Hi guys, I've got my April wrap-up today
and April was a bit of a 'meh' month. Just in
general and reading wise. I kind of had a
very stressful month, which I think
pushed me very, very close to getting
into a reading slump and therefore I
just did not feel like reading at all
this month. But I kind of forced myself
into reading, which I think in hindsight
was not the best idea because I wasn't
really feeling like reading and
therefore I wasn't super excited about
the books that I was reading. I just wasn't really
feeling it. But I did read some books and I did
read some really good books and books
that I did enjoy, it's just I don't know
it's all a bit of a mess. I liked a
lot of these books but I wasn't
feeling like reading. I don't know
whether any of that makes sense but
here are the books that I did managed to get
through in April. The first book I read
in April I very much enjoyed and I
just picked it up to put me in a better
mood and just to kind of cheer me up and
pick me up a bit and that was
'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' which
was a reread. It was the second time I've ever
read it but the first time I've ever read
the illustrated edition. I mean I don't
know what to say about it, I loved it.
I love this book and it was so much fun
to read the illustrated edition because
it just added a whole new dimension and
it felt almost like a completely
different reading experience and also,
weirdly enough, after reading this I had
the biggest craving to watch the film.
Which I live in a constant state of
craving watching 'Harry Potter' but this
just set that craving wild and I
didn't get that so much when I read
the non illustrated edition, so I just
really enjoyed that. I then also did
watch the film straight away and it's
the first time that I noticed such huge
differences between the film and the book
and it was just a really interesting,
different reading and watching
experience and I just loved it and I
gave it a 5 out of 5 stars because I
mean, I've just given the whole 'Harry Potter'
series a 5 out of 5 stars and it
definitely did help to kind of pick me
up. Especially movie because they're all
so adorable and cute. I really enjoyed
this but that's nothing new, I love this.
I also read 'Dumplin' by Julie Murphy and
this is a contemporary following Willow, who
calls herself a self proclaimed fat girl
and this follows her as she joins a
beauty pageant and I have been wanting
to read this for the longest time. It's
been on my shelf for ages and I think
the reason that I haven't picked it up,
despite how much I've wanted read it, is
because I was so worried that I set my
expectations too high and I'd put
too much hope on it and I didn't want to
get disappointed and I think that I was
disappointed. Honestly I was just very
conflicted about how I felt about this book.
I was hoping this was going to be
the most incredible body-positive book
and although there was a lot of body
positivity, there was also a lot of
judgment from the main character's point
of view. There was also a lot of body shaming
and things like that as well and I
personally don't know how I feel about it.
I loved the positive for the image and
body confidence that the main character
had but I also couldn't get on board
with how much judgement the main
character had on other people and their
bodies and who they were. I came away
from this feeling a little bit let down,
a little bit disappointed that it wasn't
as positive and as self assuring and as
confidence boosting as I was hoping it
was going to be. There was a lot of
things that I did enjoy about this book.
I really liked the writing. I loved that
that was swearing in it. I don't know why
but it always really pleases me when
there is swearing in a YA book and also
I did like the overall message it was
kind of trying to send. I know that this
is getting a sequel, I think a companion
novel. Which I think would be really
interesting to read and also there is
going to be a movie of this, which
Jennifer Aniston is in and I'm so
excited for that. I think this could make a
fantastic movie. I think it'll be on a
fine line of being fantastic and really
empowering and body-positive
or not quite so much, so I'm interested
to see how they will do that. This has
made me realise how desperate I am to
see people and characters of different
shapes and sizes in books and more body
diversity in books because I don't think
that is something that there is enough of,
in YA especially. So I am really glad that I
read this on that half and I am really
glad I read it. I did enjoy it, it was an
enjoyable read and I gave it a 3 out of
5 stars. I then read probably one of the
least disappointing books ever and that
was 'Salt.' by Nayyirah Waheed, which is a poetry
collection and this is just stunning.
I finally finished it this month after
kind of flicking through it every now
and then over the past couple of months.
I finally just sat down and read it from
start to finish and it was just fantastic.
This has poetry on possibly every
aspect of life. It has it on love, on loss,
on sexuality, on gender, on race, on culture,
on war. On just anything you can
think of, there is probably a poem about
it in this. I don't really know what more
to say about it other than
just read it, it is fantastic. Also if
you're not sure whether this is
something that you would enjoy, what I
did is just downloaded a sample from
Kindle and they I think gives sort of
five or six poems from there and you can
see whether you like that kind of thing
or not and I bought it almost instantly
after reading those poems, no I did buy it
instantly after reading those poems.
And yeah, I just adored this. I could not
recommend it more highly and I gave it a
5 out of 5 stars. I then read
'Lost at Sea' by Bryan Lee O'Malley and
this is a graphic novel about a girl
that kind of believes she doesn't have a
soul and this is one of the most
interesting, different, strange, I don't
know how I feel about it graphic novels
I've read because it kind of read like a
stream of consciousness. It just read as
though you were in the main characters
brain the whole time and it kind of went
off here and there and I really enjoyed
that aspect, after I read it the second
time because the first time it took a
while to understand what was going on
because it was just, not messy, but just a
little bit all over the place. So it did
take a little while to get used to and
once I did, I really enjoyed that. I loved
the art style in it and the story was
really lovely but really different and
I'm still not entirely sure what the
whole thing was about. There were
elements of it and questions and things
that were never actually answered and
there were aspects of it that suddenly
felt like they were going to be a big
plot point but were never mentioned again.
So I'm just, I don't know how I felt
about this. I enjoyed it but I don't know
where on the enjoyment scale I was on it
but I ended up giving it a 3.5 out of 5
stars and I'm really excited to read
more from Bryan Lee O'Malley, if all of
his art is the same as this because I
loved the artwork in this. After that I
read 'Every Falling Star by Sungju Lee and
Susan McCelland and this is Sungju Lee's
memoir and the true story of how he
survived and escaped North Korea and I
think it followed him from the age of
about 11 or 12, until the age of 16 when
he eventually escaped and I thought this
was absolutely fascinating. It was so
interesting but also so heartbreaking
and I would personally recommend this as
being the perfect book to read, if you
are like me, felt completely uneducated on
North Korea but I wanted to read something
that would kind of educate you at least
a little bit more or give you kind of a
basic understanding of North Korea and its
history. This would definitely be the
perfect place to start and this
actually made me realise that I wasn't
quite as uneducated on North Korea and its
history as I thought, which is always a
fantastic feeling. And I really enjoyed
this, enjoy is probably the wrong word
because it was so heartbreaking and there were
moments that were so hard to read but
this was just an incredibly insightful
and a brave book to write and I thought
it was fascinating. I really, really did
enjoy the reading experience and I would
highly recommend it and I ended up
giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.
And the last book I read in April was
'Windfall' by Jennifer E. Smith and this
is a contemporary about a girl that buys
a lottery ticket for her crush for his
birthday and then he ends up winning the
lottery big time. I think he won
something like 143 million dollars or
something insane like that. This I
picked up expecting just a fluffy
contemporary romance and I was very
pleasantly surprised because this was so
much more than that. This had a lot more
depth than I was expecting and it
covered things love, loss and grief and
money and the different ways that money
impacts different people and I really enjoyed it.
For me, the romance was kind of a
secondary plot and I enjoyed that less so
than the other plots and the other
elements of this book and I'd highly
recommend this, if you were looking for a
contemporary that is cute and has a
little bit of fluff but also has a bit
more to it than just that and I gave it
a 4 out of 5 stars. So those are all of the
books that I read in April. I would
absolutely love to know which books you
read in April and which were your
favourites and also if you're watching any
TV shows or anything like that or movies
or anything, I would love to know what
you've been watching and reading and
yeah, I just hope you had a fantastic
month. I will leave the links to my
Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Goodreads and Blog
and Snapchat in the description box
below. I've been trying to post more on
my blog lately, so if you would like to
check that out as I said, I will leave it
in the description box and I hope you
had the most fantastic month and I hope
you're just having a really, really
lovely day. Bye!
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