A Wrap Up: April 2019 Part One

Hi, and thanks for stopping by.

Today's post is the first half of my monthly reading wrap up - I'll be providing small reviews and ratings (from 1-5 stars) for each of the books I've read so far in April. Part two will appear sometime around the start of May!! Enjoy.

Sara Biren’s A Cold Day in the Sun

3.5 stars

(Thank you to the publishers for providing me with an arc of this book via NetGalley. Opinions are entirely my own.)

I think this was stronger than Sara Biren's debut (which I read a couple of weeks previous to this one) and I was really pleasantly surprised by that. The main thing I enjoyed about it was how (admittedly, at times heavy-handedly) it tackled the topics of sexism & misogyny specifically in the sports world and just how difficult it is to be a successful, talented woman in that realm.

Three Sides of a Heart – An Anthology

4 STARS (AVG.)

My favourite stories in this anthology of love triangles were definitely Katie Cotugno's Riddles in Mathematics, Renee Ahdieh's Le Revancha del Tango, Veronica Roth's Vim and Vigor, Sabaa Tahir's Waiting and Brandy Colbert's Hurdles - in fact this is perhaps the third or fourth anthology story by Brandy Colbert that I've given 5 stars to I think (or at least 4-4.5) so I seriously need to read some of her full-length novels.

M.F. Lorson’s Stage Kiss

2.5 stars

(Thank you to the publishers for providing me with an arc of this book via NetGalley. Opinions are entirely my own.)

This novel is basically a lot of harmless fun. I was definitely entertained whilst reading, but I felt no compulsive need to read nor did I feel any lasting connection to any character or storyline within it; I feel like this was partly because of the predictability of the plot but mainly due to its surface-level nature. 

Katie Cotugno’s Fireworks

3.5-4 stars

I always end up feeling sort of the same after finishing a Katie Cotugno novel; seriously torn. I love her writing style because it feels so realistic, particularly her dialogue, and I also love that her characters never fail to read like believable, flawed human beings instead of idealised creations. I always end up having a pretty fundamental, moralistic problem with at least one character, though; there always seems to be troubling behaviour, a lack of conscience or awareness of consequence somehow, that means I can never fully get behind the stories & motivations.

Rachel Hawkins’s Rebel Belle

3.5 stars

I liked this book more than I expected to; it had a great sense of humour, it was pretty unique (at least in comparison to anything I've personally ever read) and the characters felt interesting & engaging. Weirdly, though, despite not having any real issues with the story at all, I highly doubt I'll continue the series and I'm not entirely sure why!

Val Emmich’s Dear Evan Hansen

4 stars

My favourite thing about this story was definitely its black comedy; if you aren't a fan of dark humour/people joking about serious and shocking stuff, you probably won't like a lot of this book, but I personally loved that element. The horrendous feeling of reality dawning any second now was constant throughout reading, just waiting for Evan's dishonesty to come back to haunt him, and that was a really, really effective narrative technique; I didn't want it to happen, yet I couldn't possibly put the book down either.

Julie Buxbaum’s Tell Me Three Things

3.5-4 stars

I love this kind of You've Got Mail-style YA contemporary, where two individuals are anonymously communicating online and somehow know each other in real life too (if you have other recommendations for such YA books, let me know!) so I loved that element of this story. I personally did find this one's reveal hugely predictable though and I guess in the end the execution of the rest of the novel wasn't strong enough to placate me.

So those are the books I've read so far in April! Let me know the best book you've read so far this month by leaving a comment down below!!

Till next time

Katie