February 2025 Book Review

After an incredible month of reading in January, I had a slower month of reading in February. I’m ok with this as I still had some GREAT reads. Quality over quantity, right? If only I could always have quantity AND quality that would be the ideal!

I read 7 books in February – 3 nonfiction and 4 fiction. One of those was a read aloud I did with my kids, one was a Newberry medal book and one was a book club pick.

The House of My Mother by Shari Franke

My Review: This book sure does pack a punch! I am fascinated by the whole influencer culture, but this family took it to a whole new level. This is the story of the Franke Family- a family who achieved wealth and fame by becoming influencers and sharing their whole lives online. Or was it really their lives? It turns out that their home was abusive and extremely unhappy – exactly the opposite of what was portrayed online. Shari details her experience growing up, and then focuses the back half of the book on her young adult years after she had left the home. This book was sad- and honestly hard to read. In my opinion, Shari wrote and published this book way too soon after these events had happened. I don’t think that she has even begun to heal from the trauma of growing up in the Franke home, and I think it was too soon for the general public to have this sort of knowledge. My other “yellow flag” with this book is that so many people are using it as an example of why families should not share their kids online- at all. I think that this is an extreme example of how toxic influencer culture can be, but I don’t think that every kid who grows up in an influencer home is being abused or misrepresented. I think that the Franke family would have been abusive no matter what jobs they had. I have a lot of thoughts on this one!

Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James

My Review: This is another on my Newberry medal list! I am making progress (I started with the earliest publication date) and am starting to enjoy them more. The first few were…boring and nearly intolerable. The last two I’ve read have actually been interesting, although the language around “native” people did not age well in this story. This is the story of a horse. And that’s about it. It’s just…the story…of a horse. There is one sweet little “plot twist” where Smoky is finally reunited with his original owner.

Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara

My Review: I had no business loving this book so much, but I LOVED this book. Will Guidera runs a 4 star Michelin restaurant in NYC, and has been rated the #1 restaurant in the world several times. He beings this book telling the story of being invited to a dinner for the top 50 restaurants in the world. And his restaurant came in as #50. He was crushed and set about trying to learn how to make an incredible restaurant even more incredible. The rest of the book just talks in depth about how to treat people- both employees and customers. I am not a business owner nor do I frequent fine dining establishments, but I learned so much from this book – to implement in the classroom, at home and as an employee as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone!

The Vibrant Years by Sonali Dev

My Review: This book captured my attention right from the beginning, and I enjoyed it until the very end! This is the story of 3 generations of women who have always just done it on their own- without a man involved. This is the story of all three of them finding some kind of love (it looks different for each person), but still keeping their close bond with each other. I just loved this sweet family story and it had enough of a plot to keep me engaged and interested.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

My Review: It was so fun to introduce my kids to this book. Of course, we all cried at the end. This book just captures how mean kids can be- and how kind they can be. And it’s such a great reminder to raise kind kids. Highly recommend this one as a read aloud for kids aged 8+.

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

My Review: I did it! I read this book! I almost gave up at the beginning, but I pushed through and I think I’m glad I did? I don’t love romantasy- it’s just not “my” genre. And yet, here I am, still reading the third in this series. This book confused me and annoyed me for the first 1/3. There were SO many characters and no index to help me figure out who and why and what the heck was going on. I almost gave up, but once I passed the 100 page mark, it started to finally make more sense and I was hooked. I enjoyed the adventures and started to like the characters. The last 1/3 of the book seemed like one big battle and plot twist after plot twist. Listen. I love a good plot twist. But these twists came out of nowhere with absolutely no foreshadowing and that annoyed me a bit. Will I read the 4th book? Probably, yes. It’s a little bit of a love/hate relationship for me.

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

My Review: Ah, another book that is not in my preferred genre- a presidential biography! Never have I ever been so shocked to enjoy a book before. I halfheartedly gave this a chance because it was a book club pick and color me SHOCKED it was so, so interesting and I couldn’t put it down! This is about President Garfield and his very brief time as president before he was shot by a lunatic. The craziest thing is that he probably would have lived except that the doctors treating him did every.single.thing WRONG. They introduced infection, refused to listen to anyone else who had suggestions and force fed the president a diet that did not help him at all. The whole thing was shocking and so fascinating. It was also amazing to read about how much politics have changed, and also how little politics have changed. I wish that this author would write a biography for each president because I would read every one of them!

And that is a wrap for my February reads! I have some fun books on deck for March including

• The Crash
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma
• Redeeming Love
• A Girl Called Sampson
• Gay-Neck the Pigeon
• What the Chicken Knows
• Killer Content
• Okay for Now

What are you reading now? I would love to hear if you’ve read any of these books and have any thoughts on them!