What I read in February...

Let's blame it on the short month, but I don't have many books to review this month.  I have a feeling now that I've picked up my running habit again, I may have even less to report in March, but lets hope not.

Rating scale:

1/5 - Hated it, didn't finish.
2/5 - Tolerated it on principle to finish.
3/5 - Eh, didn't love it, didn't hate it.  Had some good parts/kept me interested/finished it on principle.
4/5 - I liked it.
5/5 - I LURVED it and I'd read it again.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 4/5
I remember reading this book back in the day and I had all the feelz.  As it was a re-read, I knew what was going to happen, but some of the details were a little fuzzy.  A real struggle I had with this book was that it was a poor version, so literally the physical (figurative) book version was bad.  Because I "acquired" it, there were some crazy characters and the pages weren't exactly like they would have been in the actual book and any word that should have had 2 l's only had a single L, so instead of tell, it would be tel.  Not difficult, but confusing when there's already purposeful misspellings.  I don't remember having to read this as a kid, probably because of the themes of bullying and sex and drinking, but reading this when I was younger made me a more compassionate person.

TL;DR: Read this to feel more compassionate towards people who are different because you never know what their life story is.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson 4/5
I couldn't read this book while I was at the gym on the elliptical for several reasons.  1.  I'd laugh and be out of breath and would have to slow down and that isn't good for my workout.  2.  I'd laugh anyways and almost fall off the elliptical (obviously laughing is quite difficult for me).  If you don't know, Jenny Lawson is also known as The Bloggess and if you don't know what that means, you might know what "Cluck Cluck Motherfucker" means and if that's the case, she wrote that story and Beyonce was her metal chicken. 

I enjoyed the chuckles I got from this book but it really depended on my mood when I was reading.  There were a few chapters I felt were forced and the humor was really stretched.  Granted, I feel like I think a lot like Jenny in that my mind just keep going to all these strange places, but I don't speak every.single.thought to someone else, which I'm sure many people are thankful for.  I'm not saying I don't speak MOST of my thoughts outloud, but whatevs.  Teh MD Adult Roomie has been telling me to read this book (and the blog) for years and Teh Sister was all, "Yeah, I read that when it came out," when I tried to sing praises to her.  So obviously my people are way ahead of me on pop culture and books and entertainment than I am.

TL;DR: If you wanna laugh, read this book.  If it gets boring, skip those parts.  If you don't wanna read the book, read her blog instead.  If you don't like to laugh, then why are you here?

Yes Please by Amy Poehler 3/5
I had considered reading the strong comedian women books (Bossypants, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, Are You There Vodka?, etc) for a while and when Brit reviewed Yes Please, I figured I'd start there.  This was a pretty down to earth book, which Poehler is known for.  She tells stories of growing up and starting her comedy career and when she did drugs and why she titled the book Yes Please and about her divorce and about working with seriously famous people and about her kids.  This was the "other" book I was reading at the gym while I read Let's Pretend This Never Happened since I couldn't read it without falling off the elliptical.  There were some amusing parts, but I wasn't really moved by this book.  Maybe I would have appreciated it more if I was a Saturday Night Live viewer?

TL;DR: If this book was a blog, I'd call it a lifestyle blog.  Talks about Poehler's life, which you might be into if you're a huge fan of her work.


On deck:
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (the cyber book club book for March)
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling (the cyber book club alternate book for March)
Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty
And I'll finally finish Too Blessed to Be Stressed: Inspiration for Climbing Out of Life's Stress-Pool  by Debora Coty which Teh BFF gave me at Christmas that I've been slowly crawling through, between in-progress books and that stupid jewel game I play where Mr. Scrooge tries to tell me all the moves to make and refuses to download his own games.