Finlay Donovan is Killing It (which I REALLY liked). Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead still follows our main character Finlay, this time in her pursuit of writing a follow up sequel to the bestseller she wrote in book 1. The end of book 1 gave a cliffhanger of someone having put a hit out on Finlay’s ex-husband, who is scum and trashy but Finlay doesn’t want DEAD (for the sake of her kids). So in this book, she sets out with her nanny, Vero, to figure out who put out the hit and to thwart their efforts to wack off her kids’ dad. I will say… I didn’t like this book as much as I did the first. Here’s why: it was really obvious throughout this book that the author was really trying to set up for a third book. There were unresolved plot lines and loose threads that were sort of not addressed in this book and that ANNOYS the heck out of me. Overall, though, it was entertaining so…. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.

the soulmate equation

GUYS 🥺 You all know how much I love a Christina Lauren novel. I pretty much binge-read ALL their books (except their early stuff) when I discovered them a year or so ago so I don’t know WHY I avoided reading this one for so long!! I saw that they had put out The Soulmate Equation last year and I was sort of like eh….. hesitant. WHY?! WHY?! Why did I wait!? I LOVED THIS BOOK. It had all the best things about a Christina Lauren book – a hot male lead, a beautiful if unaware female main character … romance, humor, friendship. This book is about a single mom named Jess who loves numbers and math and has NO time for anything in her life except her daughter, Juno, her best friend, Fizzy, and her grandparents who raised her. In walks Dr. River Pena who is the lead scientist and CEO behind the hottest trend in online-dating – a company called GeneticAlly that pairs couples up based on DNA compatability. Of course Jess and River end up matching at almost 100% and even though Jess wants nothing to do with it, GeneticAlly makes her a financial offer ($$) she can’t refuse if she would just try dating River to see if something happens between the two of them. LALALALAALLALAL IT WAS SO GOOD YOU NEED TO READ IT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. (AND OMG, I just went to Amazon to get the link to the book for y’all and it’s on a $1.99 Kindle deal right now … RUN!!! BUY IT!!)

the southern book club’s guide to slaying vampires

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix was a book I’d NEVER heard of until a friend from church texted me and recommended it. She & I have traded book recs before so I took a leap of faith on this book and … okay, SHE loved it which is why she recommended it. I had a hard time warming up to it … it felt like a slow burn of a plot and it was also sort of WEIRD. This book is set in the 80s/90s (it skips a few years here and there) and is about a group of suburban housewives who have a book club. One of the moms discovers that there is (what she believes is) a vampire living in their neighborhood and this book is all about her doing what she thinks is necessary to protect her family and her community. I thought it would be sort of dark humor with a lot heart kind of story … it was actually really dark and twisty and sort of sensual and weird LOLOLOL. I don’t know what to make of it. It wasn’t … terrible? But I don’t know if I’d necessarily recommend it? I’d give it ⭐️⭐️ and a half to maayyyybe ⭐️⭐️⭐️.

confessions of a domestic failure

Confessions of a Domestic Failure by Bunmi Laditan was my last read this book and the perfect way to round out this month. If you’ve ever read the Shopaholic series, you’d love this book. It’s exactly like that except instead of a shopaholic main character, it’s a newly SAHM of an infant daughter who is the hot mess. There were parts of it that were super relatable and had you rooting for Ashley, the mom… but there were also a few parts that I sort of rolled my eyes at because they were just straight up annoying. I loved, for example, the sarcastic sense of humor that the author gave Ashley and her description of how LONELY motherhood can feel (especially for a first-time mom!) was spot-on. But, because Ashley doesn’t really know what she’s doing and she’s not “thriving” in her role (yet!), she does some silly things such as signing up for a gym membership and putting her infant into the gym daycare … then leaving the gym to go sit in her car for two hours to watch a few episodes of reality TV. That felt a touch stupid and unrealistic and I doubt any mother in real life would do that, no matter how badly they were struggling. But that’s just my opinion and there weren’t many moments like that in this story so overall, it didn’t take away from how much I loved it. I feel like there was an opening at the end of this book for there to be more in a series from this character and I SOOOO hope that there is more coming because I really did like this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️! (AND THIS ONE IS ALSO HAVING A $1.99 KINDLE DEAL!)