April Reading Wrap Up

Well April was a month, but despite everything going on I was still able to get through a fair few books! So let’s go through them in chronological order.

First up, a book I won’t name but that gives me 287 pages towards my page count for the month.

Next I finished my reread for The Skulduggery Pleasant Grimoire by Derek Landy. This does unfortunately have a few publishing issues and innacuracies, but overall it’s incredibly enjoyable and I gave it 4*

Then I read Until the End by Derek Landy and OMG!!!! Okay to be realistic, this is most likely actually a 4* read. But because it’s the last book in phase 2? Well it gets a 5* for now 😂

Beowulf by Maria Davana Headly is a translation of an Old English epic poem into modern English, and also as a feminist translation. Fucking fantastic, I can totally see why this was told around the camp fires! 3.5* on CAWPILE but I think that will be going up.

Then I bought a secondhand book and read it straight away, From Ostia to Alexandria with Flavia Gemina by Caroline Lawrence. It had one specific issue with language, but overall very interesting and a fun companion non-fiction to the middle grade series! 3*

The Book of Mirrors by E.O. Chirovici was lent to me back in 2016 by one of my best friends… yeah I finally read it. And it was… fine. How disappointing! A story about the death of a famous professor many years prior. 2.5*

Going with a translated classic, from Swedish, The Brothers Lionheart is an absolutely gorgeous children’s book about brothers love that is officially one of my favourites! 4*s and likely to go up!

My non-fiction of the month was Natives by Akala and this was a fantastic discussion on the intersectionality of race and class in the UK. It certainly gave me a lot to research, which I love! 4.5*s!

An audiobook for the month, I went with Comfort Me With Apples which is a short horror novel (novella?) that delves into feminist topics and Adam and Eve. Fantastic and I want to read more like it! 4*

Gallant by V.E. Schwab was a little bit of a let down, but a fantastic concept of a book. An orphan reunited with a family that has to guard the divide between our world and the shadow world of death. It wasn’t in depth enough for me, 3.5*

The Count of Monte Cristo was finally finished this month!!! I’ve not written my review up yet (not even going to lie, it’s fully because it intimidates me) so keep an eye out for that next week, hopefully Monday, but it was a fantastic read and I gave it 4*s!

Second to last, The Book Jumper, this also doesn’t have a review just yet (because chronological order controls my life) but I really enjoyed it. Very much the same vibes as The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I felt that the ending wrapped up too quickly and that’s the only thing that dropped it down to a 4*

The Embroidered Book (another one that will have it’s full review up next week) is a chunker of a book that I was determined I would finish by the end of the month. On my tbr from the Goldsboro book box, this historical fiction COMPLETELY surprised me and I gave it 5*! 170s Europe with incredibly accuracy? Sign me up!

And that was everything I managed to read in April! I didn’t do balancing the books this month, because of everything going on. But I started with 118 books on my tbr and I finished with 120. No penalty but I do have more of a challenge in May! And I read 4887 pages last month. Impressive! And Until the End, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Embroidered Book definitely contributed to that.

What is your favourite book from last month? I have some amazing books but The Embroidered Book has *stuck* in my mind ever since I read it!

March Reading Wrap Up 2022

Somehow I had an absolutely amazing reading month in March! I have no clue how I managed it but I’m not about to complain! I also managed to get through three of the magazines that I’ve had for a while now. One from the Geological Society, one is Scientific America, and the last is Nature’s Home. I’m not counting them for Balancing the Books, but I’m still glad that I’ve been making it a priority to slowly get through them.

Now onto the actual books!

The first book I finished was American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which took me absolutely forever to get through! Okay I’m exaggerating but it took me a fair few days, 15 in total. And in the end? The book was just fine. Just… fine. I didn’t hate it like some of my friends, I didn’t love it like others. It was just quite bland.

Then I finished Super Volcanoes by Robin George Andrews which is 100% a five star read! It’s a beautiful non-fiction and I’m so glad that I read it! It’s hilarious (and I’ve had confirmed from a US friend that the humour is very very British) as well as really informative and interesting. If you’ve ever been intrigued about volcanoes? This is the book to pick up.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater is a book I’ve been meaning to read for so long, and Olivia-Savannah has been waiting with baited breath for me to try. I really enjoyed it! I adore the relationships through the whole book and I’m definitely continuing with the series because I need to know more!

Next up is a book that I got a lot of jip for enjoying, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab. Don’t get me wrong this is really not a work of remarkable literature. I can see so many issues with it. But at the same time I really enjoyed reading it and didn’t want to put it down each day. It just worked for me!

Then I ended up DNFing Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory which was such a pity. I read just under 200 pages of this and the topic itself was absolutely fascinating. But I just really didn’t enjoy how Gregory was creating Margaret, and disappointed that there was only one POV for this book instead of three. I’m just going to research the events myself.

I actually finished my next book, which was I Am A Cat by Sōseki Natsume, a translated Japanese classic. I went into this with the wrong expectations, I didn’t realise that this was going to be very much focused on society in early-1900s Japan and less so on the Cat. Once I’d realised and accepted this, I enjoyed it a lot more. I can’t wait to hear what my partner thinks of this one!

Smiler’s Fair by Rebecca Levene is a book that’s been on my tbr since about 2016, and I’ve never heard anyone talk about it. I have no clue why because it’s a fantastic fantasy! Death, gore, LGBT+ rep, and I’m 100% continuing with this trilogy!

And then for a trilogy that I’ve finally finished, Cathy’s Ring by Stewart, Weisman, and Brigg which is a supernatural/contemporary filled with mixed media. I really enjoyed this series and I’m sad that it’s over! I would’ve loved to see more from these characters. But at the same time I really enjoyed where we finished.

Gifted to me from Olivia-Savannah’s unhaul is Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden which I think I need to reread. This had some great messages within it, but some of it seemed really uncohesive and like it could’ve done with another few rounds of editing. I think a reread could allow me to solidify my thoughts on this one.

The Illumicrate Discord buddy read was A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross this month and I really enjoyed it! I’d been so worried about an American writing about Scottish people, but she seems to have done her research and this was a fun read. There were a couple of issues that brought it down to a 4 star but I definitely want to continue with the duology!

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide was exactly what I expected I Am A Cat to be and I adored it. It was beautiful, I loved reading about Chibi and his humans. It was a gorgeous look into humanity and love for nature and the wild.

Second to last I read Champion by Marie Lu, the last book in the Legend trilogy. This isn’t fantastic, it’s nothing special, but all the same it was enjoyable and I’m glad I’ve finished up the series and that it ended how it did.

And last, but never least of course, is Dead or Alive by Derek Landy, the second to last ever Skulduggery Pleasant book. This was such a fun reread for me because I only read it for the first time last year. It’s also a wild book (yes even by Skulduggery standards) and a lot of fun to read.

And that’s it! Those are all the books I read in March 2022! I managed 5373 pages, which is my highest page count so far this year, and it’s higher than any of my months reading in 2021! Absolutely ridiculous, no wonder I felt like I was reading so much!

What did you manage to read this month? Tell me about any stand outs, whether good or bad!

April Reading Wrap-Up

This is the month in which I finished my dissertation and in the first few days of May, I finished my degree altogether! So, all things considered, I did pretty decently reading-wise this month.

 The first book I finished this month was The Gladiators from Capua by Caroline Lawrence ****. As always, with this series, I really enjoyed the book as it took me on an emotional and educational rollercoaster. This is 100% one of my favourite children’s book series’ and I’ll be preaching that for many years to come! I definitely plan on reading the whole series once I am able to find them in the right covers in paperback and I know I’ll love them.

The next book I finished in April was The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert ****, which I had as an eARC from NetGalley (yes I was behind, it is distressing and I’m working on it!). I have a full review of this book on my blog which you can find here but as a short overview, I really enjoyed this read and am looking forward to the sequel.

 

The third book I got to was Magnus and the Jewelled Book of the Universe by S.L. Browne **, which was another eARC thanks to NetGalley. I also have a full review of this book up on the blog, find it here, but the essence of it was that I was disappointed. This book could have been so much more.

 

Book number four for the month was The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas *****, which I was reading as part of a little travelling book club. My review of this book is up on my YouTube channel, and the link to the video is here. This was a very hard-hitting book which made me very angry, very emotional and I recommend it to anyone.

 

One book which was a big surprise to me was The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespear ****. I like Shakespear. I really didn’t expect to. I bought three mass market paperbacks of his plays as I thought they looked pretty and I decided I should attempt to “make my way” through some of his work. It turns out that both of the two I have read so far have been funny, entertaining, interesting… I really like Shakespear! I was expecting the climax of this to come a little sooner to allow for more time for resolution, however, as a play the timing works well as it is so I just need to get used to reading plays. A fun, quick little play which I didn’t expect to enjoy!

This month was the month I finally finished Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith ****! I haven’t read non-fiction in a very long while, despite it being one of my main genres to read as a child, so I had forgotten that they take me a lot longer to read than fiction books. This was a really interesting book, and the only reason it lost a star was that there were some sections which focused too much on humans. I understand bringing them in for comparison but at certain points, I had forgotten it was an octopus centred book until it mentioned them again. Other than that, this was informative, interesting and something that was very much outside of my comfort zone but that I enjoyed reading!

The last book I finished in April was Davenant’s Egg & Other Tales by Jemahl Evans, *****. If you’ve been following me on this blog for a little bit, you’ll know that I am a huge fan of Jemahl Evans’ work and have been ever since I got his first book. So it’ll be no surprise to any of you that I loved this set of short stories which tie in with the Blandford Candy universe! If you want to see more of my thoughts on this book then click here! If you want to see my thoughts on The Last Roundhead (book 1) then click here, and This Deceitful Light (book 2) then click here!

I wasn’t able to get to Ink or Rebel in the Sands this month. Mainly because I was so focused on my University work, it meant I didn’t want to spend too much time reading and also I wasn’t out and about much, meaning the Kindle (where Rebel in the Sands is) wasn’t used as much. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get to them in May, fingers crossed!

Considering that I have had one of the most important months of my educational life, I think I’ve done pretty well reading 7 books in April along with getting all of my assignments done. Now I have finished my degree I’m hoping I’ll be able to read some more in May and catch up a bit with some books I should have gotten to!

Stay tuned for my May tbr, which will go up soon!!