February 2020 Monthly Wrap-Up

At the beginning of February, I thought my slump was finally over. At some point, I think I even reached two books a week. And then, it came back with a vengeance and for the rest of the month, I read nothing at all. I felt rather like Murderbot – leave me alone and let me watch my show. But! I’m only one book away from finishing the r/fantasy Bingo, which should be more than doable in March.

Also, every one of the books I finished has been queer to some extent.

Read:

• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: Honestly, this should have been a DNF. I did not like it at all, and by 30% knew I was not going to, but I persisted because I felt sick of DNFing. Bad move. It’s very aesthetic-over-everything, I didn’t like the style, I was bored by the plot, and a good epilogue does not a good book make.
• Central Station by Lavie Tidhar: Beautiful sci-fi fever dream and perfect for me. Near impossible to describe, but most highly recommended.
• Proper English by K.J. Charles: Not SFF, but I wanted to try a romance as a palate cleanser, and this worked really well. I’ve wanted more f/f for a long time. In particular, I loved the dynamics between the two main characters – the serious, sensible Pat who thinks herself awfully plain, and the bubbly, beautiful Fen who only wants to be taken seriously.
• Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie (ARC): Space opera I picked up because it sounded very Star Wars inspired, but gay. And it was amazing, to the point I could barely keep reading and took much longer than I normally would have because it was too intense and I was too scared for the characters. Plot engineered for maximum internal conflict, twists, pew pew, it has it all. Review to come closer to release.
• The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz: Very sweet, asexual romance novella featuring a robot, an AI mechanic, and a tea shop. Won’t lie, it has been Bingo-motivated, as I needed to knock out the AI Character square quickly, but no regrets.

Watched:

• Clone Wars: As always, when I feel like shit, I go for Star Wars. I blazed through 58 episodes (in chronological order), which puts me at a bit less than halfway done if I don’t count the new season – and yes, you read that right, less. Season 1 was full of garbage and I almost quit two or three times, but persistence paid off – by mid-season 2 I have started to want to watch it and now, well into season 3, I can barely stop once I start. There are still garbage episodes sometimes, sure, since the nature of the show seems to be that it’s either great or completely shit with no in-between, but the character development, the lore, the steadily increasing overall quality…wow. Star Wars at its finest and it really does the prequel era justice the way movies did not.

Currently reading:

• Daughter from the Dark by Sergey & Maria Dyachenko (ARC): One of the ARCs from the pile I requested pre-slump. Also ran out of steam at about 20%, I think it’s a combination of not being sure what’s going on and the MC being an asshole (he’s meant to be an asshole, but it is hard to read).
• The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite: Another f/f historical romance I started after Proper English, but ran out of steam at about halfway. It’s very sweet, and very good, but apparently two historical romance books in a row and the stuffiness starts to get to me.

Books read this year: 9 (+ 0 rereads)
r/Fantasy Bingo Challenge progress: 24/25 (96%)