April 2019 Wrap-Up!

Woo-hoo! April is done folks, and while it is one of my favourite months (and my birth month), I am a little happy to let it go and move on to May! I love spring so much, I love the weather and the colours, but I am ready for the next stage of the year to commence and begin my spring and summer break!

I had a really good reading month, especially towards the beginning of the month. I had four finals, and reading was (unfortunately) a very good way to procrastinate studying. I also participated in the OWLs Magical Readathon, which really pushed me to read a lot more! All of that being said, here is my wrap-up of the month!

What I read:

1. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara – 4/5 stars. I have always been interested in true crime novels, but never read a lot of them. The details of the Golden State Killer in this novel were very intriguing, and McNamara truly painted a wonderful description of the fear and anxiety that the communities faced during the time of the killer’s reign. That being said, I listened to this as an audiobook. The narrator was great, but it led to a lot of confusion as there was not a straight timeline, and the story jumped around a lot. (arithmancy)

2. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalinithi – 5/5 stars. In his last months of living, Kalinithi painted grief and death in jaw-droppingly beautiful words. It is difficult to give this an actual rating, knowing it was a memoir, however, the quality of the words and its openness to dive into everyone’s fear of death and the unknown is incomparable. (charms)

3. Roadwork by Richard Bachman – 3/5 stars. Not my favourite Stephen King (Bachman) book. I listened to it as an audiobook, and did not enjoy the narrator. King does an amazing job of describing madness and anger, but a lot of it was lost on me in this story. Out of the 11 King novels I’ve read, this is probably my least favourite. (defence against the dark arts)

4. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie – 3.5/5 stars. This was quite good, as far as mystery novels go, and is one of Christie’s most popular along with And Then There Were None, which I read years ago and loved. For a more in depth review, check out my full-length review here! (potions)

5. The Running Man by Richard Bachman – 4/5 stars. I really enjoyed the pacing of this story, though there were several times where it was quite long-winded, just to drag out the suspense. I was sitting at rating this a 3 for most of the book, until the last quarter of the story or so. Wow. That is an ending. (history of magic)

6. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling – 5/5 stars, duh. I read the illustrated edition. Wow. Beautiful interpretation. (Herbology)

7. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite – 4/5 stars. This was a very enjoyable read. It was ‘advertised’ to me, I suppose, as a thriller, which I could understand. However, it was not overwhelmingly suspenseful or frightening, as I like my thrillers to be. I did enjoy it thoroughly, and I loved the bond between the sisters. Being an older sister myself, I found a lot I could relate to and appreciated in the depiction of the family. (transfiguration)

8. We are Okay by Nina LaCour – 4/5 stars. I do not typically read contemporary books, but I have been drawn to reading this since it came out. It has an unbelievably gorgeous cover and an enticing ‘plot.’ I use quotation marks, because it is a very, very character driven novel (which I LOVE). Mabel, our main character, slowly reveals her stages of grief and what actually happened before she packed up everything and left California for the East Coast. This book made me very emotional, but it was so worth it. I am thinking about posting a full review on this! (muggle studies)

9. Pet Sematary by Stephen King – 5/5 stars. I love Stephen King for many, many reasons. One of the main ones is his ability to write a person’s descent into madness and obsession so so SO well. He really achieved this with Louis Creed. At the beginning, in the foreword, he talks about this and The Shining being his most terrifying reads. I totally agree with that. This book took me the full month to read, because every time I picked it up, I was legitimately too frightened to continue, and had to read in small amounts at a time. Highly recommend, and cannot wait to watch the movie. (care of magical creatures)

What I’m Currently Reading:

1. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab – Only about 20 pages into this!

2. The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena – Listening to this on audiobook this week. It’s less than 8 hours, so won’t take me long at all!

What I’m Going to Read Next: 

1. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse – This is one of the read-along books for the Wyrd & Wonder Challenge!

2. The Power by Naomi Alderman

3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

4. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

And of course, my TBR for the Wyrd & Wonder Readathon during May! All of these books I had on hold online from my library, and they ALL came off hold within two or three days of each other.