April Reads
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas
This is the second book in the Throne of Glass series, following straight on from the first book Throne of Glass. Celeana is the king’s personal assassin though she has a secret that if anyone was to find out, she would be killed. Celeana is still stuck in a bit of a love triangle between the prince and the captain. I don’t want to go too into this but it is a good follow up to the first book. It’s nice to see Celeana work as an assassin instead of fighting the battle to become the king’s assassin. We find out a bit more about Celeana’s back story too, but just enough to keep us curious and wanting to know more. Overall if you enjoy the first book then you’ll probably want to get your teeth into this one too!
Miss Mayhem by Rachel Hawkins
Sticking with the theme of kick ass girls, Miss Mayhem is the follow up to Rebel Belle, which saw Harper gain some super strength fighting skills to become Paladin (protector) to her former nemesis David, who is the Oracle. Think Buffy but set in the South! I can’t go into this one too much as it’ll spoil stuff from the first book but needless to say there’s still some awesome fight scenes as well as Harper, David and friends trying to stay ‘normal’ despite what destiny has decided otherwise. I did find it a bit of a let down compared to Rebel Belle, it wasn’t as long and it felt a tad filler at times. As well as predictable. I will read the final book once it’s out as I want to know what happens with the story but I think it just fell under the curse of the boring second book in a trilogy.
Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Book 4 in the Scott Pilgrim series. I don’t really know what to say, another book, another evil ex to fight! I am enjoying the series though, there is always some fun quirky details if you look properly which keeps in interesting.
Academy Street by Mary Costello
This one was recommended by someone at work, who said it was a beautiful but sad story. It starts in Ireland in 1940s at the funeral of Tess’s mother. Tess is seven and this death has a massive impact on her childhood. The book follows Tess as she grows up, moves to America and what happens to her there, up until she is an older woman. At times it reminded me a bit of Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín but there are massive differences. Brooklyn follows a shorter time span while Academy Street follows Tess’s whole life. What struck me most was Tess’s loneliness, which starts as a child when she loses the ability to speak and no one can understand why. Despite having people in her life while in America, she still remains lonely, an outsider, unable to properly connect with people. She does have a lovely friendship with Willa, another woman who lives in the same building on Academy Street which I was glad Tess had, it stopped the book being a complete tragedy! This novella is a sweet melancholy at it’s finest.
Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
So I technically finished this yesterday but only because I couldn’t finish it Thursday night as I was too tired. I’m adding it to April’s reads because it’s the Fem-tellectual Book of the Month pick. The theme was a book by a business woman so I picked the only book that interested me, Lean In. It’s something I’ve wanted to read for a while so it was the perfect opportunity. This book is the reason I was slow to read this month. I did find it interesting but as it’s non-fiction is slowed my reading down a bit, especially because I wanted to take it all in properly. The book has some interesting points which all women (and men) should consider. I might my own copy so I can dip back in and out of it in the future.April Stats
Number of books read- 5
Ratio fiction to non-fiction- 4:1
Male to Female authors- 1:4
Number of eBooks- 1 (Miss Mayhem)
Number of books borrowed from library- 4 (Crown of Midnight, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Lean In and Academy Street)
Fem-tellectual Book Club January Theme ‘Pretty Busy Ladies; A Book Written by a Business Woman- Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
Reading Challenge Completed
A book with a love triangle- Crown of Midnight
A book set in highschool- Miss Mayhem
A book that made you cry- Academy Street
So I didn't get one challenge for every book this month, something that I'll need to up my game about for the last few tricky challenges towards the end of the year.
Overall, I think I need to do a bit better and hopefully I will in May. I feel like I have so many books I need to read but not enough time. I do have enough time, I just need to prioritize more!
I might read Academy Street, it sounds good! I hear you with the too-many-books-not-enough-time thing. I cleaned up my Kindle and Calibre the other day, got rid of stuff I've read and sorted DNF's out and I still have hundreds. Can't read quick enough!
ReplyDeleteIt was good! Just made me feel so homesick though in a way. I was tearing up in the bus too reading it! Oh, I need to sort through my books, I only brought a select few when I moved over but instead of eating through them I've just added more!
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