It’s kind of cliché to start wrap-ups with ‘I can’t believe the month is already over!’ but that’s really how I feel about April and about 2018 in general. I only have three big classes left of this school year , and then that’ll be over as well. Spring is here (although in The Netherlands, that means mostly rain…)

I used to never do wrap-ups, but I would like to change that. I enjoy reading wrap-ups that go a little deeper, like how Through Prose Tinted Pages does them. Their wrap-up includes a life update as well as awesome blog posts they enjoyed this month. So that’s what inspired this post!

I read six books in the month of April, and I DNF’d one.

The first book I read was Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. This book, which is about how a 10-year old boy deals with the loss of his father, was a reread for me. And once again, my heart was crushed. This book is a little jarring and confusing the first half, but everything wraps up nicely in the second half. Four stars.

Then, I finished A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab. This is the third book in the Shades of Magic trilogy (I reviewed A Darker Shade of Magic here). I LOVED THIS BOOK. I loved the characters. I loved the writing. I loved the romance. The story wraps up really nicely and the ending is very satisfying. I cannot wait to try more of V.E. Schwab’s books. I gave this five stars.

Then, continuing my spree of reading emotional books, I read Everything I never Told You by Celeste Ng. It’s about the death of Lydia, the favorite child of the Chinese-American family this is about. It’s beautifully written and it deals with some very interesting and important topics. Such as interracial relationships, racism, sexism, grief, neglect, etc.  I gave it three stars because I felt like an observer in the story, and could never really connect to the characters.

Next I read and reviewed Chatterbox by Sandy Day. This is a self-published poetry collection that the author sent to me for review. The poems in this collection explore a world of bewildering emotions ranging from sadness and terror to anger and enlightenment. The collection, divided in four different parts – Chattering, scattering, craving and knocking – guides you through all of these emotions. My full review can be found here. I gave it four stars.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas had been on my TBR for a while. This book takes an incredibly important subject matter – racially motivated police violence – and makes it digestible for a YA audience. I gave it three stars, which means I liked it. I thought the main character was very well done, her reaction to things seems very realistic to me. My main issue was with the writing. It felt very typical for a YA contemporary and therefore didn’t have much identity or distinct voice for me.

The last book I finished in April is The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich. This book is part memoir, part true crime story. We follow the author as she begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder. While working there she becomes obsessed with pedophile and murderer Ricky Langley, seeing parallels of her own life in his. This book was absolutely breathtaking, and I’m planning to write a full review about it very soon.

Then, there is one book I DNF’d..

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. This was my very first Stiefvater book and I DNF’d it around the halfway point. It’s not that I absolutely hated the story, it’s just that I couldn’t be bothered. I always say that I need to understand the motive of the characters to care about the story and that’s where this book completely fell flat for me. Some rich spoiled private school kids search for a Welsh King and somehow it has to do with psychic energy but like, why?  Continue reading “April Wrap-Up: The Books I Read, My Favorite Blogposts And Life in General” →