I can’t believe February is already over! I know it’s the shortest month of the year and all, but this February very much flew by.

As usual, it’s time to wrap up all of my thoughts into one neat little post–which can be a very difficult thing, in case you were wondering.

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WHAT’S NEW?

birds

I had some really fun adventures this February! I was able to go to Kensington State Park to feed the birds with my roommate and my best friend, and while we were there, the Lord blessed us with some absolutely gorgeous snowfall.

I was also able to hold a woodpecker for the second time in my life. I swear, there is nothing quite like having a woodpecker perched in your hand… It’s one of the coolest feelings in the whole world! (I don’t believe we got a picture of the woodpecker, but it was SO COOL!)

(also please note the shoes. not the best choice for traversing icy terrain, but we didn’t fall! huzzah!)

24-hour-readathon

Also under the umbrella of adventures was my first ever 24-hour-readathon. A few friends and I rented out a treehouse in a local metropark and spent the whole day (and let’s be real, most of the night) reading books and watching movies and eating Chinese food. We also explored a new-to-me coffee shop in the area and I drank a really yummy smoothie. (yes, this is important. no, I don’t know why I’m obsessed with the smoothie. it had pineapple in it, I think…)

Can we just appreciate all of the plants in this coffee shop? Like how cute is that?

Unfortunately, I did not make wise choices with the books I decided to read during this trip. The one book I managed to read cover to cover was The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher, which–let’s be real–was NOT a good decision to read when you’re in the middle of a park, in a treehouse, with the bathroom a good minute or two walk from the house.

I’ll talk about The Twisted Ones in my reading recap for March, but just know: good choices were not made that night.

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WRITING

The writing hasn’t been much lately. In fact, I’d say it’s been less in February than it was even in January–and January’s Thoughts didn’t even get a dedicated section to writing! But writers are supposed to write. It’s the one stable thing we’re offered in this crazy line of work we love. And therefore, it has and will always be my obligation to write.

Even if what I write is really really bad and will never see the light of day ahahahahaha

Fortunately, I always have a wealth of projects to work on. February’s look no different than the projects I’ve been working on for the past few years, but we are making steady (albeit slow) progress on them:

The Curse Of The Goblin King

I used to call this book The Girl And The Goblin King, or even Project Goblin in ye olde Smudged Thoughts days. (gee, that feels like forever ago!) However the name has changed over the years, this book is still very precious to me. It is my little gremlin child, my Walmart Brand Tim Burton. It is spoopy and quirky and odd.

I love it so so much.

And it has come to my attention that I’ve never really shared much of my work on this blog. I used to do snippets on Smudged Thoughts (and who even knows what I was trying to do with Featherwick Press… pretty sure that was my awkward emo phase leaking out in website form), but since moving over here, the well of creativity has been a bit dry. To make up for it, I thought I’d tuck a snippet or two into these monthly posts–give a little sneak peak into the work that I’m doing. I’m hoping it keeps me accountable to actually working on my stories, and I hope it serves to scratch that itch which comes from wanting–but always fearing–to share our work.

Bartholomew Todd was a peculiar boy. Not in the standard way for young boys to be peculiar—some boys squatted in the mud and poked at worms with needly sticks, or smashed bees under their shoes, or pulled their hair and made strange faces in the mirror.

No, Bartholomew Todd was, instead, a quiet sort of peculiar. The kind of peculiar that caused second glances and narrowed eyes.

Todd arrived at Saint Florett’s in the hushed sort of way that could only mean a tragedy beyond words had occurred. Bundled against an icy October windstorm, the child had been brought to the doorstep of the orphanage and promptly abandoned into the care of Madam Toppitt, who took the boy, assessed him with the cold, cruel gaze of one who knows when she’s been given a hopeless cause, and deposited him into one of the empty cots in room 302.

Todd spent the rest of his first night at Saint Florett’s staring at the scattered web of cracks in the ceiling and wondering when his parents would return. He would continue to wonder this for the next few weeks, which eventually bled into months, until he was finally forced to accept the words Madam Toppitt told him that first night.

“Your parents are gone, Bartholomew. They will not be coming back.”
Todd did not like to think of his parents as gone. To him, that meant they were somewhere unreachable, somewhere beyond where he could go to find them. This, of course, was untrue, as he knew exactly where they were.

Sometimes, when he lay in bed at night and stared at his ceiling, he could imagine that he saw them up there, existing somewhere in the space between the cracks and the world beneath. That’s where they’d gone. Or rather, where he’d left them.

They weren’t “gone”. Not exactly. They were simply stuck there in the space where lost things go. Someday, when he was bigger, he would go there again and get them back.

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BOOKS OF FEBRUARY

I finished a grand total of 7 books in the month of February! Y’all, when I say this is shocking behavior for me, I really and truly mean it. I never thought I’d be able to read as much as I have been while in school and working full time, but here we are, just casually knocking out seven books in a single month… Technically the majority of The Twisted Ones was read in February, as well, since our Read-A-Thon took place on the 28th and into the 1st, but I’ll be fair and mark it as a March read.

If you’re interested in following/stalking me on Storygraph to see what I’m reading in real-time, you can find that link here! I can’t promise that you won’t be weirded out by my book choices, but I can promise that if you want to start a buddy read, I’ll probably be down for it!

*note that some of the books finished this month are not mentioned here

An Update On Americanah

In my previous post, I mentioned that I was giving Americanah a 3.5 rating because of the writing quality. Since finishing it (in February), I’ve dropped my rating to a 2.5. I would not recommend this book at all. I believe I mentioned that in my last post, but having finished it, I’m dead-set on steering as many people away from this book as I can due to its content and the message it is trying to convey.

THE CLINIC by Cate Quinn

This book was a wee bit of a disappointment, but I still enjoyed the ride! It captivated my attention to the point of flying through it within two days, but the ending left quite a bit to be desired. This was our book club pick for February, and while I was hesitant to start it, I can say with certainty that it was a decent enough story!

Would I recommend it? …ehhhhhhhh?

THE CALL OF CTHULHU & DAGON by H.P. Lovecraft

Both Call Of Cthulhu and Dagon received a 4.5 star from me! While both of these were short stories–and technically part of a longer anthology that I didn’t finish (it was his entire collection of works… can you blame me for not reading the whole thing cover to cover??), I decided to record these separately in my storygraph.

Hey. Short stories are still stories, right? XD

I’m still trying to decide if Lovecraft’s writing is for me. I genuinely appreciate the psychology behind his work, and there’s no debating that he is the creator of his own subgenre of horror; however, I found that the more I read of his work, the more predictable his storylines became. Maybe that’s true of every writer, but after Cthulhu, Dagon, and The Hound, I was pretty much set to return the book to the library. *shrug*

HORROR MOVIE by Paul Tremblay

I think I should have listened to the reviewers on this one. A lot of people said that this book was “for a very specific kind of person”, and that the ending was “weird and didn’t make much sens”. (Okay, I’m definitely paraphrasing on that last one.) Of course, when I read that, I decided that I was definitely in the minority group for who this book was for, and took off with high expectations for a niche, definitely understandable ending.

…

Once again I have proven to myself that I am not the exception to a proven rule.

Horror Movie had potential! In fact, I practically flew through the book while reading it. Unfortunately, the ending fell a bit flat for me, which made it just barely miss that 4 star mark. If you’re a fan of weird, kinda psychological horror that doesn’t really make much sense, you might enjoy this one! If you like your books to have a carefully resolved ending–or at least an ending that makes a little bit of sense–I might skip it…

DAUGHTER OF THE PIRATE KING by Tricia Levenseller

Look, this book has been not just on my TBR, but on my physical shelf for YEARS. It’s one of those books that you think you’re going to read, and then you don’t, and then you think you’re going to read, and then you don’t, and then you think you’re… okay, you get the picture.

All that to say, I finally bit the bullet, picked it up, and read it in a single day. We’re talking like a solid 5 hour chunk of just reading. I think there were some chips in there, too, but I can’t actually remember.

This book was the perfect “shut my brain off and enter a fictional world” kind of novel. If you’re a lover of fantasy and high seas–or if you’re looking for a fun adventure with a little side of romance thrown in–this one is definitely a winner.

Daughter Of The Pirate King was also my last read of February, and it rounded off my wild month of reading rather nicely! I’m definitely looking forward to reading the rest of the series this year. (Here’s hoping it doesn’t suffer from Trilogy Disease….)

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GOODBYE FEBRUARY

This post is already way bigger than I planned for it to be, so I think it’s best to end it here.

I feel like sometimes I’m just writing these messages out into the void. But then again, sometimes the void can be considered a friend. I’m learning a lot in school, but it’s taking up so much of my free time that finding time to blog hasn’t been very high on the priority list. But it is something I’m happy to continue doing, even if it’s one little bite-sized chunk at a time. I’m also looking forward to both the onset of Spring and the promise of Summer, though I truly am trying to enjoy Winter as it comes.

As I write this, it’s already begun to snow again… Seems like I can’t outrun it no matter how many flowers I wear.

Well, that’s all I have for today. As always, talk to me, peasants.…