Wrap Up: April 2018 or that was a month.

I had a bit of a dreadful reading month, at least when it comes to numbers. During the first half of it I only finished one book (mind, I LOVED that one). The ones that I finished I all enjoyed immensely, but I have also been stuck on some books way too long.

Books read in April:

1. The Pisces by Melissa Broder: 4,5 out of 5 stars.
2. Bluets by Maggie Nelson: 5 out of 5 stars.
3. Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty: 3 out of 5 stars.
4. The Sum of Us by Susan Forest et al.: 3,5 out of 5 stars.
5. The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang: 4 out of 5 stars.

I have also decided to DNF The Lives Of Desperate Girls and A Guide For Murdered Children, both of which does did not work for me at all. There was something about the tone in both cases that would have made getting through these books difficult for me. (I had not even added them to my currently reading shelf on Goodreads before I decided to just give up, which says enough I think.)

Favourite of the month:

Rating wise that would be Bluets; my favourite Maggie Nelson to date and as always just brilliant and poignant. But I have not been able to stop thinking about The Pisces which did lose a bit of steam in the end but had a first half so strong that I cannot help but forgive that.

Stats(ish):

I finished 5 books = 1672 pages. Of these books three were SFF, one was non-fiction and one general fiction. Four books were written by women and one was an anthology.

How did I do with my TBR:

Thankfully I did not set myself one because I feel like I am super behind on my reading anyway. Hopefully May will be better (it probably won’t be; work is beyond stressful at the moment).

Currently reading:

It by Stephen King: I have started listening to this on audiobook and I am surprisingly actually enjoying it for the most part (I mean, still not a fan of King’s female characters but that is nothing new). It will take me forever though because it is 44 hours long.

Caliban’s War by James S. A. Corey: Here I am waiting for my partner to catch up because we are still theoretically doing a buddy read even though I am a third of a book ahead (I spent our flights reading, he spent it watching season two of Fargo).

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas: I am enjoying this but I did the thing where I stop a book because something unpleasant is about to happen – and now I am dreading having to read that unpleasant thing (does anybody else do this?)

An Abbreviated Life by Ariel Leve: I was sure I would love this, but I really don’t. If it takes me much longer I think I will put it down completely.

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh: Again, I am loving this. But I had the worst reading month and could not appreciate this slow book as much as I would normally do. Which felt unfair which is why I put it down for the month.

(Some of the) Blog posts I loved:

I am starting to think I might sound stalkerish (with me linking to Rachel’s blog every month), but her review for Days Without End is so on point I couldn’t not.

I do love not feeling alone, which is why I appreciated Wendy’s post about backlist books and why they sometimes take the backseat.

As anyone who reads my blog with any regularity knows, I absolutely adore non-fiction. Obviously I loved Ally’s list of recommendations (featuring some favourites).

Mogsy gave a twist on a Top Ten Tuesday Topic that I just loved: she talkes about the best books featuring Killer plants.

Lou’s review of See What I Have Done is a lot more balanced than mine was which is why I loved it so much.

As always, I enjoyed Callum’s recommendations (this time for gothic literature) a lot. Especially since he featured books I have been eyeing for a while.

Adri’s review of The Poppy War is just stunning.

Erik talks about one of my all-time favourite series (Discworld) and inspires me to finally pick up the rest of the books I haven’t read yet.

How do you deal with reading slumps? I am considering just clearing my currently reading shelf of all the books on there and start anew. But then, I do like most books I am currently reading, I am just not super excited about them.