Happy Leap Day! I think this is the first post I’ve ever done on a leap day so that’s fun. Anyhow it’s time for my February 2024 wrap up. And let me just say to be such a short month my reading was all over the place. I’ve had more dnfs than I think I’ve ever had in a month. But I’ve also found some new favorites so let’s get to it.
Rosemary’s Baby
Synopsis:
Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling-actor husband Guy are thrilled to move into the Bramford, a sought-after Manhattan apartment building prized for its Victorian details and gargoyled facade. Yet as they learn of a darker side to the building’s history—and become acquainted with their overly attentive neighbors, the Castevets—unspoken tensions enter into the young couples’ relationship. Matters improve when Guy lands a major role, and Rosemary at last becomes pregnant. But as her pregnancy takes frightening turns, Rosemary begins to question if her neighbors’ heightened interest is strictly innocent, or if their motivations—and those of Guy himself—portend terrifying consequences for her, and her unborn child. Is Rosemary “…going mad, or going sane”?
My Rating: 5/5
My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2024/02/16/rosemarys-baby-review/
The Stepford Wives
Synopsis:
For Joanna, her husband, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true. It is. For behind the town’s idyllic facade lies a terrible secret — a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same.
My Rating: 4/5
My Full Review: Coming Soon
You Are a Badass at Making Money
Synopsis:
You Are a Badass at Making Money will launch you past the fears and stumbling blocks that have kept financial success beyond your reach. Drawing on her own transformation—over just a few years—from a woman living in a converted garage with tumbleweeds blowing through her bank account to a woman who travels the world in style, Jen Sincero channels the inimitable sass and practicality that made You Are a Badass an indomitable bestseller. She combines hilarious personal essays with bite-size, aha concepts that unlock earning potential and get real results.
My Rating: 3/5
My Full Review: I work in finance, so I love financial books. This one just wasn’t quite what I expected. It was more about manifesting money than actually managing your money. But there was some decent advice in there too. I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it.
Bone White
Synopsis:
Paul Gallo sees the report on the news: a disheveled loner in the remote hamlet of Dread’s Hand, Alaska, calmly admits to the murder of eight hikers and agrees to lead authorities to his victims’ graves. It’s the same bit of unsettling wilderness where Paul’s twin brother, Danny, vanished a year ago.
Assuming that Danny’s remains will be among the exhumed bodies, Paul arrives to find Dread’s Hand far from welcoming. Locals talk of superstitions, legends, and a devil that steals souls. Wooden crosses, staked in the frozen ground, cordon off the woods to keep what’s in there from coming out. Most troubling, no one can explain exactly what happened to Danny.
As Paul searches for answers, the true horrors of Dread’s Hand close in around him. The most chilling mystery of all may be how to get out of there alive.
My Rating: 4/5
My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2024/02/26/bone-white/
Black Sheep
Synopsis:
Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly…something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.
My Rating: 5/5
My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2024/02/27/black-sheep-review/
10% Happier
Synopsis:
After having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, Dan Harris knew he had to make some changes. A lifelong nonbeliever, he found himself on a bizarre adventure involving a disgraced pastor, a mysterious self-help guru, and a gaggle of brain scientists. Eventually, Harris realized that the source of his problems was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset: the incessant, insatiable voice in his head, which had propelled him through the ranks of a hypercompetitive business but, he now recognized, had also led him to make the profoundly stupid decisions that provoked his on-air freak-out.
We all have a voice in our head. It’s what has us losing our temper unnecessarily, checking our email compulsively, eating when we’re not hungry, and fixating on the past and the future at the expense of the present. Most of us assume we’re stuck with this voice—that there’s nothing we can do to rein it in—but Harris stumbled upon an effective way to do just that. It’s a far cry from the miracle cures peddled by the self-help swamis he met; instead, it’s something he always assumed to be either impossible or useless: meditation. After learning about research that suggests meditation essentially rewires your brain, Harris took a deep dive into the underreported world of CEOs, scientists, and even marines who are now using it for increased calm, focus, and happiness.
My Rating: 4/5
My Full Review: I’m not 100% sure why I picked this up. But I’m glad I did. I’m a meditation skeptic but I do want to be more mindful. There was some pretty good advice in here and the writing was interesting, nonetheless.
Dream More
Synopsis:
Expanding on the popular commencement speech Dolly Parton gave at the University of Tennessee, Dream More is a deeper and richer exploration of the personal philosophy she has forged over the course of her astonishing career as a singer, songwriter, performer, and philanthropist.
Dolly elaborates on the four great hopes she wants us all to embrace: Dream more, Learn more, Care more, and Be more. She offers examples from her own life, from her childhood in the hills of eastern Tennessee to her life as the iconic performer she is today.
From one of the legends of our time, Dream More is an honest, funny, and uplifting anthem for all who want to take charge of their lives and forge a future on their own terms.
My Rating: 5/5
My Full Review: Dolly is just a gem. I love her insight and wit included all throughout this audiobook. It was a short read, but it has a big impact.
DNF
Vladimir
Synopsis:
A popular English professor whose charismatic husband at the same small liberal arts college is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extra-marital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both. And when our narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir—a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus—their tinder box world comes dangerously close to exploding.
Thoughts: For a book titled Vladimir it had very little to do with Vladimir. Granted, I dnfed it about halfway in. I enjoyed the writing at first but the longer I read it the less I enjoyed it. The analogies were odd, and the main character wasn’t particularly likable. It just wasn’t for me.
The Bell Jar
Synopsis:
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: young, brilliant, beautiful, and enormously talented, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that Esther’s neurosis becomes completely understandable and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such thorough exploration of the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche – and the profound collective loneliness that modern society has yet to find a solution for.
My Thoughts: I’m ashamed to say I dnfed such a classic, but it just didn’t work for me. The timeline felt disjointed. The flash forwards and backwards almost gave me whiplash and it kept me from being able to immerse myself in the story.
Starling House
Synopsis:
Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland—and disappeared.
Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house—and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling—go to rot. Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.
As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice: to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.
If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.
My Thoughts: I didn’t make it very far into this one before I realized that I didn’t connect with the main character. I liked the concept of the story, but I just lost interest pretty early on. I’m not sure if I will give it another try.
So that’s my February 2024 wrap up. What did you read this month?
Don’t forget to head over to my Pangobooks shop. I’ve got a lot of new books listed. And you can get $5.00 off your first order with code WILDWOODREADS. As always, thanks for supporting this blog.
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