February

This month I read 3 ebooks and 1 physical book from the Toronto Public Library, totalling to 4 books (my worst month to date). My average star rating for the month was 2.88. My running total of books read in 2025 is 11, so I am 11% of the way to my goal of reading 100 books in 2025.

Dandelion by Jaime Chai Lun Yiew

Synopsis: When Lily was 11-years-old, growing up in the British Columbia interior in 1987, her mother Swee Hua left one day and never returned. Swee Hua was miserable living in a white-majority mining town, and longed to return to Brunei. But everyone was shocked when she never wrote, never visited, never contacted her husband or her daughters. 30 years later, pregnant with her first child, Lily cannot stop thinking about her mother. Determined to figure it out, once and for all, she visits her family in Brunei. But will she like the truth that she finds out?

My thoughts: This is probably one of the only pure-fiction books that I’ve ever read that felt like a biography. Partially because I’ve been reading a couple of biographies (girl who’s only ever read biographies thinks that everything is a biography). But mostly because of the writing style of the book. It just felt so much like the author was recounting things that happened to her in her childhood, and then alternating with her perspective in the present. Also, because the plot didn’t feel like it was structured in a traditional way; it didn’t feel like there was a rising action, a third act conflict, etc etc. Usually you’d only find this when you’re reading a true story, because readers will know that real life doesn’t often follow the classic structure of a novel. This is one of the Canada Reads picks for 2025, and it’s definitely outside of my normal reading, so I’m glad to have been pushed outside of my normal taste in books, especially with the discussion of stateless people. The main character’s father was born in Brunei of Chinese descent, and was stateless, while her mother claimed to have had Malaysian citizenship. Growing up in a jus soli/birthright citizenship country, it feels so foreign to read about people who just don’t have citizenship to any country, despite being born in one, and to read about the helplessness and insecurity that they had to deal with.

Rating: 2.5/5 community meals at your local community chinese restaurant.

Title Score: C (dandelions were symbolically present at the very beginning and end of the book, but it did seem forced)

Watch Out For Her by Samantha M. Bailey

Synopsis: Sarah Goldman is determined to make a fresh start in Toronto with her family. She doesn’t want to think about Holly Monroe. Ostensibly, Holly was hired to babysit her son Jacob over the summer, but she quickly wormed her way into the Goldman’s lives. She moved in with them, started giving Sarah advice, and even getting to know Sarah’s husband, Daniel. But Holly went too far too fast, and Sarah jumped at the chance to move to Toronto for Daniel’s new job. Now she’s stuck in a new city with no family or friends, in a creepy old house with hidden cameras and a suspicious neighbourhood watch. But Sarah has no need to worry; according to the creepy texts from the unknown number, she’s never truly alone.

My thoughts: I’m always a little surprised when a genre fiction book is chosen for Canada Reads, and I was especially surprised by this one because it just wasn’t very good. I suppose it was interesting to read from Sarah’s perspective and experience the dramatic irony of a rational person reading her completely paranoid thoughts. It also was pretty weird for Holly to have some rational explanations for her behaviour, but still also be creepy and obsessed with the Goldmans.

Rating: 2/5 necklaces from exclusive Vancouver boutiques

Title Score: B (a very generic thriller title for an extremely generic thriller)

A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-Nee Chacaby with Mary Louisa Plummer

Synopsis: This is the autobiography of Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-Cree Elder who eventually led Thunder Bay’s first Gay Pride Parade in 2013. She was born in Ombabika, Ontario in 1952, and the book chronicles her experiences, relationships, addictions, abuse, and spiritual journey growing up and living across Northern Ontario.

My thoughts: I thought that this was a really gripping and engaging account of Ma-Nee’s life, and it was shocking to hear about all the hardships she had gone through throughout her life. But it was so amazing to watch her get knocked down (sometimes literally) but still get back up again. I was also struck by how much she had experienced at a very young age, for example she had already been married, had kids, and divorced by the time she was in her early twenties. I also really admire her for staying true to her two-spirit identity, even when other Indigenous people hated her for it (because it made their own lives more difficult. Reading the afterward made me really appreciate all the work that Mary Louisa Plummer did to turn Ma-Nee’s oral account into a book that would be easy for the reader to understand but also true to Ma-Nee’s way of speaking. I can’t speak to the latter goal, but she definitely accomplished the former. Plummer definitely treated this as an academic project (it was published by the University of Manitoba Press) and she was determined to not repeat the mistakes of similar memoirs, where the white researchers often took ownership and did not fully respect the stories of the Indigenous women they were recording.

Rating: 4/5 Women’s Music Festivals where you met your soulmate 10 years ago

Title Score: A (this is exactly what the book was about, no notes)

This Will Be Fun by E. B. Asher

Synopsis: 10 years ago, a team of heroes saved the Queendom of Mythria from a terrible darkness. There was beautiful Beatrice, prickly Elowen, ex-bandit Clare, and heroic Galwell the Great, and together they were known as the Four. But saving the queendom did not come without sacrifice, and Galwell gave his life so that his friends could survive and succeed in their mission. 10 years later, the surviving members of the Four have gone their separate ways. Beatrice married a rich but rather dull duke, and has just been divorced by him. Clare has appeared in many advertisements and sponsorships, determined to be able to pay his own way. And Elowen has retreated to a dark forest, where she hopes that no one will brave the treacherous woods in order to bother her. But the Four have been served a summons that they cannot turn down: the marriage of the former-Princess, now-Queen of Mythria to her beloved. They owe it to the Queen to show up, but will Clare, Beatrice, Elowen (and their longtime adversary Vandra) survive the journey without ripping each other’s heads off? And even worse, will they be able to save the Queendom one more time?

My thoughts: This was a lighthearted queer (and straight) romance that was basically all fluff. The magic system didn’t make a ton of sense, and the author’s focus seemed to be on parodying real life with magic as much as possible (Wagons instead of Ubers, heart-magic consultants instead of therapists, brew taverns instead of Starbucks, etc etc etc). That being said, it was still charming, and it was nice to see that Elowen x Vandra and Beatrice x Clare each repair their own relationships with their partners but also with their questmates.

Rating: 3/5 Annual Clare look-alike contests

Title Score: D (this has nothing to do with the book and a bit trite imo)

i am, your most faithful blogger, elisa