Welcome to another monthly wrap-up here at Stardust and Words! With Leap Day behind us, we're moving onto March, which will cause me to hunker down in my apartment and not go out for fear of being absolutely attacked by springtime allergies. But hey! More time to read, right? February was a really productive month for me, in life and in reading. I managed 14 books and 7 reviews, with a lot of those being classics that I read for school and really enjoyed. I also had 14 posts on here, which is awesome for me :) Hope y'all had a great February!
1. November 9 – Colleen Hoover (4.5)
Beloved #1 New York
Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover returns with an unforgettable
love story between a writer and his unexpected muse.
Fallon meets
Ben, an aspiring novelist, the day before her scheduled cross-country
move. Their untimely attraction leads them to spend Fallon’s last day in
L.A. together, and her eventful life becomes the creative inspiration
Ben has always sought for his novel. Over time and amidst the various
relationships and tribulations of their own separate lives, they
continue to meet on the same date every year. Until one day Fallon
becomes unsure if Ben has been telling her the truth or fabricating a
perfect reality for the sake of the ultimate plot twist.
2. The Coquette – Hannah Webster Foster (3)
The Coquette tells the much-publicized story of the seduction and death of Elizabeth Whitman, a poet from Hartford, Connecticut.
Written
as a series of letters--between the heroine and her friends and
lovers--it describes her long, tortuous courtship by two men, neither of
whom perfectly suits her. Eliza Wharton (as Whitman is called in the
novel) wavers between Major Sanford, a charming but insincere man, and
the Reverend Boyer, a bore who wants to marry her. When, in her mid-30s,
Wharton finds herself suddenly abandoned when both men marry other
women, she willfully enters into an adulterous relationship with Sanford
and becomes pregnant. Alone and dejected, she dies in childbirth at a
roadside inn. Eliza Wharton, whose real-life counterpart was distantly
related to Hannah Foster's husband, was one of the first women in
American fiction to emerge as a real person facing a dilemma in her
life. In her Introduction, Davidson discusses the parallels between
Elizabeth Whitman and the fictional Eliza Wharton. She shows the
limitations placed on women in the 18th century and the attempts of one
woman to rebel against those limitations.
3. Me Before You – JoJo Moyes (5)
Lou Clark knows lots of
things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and
home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she
knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.
What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.
Will
Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He
knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows
exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.
What Will doesn't
know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour.
And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time
4. City of Bones (TMI #1) Cassandra Clare (5)*
When fifteen-year-old
Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she
hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by
three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre
weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the
police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there
is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was
he a boy?
This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters,
warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first
encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and
acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into
Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary
herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in
ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly
get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...
Exotic
and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare's
ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they
will never want to end.
5. Reign of Shadows – Sophie Jordan (4) (link to GR review)
Seventeen years ago, an
eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the
chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their
throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever
since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead.
But
that doesn’t stop Luna from wanting more. When she meets Fowler, a
mysterious archer braving the woods outside her tower, Luna is drawn to
him despite the risk. When the tower is attacked, Luna and Fowler escape
together. But this world of darkness is more treacherous than Luna ever
realized.
With every threat stacked against them, Luna and
Fowler find solace in each other. But with secrets still unspoken
between them, falling in love might be their most dangerous journey yet.
With lush writing and a star–crossed romance, Reign of Shadows is Sophie Jordan at her best.
6. City of Ashes (TMI #2) – Cassandra Clare (5)*
Clary Fray just wishes
that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a
demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma,
and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and
faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would
mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a
friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go —
especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And
Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue
Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and
also her father.
To complicate matters, someone in New York City
is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings —
and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal
Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor
arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop
Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help
their father?
In this breathtaking sequel to City of Bones,
Cassandra Clare lures her readers back into the dark grip of New York
City's Downworld, where love is never safe and power becomes the
deadliest temptation.
7. Captive Prince (Captive Prince #1) – C.S. Pacat (4.5)
"This was Vere, voluptuous and decadent, country of honeyed poison"
Damen
is a warrior hero to his people, and the truthful heir to the throne of
Akielos, but when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured,
stripped of his identity and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation
as a pleasure slave.
Beautiful, manipulative and deadly, his new
master Prince Laurent epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in
the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems,
and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he
must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.
For
Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity.
Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to
hate him than anyone else...
8. Prince's Gambit (Captive Prince #2) – C.S. Pacat (5)
The second novel
in the critically acclaimed trilogy from global phenomenon C. S.
Pacat—with an all-new chapter exclusive to the print edition.
With
their countries on the brink of war, Damen and his new master, Prince
Laurent, must exchange the intrigues of the palace for the sweeping
might of the battlefield as they travel to the border to avert a lethal
plot.
Forced to hide his identity, Damen finds himself
increasingly drawn to the dangerous, charismatic Laurent. But as the
fledgling trust between the two men deepens, the truth of secrets from
both their pasts is poised to deal them the crowning death blow…
Includes a bonus chapter (print edition only)!
9. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – Harriet Jacobs (4)
The true story of an individual's struggle for self-identity, self-preservation, and freedom, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
remains among the few extant slave narratives written by a woman. This
autobiographical account chronicles the remarkable odyssey of Harriet
Jacobs (1813–1897) whose dauntless spirit and faith carried her from a
life of servitude and degradation in North Carolina to liberty and
reunion with her children in the North.
Written and published in 1861
after Jacobs' harrowing escape from a vile and predatory master, the
memoir delivers a powerful and unflinching portrayal of the abuses and
hypocrisy of the master-slave relationship. Jacobs writes frankly of the
horrors she suffered as a slave, her eventual escape after several
unsuccessful attempts, and her seven years in self-imposed exile, hiding
in a coffin-like "garret" attached to her grandmother's porch.
A
rare firsthand account of a courageous woman's determination and
endurance, this inspirational story also represents a valuable
historical record of the continuing battle for freedom and the
preservation of family.
10. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston (4)
When Janie, at sixteen,
is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly
marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two
stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not
diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds ...
'For me, THEIR EYES
WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the
20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so
passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous,
convincing and dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it
is impressive. There is no novel I love more.' Zadie Smith
11. Kings Rising (Captive Prince #3) – C.S. Pacat (5+)
Damianos of Akielos has returned.
His identity now revealed, Damen must face his master Prince Laurent as Damianos of Akielos, the man Laurent has sworn to kill.
On
the brink of a momentous battle, the future of both their countries
hangs in the balance. In the south, Kastor's forces are massing. In the
north, the Regent's armies are mobilising for war. Damen's only hope of
reclaiming his throne is to fight together with Laurent against their
usurpers.
Forced into an uneasy alliance the two princes journey
deep into Akielos, where they face their most dangerous opposition yet.
But even if the fragile trust they have built survives the revelation of
Damen's identity - can it stand against the Regent's final, deadly play
for the throne?
12. Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner – (2.5)
“I believe that man
will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he
alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a
soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
—William Faulkner, on receiving the Nobel Prize
Go Down, Moses
is composed of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in
Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives,
Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and
whites, between man and nature, weaving a cohesive novel rich in
implication and insight.
13. City of Glass (TMI #3) – Cassandra Clare (5)*
To save her mother's
life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the
Shadowhunters - never mind that entering the city without permission is
against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things
worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been
thrown in prison by the Shadowhunters, who are deeply suspicious of a
vampire who can withstand sunlight.
As Clary uncovers more about
her family's past, she finds an ally in mysterious Shadowhunter
Sebastian. With Valentine mustering the full force of his power to
destroy all Shadowhunters forever, their only chance to defeat him is to
fight alongside their eternal enemies. But can Downworlders and
Shadowhunters put aside their hatred to work together? While Jace
realizes exactly how much he's willing to risk for Clary, can she
harness her newfound powers to help save the Glass City - whatever the
cost?
Love is a mortal sin and the secrets of the past prove
deadly as Clary and Jace face down Valentine in the third installment of
the New York Times bestselling series The Mortal Instruments.
14. Learning to Swim – Annie Cosby (3)
"... a darkly romantic beginning to what promises to be an unusual contemporary YA fantasy series."
- Serena Chase, USA Today
When
Cora’s mother whisks the family away for the summer, Cora must decide
between forging her future in the glimmering world of second homes where
her parents belong, or getting lost in the bewitching world of the
locals and the mystery surrounding a lonely old woman who claims to be a
selkie creature—and who probably needs Cora more than anyone else.
Through
the fantastical tales and anguished stories of the batty Mrs. O’Leary,
as well as the company of a particularly gorgeous local boy called
Ronan, Cora finds an escape from the reality of planning her life after
high school. But will it come at the cost of alienating Cora’s mother,
who struggles with her own tragic memories?
As the summer wanes, it becomes apparent that Ronan just may hold the answer to Mrs. O’Leary’s tragic past—and Cora’s future.
What did you guys read and love in February?
xx
Sunny
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