April Wrap Up

So April is over. And I don’t have a photo of a giant stack of read books. Hmmm… I wonder why that could be? *shrugs*

It may have something to do with the fact that my time I usually spent reading was spent:

• Restarting and finally finishing Mass Effect 1 (yes, I’m approx. 83 years late to the party but I am here now and that is all that matters. Stay tuned for my May wrap up where I probably have also finished no books because I’ve finished Mass Effect 2).

• Playing an excessive amount of Dungeons & Dragons. I am currently playing in 3 campaigns and last month there were a lot of public holidays so I played a stupid/awesome amount of D&D. I regret nothing.

• The whole 5 days I did spend some time reading, I mostly read ebooks and audiobooks. Which don’t add to my normal end-of-month stack.

So here are the books I actually did finish this month:

King’s Rising – C. S. Pacat

This was the final book in the Captive Prince trilogy and I can’t say anything about the plot but OMG THESE CHARACTERS. THESE PRECIOUS (AND SOMETIMES HORRIBLE) CHARACTERS. And that ending? And the political intrigue? And the twists? And the CHARACTERS (yeah, I said it twice. You don’t read these books for the plot you read them for the character development). Going to mention again the necessary content warnings for rape, torture, pedophilia, slavery and abuse. These themes are not as prevalent in the final book, however it is still important to be aware of them before going in. Check out my March Wrap Up (where I read a much more impressive number of books) for my thoughts about the first two books in this trilogy.

5 stars. Favourite of the trilogy. All of the yes.

The Summer Palace – C. S. Pacat

This was a short story set after King’s Rising. And it was adorable and squishy and sappy and I kinda liked that (Who am I? What is happening?). But I was on a high from finishing King’s Rising so to be honest I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much if I had waited some time before getting to this. This is basically just the epilogue that King’s Rising didn’t get but should’ve.

4 very cute stars.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here – Patrick Ness

I pretty much always have an audiobook on the go that I listen to while I’m doing chores or driving or just trying to ignore the general outside world so I randomly downloaded this from my library knowing very little about it. And DAMN. This was so much better than I was expecting. First of all, contemporary is really not my genre. But the little snippets of fantasy were enough to keep my mind engaged with the plot, while accidentally falling in love with the characters. These characters were great. Their problems and struggles felt so authentic and I really admire how Patrick Ness incorporated them into the story. This book features some great representation across a diverse cast of characters and it just felt so different from a lot of the contemporary I’ve previously read. The only letdown for me was some of the high school drama and pettiness was a little bit too much at times. I totally recommend going into this knowing nothing about it. I also definitely recommend the audiobook. The narrator was brilliant. This book is just a total feel-good book.

4 (probably more of a 4.5) very unexpected stars (my favourite kind of stars).

Shatter Me – Taherah Mafi

Ok so potential unpopular opinion here….

I DON’T GET IT?!

Like. This was… ok? Also I don’t understand the hype for Warner? I feel like I was reading a different book to the one everyone else did because I was clearly missing some stuff. I am going to keep reading because I have heard that potentially the second book is where the good ish goes down.

Oh yeah. Plot. Summary. Things… this book is a dystopian where the world has basically run out of everything and people are being controlled by a group called… well they’re called something but you get the idea. Typical dystopian. And I still LOVE the dystopian genre because I didn’t burn myself out on it when the massive Hunger Games craze was happening. Also because for some weird reason I really enjoy reading books where we humans have ruined everything and then we’re like ‘ummm pls halp how do we unbreak everything’. Humans are dumb.

Final thoughts on this book, this cover is prettier than I’ll ever be. I’m not even mad about it.

3 stars.

Destroy Me – Taherah Mafi

AKA the novella where I was supposed to understand the hype for Warner… but still didn’t.

3 stars but I’m willing to push on.

Attack on Titan Volume 5 – Hajime Isayama

I read this during the Deweys 24 Hour Read-a-Thon and it’s technically the only thing I finished during the read-a-thon. As I mentioned earlier I played A LOT of D&D this month and one of those 9+ hour sessions fell during the read-a-thon making it difficult to read. Anyway, this was good but not great. I feel like we’re currently building up to some major things that are about to go down that are going to blow my mind so I’m ready for that to happen.

3 stars.

And that’s it! But I’m ready to read more things because ACOWAR comes out TOMORROW OMG I AM READY BUT MY PRE-ORDER SAYS IT HASN’T SHIPPED WHICH MEANS IT PROBABLY WON’T BE HERE IN TIME WHICH MEANS I MIGHT NEED TO GO OUT TOMORROW AND GET A COPY BECAUSE I NEED ANSWERS, SARAH and hopefully this book motivates me to continue reading all the things and doesn’t give me a book hangover and make me want to read zero books. It really could go either way. (Notice my sneaky shoutout to the ACOTAR series in the back of my non-stack of read books?). Also, it’s the first of May and I’ve already finished a book this morning (spoiler, it’s one of the worst books I have EVER read in my entire life). Aren’t books just the best?

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