February was kind of a weird month. I had mixed bag of reads. And many of my favorites this month were strangely difficult for me to get through. Have you ever experienced that? Maybe it was just my mood, but I felt like these were hard won reads! Speaking of which, I read 10 books and a few of them were unexpected additions to my original TBR, so I didn't quite stick to the original plan of what I'd read, but I hit my goal number of books.

Here were my favorites...

Okay, this is a strange one to put on the list, but it really stuck with me. It's a first contact, hard SF story about a motley crew of travelers sent on a mission to interact with an alien presence. The ideas in this book are pretty mind-blowing, but at times it suffers from an issue I find in a lot of SF books - the ideas outshine the writing. I have to say in this case, Watts does a pretty good job of balancing the two. It's just that the actual story sometimes felt a little...dry. But holy wow, the ideas! Thematically this is a dark, dark book and it can quite honestly throw someone into a state of depression. Therefore, I don't recommend it for everyone, but if you are into this kind of thing it's a great read!

I've really grown to enjoy Burke's writing, and even read two of his books this month! Truthfully it was hard to choose between them for this list, but I chose We Live Inside Your Eyes due to the variety of stories and how well it shows off Burke's talents. He is a master at writing in a perfect tone for the story. It's so well done that it felt like different writers had written each one. These are horror stories and not for the faint of heart, but there are some great tales in here. I was so impressed that after this I picked up his book Sour Candy, and loved it too. Horror stories rarely actually scare me, but Burke's stories stand apart. They are horrifying.

This book was so SO odd, but I enjoyed the heck out of it. If I have one complaint, it's that it felt incomplete; like the prelude to a much larger work with many stories. Or maybe that's just my hope that Clarke writes more in this world. I will admit, this one was a rough start. The language is dense at times, and Clarke drops you right in the middle of a very strange and confusing scenario. It's part of what makes this book so effective. We journey along with Piranesi as he learns more and more about who he is, and how he got where he is. 

And that's all from me! What were your favorite reads for the month? Put them in the comments.

Also read: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain - Vo, Ringworld - Niven, The Lying Game - Ware, Illuminae - Kaufman, The Warrior's Apprentice - Bujold, Sour Candy - Burke, The Nakano Thrift Shop - Kawakami