📚On Reading In February 2026 (Best of)

Welcome to another round of what my reading month looked like. In this case February, which as the shortest month of the year, made itself known by feeling ten billion years long. Currently I’m working and going to school so my reading has taken a tiny hit in quantity but it went up in quality. Here were my standouts.

Whidbey by T Kira Madden

There are authors like Chanel Miller who write such powerful memoirs that I’m ecstatic when they start writing fiction and it is also exceptional. T Kira Madden has now entered that space with a literary mystery novel. Whidbey is about the long arm of sexual violence as we follow three women who are linked because of a pedophile who has just been killed in a hit-and-run.

Birdie Chang and Linzie King were child victims who are now adults. The most justice Birdie ever got is a restraining order against Calvin Boyer, which she has to travel to Florida every year to renew. Now her life is thrown once again into a tailspin because another victim of Boyer’s, Linzie, has written a memoir where she revealed things of Birdie’s case the public didn’t know. Then there’s Calvin’s mother, Mary-Beth, who has always loved her son and defended him. When Boyer is killed the women are forced into new spaces of reckoning and needing answers, while also all having motives.

It takes a serious talent, understanding, and care to write a novel with this subject and it be a page-turner you deeply sink into that steers clear from sensationalizing and instead offers all the complicated layers of being human in a society that normalizes sexual violence.

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

Patrick Radden Keefe does not miss and he remains an autobuy/read for me. Like Say Nothing (which has a great adaptation on Hulu) he has once again taken a “true crime” case and written about the case by tying in a multitude of people and history. In London Falling you start with a single case (a dead man in the river Thames) and end up with a Brinks heist, Uganda history, British history… because PRK is an investigative journalist who understands that nothing happens in a vacuum.

This is ultimately a portrait of Zac Brettler and his mysterious death, and life. And a portrait of his family before and after the death, along with everyone connected to his death and case.

It’s the kind of narrative nonfiction true crime that you would find in The New Yorker not on dateline. PRK clearly cares about the victim(s) and their loved ones and I’m glad he ended the book explaining how he came to learn about this case, and why he chose to write about it.

Instead of a narrow, sensationalized focus on the crime you get the big picture of everything that is interconnected. Rather than seeing the last three dominos fall, you see how each domino was set up, when and where, and how and why each fell to knock the one in front of it down. It’s the journalism we deserve.

Hello Sunshine by Keezy Young

“I want to live in a world where I don’t have to worry about stigma and violence.”

This is a graphic horror novel with a missing person case at the core that is really about mental illness, family, friendship, and queerness. It’s a layered story that’s as complicated as mental illness can be that blends both supernatural events and psychosis. It balanced beautiful moments with dark heavy moments really well in story, text, and art.

Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane by Lindy West

I could write a book on all my feelings about this book, but that’s what group chats are for. This was one of my most anticipated books of the year and it was somehow both what I was expecting and not at all what I was expecting. You can read this without having read West’s prior essay collections but this book is a lot of West laying herself bare while revealing things she previously held back—or, let’s say, was not totally honest about in her past writing (what do authors owe readers, if anything?). Think like when you pretend you’re super happy in a situation and later have to face the reality of how complicated the feelings were and that you were being dishonest first with yourself and then everyone else. It’s a messy memoir, not in writing she’s a very good writer, but in showing how messy humans are. It’s incredibly vulnerable. It’s gonna make some people uncomfortable. It’s gonna make some people be RUL judgy (that’s something to sit with, chat with friends about, not project at West). It is full of humor, especially in the dark moments which I always appreciate.

I’ve kept thinking about it since I listened to the audiobook, which is something I appreciate in a world where so much of what I engage with feels forgotten the second I’m done with it.

Bonus: West narrates the audiobook, and voice memos from her road trip are inserted (the latter actually gives a look at the difference between West’s uncensored thoughts vs editing in writing).

Ps: If you haven’t read The Witches Are Coming that is one of my favorite essay collections—I’ve actually been thinking about rereading it.

The Art of A Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

This is a very good, twisty historical mystery (London, 1749) with the lead working at a confectionery shop which brings in interesting food history, including ice cream. It’s clever in the writing and format and somehow went under radar last year and should not have.

Bonus: dual narrators on the audiobook, Sophie Roberts and Justin Avoth.

The Midnight Taxi by Yosha Gunasekera

This is another solid mystery novel that I hope gets attention this year. It’s a murder mystery set in NY with a fun angle as the lead, Siriwathi Perera, is a taxi driver who listens to a lot of true crime when she becomes a suspect after a passenger dies in her cab. Siri’s personality is entertaining in her views of the world and the people she interacts with. I hope this is the first of many novels written by Gunasekera.

Bonus for the audiobook narrator, Isuri Wijesundara, really bringing Siri —and all the characters—to life.

Holy Boy by Lee Heejoo, Joheun Lee (translator)

I love translated crime novels, from seeing what different authors are exploring through the genre to how different justice systems work (don’t work). In Holy Boy fandom, obsession, and objectification are explored as four women come together to kidnap a K-Pop idol and keep him hostage in a mansion. It explores a lot more as it slowly unravels but the less I say the better for reader experience…

A Ghastly Catastrophe (Veronica Speedwell #10) by Deanna Raybourn

I love Deanna Raybourn, she has kept me thoroughly entertained, engaged, and deeply laughing for 10 books now (and I also really enjoy her other series, Killers of a Certain Age). This is a historical mystery series with a grumpy sunshine pairing of a lepidopterist and a historian. The dialogue is always aces in banter. Raybourn is also gifted in finding interesting things in history to write about. In this case Veronica and Stoker are divided (and arguing) in how they feel about the possibility of vampires existing after a man is found drained of all his blood.

I always wait for the audiobook in this series which is narrated by Angèle Masters.

That’s it for now. Hope your reading something great!