April’s Reads #BEDM

First day of May so no surprise my first post is my April Reads!

April Reads

Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O’Porter

This is the first novel from Dawn O’Porter and it’s a wonderful, realistic YA book. It’s set on Guernsey in the early 90s and follows the story of Renee and Flo, two classmates who end up being friends one drunken night. Renee’s mother died when she was 7 and she still struggles with this loss, not helped living with her grandparents. On top of that she’s worried about her younger sister who refuses to eat. Flo lives in the shadows of her ‘best friend’ and has a equally tough life at home, where she’s expected to look after her 4 year old sister as her mother doesn’t care and her father has moved out and she misses him. The two girls end up being each other’s support, with this story having it’s ups and downs, as well as cringey moments (there’s a section about periods that made me cringe!). I enjoyed this book, it definitely a realistic YA novel and it’s nice to read YA that has some proper life problems in it. I’m looking forward to reading the 2nd book, Goose, which came out recently.

 

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley

I decided to pick up the first Scott Pilgrim graphic novel because I thought it would be a good place to start when trying to branch out into graphic novels and comics. Plus, I’ve seen the film it’s based on and I wanted to see how it compares. Scott Pilgrim is 23, in a rockband, dating a high school girl, ‘between jobs’ and shares his bed with his gay roommate. He thinks he’s life is pretty good until the uber cool, rollerblading Amazon delivery girl Ramona enters his life and he finds himself trying to find out more about her. But getting closer to her uncovers the league of evil ex-boyfriends he has to fight to be with Ramona. It’s a very quick read and I ended up liking Scott more in this than I did in the film. Not a mind blowing or life changing graphic novel but certainly fun!

 

Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

I mentioned this book briefly in my blog post about books I’m most looking forward to this year. I like Jenny Colgan books as they are fun, easy to read and nice break from reading ‘heavier’ books. The book follows Polly, who thought she had her life sorted with her boyfriend, their business and their apartment, until it all goes wrong and she finds herself bankrupt, homeless and in a relationship that turns sour. Wanting to be alone and re-find herself, Polly takes a flat about an old abandoned shop on a sleepy seaside resort and takes to baking bread to work out her frustrations. Though this hobby turns into something more when the people on the island hear of her baking. There is of course love stories involved too! It’s a funny read, I especially liked it because of the baking element to it. I recommend it if you’re looking for something light and fun to read. If you’ve read and liked any Jenny Colgan books before, then you’ll enjoy this!

 

As Right as Rain: The Meanings and Origins of Popular Expressions by Caroline Taggart

I’ve wanted to read this book for a while, because if I’m honest the cover really caught my attention! It’s a quick book to read, with phrases and expressions in alphabetical order. I really wish I could remember my favourite, I should have noted them, but I’m having a big brain fart at the moment! If you are interested in language or etymology, then you will probably enjoy this book. It doesn’t go super in-depth into things but it’s enough to satisfy curiosity.

 

 

A Slice of Britain: Around the Country By Cake by Caroline Taggart

Totally didn’t mean to read two Caroline Taggart books back to back, it just happened that way! First off, look how beautiful this cover is! So gorgeous. In this book, Taggart travels around Britain, sampling local baked goods. She starts in Cornwall and then travels to Devon, having a cream tea in both counties to test out the Cornish way (scones with jam and then the clotted cream on top) and Devon way (Scones with clotted cream and then the jam on top). Is it just me or does the Devon way seem silly?! Anyway, she travels the length of the island, sampling Welsh Cakes, Bath Buns, Eccles Cakes and Grantham Gingerbread, as well as many other places and foods. There’s also recipes in case you are interested in trying the foods out for yourself. I really enjoyed this, it was a perfect mix of travel, learning about new places and the rest behind some delicious baked goods!

 

Recipe for Life: The Autobiography by Mary Berry

I’ll admit that I didn’t know much about Mary Berry before reading this. I knew her from The Great British Bake Off, I knew she had written lots of cookery books and I knew she had had polio as a child. That was it. So I decided to pick it up, being even more intrigued after a friend gave it a 5 star rating on Goodreads. By golly has Mary had an amazing life! She is one plucky lady. After getting married, in the 1960s, she returned to work after having children, something that was quite unheard of at the time. She has such an amazing work ethic and it’s amazing she’s still flying it nearing 80. If you are any bit interested in Mary Berry I definitely suggest reading this, there is so much in it and The Great British Bake Off is only a very small portion of it!

 

Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins

I’d be intrigued by this for a while but didn’t get it until I kept seeing being reviewed and talked about by booktubers Ariel and Kat, so I decided to give it a go. Harper Price is one of those overachieving high school students (A student, involved in every extracurricular activity, perfect boyfriend, perfect polite Southern Belle) who is about to be chosen as homecoming queen. Realising that, OMG, she has no lipgloss on, she goes to the bathroom to apply it when all of a sudden the janitor bursts in, locks the door and slumps to the ground bleeding. Just before he dies, he kisses Harper and transfers over some superpowers. Harper has become a Paladin and learns she has these powers because she has to protect someone. And Harper can’t believe her bad luck when she finds out who she has to protect. It’s a fun book, it has some magical elements to it and Harper kinda reminds me of Buffy, there’s lots of kickass action in the book. It’s the first in a series and I am looking forward to the next one. I didn’t find it as laugh out loud as the booktubers were saying but I did find it humorous and amusing.

 

Scott Pilgrim vs The World by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Second book in Scott Pilgrim series. In this graphic novel, we find out a bit more about Scott’s life growing up, as well as his last big relationship. It was nice to get that little bit of back story. Don’t have too much to say about this, really it’s a case of another evil ex and another battle!

 

 

 

April Stats

Number of books read- 8

Ratio fiction to non-fiction- 5:3

Number of eBooks- 1 (Rebel Belle)

Number of books borrowed from library- 7 (all but Rebel Belle)

Number of books from Reading Resolutions- 1 (Try more genres I’m not familiar with)

I’m actually in the middle of a few books right now (3!) so if I had just stuck to one of those books I’d actually be finished more this month. I just got so many cool and interesting books out from the library I just wanted to read them all! Have you read any of these? If so, want did you think? Leave a comment below and let me know!