January Wrap-Up & February Reading Plans

I don’t know about you but January felt like it was a million year-long. Work was hell. I have several projects all at once and a few of my coworkers have been pushing my limits. So, I can’t say I had a great start to the year. Thankfully February is proving to be much better already.

I haven’t been in a right mental space to do much of anything in January except watching reality TV but hey, sometimes, one needs to turn off one’s brain. I still managed to read a few books including a new favorite, so there’s that.

Books Read

Mayri and I finished buddy-reading The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts (and I am very behind on our discussion, I need to get back to our Google Doc asap before forgetting everything I wanted to discuss about). As always with Roberts, the work is very original and interesting with a lot of British humor. I can’t say The Thing Itself was my favorite work of his but I enjoyed it nonetheless. ★★★☆

I also read Interzone issue 287 after taking a longish break from short fiction in the second half of 2022. Most of the stories were pretty average except Those We Serve by Eugenia Triantafyllou that I really, really liked. It was a beautiful story about a robot who has to pretend to be human. The writing was lovely and I liked how it discussed how machines with consciousness can be as human as the humans they are replacing. The story was perfect but the rest of the issue was average. ★★★

Sensible by Nedjma Kacimi was by far the highlight of the month and I would be surprised if it’s not one of my favorite reads of 2023. It’s a book by a French author (sadly, it’s not translated to English) that was recommended to me by a librarian in Bordeaux and oh my, it was fantastic. It’s a blend of memoir and non-fiction about the Algerian War and how growing up in France when you don’t “look” French can be difficult. This book felt very personal to me as my grandparents from my mother’s side emigrated from Algeria to France after the war. I have never cried so much while reading and I want everyone in my family to read this book. ★★★★★

TV Shows

I won’t mention the terrific amount of reality TV I watched last month but I finished Lovers of the Red Sky, a historical k-drama (sageuk). I started it because I am a fan of the main actors but sadly, I was very disappointed by the drama. The production, the OST and the acting were great but the story was all over the place. The beginning was rushed and nothing happened in some episodes. A lot of parts were very repetitive and frustrating and the ending was deeply disappointing. I don’t want to spoil it but it was open-ended in an extremely lazy way. I only finished it because I had invested to much of my time already when I realized it was simply not good. ★★

I am currently watching Hometown Cha Cha Cha and it’s nothing like Lovers of the Red Sky because it’s amazing. I have four episodes left but I’m adoring it and I wish I had watched it sooner!

Currently Reading & February Reading Plans

As I mentioned, January was not a great month so, maybe the decision to read Dune by Frank Herbert, a book I dropped twice already, wasn’t a great move. It appears Dune is not a book for me, I can appreciate it for the influence it had (and still has) on speculative fiction but something about it is not working for me. However, I can be very stubborn and I’m determined to finish it in February. I’m 56% into it (I’ve never managed to go this far!!) so it should be doable. Hopefully.

Since Dune is long and dense, the other books that I want to read are short and/or fun to prevent a major reading slump. Here are the books on my TBR for February:

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I still have yet to post my end-of-the-year posts but I’m still planning on posting my reading goals for the year, my list of books to read in 2023 and my favorites of 2022 in February now that I have a bit more brain power!

How was your start to the year?