February 2026 Reads

First off, bless the Winter Olympics for getting me through February this year. 

If I wasn’t chronically watching curling, figure skating, skiing, etc., I was oscillating between battling seasonal sads and trying not to fixate on how much longer we have with winter. So having sports to watch 24/7 was an absolute game changer for my mental health. 

My month in brief (clockwise): a little sad but at least the Olympics are on lol, introducing my new Bird of Paradise and look at those sourdough beauties.

The other thing that helped me get through the short month of cold and gray is putting a time limit on my Instagram app. It forced me to consume content much more intentionally instead of perpetually scrolling and then suddenly realizing an hour has passed since I last looked up from my phone.

Highly recommend the time limit feature if you haven’t tried it. 

Okie, I think that’s it for this intro. Let’s get into everything I read in February!

*All summaries are taken or paraphrased from Goodreads.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE by Gail Honeyman

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Summary: Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.

My Thoughts: I swear, ever since I got back into reading, this book pops up on a must-read list every few months. So I finally decided to take the plunge and see what all the hype was about. Y’all. I freaking loved Eleanor. She’s lived a very atypical life, struggles to grasp what’s appropriate to say or do in social settings, and is perfectly content living independently as a bit of a recluse. That is, until she and Raymond, the new IT guy at work, rescue an elderly man named Sammy who has fallen in the street and hit his head. Suddenly, Eleanor’s carefully curated routines and isolated life are disrupted as Sammy and Raymond slowly (and endearingly) weave themselves into her world. I freaking adored how unapologetically frank Eleanor is with everyone she encounters, and watching her friendship with Raymond grow was genuinely beautiful. It’s obvious she’s not used to having friends and doesn’t always know how to show up as one, but my heart squeezed every time she realized that Raymond, Sammy, and Sammy’s family truly wanted her around. There is definitely a darker undercurrent to this story, so check the trigger warnings. But if you’re looking for a book about found family, friendship, and healing through connection, this one feels like a warm cup of tea for the soul.

The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem

THE JASAD HEIR by Sara Hashem

Rating: 3.75/5 stars

Summary: Ten years ago, the kingdom of Jasad burned. Its magic outlawed; its royal family murdered down to the last child. At least, that’s what Sylvia wants people to believe. The lost Heir of Jasad, Sylvia never wants to be found. She can’t think about how Nizahl’s armies laid waste to her kingdom and continue to hunt its people—not if she wants to stay alive. But when Arin, the Nizahl Heir, tracks a group of Jasadi rebels to her village, staying one step ahead of death gets trickier. In a moment of anger, Sylvia’s magic is exposed, capturing Arin’s attention. Now, to save her life, Sylvia will have to make a deal with her greatest enemy. If she helps him lure the rebels, she’ll escape persecution. A deadly game begins. Sylvia can’t let Arin discover her identity even as hatred shifts into something more. Soon, Sylvia will have to choose between the life she wants and the one she left behind. The scorched kingdom is rising, and it needs a queen.

My Thoughts: This book felt like An Ember in the Ashes, Throne of Glass (the first one), and Artefacts of Ouranos had a chaotic fantasy love child, and somehow this was the offspring lol. The world-building isn’t super extensive, but that didn’t bother me much because the story leans more into the tangled politics of each kingdom and the mystery of why magic has slowly disintegrated over the past few decades. Sylvia is the lost heir to the Kingdom of Jasad, which was razed along with its entire royal family ten years ago. She’s been living in hiding ever since and would very much like to keep it that way. But keeping a low profile becomes increasingly difficult when the Nizhal Heir (basically the captain of the magic police) tracks a group of Jasadi rebels to the very town where Sylvia has been hiding. When she accidentally exposes her magic, he strikes a deal with her: help him lure the Jasadi out and compete in the Acalah, the realm’s triennial tournament, as his champion, and she’ll be granted freedom and protection for the rest of her life. This book was a straight hit of dopamine to my fantasy-loving brain. It has high-stakes political tension, an incredibly snarky and resilient protagonist, some forbidden royal attraction, enemies-to-lovers romance, and an incredibly broody boy. And on top of all that, there’s the creeping realization that you can’t always trust what Sylvia believes to be true. The only thing that slightly hindered my experience was the sheer number of character names to keep track of. Not everyone actually appears on the page, but when a character shares a name with the realm’s major river, it takes a second to figure out which one the sentence is referring to. While this didn’t blow me away quite as much as I’d hoped, I still had a great time reading it, and I’ll definitely be picking up the next book in the series later this year.

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

HARLEM SHUFFLE by Colson Whitehead (Harlem #1)

Rating: 3.25/5 stars

Summary: Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked... To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his facade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa--the Waldorf of Harlem--and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?

My Thoughts: This book had been on my radar for a while because I was absolutely blown away by Colson Whitehead’s writing in The Nickel Boys. While this one didn’t leave me in quite the same state of awe, it’s still undeniable that Whitehead is an incredibly talented writer. The story follows Ray Carney, a furniture salesman in Harlem who’s determined to build a better life for his family than the one he grew up with. He knows that not all the jewelry his cousin Freddie brings him is obtained ethically, but he convinces himself that if he doesn’t ask questions, he can’t really be considered crooked. Besides, the downtown jeweler he offloads the pieces to isn’t asking questions either. That is, until a heist Freddie gets involved in goes sideways and drags Ray straight into the fallout. Suddenly, straddling the line between small-time crook and respectable businessman isn’t something Ray can casually manage. He’s forced to operate on both sides just to stay alive and to protect the reputation he’s worked so hard to build. If I’m being honest, the first part of the book felt a little slow for me. I understand the need to establish Ray’s backstory and motivations, but it didn’t really grab me until the heist unravels and he’s thrust into this lowkey criminal underworld. From there, I was on the edge of my seat, constantly wondering if he’d trust the wrong person or make a choice that would put his family in danger. That said, the momentum plateaued a bit when the timeline jumped ahead several years, briefly summarizing some of Ray’s darker dealings before zeroing in on another rough patch. I was a little disappointed that I never felt fully immersed in the story. Still, Colson Whitehead’s talent is unmistakable, and I’ll likely pick up the second book in the series, Crook Manifesto, at some point. If you’re drawn to stories about morally gray characters trying to convince themselves they’re still good men, this would absolutely be worth your time.

Daydream by Hannah Grace

DAYDREAM by Hannah Grace (Maple Hills #3)

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Summary: When procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favorite professor, Henry Turner knows he’s going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new role as ice hockey captain – which he didn’t even want – Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club. Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favorite fictional leads, but she’s an academic superstar, and when she hears about Henry’s problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. But being a private tutor isn’t exactly ideal given her own studies, job and the novel she’s trying to write. New experiences are the key to beating her writer’s block, though, and Henry’s promising to be the one to give them to her. They just need to stick to their rulebook. Oh, and not fall in love.

My Thoughts: CHEESE LOUISE! I can’t say for sure, but I think the only reason this didn’t hit harder is because I currently have zero interest in romance. Had I been in a swoony mood, this probably would’ve landed very differently lol. Don’t get me wrong, the story is genuinely sweet. You’ve got Henry, captain of the Maple Hills hockey team: good at basically everything he attempts, six-plus feet of solid muscle, unfairly handsome, and the kind of person people naturally gravitate toward. He’s also a little neurodivergent, which shows up in his zero filter and the routine-driven patterns his friends have come to know and love. Then there’s Halle, a junior fresh out of a relationship with the human embodiment of trash. She’s filling her schedule with new jobs and a book club to avoid thinking about how small her circle is. When her path crosses with Henry’s, their connection feels almost immediate. They slip into each other’s lives so effortlessly, and I honestly loved that their relationship was rooted in friendship first. Watching that foundation build before the lines started to blur into something more was one of my favorite parts. Like I said, this book is really sweet. However, I was almost bored with how nice it was? Even the spicier scenes were pretty endearing lmao? I was a big fan of Henry, especially how patient and understanding he was about Halle’s inexperience, both in friendship and in romantic situations. I also loved how gently he encouraged her to put herself first for once. And Halle was incredibly likable; I appreciated that she actually asked Henry what he needed instead of assuming she knew best. All of that to say, I don’t think this is a book I’ll think back on often. Not because I didn’t enjoy it, but I just know I’ll probably read something this year that leaves a bigger mark. If you’re looking for something on the spicier side that still feels soft, gentle, and low-drama, this would be a perfect pick.

Heartwood by Amity Gage

HEARTWOOD by Amity Gage

Rating: 3/5 stars

Summary: In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.

My Thoughts: The beginning of this book was giving God of the Woods with a touch of The Return of Ellie Black vibes. So naturally, I thought it had all the fixin’s for a fast-paced, suspenseful mystery. I’m not stoked to share that it kind of fell flat for me. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy listening to the audiobook, but by the end, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it could’ve been done better? The story follows three women: Valerie, a 42-year-old hiker who goes missing on the Appalachian Trail; Beverly, the Maine State Game Warden heading the search; and Lena, a 76-year-old antisocial forager living in a Connecticut retirement community. As the POV alternates between them, you slowly piece together what might’ve happened to Valerie near the last known stretch of her hike, and where she might be now. While it was fairly easy to connect the dots in this missing person case, the tension came more from not knowing whether they’d find her in time. That said, because the mystery itself wasn’t particularly difficult to unravel, the ending didn’t land as a huge, jaw-dropping twist. Like I said, I really enjoyed the audiobook experience. It’s a full cast, super easy to binge, and that definitely elevated the story for me. But I don’t think we spent quite enough time with each woman to form a strong emotional connection, which made some of the stakes feel a little muted. Overall, if you’re looking for a suspenseful mystery with light tension, minimal gore, and a great audiobook production, this could absolutely be worth your time. As an eyeball read, though, I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to recommend it.

The Only One Left by Riley Sager

THE ONLY ONE LEFT by Riley Sager

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Summary: At seventeen, Lenora Hope. Hung her sister with a rope. Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred. Stabbed her father with a knife. Took her mother’s happy life. It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything. “It wasn’t me,” Lenora said. But she’s the only one not dead. As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.

My Thoughts: This was my first Riley Sager book, and it absolutely will not be my last because WOW. This story had me completely HOOKED. Kit is a home health aide who, after what happened with her last patient, has basically been blacklisted from the caregiving industry. So when her boss offers her the only assignment available—caring for Lenora Hope, the woman at the center of the town’s infamous schoolyard chant about murdering her family—she doesn’t really have the luxury of saying no. With no other job prospects and nowhere else to turn, Kit reluctantly agrees. She moves into Hope’s End, a mildly dilapidated seaside mansion, determined to uncover the truth about what happened on that deadly night in 1929. Lenora has offered to tell her everything. The only catch? The only part of Lenora’s body that still works is her left hand, so she can communicate solely by typing out her story. Listen. I know I’m bad at spotting whodunnit, but I did not call a single plot twist in this book. Not one. There were so many red herrings woven into the story, and while I’m proud that not all of them fooled me, I can fully admit that even 90% of the way through, I could not have predicted half of what was revealed in the end. This novel was twisty, suspenseful, and kept me constantly on my toes. If you’re into mystery/thrillers with quality characters and a longer, well-developed plotline, I highly recommend giving this one a try.

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger

CULPABILITY by Bruce Holsinger

Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary: When the Cassidy-Shaws’ autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret that implicates them in the accident. During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie’s future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei’s odd behavior tugs at Noah’s suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident—suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal. When Charlie falls for Monet’s teenaged daughter, the stakes are raised even higher in this propulsive family drama that is also a fascinating exploration of the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of AI.

My Thoughts: This would be the PERFECT pick for a book club because it would drum up sooo much discussion around one of the most relevant topics dominating our conversations right now: AI. After a tragic car accident, Noah is left trying to keep his family together. His son was at the wheel, even though the car’s auto-drive feature was turned on, and every member of the family remembers something different about the moments leading up to the crash. However, not everyone is being completely honest about what they recall. In an attempt to regroup and heal, the family heads to Chesapeake Bay for a weeklong vacation. But with each passing day, a new dark revelation surfaces that could end with Noah’s 17-year-old son in jail instead of heading to Duke in the fall. This book has so many layers to sort through. The characters are incredibly well-developed, but also deeply imperfect. It wasn’t hard to sympathize with their situation, yet they also OOZED white privilege in the way the investigation unfolded, which meant I wasn’t always rooting for them. One aspect of the story I found especially fascinating was Noah’s wife, Lorelei, who is renowned in the tech world for her philosophical stances on who gets to decide what ethics are programmed into AI systems. Several of her journal entries genuinely left me wondering why there aren’t more regulations surrounding the development of artificial intelligence. On top of that, the book really puts our dependence on technology, and the growing integration of AI into our daily lives, front and center in a way that’s hard to ignore. If you’re looking for a quick read that will absolutely make you think and reflect on some bigger questions, this one definitely delivers.

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

THE CHARM OFFENSIVE by Alison Cochrun

Rating: 5/5 stars

Summary: Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star. Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off. As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.

My Thoughts: All right. Although it took me FOREVER and a day to finish this because I’ve had zero motivation to eyeball-read lately, I definitely enjoyed it! Especially with a new season of The Bachelorette right around the corner (any Secret Lives of Mormon Wives fans?? IYKYK), this book felt like a warm little shot straight to the chest cavity. Dev is a hopeless romantic who has always believed in fairy-tale endings. That belief only gets reinforced when he joins the production team of the reality dating show Ever After. Even though he’s never experienced that kind of love himself, he sees the show as the ultimate example of finding something magical. This season’s Prince Charming, however, is super hot tech guru Charlie Winshaw, and despite his role on the show, this man is anything but charming. When Dev is reassigned to be Charlie’s handler for the entire season, he makes it his mission to turn Charlie into the heartthrob America expects. Listen, I loved how thoughtfully this book handled mental health issues and invisible disabilities. Between Charlie’s OCD and anxiety disorder and Dev’s chronic depression, it felt incredibly real watching them learn how to show up for each other during difficult moments. Their personalities are complete opposites, yet somehow they fit together perfectly. I especially loved how their friendship organically grew into this layered romance they had to keep hidden from the show’s production team. Not to mention, it was really refreshing toward the end that both Dev and Charlie were pushed to work on themselves before a relationship outside the show could actually work. It removed that looming sense of potential codependency and made their connection feel much healthier. If you’re looking for a book that balances lighthearted fun with more complex, thoughtful themes, this is a perfect pick.

That’s it for February!

Still workshopping a name for my sourdough starter for those who were wondering, but I’ll report back at the end of March.  

2026 Book Count: 16

And if you haven’t already… add me on Goodreads or StoryGraph.