Hello!

We’re a few days ahead of the end of the month and the optimistic part of my brain wants to say I may finish another book before the end of the month, but the much more realistic part of my brain knows I almost certainly won’t, so posting my April wrap up a few days early definitely won’t do any harm!

Having had a very slow reading month in March with a surge towards the end of the month, I went into April with a new spring in my reading step and it worked for me – although in terms of my monthly tbr, it doesn’t look particularly successful as I only managed three of the nine books on the list, in total I managed to finish SIX books, which is the most I’ve managed to read this year so far!

I’m feeling absolutely stoked about it, so let’s jump right in to the mini reviews!

A Touch of Chaos – Scarlett St Clair

I finally finished the Hades x Persephone series by Scarlett St Clair! Not only did the series finish with, what I think, is the best book in the series but it is also my first 5 star book of the year! I have to add, if I was the kind of reviewer who gave half or quarter ratings, this would realistically be more of a 4.5, maybe 4.75 because I did really enjoy it but it didn’t quite give me the 5 star feeling, but I gave it 5 stars anyway because there wasn’t really anything I didn’t like! Each of the characters had shown real progression and growth throughout the series, I loved the more political aspects of the war of the gods as well as the ongoing romance storyline between our titular characters and even though it was 600 pages long, the pacing didn’t feel slow or drawn out at all. The audiobook narrators weren’t my favourite, but the story itself was really good and I have since added the other two trilogies to my Amazon wishlist because I’d love to own the whole series physically. This was a brilliant way to start the month, even if it was finishing a book on my March tbr rather than my April one!

The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien

Another one from my March tbr (but I added it to be April tbr because it was both the March book club pick and it’s on my 24 in 2024 list, so winning all round!) but an unexpected 4 star rating from me! I always assumed that Tolkien’s writing style was very flowery and poetic, falling into that literary category that usually means I just can’t comprehend what’s going on and I don’t enjoy my time reading. But what I’d managed to completely forget is that this is actually a children’s story, I think officially categorised for middle grade readers! The narrative style was so much more accessible than I thought it would be and the audiobook narrated by Andy Serkis (the actor of Gollum in the films) was hands down, no question the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to. Finally reading this book gave me the confidence to want to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, especially as Andy Serkis has also done audiobooks for them! The real question is to decide which of the many beautiful editions of the books I actually want to get…

The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss

It took me over three months, but I finally finished this 28 hour audiobook! For a book so long (and considering I listened to it so sporadically), it could have felt very disjointed and complex, but the story was told so lyrically and effectively, that every time I pressed play I was right back where I left off, remembering all the names I needed to remember and the point of the story.

In the end I rated this 4 stars as well – I really enjoyed the story, the storytelling style felt so authentic and classic and the fantasy elements were so well written you could tell me this was a historical true story and I’d believe it. I just didn’t quite get the 5 star vibes – whether it’s because the main character is a teenage boy for most of the book (in the past timeline, he’s older in the present timeline but the story is predominantly looking back at the past) or because I just didn’t quite feel attached enough to any of the characters to feel truly invested, but I have a feeling that will come in book 2 and knowing that there is no book 3 and this series will potentially remain forever unfinished makes me nervous!

However, the sequel ‘The Wise Man’s Fear’ is a 42 hour audiobook so I did decide to have a little break before diving into that.

Famous Five: Five Run Away Together – Enid Blyton

There’s a real chance that I might get bored of this series faster than anticipated – I rated this one 2 stars. I was hoping for a bit of light relief after finishing a seven book series and a 28 hour epic fantasy, and the very English children’s story from the 40s with the very proper audiobook narrator could have been that, but I have to say I found the children kind of irritating in this one. I know the Stick family were set up to be the bad guys from the off, but the Famous Five bully their son Edgar mostly for having spots and they’re rude to Mrs Stick, who’s working as the family’s cook, mostly because they seem to think they’re better than her and it really irritated me. I appreciate that I’m taking this children’s story too seriously and when I was a child, I probably would have been all for it, but with a modern perspective I didn’t like their attitudes and I’d much rather read about children that were nice to everyone regardless of what they look like or what their job is!

It’s probably not a good sign that I started referring to them as ‘stuck up little brats’ when I’ve got seven more books to read, but we’ll just have to see how it goes!

To Love Jason Thorn – Ella Maise

The lovely little palette cleanser audiobook I wanted to read after I finished The Name of the Wind – I knew it would be a three star romance (it actually inspired this other blog post I wrote this month!) and it was included in the Audible Plus catalogue as well as being a book on my physical tbr, so it was ticking boxes all round!

What I didn’t expect was to listen to the entire book in 5 days…

Granted, it was more circumstantial than obsession – I had a two hour drive home from my mum’s house where I listened to the first 25%, I had my weekly drive to a from my ballet class to listen to a little bit more, and then I was struck with a migraine so painful I could do nothing but lay in bed and try to ignore how much pain I was in, so whilst I couldn’t look at my phone, I turned on my audiobook and listened to over six hours to finish To Love Jason Thorn just five days after I started it.

It was exactly what I wanted – an easy, cheesy, palette cleanser romance with unbelievable characters in an unbelievable scenario doing absolutely ridiculous things. The main male character gave me the ick on multiple occasions, it helped me conclude that I don’t particularly like friends-to-lovers romances (because they’re already in love with each other most of the time and I love reading about the fall) and it reminded me just how ridiculous every celebrity romance book I’ve ever read is.

But I kind of ate it up for those reasons too…

It was a no brain power book and exactly what I wanted – a perfect three star romance.

The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks

Having missed reading my March book club book in it’s assigned month, I wasn’t taking any chances with the April pick! It took me a lot longer to read than anticipated – this is quite a heavy sci-fi book and without the audiobook, I definitely would have been overwhelmed by a lot of the names, but it’s possibly the first time that I’ve thought I may have struggled with the audiobook if I didn’t have the physical book to co-read as well, for the same reason – there’s a lot of complex names in this story!

I think a big part of the reason I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have is that it’s the second book in The Culture series, so there was this big entity that felt totally foreign to me because I was missing a whole book’s worth of context and I can’t really criticise the book for that.

Gurgeh as a character was fascinating and it was definitely a heavier sci-fi book than I’ve ever read before, but I think given the full context I could have enjoyed it even more. I have added the first book in the series to my never ending ‘To Read’ pile on Storygraph, but there’s honestly no telling as and when I’ll get round to it!

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So even though I didn’t get round to reading all of my tbr this month, I’m really proud of how much I did read! Making my way through four physical books, finishing an audiobook I’ve been listening to for literal months and binging a contemporary romance in just a few days? That’s a success in my books for sure!

Please do tell me about what you’re reading at the moment and how you’re getting on with your reading goal if you have one!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx