february 2025 reads
Another month and another reading log in the books. I think I read some pretty good books in February and didn't have to deal with starting a bunch of books that I just didn't want to finish either, so that was pretty great. I also revived my Netgalley account, so expect more book reviews over the next few months!
On the other hand, I noticed that keeping up with a lot of different short story collections and magazines at once is really draining. It's definitely something I'm going to have to keep in mind moving forward as I have more magazine issues coming in. Because of this, I think I'm not going to keep track of them specifically in my monthly reading log. For the time being it's a bit too much and I don't think I can give the issues the attention they deserve when I have so much else going on at the same time.
That may change again in the future, but for now let's get into my February reading log (minus the issue of Clarkesworld I read)!
Novels, Collections, & Nonfiction
Reign of the Talons by Sophie Kim
This is the finale in a (older) YA fantasy trilogy inspired by Korean folklore. I wrote a separate review about it, so check that out for more specifics. Suffice to say though, I thought this book was awesome and a great way to end the series.
Network Effect by Martha Wells
As with the first four novellas, I listened to the original audiobook for this novel. I had a lot of fun seeing how Murderbot grew and developed over the course of a longer work. At first I was worried that the pacing would feel weird after four novellas, but I was completely hooked the whole time and awkwardly laughing to myself on public transit while I was listening. Another solid entry and I'm stoked to read the next book.
Tsumi no Yohaku by You Ashizawa
After reading the author's short story collection last month, I just had to run out and get her debut novel. It was unsettling in all the ways I would hope such a novel is unsettling and even though some things were obvious, I still managed to be surprised. Very heavy though as it deals with death of a child, bullying, and suicide. I liked it enough that I went out and bought another one of the author's novels.
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
This series has been on my radar for a while since the related book Translation State came out. I finally got around to reading it so that I could attend a book club held a monthly in Tokyo and I'm so glad I did. I absolutely love what the author does with language and gender in this book. I immediately bought the next novel in the series. Can't wait to read it (hopefully in March).
Cannibals by Shinya Tanaka (tr. Kalau Almony)
I didn't really like this. I can see the merit in this kind of book existing, but I'm just not interested in reading about domestic violence and sex obsessed high school boys right now and the handling of the (important) themes was a little shallow for my taste. Glad this was less than 100 pages long.
Manga
Witch Hat Atelier Vol. 7 by Kamome Shirahama (tr. Stephen Kohler)
Another absolute winner of the volume. No notes. Due to the newer volumes not being available from the library I use though, it may be a while before I read the next volumes. Can't decide if I'm going to buy them in English or restart in Japanese.
Smoke Blue no Ame Nochi Hare Vol. 6 by Kamome Hamada
I'm still really enjoying this series. It's just so wonderful how the characters continue to grow and some of the aspects involving child-parent relationships in this volume were really relevant to my current situation.
Hon nara Uru hodo Vol. 1 by Ao Kojima
This is cozy secondhand bookstore manga. Each chapter follows a different person or group of people and revolves around their specific situations and a book, but they're all connected to the same secondhand bookstore and owner. No complaints. Will by the next volume when it comes out.
And that's it for February! I'm really glad that I got to read some manga in February. This is something that I didn't get the chance to do in January and felt a little sad about. I also bought a huge amount of manga while I was in Kyoto for a literary event, so now I have even more to read. I want to say that that means I'll definitely read more manga in March, but the reality is that I accidentally signed up for like eight separate review copies of novels on Netgalley that I should probably get to in a timely manner. So we'll see how it ends up going.
Updated 5Â months, 3Â weeks ago