Hey Bookworm friends! February absolutely flew by and it’s time to recap what I’ve been up to. If you’ve been around my blog for a while you might have noticed I was doing my reading wrap-ups on a monthly basis last year. That was fun but time consuming and also too few and far between. So, I’m going back to monthly wrap-ups for 2026—book-wise as well as my non-bookish updates combined! For the gaming section, I decided to highlight my favourite board game and video game that I played that month. I didn’t do a recap for Jan, so let’s just move on and jump right into my first Reading Wrap-Up & Monthly Reset of the year!
February Highlights
- My husband and I worked on mushroom themed jigsaw puzzle while we listened to an audiobook. Cheeto ‘helped’ by offering encouragement & demanding attention.
- On Valentine’s Day, we went to a friend’s V-Day party and had a blast! We don’t typically do anything special for it due to its over commercialized nature. But getting together with a bunch of friends was honestly the perfect way to celebrate and now I want to do this every year!💗 Plus, I got to pet my friend’s cats (see my old buddy Bean 🖤)!
- To celebrate Black History Month, a community center by where I live put up a mini gallery of an artist called Ingrid Mc Donald and her art is so pretty, every time I walk by I slow down to appreciate it. I took a picture of one of her paintings called ‘The Dress’ because look at this marbled beauty! 😍
- I went to a 6 month follow-up appointment with my dental surgeon and he told me everything healed up well so I’m happy 😊!
What I Read
Along with what I normally read, I’ve also been picking up quite a few children’s picture books for a special project. I’ll count them in my stats but I won’t list them below because I’m working on a separate post for them and I don’t want to spoil it 😜.
February Reading Stats
Total Books Read:12
| Format Read |
|---|
| 📱E-Books: 7 |
| 📚 Physical: 2 |
| 🎧 Audiobooks: 2 |
| 📖+🎧Immersive: 1 |
| Genre |
|---|
 🏡Contemporary: 1 |
| 💥Humour: 1 |
| 🚀Science Fiction: 2 |
| 💞Romance: 1 |
| 🖍️Children’s Fiction: 5 |
| 🌐N0n-Fiction: 2 |
| Book Format |
|---|
| Graphic Novel: 2 |
| Comics: 2 |
| Picture Books: 4 |
| Epistolary/Mixed-Media: 1 |
| Essays: 2 |
The Books
🌐Genocide Bad by Sim Kern – 📱
Easily one of my favourite nonfics I’ve ever read, I learned so much and I loved the approachable explanations. Review
🌐Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer – 🎧
Another nonfic that I adored. It brought me a lot of comfort despite the heavy themes. Review
🚀Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman – 🎧
I didn’t like this as much as I expected to. It’s funny in parts but overall the humour is too juvenile. The wider world-building is interesting but I have a lot of issues with the gross way women (especially women of colour) are depicted in the story. There is not enough social commentary in this book to warrant that level of disrespect, honestly. I won’t be continuing the series.
🚀 Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – 📖+🎧
The last book of the Illuminae Files trilogy was fun but not as fun as the first two. I enjoyed seeing how things came together but with so many new characters at the end, I didn’t have enough time to emotionally connect the way I did with the older ones.
The Graphic Novels & Comics
💥Why Are You Like This? by Meg Adams – 📱
As a millennial I always feel so seen by these comics and they make me laugh. I enjoyed this collection a lot.
💞 Milk & Mocha: Our Little Happiness by Melanie Sie – 📱
I’ve never seen these before but the art looked cute so I tried it. Sadly the humour fell flat for me and too many of the vignettes left me feeling like ‘okay..and?’🤷🏼♀️
🖍️Welcome to the Forest: The Harvest Party by Katie Risor -📱
A cute & whimsical story about woodland friends where the art shines brightest.
🏡The Last Session Vol. 1: Roll for Initiative by Jasmine Walls with Dozerdraws – 📱
A wholesome story about a group of friends who are about to graduate from college & finish their D&D-style game that they started in high school. The drama involves making new friends and accepting change but we also get to follow their in-game characters as the real-world issues bleed into their fantasy game. I had fun with this and, as a lover of RPGs, it tugged at my heart strings.
What I Watched
Apothecary Diaries, Season 2
Season 2 was so good, and it got so much more complicated. I’m sure I missed a lot of details so I’m likely going to need a re-watch at some point. I loved it though, the drama, and seeing how the individual mysteries came together, what a smart show! I was eating my dinner when the ‘frog’ scene happened and I almost spit it out from laughing, iykyk. 🤣
Charmed, Seasons 6-7
It’s been really fun to re-watch this show. Phoebe has always been my favourite and remains so but I’m finding this time around I am disliking Piper more and more which I didn’t expect. She’s constantly contradicting herself on core beliefs about magic (exhausting). It’s also been fun to poke holes at the logic of the show, and there are things that didn’t age well. It’s so interesting to re-watch an old fav as an adult but overall I’m enjoying the ride through memory lane.
Smosh Games
I’ve seen Angela on Dropout stuff and find her hilarious so I figured I wanted to watch her on Smosh too!Whenever my husband and I don’t feel like watching something that requires a lot of thinking we’ll just put on Smosh Games and have a great time. We’ve been obsessed with watching the cast play as many games as we can!
Gaming Highlights of February
My Top Video Game of the Month
It Takes Two
We replayed It Takes Two because the first time we played I was May and I wanted to try being Cody since each character has different powers. It was worth it because we found some parts of the game that we missed the first time around! Although we still didn’t find all the mini games 😲!
My Top Board Game of the Month
Spirit Island
This is a really fun yet challenging co-op game where each person gets to play as a different spirit that fights back against people colonizing the island. We’ve played three times now, with the easier characters but the game has a variety of different scenarios that make the game harder. I can’t wait to play more and try out the higher level characters!
Let’s chat in the comments!
What have you been watching or playing lately? Or, do you watch Smosh and if so who is your fav cast member?
I keep meaning to get to Braiding Sweetgrass! Maybe this is the year.
I’ve been just doing the usual this month….Sims 4, Stardew Valley, and RDR2. I’m doing a new save in SDV where I don’t farm the first spring, but instead focus on mining and fishing. It’s certainly more fun than the water can grind so far.
Hopefully this is the year where you get to read Braiding Sweetgrass, I hope you enjoy it!
Ah, the classics 🙂 I’ve never played RDR, sounds fun though! And the watering can is annoying so that’s actually super interesting, I’m glad you’re having fun!
You had a great month of reading and doing lovely things. The Valentine’s party sounds great – I fancy that myself now.
Lynn 😀
I really did, thanks Lynn🥰 And I highly recommend the vday party! 🙂
I am not a fan of Valentine’s Day either, and I also think it is way too comercialized (we also do not celebrate it here), but getting together with friends on that day sounds really cool. I also love puzzles, what a cool activity to do with your husband! I have never tried completing a puzzle with someone else. Glad you received good news health-wise.
I love The Illuminae Files; I agree that Obsidio might feel chaotic, but I still loved it and had a great time reading it. It’s such an awesome series!
I have a love/hate relationship with Smosh Games, because I like games but at the same time I want to play a lot of the ones they share and I can’t.I agree they’re nice videos to have on the background or to watch when you want something light.
Usually that day is like any other one except with busier restaurants lol so getting together with friends actually made the day special for everyone. In Spanish VDay is called the day of love and friendship and I like that view of it better. 🥰
I love puzzling by myself and with others as well hehe 🙂 & Thank you!
The Illuminae Files were so good overall, yes!!
Ahaha I can totally understand you wanting to play the games they play on Smosh, at least most of the time they look fun! I love board games so it’s fun seeing other ones I’ve maybe never heard of and have a good laugh at the same time.
Finally, someone else who isn’t gaga over Dungeon Crawler Carl! I didn’t read enough to get to the problematic things you mentioned, I DNFd it early on because it was boring and repetitive. Oh well. Looks like you had a good month with lots of different activities😁
Lol I have mostly seen people who love it but luckily lately I’ve found some peeps who agree with me! And yeah it was getting quite repetitive. I did find a few other reads I loved and also had a good month overall! Thank you 🥰!
Cheeto’s puzzle help sounds more ‘helpful’ than my cats. If I do a bigger one on our dining room table and forget to cover it down I’ll most likely return to find an edge taken apart. Or she’ll sit in the middle of ir whilst I’m making it 🙈😂 the painting does look gorgeous and I’m glad it sounds as if your dental troubles are over.
Im curious to see what your special project is. Ive been working on one for three years now and definitely have to make an effort to finish it at last 🙈
It looks like you read a nice mix of genres. If the humor is juvenile I can’t really see DCC working for me either. And I’m surprised I havent seen anyone else mention the women before 🤔
Im intrigued by Apothecary Diaries, provided I can convince myself to give Anime a go 😂 Charmed is one of my all time favourite shows. I refuse to pick holes in it 😂 although tbh its kind of hard to anyway when I’ve literally seen it about a dozen times as its my go to background watch for puzzles and cross stitch.
The games sound fun, although being co op I couldn’t really try them. I do want to get back to playing some of the ones I own though.
Hope you have a lovely March 🥰🥰
Haha mostly he doesn’t love when we pay attention to other activities for extended periods of time lol. Oh no, hahah she could be useful when it comes time to put the puzzle away by the sounds of it 😛
Yes I thought the painting was so pretty and thank you 🙂
It’s related to children’s picture books and If it goes well I’ll post it later this week. Oh wow okay that’s a long term project sounds intriguing!! I’m curious as to what yours is too!
Yeah honestly I’m kind of baffled by the fact that not many people have mentioned the depiction of women either but one of my fav booktubers did and I was like thank you someone else saying the same thing!!
I think it helps if you don’t tell yourself you’re trying a new format, just put the first episode on like you would anything else and see how it goes for you.
Ahh I’m so glad you love Charmed too! It’s one of my favs too but I have no problems picking holes into my favourite things. Analyzing it is a labour of love and also honestly some parts of it really didnt age well, it happens🤷🏼♀️ I love that it’s your go-to. Which sister is your fav?
Here’s hoping you can get back to playing your games and have a great March too, Thanks 😀 !!🥰
I feel like both my pets are a bit like that. If I’m not somewhere they can sit besides me they tend to be unimpressed 😅 ah I dont think I’d trust her to get all the pieces into the box for next time 😂
It was a lovely post 🥰🥰 mines linked to a SFF TBR. I have no control over the titles and some I’m not convinced will work for me. But having started I’m determined to see it through 😂
I can see why it would throw you. Ive had a similiar experience of other issues in books and had to look for reviews to prove it wasn’t just a me thing 🙈
Thats a good idea. I’ll have to let you know how it goes. Have you ever read the comics? I’ve been curious about them for a while. I’m not really sure who my favourite is. Probably Piper or Prue. Although one of my favourite storylines was Phoebe and Coles relationship. Who’s yours?
Thank you 🥰🥰
aha aww silly little creatures we love them so much! & that’s fair :p
Thank you 🙂 Ohh cool, I’m excited for you! And also curious!
Yeah it’s so weird where something so glaring to you isn’t being mentioned as much as you’d expect it 🤔.
Okay yeah please do let me know how you get on 🙂 & I didn’t know there were Charmed comics…what!? Hmm I’d say overall Phoebe is my fav sister and story-line even though I was disappointed with how her ending is dealt with in the last season.
Thanks 💕🥰
Yet another person mentioning Braiding Sweetgrass … I think the universe is telling me it’s time to read it 🙂
Braiding Sweetgrass looks like such an interesting read. I am pretty sure I’ve seen a few other blogger’s talk about it. I haven’t watched Charmed in many years. Not surprised about certain plot holes. I feel like if a show goes over a certain amount of seasons, inconsistencies are inevitable. I hope you have a lovely March!
Yes, I highly recommend Braiding Sweetgrass next time you’re in a nonfiction mood 🙂 and definitely, it’s impossible to keep up the same quality when a show gets so long but that being said it’s still super fun to watch! Thanks 🥰 I hope you have a wonderful March too 🙂 !