February was more of a graphic novel/manga season. 17 volumes of Kakegurui and 21 volumes of Assassination Classroom! I find manga and graphic novels to be perfect for when I don’t have the mental bandwidth to visualize and process the words I’m reading. I still badly want to consume stories but I’m having sensory overload so I can’t resort to movies, TV shows, and songs.
It’s just one of those months. How was your February?
#1: Kakegurui (Compulsive Gambler)
⭐4 : I’m a sucker for the old ‘student-body-is-more-if-not-as-powerful-than-the-government’ trope so this is an absolute blast for me! The gambling games with huge money, lives, and pride at stake gave each book a thrill. I read all 17 volumes available and I can’t wait for the next installment!
#2: Babel
⭐5 : To me, Babel is a masterpiece. To be able to combine so many intellectually stimulating conversations and make the power of words as the heart of a fictional world’s magic and execute it flawlessly is something I never thought I’d be able to experience. (Check my full review here!)
#3: The House on Hanging Hill Lane
⭐1.5 : The cover is great, the prologue and epilogues are chilly, but everything else is disappointing. The narration style wasn’t able to develop any character, deliver a scene effectively, and deliver a satisfying plot progression. I will just reiterate that the writing style is so discomfiting. (Full review coming up on March 10 at 8 AM PST!)
#4: The Teacher
⭐5 : Then tension in this story picks up faster than the other books. Freida perfectly captures the emotions of her characters: a troubled lovesick teenager, an unhappy spouse, a narcissistic psychopath… she encapsulates them so well while dropping plot twists without resulting to lying in the narrative. (Full review coming up on March 12 at 8 AM PST!)
#5: Assassination Classroom
⭐4 : This started off disjointed but Koro sensei is so funny that I kept on reading. The more the other characters’ layers started to peel the more I got attached and could not let go. It’s been a light-hearted and comedic journey… until I bawled my eyes in the end. All 21 volumes captured my heart.
#6: The Duke and I
⭐4 : I’m rereading the entire Bridgerton series before the next season drops this June. I loved ‘The Duke and I’ and adored it as much as I did reading it the first time around! The fake dating, the regency romance, and the funny banters never get old! (Check the full review of my first read here!)
#7: The Viscount Who Loved Me
⭐3 : Among all the Bridgerton books this is my second least favorite. However, it’s completely not bad at all! Anthony has the best character progression across the series and this enemy-to-lovers romance is the type that makes the reader giggle in anticipation. (Check the full review of my first read here!)
#8: The Director
⭐1 : I was really intrigued by the premise so I picked this as my smut read of the month last January but it got so flat that it took me all of two months to finish this. It felt purely fan service. There’s not much character development and there are so many spicy scenes but they’re so short! Nothing really happened.
The Stray Reader 
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