February Book Recap

Sharing the books I read in February and if they’re worth adding to your collection.

Hi hi! How’s the week going? I hope you’re having a good one. We’re back from a dance competition and hit the ground sprinting into the week. The next month is a busy one, but I’m still trying to get in at least 30 minutes of reading each day. I hit 4 books last month (1 DNF…) and wanted to share the details with you! It was a unique mix of selections with impactful, inspirational, educational, and a little fluff for good measure.

Here are the books I read in Feb!

February Book Recap

The Light We Lost

This book examines the impact of our decisions, and living with the “what-ifs” and implications when we don’t follow our heart. I read this one quickly because I couldn’t wait to see what happened; it reminded me of a Colleen Hoover book with more captivating writing 😉 The ending was a little bit of a disappointment and while I enjoyed this one, it wasn’t one of my top faves. I’d say it’s a 7/10.

From Amazon:

Lucy is faced with a life-altering choice. But before she can make her decision, she must start her story—their story—at the very beginning.

Lucy and Gabe meet as seniors at Columbia University on a day that changes both of their lives forever. Together, they decide they want their lives to mean something, to matter. When they meet again a year later, it seems fated—perhaps they’ll find life’s meaning in each other. But then Gabe becomes a photojournalist assigned to the Middle East and Lucy pursues a career in New York. What follows is a thirteen-year journey of dreams, desires, jealousies, betrayals, and, ultimately, of love. Was it fate that brought them together? Is it choice that has kept them away? Their journey takes Lucy and Gabe continents apart, but never out of each other’s hearts.

This devastatingly romantic debut novel about the enduring power of first love, with a shocking, unforgettable ending, is Love Story for a new generation.

Yellow Wife

This book is based on a true story, and follows the life of Pheby, who is born a slave in Virginia and is the daughter of the plantation’s medicine woman… and the master of the plantation. Instead of receiving the freedom that she’s promised when she turns 18, she ends up being sold and forced to leave her home and those she loves behind. She’s transferred to the Devil’s Acre, which was a real jail that housed and tortured hundreds of thousands of slaves, and becomes the mistress of its Jailer. The book is obviously incredibly hard to read. It’s about a tragic and dark time in our history, and a devastating reminder of the atrocities that have occurred in our society.

While it’s a difficult read, it’s an important read. It was well-researched and the author vividly describes the hardships that so many faced, while demonstrating what women will also endure to protect their children. 10/10

From Amazon:

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world.

She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Pheby is exposed not just to her Jailer’s cruelty but also to his contradictions. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit him, and she soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.

$100M Offers

This book is written by a super successful entrepreneur (making 10M+ per month… I KNOW) and how to craft an irresistable offer for your audience. He goes into the psychology behind what makes a great offer, how to bundle your services, pricing, supply/demand, copy, etc. I learned a lot while I read this book, and am going to use some of his tips with my current product offerings. 9/10

About the author, from Amazon:

Alex Hormozi is an American entrepreneur. He started as a management consultant in the public sector then left that career to pursue a career in fitness starting his first gym at age 23. He scaled his small gym chain from 0 to 6 locations in three years. Over the next two years, he and his wife started flying around the country turning gyms around.

Their large success, however, came from packaging and licensing his boutique gym model to 5000+ gyms around the world. They then started a supplement and software company to support that base of gyms. They sold a 66% stake in the company in 2021 at $46.2M to American Pacific Group. They then started Acquisition.com as a holding company for their private investments. The private equity firm focuses on making minority investments into cash flow positive growing founder owned businesses. They then scale those businesses. As of 2023, their portfolio of 16 companies generates $200,000,000 per year and growing.

The couple now has shifted their mission to making real business education available to everyone. They fulfill on this by making content across social media and publishing books and free courses for entrepreneurs.

Alex’s most recent book $100M Offers: How to make offers so good people feel stupid saying no, has sold 300,000 copies from word of mouth alone. In their spare time, Alex and his wife still enjoy training at hardcore gyms and fending off death one workout at a time.

Good Inside

I wish I would have read this book when the girls were babies – it didn’t exist yet – but the thing is, it’s never too late to read this book. Her tips are applicable whether you have a toddler, a big kid, a tween, teen, or even if you’re a grandparent helping with grandkids. I strongly align with Dr. Becky’s parenting philosophy: treating children with firm boundaries, kindness, understanding, and humanity. I learned so many wonderful tips from this book and loved listening to the audio version. It has validated the importance of connection, especially when a child is going through a difficult time. As she says, “Your job isn’t to get them out of the hole. It’s to get INTO the hole with them, so they know they’re not alone.” 10/10 – definitely read this one!

From Amazon:

 Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr. Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them.

Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans. These techniques don’t build the skills kids need for life, or account for their complex emotional needs. Add to that parents’ complicated relationships with their own upbringings, and it’s easy to see why so many caretakers feel lost, burned out, and worried they’re failing their kids. In Good Inside, Dr. Becky shares her parenting philosophy, complete with actionable strategies, that will help parents move from uncertainty and self-blame to confidence and sturdy leadership.

Offering perspective-shifting parenting principles and troubleshooting for specific scenarios—including sibling rivalry, separation anxiety, tantrums, and more—Good Inside is a comprehensive resource for a generation of parents looking for a new way to raise their kids while still setting them up for a lifetime of self-regulation, confidence, and resilience.

Lessons in Chemistry– DNF

I started the audiobook of this one, and called it quits halfway through. I hated it and couldn’t help but wonder if I was listening to the wrong book! SO many people highly recommend this one, and it’s just a good reminder that we all have such different tastes in books! I found that it dragged on and on, nothing exciting happened, and I felt blah about the whole plot. 0/10 lol

From Amazon:

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

So, tell me, friends: what’s the best book you’ve read recently?

If you’re looking to change up your reading rotation, check out Book of the Month – you can choose a book each month from their selections or pick a recent member fave. I have two coming this month and can’t wait 🙂

Check out my January Book Recap.

xo

Gina