Because I forgot to mention it last month – I’ve made the switch from Goodreads to StoryGraph. Feel free to find me (I’m Karissareadsbooks) there if you also are a user.
Read:
The Dearly Beloved – Cara Wall (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2019)
Abigail – Magda Szabo (translated from Hungarian by Len Rix) (New York Review of Books, 2020)
The Rattle Bag – edited by Seamus Heaney & Ted Hughes (Faber & Faber, 1982)
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory – Tim Alberta (Harper Collins Audio, 2023)
Tonguless – Lau Yee-Wa (translated from Chinese by Jennifer Feeley (The Feminist Press, 2024)
Anne of the Island – L.M. Montgomery (Apple Classics, 1992)
Hard Copy – Fien Veldman (translated from Dutch by Hester Velmans) (Head Zeus, 2024)
Did Not Finish:
Big Swiss – Jen Beagin
This was too much of a “messy woman” book for me. I read about the first third then asked a friend who had previously read it if it continued in the same vein. When she said it did, I decided to drop it.
Mr. Flood’s Last Resort – Jess Kidd
I’ve liked other books by Kidd but this one didn’t grab me for whatever reason. It felt a little too over-the-top.
Currently Reading:
The Collected Stories – William Trevor
Anxious Generation – Jonathan Haidt
Lady MacBeth – Ava Reid
2025 Reading Goals:
Pages Read: 4, 581 (1, 324 in February)
Hours Listened: 76 hours, 33 minutes (29 hours, 15 minutes in February)
Goliaths Conquered: 4 (The Rattle Bag and The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory in February)
Translated Works: 4 (Abigail from Hungarian, Tongueless from Chinese, and Hard Copy from Dutch)
Pre-2024 TBR: 7 (Dearly Beloved and Abigail, both from 2019)
Current TBR: 203 (previously 204)
Thoughts:
It initially felt like February was not a great reading month for me but by the 28th I saw that although I hadn’t hit as many as January (when I finished 15 books), I did complete 7 books. Which is certainly nothing to sneeze at. In addition to that, I read 3 works translated from other languages and added to my tally of crossing books off my TBR. Plus 2 of the books are large enough to count toward my Goliath challenge. (Rattle Bag technically came in at 498 pages but I’ve still decided to count it.)
All of this meant that there was a lot of diversity in my reading in February. I read about a young girl at boarding school during World War II, 2 Presbyterian ministers, teachers at a school in Hong Kong, Christian nationalism in the USA, and an office worker who becomes obsessed with a printer. Plus I read a lot of poems.
What’s Next:
I’ve started in on a new book of poetry and I have a stack of books on my bedside table. I’m balancing a non-fiction read (Anxious Generation) with Trevor’s short stories. I also have a few library books on hand that I need to read and some new releases I’m excited about. Just last week I got my hands on a copy of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new book and I’m looking forward to reading that. I found a gorgeous secondhand copy of Susanna Clarke’s short stories and I’m thinking about re-reading The Old Man and the Sea. For bedtime read-aloud, we’ve just begun Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with our girls.
What was your best book you read in February? What’s the weirdest book you’ve read so far in 2025?
Karissa Reads Books 
Looks like a good month! Are the girls enjoying the Anne books? She’s still my role model after all these years…
February is when I started the Lucy Kincaid books, so any of those would be my favorite. Looking at The StoryGraph, I can see how the series really amped up my reading, so I’m grateful. The wildest book I read was called Let’s Go Play at the Adams’, which is so bleak and dark that I didn’t even review it on Grab the Lapels. It’s not a book I would really recommend to anyone. I read the Wikipedia page about the girl the novel was based on, and that was even more bleak, violent, and outrageous.
It’s nice that you’ve found a series you’re enjoying, especially in the middle of your busy life right now. It’s fun to just sink into another world like that!
Absolutely, and I’m glad they’re not repetitive.