Everything I Read in February, 2025

February:

16. Fobbit by David Abrams - My first read from the list of books I've been meaning to read for years and not gotten around to, Fobbit is a satire about life on a Forward Operating Base in Iraq. My friend Kookie Michelle said it best: Reminds me of M*A*S*H if every character was like Frank Burns. Pretty much. The main character is stationed in the Public Affairs Office inside Saddam Hussein's former palace, where he writes dispatches about injuries and deaths for the press, which are then whittled down and white-washed by his commanding officers. Bombings, paperwork, sand in everything, heat, and bureaucracy are part of the daily slog. Trigger warning: I would not recommend this book to anyone who has lost someone in a bombing as there's a good bit of gallows humor and some gory descriptions of bombing aftermaths. Otherwise, highly recommended. I enjoyed Fobbit and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. 

17. Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff - The third and last of the middle grade books I bought after reading about a teacher who was suspended for having the books in her classroom, Too Bright to See is about Bug, whose uncle has died. Living in an already-haunted house and unsure about going into middle grade and how she feels, Bug also realizes that the haunting of her house has changed. Why are things different? Is one of the spirits trying to tell her something? While she questions how she feels about herself, she also tries to unravel what's happening around her. A little slow but a book that tackles some heavy subject matter: grief, life and death, and what it means to be yourself. Yep, lots of LGBTQ content but nothing offensive. I am certain that this book is and has been helpful to many youngsters and I certainly found it helped explain a difficult subject. 

18. Vintage Hughes by Langston Hughes - A collection of Langston Hughes' poetry along with a handful of his short stories, Vintage Hughes is . . . shall we say, impressive? I'm pretty sure I've read some random poems by Hughes, over the years ("Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" is a set of words that rings a bell) but never a collection and I didn't even know he was such a prolific writer beyond the world of poetry. I found his poetry thought-provoking, moving, horrifying (poems about lynchings), poignant, sometimes almost musical, and at times humorous. His short stories were similar in that they describe the Black experience, which was harsh to say the least, but with great respect for his characters. Somewhere out there is a collection of every poem he wrote and I'd like to read it one day. A perfect read for Black History Month. 

19. Dataclysm by Christian Rudder - Dataclysm was published about a decade ago and it's about data compiled from the OKCupid dating site and what it tells us. It's a fascinating book as looking at large chunks of data that people typed about themselves in the privacy of their homes can be pretty revealing. For example, one of the bits of information that intrigued me the most (but didn't actually surprise me) is that males of all ages prefer women in their 20s – it doesn't matter how old the male is in this equation. Women, on the other hand, prefer that the men they date are close to their age. There's a lot of other interesting information and I'm glad I read the book but it was written well before Twitter's demise and functional AI, both of which have thrown us into a different era. The data would likely be much the same, today, but the collection for nefarious purposes without anyone's permission has gone wild. I read Dataclysm for group discussion. 

20. Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg - A children's picture book about the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, Queen of the Falls tells the story of Annie. Annie is 62, widowed, and her charm school is no longer making money so she needs to find a new income stream. She comes up with the idea to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, hoping that she will become famous and make plenty of money from publicity. She has a very strong barrel built to fit her with room for pillows and a way to strap herself in. Annie goes over the falls, surviving with nothing but bruises. But, because she looks like a grandmother rather than a young daredevil, she has no real luck with the publicity and eventually ends up sitting at a table by the falls, selling postcards of herself with the barrel. I knew some of this story because I've been to Niagara Falls but it was interesting to read the details and I love Chris Van Allsburg's art, as well. He's mostly known for his children's fantasy books like Jumanji. 

21. Key Lime Sky by Al Hess - A combination queer romance/sci-fi, Key Lime Sky tells the story of a nonbinary, autistic pie reviewer who sees what he thinks is the explosion of an alien ship as he returns to town from a diner where he tasted and reviewed a particularly watery pie. When he asks around and finds that not only did nobody else see the explosion but they're also acting very strangely, he begins to investigate. When Denver meets Ezra, they investigate together. As things go from bad to worse (alien invasion-wise), romance between Denver and Ezra flourishes and flounders with some spicy M/M scenes. Will Denver and Ezra be able to find the alien causing the town of Muddy Gap to fall apart and its residents to disappear before it's too late? I found the alien storyline fascinating, compelling, and fast-paced but the romance scenes bored me so I started skimming them. I am not into spice regardless of gender or genre. I just preferred the sci-fi storyline. I did love what Denver discovered about friendship in the end and that he was not quite as much of a pariah as he suspected.

22. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume - I've wanted to read this middle grade classic since the Judy Blume documentary. I've read plenty of her books but even though Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret was written when I was a small child, it was not one I ever read as a youngster and it is not anywhere close to my own experience. Still, it was interesting reading about Margaret, her group of friends, and their concerns. My favorite part was Margaret's exploration of religion for a class report. 

23. Tory Heaven by Marghanita Laski - My Persephone read of the month, Tory Heaven is about a group of 5 people who escaped Singapore during WWII and then became stranded on an island. 5 years later, they're finally rescued and return to England. But, things have changed. The Tories are in power and now everyone is divided by class. James is an A class, the highest and most desirable, who are given bags of money for which they're not required to work. But, they're not allowed to mix with other classes for fear of being downgraded to a lower class. James is completely oblivious to the discomfort of other A class people, including his parents. He likes having everything handed to him on a platter and thinks it's perfectly fine that some of his friends have ended up in abject poverty. But, just when James thinks things are going swimmingly, everything changes again. A fascinating read as this is what a particular class wants right now in the US, to claim all the wealth and rule over everyone else. A very entertaining read with an excellent ending. 

24. Severance by Ling Ma - Candace Chen has been living in New York City for about 6 years when the fever hits. Now, she's traveling to a location in the Chicago area with a group of survivors who "stalk" the homes of the fevered to obtain necessary supplies and then camp out at night. The storyline in Severance goes back and forth in time so you get to know Candace's past as an immigrant from China, her move to New York and how she fell into her job in publishing production, and what happened as the fever spread around the world. As much an immigration story and the tale of how she became a loner who just kept going while the world crumbled around her as a pandemic story, I found this story gripping but ultimately unsatisfying, in the end. And, yet, because it was so hard to put the book down, I gave it an above average rating and I would definitely read more by Ling Ma. Side note: Severance was published before the Covid pandemic and was at times oddly prescient as some elements like masking, trying to hyper-clean to clear away the pathogen (a fungus), Congress shutting down travel from China, etc. were quite accurate to what happened during our real-life pandemic. 

25. Cat + Gamer, Volume 6 by Wataru Nadatani - Very little happens in this particular volume of Cat + Gamer. Soboro and Musubi fight after Soboro gets a bath and Musubi doesn't recognize his little sister's scent. Musubi keeps wanting to go through a door and then come immediately back inside. Riko decides the cats need a bed so they're not always on her lap or hanging out on her gaming table but the cats visualize the point of each cat bed in a different way from their person. It's all very everyday. But, again, I absolutely love this Manga series because of the cat art and the sweetness. I love it when Riko is baffled by her cats but takes the time to figure out what she needs to know about cat behavior. It's all just lovely. This is the last of the e-books available via Hoopla, at the moment, but it appears that there are two more in Japanese so now we wait for the English translations. 

26. Taste by Stanley Tucci - I watched and enjoyed Stanley Tucci's television show about food in Italy and absolutely everyone seemed to be reading Taste around that time. So I put it on my wish list and bought it when I had the chance but then set it aside for a year or two. Finally, I got around to this delightful memoir of Tucci's life and his love of food. If you're one of the few people who still haven't read it, I can tell you that his story is charming, self-deprecating, and even contains a handful of recipes. You don't have to be a foodie to enjoy it. I'm always left a wee bit envious of books written by someone from an Italian family as their family gatherings always sound so fun and the food so fabulous. A really enjoyable read and one I'm going to try to push on my husband, who does the cooking around here. 

27. The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker - At 135 pages, you'd think when you picked up The Mezzanine that you're about to read something light and quick. Instead, when you open it you'll find that it's a dense, stream of consciousness novel in which the narrator ponders the minutiae of his life — shoestrings, escalators, milk bottles versus cartons, vending machines . . . all on a typical workday during which a shoestring has broken. And, the 135 pages are crammed with words, partly because the regular text is supplanted by a number of large footnotes in tiny print—one of which made me laugh out loud when I realized that it continued for 3 or 4 pages. It took me a bit to understand exactly what this book was about: nothing and everything, how time changes things, the discomfort of certain social interactions at work. It's a bit stunning that something so plotless can be so mesmerizing. Brilliant, hilarious, unique, and ridiculous. Definitely a little gem of a book. 

28. A Winter Book by Tove Jansson - After reading Jansson's The Summer Book of interconnected stories, along with a couple of the Moomin books, I got a copy of A Winter Book expecting more of the same. A Winter Book is described as "30 years of her stories, finally translated and gathered together" and the introduction by Ali Smith is glowing about her "adult stories". So, I was surprised to find that the earliest stories in the collection were written from a child's perspective. I expected a more mature viewpoint. Still, some were very interesting, particularly "The Iceberg," which is so surprising that I think it's best to say nothing at all about it. If you can only pick up the book to read one story, that would be the one I'd suggest. As it turned out, the stories did have a more grown-up sound the farther you read and the ending was particularly fitting, the story of Tove (maybe fictionalized) and her partner leaving their island home because they've become too old to handle island life. Not my favorite but maybe worth keeping. 

I had one DNF, this month: Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, a graphic novel. I found it too bleak. If I'd held out, maybe it would have eventually improved but I disliked it enough to feel like continuing would be a waste of time. Having said that, it has pretty good ratings so maybe I just wasn't the right audience. 

So, not a terrible month, not a brilliant one but I liked or loved everything I finished. Fobbit, Vintage Hughes, Taste, Tory Heaven, and The Mezzanine were the stand-outs and while I didn't care for the ending of Severance, I've continued to think about it a lot so I consider it one of my favorites of the month. I was thrilled to finally get a chance to read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, a book I found at the dollar store. Which brings me to the fact that I added Dollar Tree books as an exception to my book-buying ban, figuring I'm just going to turn around and donate them anyway, so they won't add to my "too many books" burden for long. 

As to the rest, I had very minor issues with Too Bright to See but still enjoyed it. Dataclysm was fascinating and I'm looking forward to discussion, Queen of the Falls nicely filled in some blanks about a story with which I was familiar and I love Van Allsburg's art. Cat + Gamer will always be a favorite manga for its art, if not always the stories. Key Lime Sky was gripping when it focused on the alien invasion and I loved the uniqueness of the world building. And, I was impressed by at least the latter half of A Winter Book although some of it wasn't quite what I expected. 

Checking in on my reading goals, Fobbit was one of my goal books for the year so I'm pleased that I finally read it. As mentioned, I've made some tiny adjustments to the book-buying ban but I still plan to keep any exceptions to a minimum. 6 books read were from the targeted bedroom stacks that I hope to read completely by the end of the year, so not bad but I need to work harder at reading down those stacks. I did read one e-book from my collection and one Hoopla e-book. And, I managed to read my one Persephone book for the month.  

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my month but I feel like I need to read harder in March. We did have guests (eldest son and family visited from New Jersey!) so there were a few days that we were so busy deep cleaning and then busy hanging out with family that I didn't get around to reading much when I finally fell into bed. Humorously, we worked particularly hard at cleaning cat fur/dander because our daughter-in-law is allergic to cats but the weather was so blissfully perfect that we spent most of their visit outdoors on the patio and even ate several meals there. 

Onward to March! Happy Reading!

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