Compulsion and Other February Reads

I finished twelve books in February:

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
The Wolf of Tebron by C.S. Lakin
The Dirt on Ninth Grave by Darynda Jones (audiobook)
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquirel
Compulsion by Martina Boone
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne
End of Days by Susan Ee
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (reread, audiobook)
No Easy Target by Iris Johansen (Digital ARC)
Innocent by Scott Turow
Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen

An impressive count for a month that only had 28 days, if I do say so myself.

Here’s the part where I say something profound about my favorite book, or one that made me think about something important, or feel something deep.

This is awkward. I am looking over this list, and I really just don’t have much to say.

Yes, there were books that I really liked (Compulsion might have been my favorite read of the month).

Yes, there were books that I didn’t like so much (names withheld to protect the innocent).

But there is nothing here that I feel I want to rave about. There is nothing here that made me have deep thoughts.

I just read. I’m okay with that. That is a large part of the purpose of stories, right? Entertainment. Escape.

In other news, I started writing a new novel this week. This is my fourth novel. Which is terrifying. And exciting. And feels completely unbelievable.

This novel is set in a school of the arts. Which makes the story both easier and harder to write. It’s easy because that was my high school experience. It feels like coming home and having everything be exactly the way I left it.

It is harder because I feel obligated to do it right. I am the voice of the world I loved in this story. (Not to mention everyone I went to school with may read the story, looking for themselves in it.) I have to create a fictional world that is every bit as rich as the real one I came from.

Now that I have made myself sound like an alien from another planet, I think I’ll stop.

What did you read this month?