teatimelit

Wrap Up: February 2021

Happy End-of-February!  It’s been a bit of a slower reading month for us here on teatimelit. This month, Caitlyn read 15 books, Cossette read 8 books, and Mary read 5 books.

Truthfully, this has been the weirdest reading month for me. I’ve basically felt as though I’ve been in a reading slump the entire month, and yet I read a total of 15 books, which most people definitely would not consider a slump. Really my “slump” has been me only reading a chapter of whatever book I’m reading one day and then being unable to sleep and finishing an entire book in one sitting. Needless to say, it’s been a weird month. Picking favorite reads of the month has been mostly easy, but also slightly difficult because all the books I’ve read I’ve rated 4-5 stars. But if I had to pick favorites I’d go with: A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, Today Tonight Tomorrow, Love & Olives, A Taste for Love and my rereads of If We Were Villains and Red, White & Royal Blue. I’ve also been continuing with my Shakespeare reads (I’m trying to read/reread all of his works before the end of April – we’ll see how that goes), this month I got to Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In March I’m planning to read Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo for teatimereads, Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft, A Pho Love Story by Loan Le and The Obsession by Jesse Q. Sutanto, in addition to some ARCs that I’ve got waiting for me.

To add or purchase the books mentioned:

Posts I Loved Reading: 

  • Fat Chance, Charlie Vega has been one of my favorite reads so far this year and I’m sure it’s going to make my favorite reads of 2021 list once the year is through. Author Crystal Maldonado is such a sweetheart, and I loved reading Ursa’s interview with her!
  • I’m a huge fan of mysteries/thrillers, so I love this post that Quinn did on her favorite thrillers! I’ve definitely got some books to add too my tbr! 
  • I visited DisneyWorld for the first time in 2019 with my best friend Helena, and I’ve definitely been missing it like crazy! When Helena mentioned that she and her husband would be doing a DisneyWorld themed Quarantine Travels weekend I was so excited. I loved her post about how they brought DisneyWorld into their home – accompanied by videos of rides that you can watch if you’re missing DisneyWorld as much as we are!

I read a total of eight books this month (which is half of how many books I usually read), but there were a lot of standouts! I absolutely adored Aiden Thomas’ Lost in the Never Woods, and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Maybe in Another Life. It’s almost been a full year of quarantining for me, and I think that realization alone has made it difficult to pick up books for me! I also restarted my animal crossing island (hello, Woodvale — you can follow along my animal crossing journey on @woodvaleisland!), which has taken up some of my normal reading time. Either way, I’ve been in a bit of a slump, but I’ve got a lot of really exciting reads lined up for March! I can’t wait to read Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo for teatimereads — it’s been on my TBR since before it came out, and it’s actually the first teatimereads book I haven’t read before. I’m also really stoked to read A Pho Love Story by Loan Le, and The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee. And of course, I’m super stoked for Allison Saft’s Down Comes the Night to be released! 

To add or purchase the books mentioned:

Posts I Loved Reading: 

  • My love, Taylor, wrote a beautiful review of Down Comes the Night. As you all know, I absolutely loved Down Comes the Night, and Taylor is one of my favorite people, so I was incredibly overjoyed that Taylor loved Down Comes the Night as much as I did! 
  • A Pho Love Story has been on my TBR for the longest time, but Trin’s high praise for it boosted it to the top of my TBR. Unfortunately, I was in a slump for most of this month and didn’t get around to reading it, but I’m incredibly excited to read it next month! Trin’s interview with Loan Le was super insightful too. I always love reading about the author’s inspiration, and Trin had such interesting questions!  
  • Lauren and Nana have started a Self-Care column over at Love Yo Shelf. I love what Love Yo Shelf stands for, and self-care and self-love is something that is so important. I can’t wait to read next month’s Love Yo Self post! 
  • Max’s review of Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun was so eloquently written, and has me even more excited to dig into my ARC! 
  • My dear friend Sai launched her book blog this month, and started us off with a wonderful list of her SFF Anticipated Releases! While I’m not a huge SFF reader, I always love reading Sai’s thoughts, and always end up adding her favorites to my TBR. 

February has been a slow reading month for me. Work picked up and classes started again, so I only managed to read 5 books in total. Of those books, I was very very lucky to have the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft, which is one of my most anticipated books of the year. It definitely didn’t disappoint. Allison has such a lovely writing style, with prose so lush it feels as if the Gothic setting is truly something you’re experiencing yourself. I think about this book a lot, so I can’t wait to get around to rereading. Another book I loved was The Project by Courtney Summers. It was another one of my anticipated reads, and another one that didn’t disappoint. I can’t wait to see what Courtney writes next!

To add or purchase the books mentioned:

Posts I Loved Reading: 

  • I loved this review of The Ravens that Celina wrote! She has a lovely writing style, and it made me super keen to pick up the book!
  • This discussion on retellings by bookedtillmidnight was super interesting to read, especially since I love retellings a lot! 
  • Kim’s review about A Pho Love Story was super special to read, especially because they loved it so much, and saw themselves in the book. I’m so glad people have books like this that mean a lot to them, and their sentiments are reflected so beautifully in their review. 

What did you read this month? Let us know in the comments!

Comments

  1. Reading A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow with you was super cool!! I loved talking about the book with you all 🥰
    And thank you so much for featuring my interview with Crystal Maldonado, it’s so nice of you!! ❤

  4. Caitlyn’s goal of reading all of Shakespeare’s works sounds like such a fun one, I might just try that myself! If We Were Villains is one of my fave books as well as you’ve made me consider doing a reread haha. Seems like you’ve all had a great reading month! <3