Not a ton to share for January and February. I’ve been pretty burned out with work and the short winter days, so most of my evenings were spent knitting and zoning out watching YouTube videos. Plus, world news has been very upsetting. But I do still have a few favorites to share and journaling about things cheers me up.
BOOKS
I had to give up on two books in a row in February because I just could not get into them. Since it always takes me a long time to decide to stop reading a book, I spent most of the month just not reading anything because I wasn’t interested in what I had started.
Missing Page by Cat Sebastian
The Missing Page is the second book in Cat Sebastian’s Page & Sommers period romance series which follows the lives of a spy and a small-town doctor in England following WWI. Book two has James (the doctor) and Leo (the spy) caught up in a mystery set in a sprawling mansion filled with decades of secrets and a bunch of distant relatives brought together for the reading of a will. I really enjoy the chemistry and caring relationship between Leo and James and the way Sebastian plays with the expectations and tropes that come with this sort of buried family drama story.
Sword Dance / Saffron Alley / Strong Wine by A.J. Demas
The combination of one of my favorite authors recommending the series and one of my favorite artists doing the cover illustration lead me to Sword Dance by A.J. Demas. The story is set in a fictional Ancient Greece-adjacent world and follows Damiskos, a military veteran who ends up at the house of an old friend just in time for an intrigue-filled house party. Problematic gatherings in remote locations seems to have been a theme for me in January. At the house, Damiskos meets the enigmatic eunuch dancer Varazda, who is definitely more involved in the intrigue than they are letting on. Varazda is a non-binary character (who mostly, but not always, uses he/him pronouns) and I felt that Demas did a really lovely job in the characterization of Varazda’s fluid gender and difficult past. Sword Dance is another book with a really sweet romance, built on two people respecting and trusting each-other. The subsequent two books continue Varazda and Damiskos’ relationship as they navigate an assassination plot, a bogus murder charge, and the drama of bringing someone new into a close-knit, overly protective found family.
Heartstopper Vol 4 by Alice Oseman
It’s always a joy when a new volume of Heartstopper comes out. This graphic novel series follows two teen boys navigating school, friendship, families, and young love. Volume 4 focuses on Charlie’s challenges with an eating disorder and depression and Nick’s journey learning how to love Charlie without enabling unhealthy behavior. It’s a heavy point in the boys’ story and Heartstopper doesn’t rush things or introduce easy solutions for difficult problems: dealing with mental health issues is hard and Oseman (a young person herself) illustrates this beautifully from a teen perspective.
GAMES
Return of the Obra Dinn
This is such a cool game. When the missing ship Obra Dinn reappears in 1807, an insurance investigator is sent to figure out what happened to the missing crew. You piece the mystery together using a magic watch which lets you view a series of tableaus connected to skeletons you find on the ship. These scenes offer clues to what happened and you use the power of deduction and investigation to account for everyone. The way the story unfolds is really amazing and I was constantly surprised by the turns of events. My brain isn’t really wired well for this style of mystery solving though, so I did have to have a friend help me out when I got stuck. In addition to the really cool story and game structure, there is also excellent music and a clever use of old Macintosh computer-style graphics.
Deathloop
A super stylized, 60s/mod-themed, time-loop first-person shooter from one of my favorite game developers. Things would have had to go very wrong for me not to like this one. You play as Colt, a man who wakes up on a beach with no memory of how he got there and who quickly learns that he is stuck in a repeating day and the only way to escape is to use an arsenal of arcane powers and weird guns to take out eight “visionaries” in a single loop. The gameplay is excellent, the environments are so much fun to explore, and I really loved the voice acting.
Minecraft
Minecraft? But that’s an old game! Seriously though, I have been playing a TON of Minecraft in a shared server with some good friends and it has been a major source of joy for me. I am 100% a Minecraft newbie but escaping to this block-based world where I can build a house or explore a cool cave or carry around axolotls in buckets has made me so happy. Sweet beans THE AXOLOTLS. Look at them.
MUSIC
Orville Peck
I kind of knew who Orville Peck was before I listened to him for the first time. I knew about his stellar mask + fringe + rhinestone fashion and vaguely that he sang country music. But when I finally put on his album PONY, I was NOT prepared for 60’s-style country western in the style of Dolly Parton and Jonny Cash. I was also not prepared to become EXTREMELY OBSESSED. Orville Peck is basically all I have listened to for the last four weeks. I fell HARD. I have also watched the music video for C’mon Baby, Cry many, many times. There is a point at the end where Orville serenades another cowboy while wearing a hat and vest covered in lights with glitter confetti raining down behind him and that single image has been burned directly into the joy center of my brain.