Hello Friends! Welcome (or welcome back) to the blog.
** Quote **
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
― Oscar Wilde
I hope everyone is doing well, seeing the last of winter’s bite, getting a refresh, and, most importantly, staying hydrated. And for the love of all things …” put down that phone📱!” (LOL)
Friends, I’m back with the February edition of my Bookish newsletter. My reading slowed quite a bit in February, but I’m hoping to gain some momentum for March.
With that, let’s get into the newsletter!
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VOL. 2 | Issue No. 12| FEBRUARY 2026| Blog Version | PDF
LATEST BOOK REVIEW
Head Cleaner
David James Keaton
[HORROR, SCI-FI, ALTERNATE HISTORY, THRILLER]
3.00 Good Reads Rating
THANK YOU! Net Galley and Datura Books for a copy of this title.
Also Note: The movie references aren’t lost on me. Enjoyed that bit.
QUOTE: “Turns out you can’t live on popcorn and coffee”.
This book hit me with an unexpected wave of nostalgia, instantly taking me back to the days of Blockbuster Video and the wonderfully nerdy employees who somehow knew every movie ever made. The kind of people who could decode, “You know… the guy… in the thing… with the thing?” without blinking.
Head Cleaner centers on the last Blockbuster in the U.S. and follows two employees tasked with retrieving an outrageously overdue VCR—one so late it’s become internet-famous. What they discover instead is a bizarre twist: the VCR has the power to change the endings of blockbuster films.
The premise is clever and steeped in nostalgia, and while there’s clearly a deeper message at play, it never fully came into focus for me. Still, it’s strange, inventive, and worth a look if you’re fond of video store memories and offbeat storytelling.
The implications of this story go beyond pop culture—rewriting classic films also means rewriting history, which is a heavy concept on its own.
Things took a strange turn for me when the trio began receiving tapes that depicted their own deaths, followed by increasingly frantic attempts to escape their fate. Add in mysterious figures (or possibly just a van) tracking them down to reclaim the VCR and tapes, and the story starts to spiral.
The multiple timelines and different versions of the characters became disorienting, and while Eva’s outdated clamshell flip phone hints at deeper truths, the narrative ultimately felt muddled. That said, the comedic banter—especially between employees and customers—was genuinely funny, and the physical scuffles between Jerry and Randy added to the absurdity.
I rated this 3.0 ⭐️. It reads well overall and has a strong premise, but the ending landed on a strange, slightly unsatisfying note.
Latest Approved ARC Title(s)! |
Great Book Sources✯ BookTrib ִ✯ |
➢➢➢APPROVED➢➢➢REVIEWS
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Upcoming Horror – Thriller
Release Date: March 17, 2026 Six days before Samhain—the night when the veil between worlds is thinnest—Samantha Harker, daughter of Dracula’s killer, and Dr. Helena Moriarty, daughter of the famed criminal mastermind, are thrown into their next mystery, the mysterious disappearance of two Society field agents in Ireland. Only this time, the Royal Society is sending Jakob Van Helsing to keep an eye on them. Hallucinatory, fiendish, and destructively beautiful, Wretch transports us to a world where not everything is as it seems, and those we love may be the ones who haunt us most. ☕ 🍵 📖 |
📖 My Current Read
Flora is a new mom, enamored of her baby girl, Iris, even if she arrived a few weeks early. With her husband still deployed, Flora navigates the newborn stage alone. But as the sleepless nights pass in the loneliness of their half-empty home, the edges of her reality begin to blur. Just as Flora becomes convinced she is losing her mind, a surprising guest shows up: Flora’s own mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken in years. Can they mend their fraught relationship? Or is there more that Flora’s mother isn’t telling her about the events that led to their estrangement? ☕ 🍵 📖
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February Reading Challenge! A title that starts with the word murder. |
🎧 FEBRUARY DOWNLOADS 📚 My audiobooks for the month. The Godsend, Bernard Taylor |
📖 Completed February Titles! Wretch, or The Unbecoming of the Porcelin Khaw, Eric LaRocca |
Well, friends, that’s it for today. I’m still updating my Book Tracker for 2026, but it’s coming soon. Thank you so much for stopping by today. Please consider subscribing or following along. — Duces.✌🏽 —
✨ Offers! Use my referral code on Live It Up Greens to get $10 off your first order. [https://rc-refer.com/wyetha-yr9bwf]✨