**February Wrap-Up: A Month of Mystery and Satire**

As I sit down to write this month's wrap-up, I must say that I'm feeling quite proud of myself for having read six books in February. With two young kids, I often find it challenging to balance reading with other responsibilities, but I think this month was a success. I'd love to know if you've read any of these books and what you thought of them - please let me know in the comments below!

My first book of the month was "Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun" by Elle Cosimano. This mystery thriller is about Finlay, a character who has a knack for getting out of sticky situations. She's often faced with difficult choices and must use her wits to overcome them. With her team of assistants, Finlay navigates the world of publishing and tries to solve a murder mystery that unfolds during her book tour. One thing I loved about this book was its satire approach to the mystery genre - it's light-hearted and fun, making it an enjoyable read.

Another book that caught my attention was "Dial A For Auntie" by Qian Xuemei CQ Santana. This story revolves around Maddie, a young woman who has four aunts and a mom. Her life is pretty predictable, with men constantly leaving and her aunts being the pillars of support she needs. However, when Maddie's date turns out to be not what he seemed, things take a turn for the worse. The aunties must band together to help cover up the situation without getting caught - it's a wild ride! I have to admit that I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, and I'm excited to hear that there's a sequel coming out next month.

My third book of the month was "Favorite Book of the Month" by Kate Tucker. This is the second installment in Tucker's "The Wild Series", set in Alaska. The first two books followed Calla, who fell in love with pilot Jonah, and this latest book introduces a new character, Marie, who was our antagonist in the previous two books. Marie has a complex backstory that slowly unfolds as she tries to figure out her feelings on love. With the backdrop of sled dog musher races, Tucker weaves a compelling narrative that explores themes of family, love, and identity.

**Overall Impression**

What I loved about all these books is their ability to entertain while also exploring deeper themes. Whether it's the satire in "Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun" or the heartwarming journey of Marie in "Favorite Book of the Month", each book has its own unique charm that makes it a joy to read. So, if you're looking for books that will make you laugh and smile, look no further! I gave all three books a solid 4 out of 5 stars, and I highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys mystery, satire, or just great storytelling.

**Reading Stats**

For February, I aimed to read at least six books. With these four books under my belt, that's almost half of my target! Not bad for someone with two young kids, if you ask me. While it's not a full month of reading, I'm still proud of myself for making progress and enjoying the books along the way.

**Final Thoughts**

As I wrap up this post, I want to thank all of you for being part of my bookish journey. Whether we're discussing our favorite reads or sharing recommendations, it's always a pleasure to connect with fellow readers. If you have any thoughts on these books or would like more recommendations, please don't hesitate to leave them in the comments below. Until next time, happy reading!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eneveryone today i am here to share all of the books i read in the month of february so as you know february is a very short month it's only 28 days so i only read six books but i'm okay with that i feel like i did pretty good with that so yeah as always with um these i'm gonna talk about my least favorite book working up to my favor before i get into that though i've been trying to do stats every month letting you know like what genres and stuff so like i said in total i read six books i read three mystery thrillers two romance and one literary slash kind of historical fiction there's so many genres and then sub genres things like that so yeah without further ado let's start talking about all of the books the first book i want to talk about is definitely my least favorite book of the month and that is the last thing he told me by laura dave this is a book where i did kind of a review of three of these books i'm talking about today and a lot of you guys commented on it and said it's sad when a book gets mis-marketed and i agree a thousand percent with that and i think that's the case for this book so if you don't know the last thing he told me by laura dave is categorized as a mystery spoiler but i don't think it's that at all it also won the award the goodreads award for the best mr revealer of 2021 which i also don't agree with because it's definitely not a mystery thriller so in this book we have a character oh gosh i forgot her name either way i think her name's hannah and yes the great santa she's married to a guy named owen and he has a daughter named bailey who is 16 and so that's her stepdaughter and basically one day owen goes missing and nobody knows where he's at kind of a big scandal happens so hannah and bailey kind of team up to try to find owen and the more they try to find him the more they uncover about him about his past and how maybe he's not who he says he is so it does have like kind of a mystery throwing aspect to it but the way it reads it's much more a literary fiction slash women's fiction where it's really about a um a woman and a stepdaughter relationship so that's nothing to say it's bad at all but i do think this had a case of mismarketing i think if it was marketed as a literary fiction or a woman's fiction that would have been much more on brand but nevertheless it still won the award for goodreads um mr thriller of the year last year so miss martin or not it did really good but that's another thing that i could talk about is the fact that this was a reese's book club selection and she had a lot of selections honestly it kind of goes with the whole sticker thing like you put a sticker of celebrity on a book like it's their book club it's gonna do well which could be a good thing or a bad thing but that's not to slam reese at all i do think this probably won the award because of that sticker honestly i have it right here and also in this hand right here i have a sticker which when applied legally determines the newest selection of jones book club take the stickers that's just my opinion but she's picked many of books in her book club that i have enjoyed this one i just don't think was it i think this one was miss marketed which is not the fault of the author at all but it i don't know i just i didn't really enjoy it i think if i would go into it knowing it was a literary fiction woman's fiction i would have enjoyed it more instead i went into it you know knowing that it won the award for mysteries other of the years so take with it what you will that's all i have to say it wasn't badly written nothing like that i think miss marketing was the true culprit in this but either way i gave it like a two and a half three star on five wasn't horrible it just was again as i've said repeatedly in this miss marketed next up i have another harvey switzer's book club pick i don't know and that is where the crawdad scene by daley owens this one when it came out a few years ago everyone talked about it they're still talking about it i know she's making a movie of it which i do plan to watch but i didn't think it was amazing and i think it was groundbreaking but it was an interesting read i will give you that so this one's like a literary historical fiction we follow a character named kaya who is known as the marsh girl because she kind of lives in the shack near the marshes in north carolina and you follow two different timelines one when she's growing up in the year what year is it like in the 50s i want to say and basically her mom leaves all of her and her siblings one day never comes back because they have a very abusive and alcoholic dad and then she's the youngest of all these siblings by the way and then each year kind of another sibling just leaves and taya is left there alone with her dad and she has to kind of fend for herself and then her dad eventually leaves so she has to really truly raise herself in this town where everyone hates her they call her marsh girl it just it was that was sad but i did enjoy the fact that she raised herself she taught herself like how to fish she taught herself how to make money on her own she had people looking out for her even though this town hated her she met a guy named tate who taught her how to read because she was like 10 or 11 or maybe even 13 and she didn't know how to read because she never went to school or anything like that she was trying to raise herself without social servicing notice i think and tate kind of took her in and taught her to read a love story blossoms and then a love triangle happened and it is an interesting book i did like it that's not just like i don't want you to think i didn't like this book but i just didn't think it was nearly as amazing as everyone is making it out to be i think this is a book that either you're gonna really truly fall head over heels in love with or you're just going to be kind of like me where it was like it was okay so i gave it a three out of five not bad at all i just wasn't 100 my cup of tea but the i will say the writing in it was really pretty a very descriptive on nature um kind of the marsh you know you learned more about the wildlife there with the birds and things like that so i did enjoy that fact and then i have the night shift by alex finlay this is another mystery filter this one's two different crimes one taking place in nightside and at a blockbuster you have these five workers that are working like new year's eve it's the eve of y2k and basically they get attacked and four of them get killed but one survives and many many years later i want to say like 15 years later another attack happens in this town at an ice cream shop where again four are killed and one is left standing and again the killer whispers the same thing to both girls that survive is good night pretty girl and so you follow a slew of characters in this book you follow the girl that survived from the 1999 when you follow the girl that survived from this recent one you follow a detective that's on the case you follow another guy that's um working kind of the case so you follow a whole different genre of characters they're trying to figure you're trying to figure out exactly what happened to them like what as far as the killer because the killer in the 1999 one got away really there wasn't enough sufficient evidence and they haven't seen him for years they don't know exactly if you if he did it if it's a repeat killer if it's a copycat killer if it's someone new so it's got all those interesting elements to it overall i gave it a three and a half out of five it was okay it wasn't anything groundbreaking i think the main appeal for this for me was the fact that it was set in 90s blockbuster store which is my childhood but they didn't focus on that at all i think i would have enjoyed it a lot more if they would have but they just didn't so it was kind of it was an okay thriller like the ending was somewhat kind of predictable it was just kind of a middle-of-the-road one for me next up we have a sequel and that is finley donovan knocks him dead by el casmino so this one is the sequel to finlay donave is killing it so this is a mystery soldier where it's very satirey in fact the next two books i'm gonna talk about are the same kind of in that way and in the first book we have a character named finlay who is a single mom she has two young kids and she's an author and she's really struggling and basically one day she meets her agent at panera she has to pitch her age in a new book and she's like crap i don't know what to say so she just makes up this story about a woman being a hired killer things like that you know typical kind of thriller kind of book and basically a woman in the next like booth over overhears her and she like leaves her a card that's like hey call this number she calls it and she's like hey i heard you're hired killer in panera so like i will give you like a lot of money to kill my husband basically and feelings like what but then she's like wait i really need the money and through a turn of events things happen and it's just a really funny satire book about a mom just trying to make it while also being an author and maybe a higher killer it's just very very fun the second book's equally as fun as the first one it's just really you have to suspend your disbelief with this one because there's so many plot holes with like her getting away with things and i'm like how are people not putting two and two together by now when it comes to her in these situations i don't know but either way it's just a fun time if you really want to get into the mystery genre and you're like i don't know it sounds kind of scary this is a great book series to get into it's fun it's not too creepy it's just honestly a good time it will make you laugh smile all those things so i enjoyed this one i gave it a 4 out of 5. likewise with my second book i want to talk about that's kind of the same vein as dial a for auntie cq santano this is about a character named maddie who has four aunts and a mom and she is just that's her life really because all the men leave and so she's always made sure to always stay close to her aunts basically her mom sets her up on this date with this guy and it turns out to be not the guy that she thought he was like he's a horrible guy and at the end of the day the guy's dead somehow and the aunties have to like help medi kind of cover up this death without like notifying anything and they also have a wedding to do this weekend because they have this wedding company where like one aunt does the singing one not does the cake one not does the flowers why not does like the king and then medi's the photographer so they have this big huge asian wedding to do and they have a dead body with them so they're like oh how am i gonna do this it reminded me a lot of like weekend at bernie's if you see that movie but it was a fun time i gave it a four out of five there's a sequel coming out to this actually next month um so i'm very excited to read it it's just a fun again very satirey funny approach to the mysteries of the genre kind of the cozy s mystery fillers where they're more light-hearted and fun so again like i said with finlay donave if you want a book that the mystery theater genre and you're like i don't know where to go these are just great ones to get into favorite book of the month is another sequel and that is running wild by k tucker this is her third book in the wild series where it all takes place in alaska the first two books are a character about a character named calla who falls in love with the pilot named jonah in the alaskan wilderness and in this book we follow a completely different character named marie now marie was our antagonist in the first two books she loved jonah she wanted jonah alder herself and this whole book is about her life story kind of and just her trying to figure out love she's a veterinarian she's also really involved in that i had around races that's a very big like sled dog musher race in alaska and she helps takes care of the dogs checks in on them at the checkpoints and there she meets a guy named tyler who is a musher a guy that competes in these races and a relationship kind of strikes up and it's just i really really enjoyed it i really love kate tucker's writing i um love the fact that we got a side of marie that i never saw before because i was never a big fan of her i was like she's taken away our main character like i don't like her i don't want her involved like go away but she really redeemed herself in this book i fell in love with her i understood her she wanted a family of her own she wanted to do things but she wasn't you know she was in love with the idea of jonah and not in love with jonah so a four and a half out of five highly recommend if you want a great series about alaska check this one out and look no further so there you have my short but sweet february wrap up all the books i've read only six books not a ton but that's okay i think six books with having two young kids is pretty good so i'm not mad at myself at all i would love to know if you've read any of these books and what you thought of them i should also say um so like i said i read six books and i read i read three books off of my 22 books i want to read in 2022 like my backless reads so that's half my reading this month so i feel pretty proud of myself so i'm patting myself on the back on that one but yeah if you've read any of these let me know in the comments down below thank you so much for watching and i will see you in my next video byeeveryone today i am here to share all of the books i read in the month of february so as you know february is a very short month it's only 28 days so i only read six books but i'm okay with that i feel like i did pretty good with that so yeah as always with um these i'm gonna talk about my least favorite book working up to my favor before i get into that though i've been trying to do stats every month letting you know like what genres and stuff so like i said in total i read six books i read three mystery thrillers two romance and one literary slash kind of historical fiction there's so many genres and then sub genres things like that so yeah without further ado let's start talking about all of the books the first book i want to talk about is definitely my least favorite book of the month and that is the last thing he told me by laura dave this is a book where i did kind of a review of three of these books i'm talking about today and a lot of you guys commented on it and said it's sad when a book gets mis-marketed and i agree a thousand percent with that and i think that's the case for this book so if you don't know the last thing he told me by laura dave is categorized as a mystery spoiler but i don't think it's that at all it also won the award the goodreads award for the best mr revealer of 2021 which i also don't agree with because it's definitely not a mystery thriller so in this book we have a character oh gosh i forgot her name either way i think her name's hannah and yes the great santa she's married to a guy named owen and he has a daughter named bailey who is 16 and so that's her stepdaughter and basically one day owen goes missing and nobody knows where he's at kind of a big scandal happens so hannah and bailey kind of team up to try to find owen and the more they try to find him the more they uncover about him about his past and how maybe he's not who he says he is so it does have like kind of a mystery throwing aspect to it but the way it reads it's much more a literary fiction slash women's fiction where it's really about a um a woman and a stepdaughter relationship so that's nothing to say it's bad at all but i do think this had a case of mismarketing i think if it was marketed as a literary fiction or a woman's fiction that would have been much more on brand but nevertheless it still won the award for goodreads um mr thriller of the year last year so miss martin or not it did really good but that's another thing that i could talk about is the fact that this was a reese's book club selection and she had a lot of selections honestly it kind of goes with the whole sticker thing like you put a sticker of celebrity on a book like it's their book club it's gonna do well which could be a good thing or a bad thing but that's not to slam reese at all i do think this probably won the award because of that sticker honestly i have it right here and also in this hand right here i have a sticker which when applied legally determines the newest selection of jones book club take the stickers that's just my opinion but she's picked many of books in her book club that i have enjoyed this one i just don't think was it i think this one was miss marketed which is not the fault of the author at all but it i don't know i just i didn't really enjoy it i think if i would go into it knowing it was a literary fiction woman's fiction i would have enjoyed it more instead i went into it you know knowing that it won the award for mysteries other of the years so take with it what you will that's all i have to say it wasn't badly written nothing like that i think miss marketing was the true culprit in this but either way i gave it like a two and a half three star on five wasn't horrible it just was again as i've said repeatedly in this miss marketed next up i have another harvey switzer's book club pick i don't know and that is where the crawdad scene by daley owens this one when it came out a few years ago everyone talked about it they're still talking about it i know she's making a movie of it which i do plan to watch but i didn't think it was amazing and i think it was groundbreaking but it was an interesting read i will give you that so this one's like a literary historical fiction we follow a character named kaya who is known as the marsh girl because she kind of lives in the shack near the marshes in north carolina and you follow two different timelines one when she's growing up in the year what year is it like in the 50s i want to say and basically her mom leaves all of her and her siblings one day never comes back because they have a very abusive and alcoholic dad and then she's the youngest of all these siblings by the way and then each year kind of another sibling just leaves and taya is left there alone with her dad and she has to kind of fend for herself and then her dad eventually leaves so she has to really truly raise herself in this town where everyone hates her they call her marsh girl it just it was that was sad but i did enjoy the fact that she raised herself she taught herself like how to fish she taught herself how to make money on her own she had people looking out for her even though this town hated her she met a guy named tate who taught her how to read because she was like 10 or 11 or maybe even 13 and she didn't know how to read because she never went to school or anything like that she was trying to raise herself without social servicing notice i think and tate kind of took her in and taught her to read a love story blossoms and then a love triangle happened and it is an interesting book i did like it that's not just like i don't want you to think i didn't like this book but i just didn't think it was nearly as amazing as everyone is making it out to be i think this is a book that either you're gonna really truly fall head over heels in love with or you're just going to be kind of like me where it was like it was okay so i gave it a three out of five not bad at all i just wasn't 100 my cup of tea but the i will say the writing in it was really pretty a very descriptive on nature um kind of the marsh you know you learned more about the wildlife there with the birds and things like that so i did enjoy that fact and then i have the night shift by alex finlay this is another mystery filter this one's two different crimes one taking place in nightside and at a blockbuster you have these five workers that are working like new year's eve it's the eve of y2k and basically they get attacked and four of them get killed but one survives and many many years later i want to say like 15 years later another attack happens in this town at an ice cream shop where again four are killed and one is left standing and again the killer whispers the same thing to both girls that survive is good night pretty girl and so you follow a slew of characters in this book you follow the girl that survived from the 1999 when you follow the girl that survived from this recent one you follow a detective that's on the case you follow another guy that's um working kind of the case so you follow a whole different genre of characters they're trying to figure you're trying to figure out exactly what happened to them like what as far as the killer because the killer in the 1999 one got away really there wasn't enough sufficient evidence and they haven't seen him for years they don't know exactly if you if he did it if it's a repeat killer if it's a copycat killer if it's someone new so it's got all those interesting elements to it overall i gave it a three and a half out of five it was okay it wasn't anything groundbreaking i think the main appeal for this for me was the fact that it was set in 90s blockbuster store which is my childhood but they didn't focus on that at all i think i would have enjoyed it a lot more if they would have but they just didn't so it was kind of it was an okay thriller like the ending was somewhat kind of predictable it was just kind of a middle-of-the-road one for me next up we have a sequel and that is finley donovan knocks him dead by el casmino so this one is the sequel to finlay donave is killing it so this is a mystery soldier where it's very satirey in fact the next two books i'm gonna talk about are the same kind of in that way and in the first book we have a character named finlay who is a single mom she has two young kids and she's an author and she's really struggling and basically one day she meets her agent at panera she has to pitch her age in a new book and she's like crap i don't know what to say so she just makes up this story about a woman being a hired killer things like that you know typical kind of thriller kind of book and basically a woman in the next like booth over overhears her and she like leaves her a card that's like hey call this number she calls it and she's like hey i heard you're hired killer in panera so like i will give you like a lot of money to kill my husband basically and feelings like what but then she's like wait i really need the money and through a turn of events things happen and it's just a really funny satire book about a mom just trying to make it while also being an author and maybe a higher killer it's just very very fun the second book's equally as fun as the first one it's just really you have to suspend your disbelief with this one because there's so many plot holes with like her getting away with things and i'm like how are people not putting two and two together by now when it comes to her in these situations i don't know but either way it's just a fun time if you really want to get into the mystery genre and you're like i don't know it sounds kind of scary this is a great book series to get into it's fun it's not too creepy it's just honestly a good time it will make you laugh smile all those things so i enjoyed this one i gave it a 4 out of 5. likewise with my second book i want to talk about that's kind of the same vein as dial a for auntie cq santano this is about a character named maddie who has four aunts and a mom and she is just that's her life really because all the men leave and so she's always made sure to always stay close to her aunts basically her mom sets her up on this date with this guy and it turns out to be not the guy that she thought he was like he's a horrible guy and at the end of the day the guy's dead somehow and the aunties have to like help medi kind of cover up this death without like notifying anything and they also have a wedding to do this weekend because they have this wedding company where like one aunt does the singing one not does the cake one not does the flowers why not does like the king and then medi's the photographer so they have this big huge asian wedding to do and they have a dead body with them so they're like oh how am i gonna do this it reminded me a lot of like weekend at bernie's if you see that movie but it was a fun time i gave it a four out of five there's a sequel coming out to this actually next month um so i'm very excited to read it it's just a fun again very satirey funny approach to the mysteries of the genre kind of the cozy s mystery fillers where they're more light-hearted and fun so again like i said with finlay donave if you want a book that the mystery theater genre and you're like i don't know where to go these are just great ones to get into favorite book of the month is another sequel and that is running wild by k tucker this is her third book in the wild series where it all takes place in alaska the first two books are a character about a character named calla who falls in love with the pilot named jonah in the alaskan wilderness and in this book we follow a completely different character named marie now marie was our antagonist in the first two books she loved jonah she wanted jonah alder herself and this whole book is about her life story kind of and just her trying to figure out love she's a veterinarian she's also really involved in that i had around races that's a very big like sled dog musher race in alaska and she helps takes care of the dogs checks in on them at the checkpoints and there she meets a guy named tyler who is a musher a guy that competes in these races and a relationship kind of strikes up and it's just i really really enjoyed it i really love kate tucker's writing i um love the fact that we got a side of marie that i never saw before because i was never a big fan of her i was like she's taken away our main character like i don't like her i don't want her involved like go away but she really redeemed herself in this book i fell in love with her i understood her she wanted a family of her own she wanted to do things but she wasn't you know she was in love with the idea of jonah and not in love with jonah so a four and a half out of five highly recommend if you want a great series about alaska check this one out and look no further so there you have my short but sweet february wrap up all the books i've read only six books not a ton but that's okay i think six books with having two young kids is pretty good so i'm not mad at myself at all i would love to know if you've read any of these books and what you thought of them i should also say um so like i said i read six books and i read i read three books off of my 22 books i want to read in 2022 like my backless reads so that's half my reading this month so i feel pretty proud of myself so i'm patting myself on the back on that one but yeah if you've read any of these let me know in the comments down below thank you so much for watching and i will see you in my next video bye\n"