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!

Beowulf, a review

Beowulf is an Old English classic that has been translated by many over the years, and I read a translation by Maria Dahvana Headley. In this she states she tries to have the power of a mother come through, rather than being downplayed, and in my opinion she also targets this towards a modern audience more than I’ve heard other translations do.

The first thing that will hit you about this translation is it’s use of “Bro”. As someone who is used to classics sounding stiff and formal, this was definitely not expected and I won’t lie, it took me a little time to get used to. But once I did I found that I really enjoyed this. Given that these tales used to be told around the campfire by people whose job it was to tell stories, this is most likely close to how they would’ve been using language themselves! Don’t get me wrong, there are more formal sounding parts too, but these are supposed to contrast with the lighter tones. I thought it was a really interesting and modern way to convey this in the text.

This was especially interesting for me to read after reading The Boneless Mercies (a Beowulf retelling) and seeing the parallels and differences present in the text. I definitely think I need to reread Boneless now! I also just really enjoyed the story itself. I can see why it lasted through the ages being told around campfires!

On CAWPILE I rated this: Characters: 7, Atmosphere: 6, Writing: 7, Plot: 8, Intrigue: 7, Logic: 6, Enjoyment: 7, which gives a score of 6.86 and a 3.5* rating!

I’m so glad that I ended up reading this translation (thank you so much Kari for the gift!) so this will definitely be bumped up to 4* on my Goodreads rating. It’s, imo, a great translation of a classic that makes it a lot more accessible for more readers!

Highlight here for trigger warnings: violence, death, gore, cursing, blood, murder.

Have you ever read a Beowulf translation? Would you? I’m so glad that I delved in.

My April TBR Hopefuls, 2022!

It’s that time of the month again! I’m picking out all the books I wanna read in the next month and this time round I’m using Olivia-Savannah’s All The World’s A Page readathon for the prompts!

I’ve linked Olivia’s video here which tells you more about the prompts and the readathon, please do go check her out if you haven’t already because she’s a wonderful human.

Now I’m going to delve into the books! This time round? It’s just gunna be a list, I hope you don’t mind. I’ve got my tbr video going up in an hour on my YouTube channel if you do want more details on the books.

I want to listen to Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M Valente which I heard about from Kayla from BooksAndLala reading it a while back now. It’s supposed to have Stepford Wives vibes.

The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren was sent to me by the wonderful Veronica’s Shelf and I’m excited for this short Swedish classic.

One I was sent by Caitlyn from Mad Cheshire Rabbit for this Christmas past is Natives by Akala, I’ve been enjoying reading at least one non-fiction each month so far and I want to continue that.

The lovely Kari-ng for Books sent me The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser and I’m 100% here for diving into books in a setting mixed between Germany and Scotland (and it’s translated from German too).

Now that I’m up to date in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, I want to read the Grimoire by Derek Landy before I read the final novel!

And on that note, Until the End by Derek Landy, the last SP novel, is released on the 14th of April and you best believe I’ve got it pre-ordered! So of course I’ll be reading that!

The Illumicrate read for April is Gallant by V.E. Schwab and I’m looking forward to trying out some more from this author after reading a book from her in March.

Then a book that I’ve put on my tbr but I won’t be mad if I can’t get to it? Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley. It doesn’t fit any of the prompts for All The World’s A Page (that I’ve checked) but Kar-ing for Books gifted this to me recently and I’m just super excited for this feminist re-translation of the epic!

And then finally, I pulled a book out of my tbr jar in my YouTube video. So I need to read that too!

A fair few books, but at the same time they really aren’t that big. I think the biggest are the Skulduggery Pleasant books, and we all know I’ll fly through those. What are you wanting to read this month???

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke | A Review

This book follows Frey, a Boneless Mercie. These are women who will mercy-kill those reaching the ends of their lives whether through age, sickness or injury. She works alongside Frey, Ovie, Juniper, and Runa and they live a simple life. That is until Frey hears of a monster killing men, women and children, and decides to listen to the call to glory that has been in her heart for so many years and kill the beast.

This book is absolutely beautiful, I felt every word in my soul and really felt a connection to all the places and people that we visited. At the beginning of the book I did find myself wishing that we had more time with the Mercies actually being Mercies, but as the book went on I enjoyed the path that it took. If anything, I would’ve loved this book to be longer. The time spent in each location felt a little rushed and I would’ve loved to spend more time learning more about each culture that was introduced in each new location.

I’ve since heard that this is a retelling of Beowulf, which may explain the shortness with which we experienced each location. Although the original epic poem is a long one, it doesn’t leave much time to dwell on each event, and I assume the decision for shortness was Tucholke emulating the fast paced feeling of the original story.

The book is so atmospheric and captivating. I found myself struggling to put it down and I enjoyed every second of the book (something that doesn’t happen too often because I have the attention span of a gnat). I really hope her other books are as beautiful and enchanting as this one, if so I can’t wait to read more from her in the future. Such a beautiful story!