My reading last month was all over the place. First, I had to finish a book that I had started in January, but where my library loan had expired before I finished it and I had to wait to re-borrow it. Then, the same thing happened with another book that I started in February and I am currently waiting to re-borrow. This also made me realize; I don’t like to stop reading a book, pick up another and then having to go back to the previous one. I know some people read multiple books simultaneously, but I am not one of those people.
All this to say, I did finish two books in February and here are my reviews:
ROAR: How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Unique Female Physiology for Optimum Performance, Great Health, and a Strong, Lean Body for Life by Stacy Sims (★★★★☆)
This is one of the books I picked up at an actual bookstore in January and I really enjoyed it. When I heard about it, I wanted a hard copy of it because I could see myself highlighting lots of paragraphs (and I did!). This is obviously a fitness/health book and not for everyone, but if you’re looking to find more information on how your female physiology is different from men’s, how your hormonal cycle can influence your training, and what you can do to mitigate this through the right nutrition and training, this is a great resource (that I’ll see myself referring back to!).
Word of caution though: This book is not a gospel and people have claimed that there are some recommendations that should be taken with a grain of salt.
As always, every body is unique and 1 + 1 doesn’t always equal 2. But, overall, I found this book really helpful and informative and it explains really well how – as an athlete and otherwise! – you have to fuel your body efficiently. Highly recommend.
Best quote of the book: “Women are not small men. Stop eating and training like one”.
Normal People by Sally Rooney (★★★☆☆)
Some people said that this was a page-turner, but it wasn’t for me at all. I had to keep pushing to pick it up (hence the expiration of the library loan in between), because I was just not invested in the characters. Marianne and Connell meet in high school and couldn’t be more different. Connell is poor, but well-liked around his peers, Marianne comes from a well-off (but fucked up, might I add) family and is seen as an outsider. But yet, somehow they feel a pull toward each other. So far, so good. On any normal day, this is good story material.
Then they go off to college, their roles switch and Marianne feels more comfortable and Connell feels out of place. Still an okay storyline. Throughout this whole time, they keep circling each other, come together and then keep pushing each other away, and this goes on for what feels like forever chapter after chapter. The saddest assessment at the end of the book for me was: I felt that the characters hadn’t evolved. I don’t quite know how many years the story spans, but it’s multiple years (from high school through college), but I feel like Marianne and Connell technically ended up right back in the same spot where they started.
What did you read in February? Anything you’d like to recommend? Leave a comment, and then add me on Goodreads to keep in touch.
I think I have Normal People on a To-Read list so it’s good to know it’s not necessarily a page turner. I’ve been reading a lot of Mary Higgins Clark books of my mom’s. We both decided to read them after Mary Higgins Clark passed away earlier this year. I forgot how good a mystery can be!
Normal People has been on my list for a while and I think I pushed it further down because other friends had mentioned they weren’t into it. The other book sounds great though!
I really liked Normal People but agree with your assessment that they did not evolve and learn from the past at all. So that was frustrating but it also felt realistic to me, especially for young people. I wouldn’t read ‘conversations with friends’. Since you didn’t like Normal People, I don’t think you will like this people. I think you will find the problems in Normal People in conversations with friends and it will annoy you even more!!
I know a few people that have read Roar and they had a similar review of the book – I will add this one to my list for sure.
I don’t like reading different books at the same time either – sequential reader here 😊.
„Normal People“ would drive me nuts. I’m glad for your review!
I hope I can get back into reading again – life has been too hectic lately. 😬
I totally get this not reading two many books at the same time. I can usually have fiction/entertainment story and a more insolvent/educational one at the same time. Everything else messes me up. February was a very slow as my fiction story drags on and is not very involving – more like another educational book. A bit frustrating. However my non-fictional reading was a highlight and I wrote all about it in a blogpost.
I seem to go through phases where I’ll read page-turners and then get a few books that drag. I appreciate the review of Normal People because when a character doesn’t evolve and goes in circles doing the same things, it gets to me!
I’m going to do a review of two books this week that I read in February.
Currently I’m reading two books at once (yes I’m one of those readers) :) and enjoying both. “What Alice Forgot” by Liane Moriarty is a real page turner for me – less than 100 pages to go. Also reading “Hidden Depths” by Anne Cleeves.
I felt the same way about Normal People! It was just a depressing book overall. I have her other book, Conversations with Friends, on my shelf, but I’m less inclined to pick it up since I didn’t love Normal People. And the author not using quotation marks was so distracting!
I actually have Normal People checked out from the library right now, but haven’t started it yet. I’m glad I read your review first!
I love especially your comments on Normal People. My work in progress involves an unlikely couple, and I will make sure to keep the storyline moving! I also love the variety of books you have here, San.