All the books we read in February 2021

A’s rating: B+

E’s rating: B

A’s rating: B+

E’s rating: A-

This was the book of the month on Bad on Paper, Grace Atwood and Becca Freeman’s book podcast! This book follows five women in South Korea who all live in the same apartment building as they navigate plastic surgery, love, work, family and children and powder dynamics between men and women in a society that values perfection. I really enjoyed this- it’s a well-written and smart book, and I found the topic of plastic surgery and beauty fascinating. This is the author’s first book, and I’m excited to follow her work. I can’t wait to listen to the podcast episode! 

I have a weakness for World War II era fiction, and in that genre, I feel like there can be a fine line between a great read and another “X professional’s wife” book (WHY are there so many books with this title formula in historical fiction??) I enjoyed the Book of Lost Names- it’s a really fast read, and I enjoyed learning more about the role French border towns played in smuggling Jewish children to safety in Switzerland, but if you are going to read a book set in this time period, I would recommend checking out The Nightingale, Sarah’s Key or All The Light We Cannot See first. 

I have actually never read anything by Ruth Ware, but have always heard good things about her dark and twisty thrillers. One by One follows the Agatha Christie And Then There Were None format; a bunch of people are stuck in a remote place and one by one, someone gets murdered. A tech start-up takes all of their staff on a luxury mountain retreat to an isolated ski chalet, and someone in their midst is not who they say they are. I read this in one day- great beach read! 

I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, so when I got it as my book of the month from my subscription with Cafe Con Libros, it was serendipity. The book is centered on two sisters who share a father, one in the Dominician Republic and one in New York City, who are not aware the other one exists. When their father dies in a plane crash, the two sisters are brought together. This is one of those YA books that can be read by any age group. The poetry-esque format was a little annoying at first, but I got used to it. It was also very interesting to learn about the devastation of the American Airlines Flight 587, which I hadn’t known about prior to reading the book. 

This was recommended by one of my friends, and I honestly decided to read it because I really liked the title and the book cover. But I ended up really, really loving this and have recommended it to countless friends since finishing it, which in my book, is a real sign of a book’s success. Dolly Alderton is a “internet person” based in London- she is the Sunday Times Style columnist, hosts a podcast with Pandora Sykes (I also LOVE her), and 287k followers on Instagram. This is her memoir, covering her life as a young adult and her adventures in love, work, self love and friendship. This book made me laugh and cry, and was just beautifully written. I found myself underlining things and marking pages I want to go back and reread. I genuinely think everyone should read this, and it is my favorite book I’ve read this year. Her first novel, Ghosts, is on my list to read next! 

This is actually the first Elizabeth Gilbert book I’ve ever read which is kind of wild. I’ve felt in a bit of a creative funk lately, and this is a fast, simple to read book that gives you a bit of a kick in the ass. Something I did have a bit of an epiphany in this book that I’m a bit of what Gilbert calls a “lazy perfectionist” which may or may not explain most of my core problems with writing and creativity. As far as self-help books go, I enjoyed this one. 

I listened to this on Audible during my runs in January and February. It’s pretty long, and, yes, it’s a psychology book, but this is one that is at once informative and will really make you change how you think. I actually saw this article in The New York Times about how the book has become required reading in front offices for Major League Baseball right after I finished, so even though this was published years, ago it’s still super relevant. This is kind of like Malcom Gladwell’s books, but actually written by a psychologist, and a lot more based on science, psychology, and statistics.

This book is like comfort food to me: it really has no nutritional value, but it’s so good. Kulti is about Sal, a female pro soccer player in the U.S. Her life gets thrown off balance when her team gets a new coach (the titular Kulti), one of the greatest German players of all time, and who she was also kind of obsessed with and inspired her to keep playing soccer as a kid. The writing isn’t great, but it’s not bad enough to be *too* distracting. This is a very, very slow burn, so if you’re into that sort of thing and just need something really mindless for a weekend, grab this book!

Hamnet is essentially a fictional origin story for Hamlet the play. It is mostly from the point of view of Shakespeare’s wife Agnes and his young children as the plague comes to England. This took me about the whole month to read. There’s not much plot, but the characterization and writing are beautiful. Agnes is a strong outcast female character very connected to nature in a very similar vein to Vasya in The Bear and the Nightingale and Kya in Where the Crawdads Sing. If you liked either of those books, I think you would also enjoy Hamnet. 

The reading experience for On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous actually was very similar to Luster. It took my multiple months to get through both, but I found the writing in both to be so rich and well done—both like prose poetry to me. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is the story of a Vietnamese immigrant growing up in Hartford, CT and his relationship with his mother, grandmother, and white American grandfather who was a soldier and met his grandmother in Vietnam. This is a thin book, but it packs an emotional punch. I also recommend Vuong’s actual poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds (which is such an amazing name for a poetry book).

I told myself I wasn’t that interested in this book, but of course I bought it on Kindle the day after it came out and read it in a day. I didn’t love this as much as the other books in the ACOTAR series; it’s a lot more romance and less plot than most of Sarah J Maas’s other books, but if you like an ansty enemies to lovers romance, look no further. This was a great mindless read for rainy Saturday in quarantine, and I have no regrets.