February was a slower month for me in terms of reading and just at-home activities. I’ve pressed pause on a lot of hobbies like sewing and stitching and puzzles. Instead I’ve been watching The Great British Bake Off‘s early seasons on the Roku Channel (who knew?), playing Hogwarts Legacy and listening to podcasts (I’ve really been enjoying Queers Gone By).
This all being said, I did get through three books this month (and part of another before I decided that I did not want to listen to another six hours about professional wrestling).
Empire of the Wild by Cherie Dimaline • ★★★★☆
My favorite way to enjoy books is via the library. It’s free, it’s supporting an invaluable institution. It also means that sometimes a book you put on hold becomes available when you’re not quite in the mood for it. That was the case with this book. But within just a few pages Dimaline changed my mind.
In Empire of the Wild, Joan mourns her husband who disappeared a year earlier. However, when she stumbles upon a revival tent, she finds that the preacher looks just like her husband but the man doesn’t recognize her. WILD.
This book has such a wonderful sense of mystery and urgency. I loved it and how it wove in Metis lore as well.
Wintering by Katherine May • 🎧• ★★☆☆☆
This book has been on my radar for a minute. I felt like the timing was right. It’s February and I am going through literal and figurative winter. It sucks. I thought this book might give me some insight. The online description bills it as “An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down,” and “Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times.”
With that description in mind, I downloaded this book hoping to learn about nature, about dealing with loss, about embracing slow times. Instead, Wintering was more memoir than anything. May focuses nearly exclusively on herself (fine if it’s a memoir, not so fine if the book promises more sweeping perspectives).
Listening to this book was tedious (nothing against the wonderful narrator) and unhelpful. I wish I hadn’t spent the time with this one. It left me feeling worse than when I started.
Matrix by Lauren Groff • ★★★★★
While Wintering was a flop, I knew I could count on Lauren Groff to turn this month of reading around. Groff is one of my favorite authors; her writing is beautiful and each book is so different from the next. Even though I first read it 15 years ago, her short story collection Delicate Edible Birds still has a hold on me.
Matrix takes place in one of my least favorite settings for historical fiction: medieval England. But Groff won me over in an instant. Marie, a low-tier French royal, is sent off to a convent in England to where the nuns are dying to either help turn it around or to perish herself.
Marie thrives in this environment. She turns the convent around, she fortifies its nuns, she builds a damn labyrinth to confuse enemies and, when the town priests die in a fire, she starts saying Mass herself.
Matrix is sweeping and wonderful. It’s heretical and delightful. It’s majestic and real. Everything that Groff does best.
Keep up with what I’ve read over on Goodreads! Also, if you’re an audiobook fan, I encourage you to try Libro.fm—you can support your favorite small bookstore while downloading your next listen.
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