Last Month in Review: February 2014

I finished reading this book on March 1, but I read most
of it in February, so it goes here but doesn't get counted

Holy moly, I can't remember a month in my adult life when I've read fewer books than I read in February 2014.  Possibly not even in my youth, though I wasn't doing anything crazy like keeping track of the books I read each month back then. Most of that is because I had to read 50-100 pages of more than 15 books for work, so I read a *ton* of pages but finished very few of the books I started because once I read enough in one book to evaluate its literary content and suitability for my store's First Editions Club (FEC), it was time to move on to the next book. The good news is that most of the books I picked up to read were quite good.  The bad news is that I'll probably never go back now to finish them. C'est la vie.

So, let me share with you my whopping FIVE books that I've completed in February.  Bear in mind that one was an audio book and two were pieces of novel-length fan fiction. In other words, not a lot of books.

1. The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham.  This is one that I read for work and ended up finishing.  I loved the first 50 pages and thought they were quite wonderful, but then I settled into the meat of the book and found it to be okay. The thing is, though, with former Pulitzer prize winning authors, I pretty much have to read the whole book before eliminating it as a selection for our store's FEC, which is why I finished it. Do I recommend it?  Well, I definitely recommend the first 50 pages. You can probably stop reading after that point, though.

Image found here

2 & 3. Roman Holiday and Jewel of the Nile by Anna. Incidentally, I also read the third-but-incomplete installment of this trilogy, but fair is fair, so it doesn't count towards my reading goals this month. I've mentioned it before, but these pieces of Harry Potter fanfiction are quite peerless. They star Hermione (who, let's face it, deserves her own series) and her friends and various paramours. They're brilliantly plotted, extremely well written, and though there aren't many sex scenes, what IS there is pretty fabulous. If you love the Harry Potter books, and if you think Hermione is one of the best characters created in 20th/21st century literature, please consider reading Anna's work. She's one of the best fanfic writers out there (and there are millions): http://www.witchfics.org/anna/

4. Remember Me Like This by Bret Anthony Johnston. This rather haunting novel is the story of a family whose son has been missing for four years. The mother, father, and remaining son are alive, but hardly what you'd call living, when the police call them to say that they think they've found Justin. What ensues is a heartfelt look at a family reunited against all hope, the psychological fallout for each family member, and what this worst and best thing means to their small Texas community. The real kicker though? For the four years that Justin was missing, he was living just across the bay with his abductor the entire time, and that might be the one thing that nobody in the family will ever be able to get over. This book is well written, with good pacing, and I liked it very much, despite constantly wanting more from the shifting perspective of the third-person narrator. This book won't be published until May 2014.

5. The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner.  I listened to this book on audio, and while Christina Traister was a perfectly capable reader, she was not able to redeem the utter pointlessness of the story. If you're at all interested in reading my rants about the self-entitled, self-obsessed, and self-congratulatory artists and the misogynistic anarchists living in 1970s New York City, by all means, pleas check out my full review here.