You’ve got to love April! Even if much of the month is rainy (or even snowy) and gray, sunshine still manages to prevail many days bringing with it all the promises of spring and summer. My very favorite location to read is outside on my front porch. At the beginning of the month that porch was a mess. but now it’s gorgeous. Every chance I get, I’ll be out there reading for the next five months. Yay! April turned out to be a ten book month for me with several that I’m still thinking about. I hope your reading was just as successful.

{My April, Books & Blog}

The Cream of the Crop

Books I enjoyed the most…

• Circe by Madeline Miller – This reimagined life-story of the Greek goddess Circe was definitely my favorite book of April and the one that just won’t let go! (my review)
• The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer – The timing was perfect for this novel about a young woman’s journey toward finding her true self with the help of a powerful mentor. (my review)
• Love and Ruin by Paula McLain – I was ripe for an historical fiction and McClain’s novel about writer/journalist Martha Gellhorn and her life with Ernest Hemingway fit the bill. (review on Thursday)

A Cut Above

Great stories…

• Tangerine by Christine Mangan – With its Moroccan setting and twisted friendship mystery, Tangerine was a great rainy day escape. (my review)
• Miss Ex-Yugoslavia by Sofija Stefanovic – Stefanovic’s humorous memoir was part coming-of-age story, part history lesson, and all well told. (my review)
• Look Alive Out There by Sloane Crosley – This collection of essays was my first exposure to Crosley and I’m now a fan. Her own narration on audio was terrific. (review to come eventually!)
• Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton – In one word? Strange! Still, I liked this very odd debut that’s a thriller, but not. Social Creature doesn’t come out until early June, which gives me some time to really think about my review.

Subpar

Books I could have skipped…

• And Now We Have Everything by Meaghan O’Connell – This memoir of motherhood before the author felt ready was just too whinny and full of angst for my taste. (my review)
• The Only Story by Julian Barnes – I rarely dislike a book as much as this one. The story of a young man in love with an older woman started out promising, and then just got worse, and worse, and worse. The main character seemed pathetic. Add to that the fact that the author jumped between second, first and third person tellings, and this book was just a hot mess. Even decent narration by Guy Mott couldn’t save this audiobook for me. (That just might be my review!)
• The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner – One of the most anticipated books this spring, The Mars Room just didn’t work for me. (review soon)

DNF

• How to Be Safe by Tom McAllister – I’ve read some terrific reviews of this book, but for me after about 25%, it just wasn’t going anywhere. I was listening to this and usually feel like that makes it easier for me to enjoy an iffy book, but not this one.
• Unwifeable by Mandy Stadtmiller – Unwifeable is another audiobook I abandoned, but this one I only gave up on after the first hour. I knew there was no way I could listen to 9 more hours of complete self-absorption. It was a relief to stop! I’m looking forward to seeing what others thought of this one.

Top Blog Posts

• It never fails to amaze me what gets viewed most each month. At the very top in April was actually my March Wrapping It Up!, but that’s so dull.
• I was thrilled to see the next three were all reviews and what a lovely surprise that last June’s review of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was at the top. (my review) This wonderful debut by Gail Honeyman was one of my Best Books of 2017.
• Tangerine by Christine Mangan (my review) and The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (my review) were only one pageview apart in the monthly count. I liked both.

{From the Book Blogging World}

Favorite Reviews & Recommendations

Links take you to these wonderful reviews…

• I never read Ready Player One, but when the movie came out in early April everyone at work was talking about it. So, I was pleased to see that Ottavia at Novels and Nonfiction covered both in Books to Screen: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
• Amber at Literary Quicksand reviewed That’s What She Said by Kimothy Joy. This book with beautiful artwork is a compilation of quotes from more than 50 powerful women. I’m thinking it might make a great Mother’s Day gift!
• As many of you may already know, I loved Circe and was thrilled to see that Resh at The Book Satchel did too. Her comparison of Madeline Miller’s two books based on Greek mythology in Circe vs The Song of Achilles in the 21st Century was wonderful.
• There is a great scene in The Female Persuasion where activist Faith Ford cooks a steak for some of her employees. Megan at The Hungry Bookworm took that scene and ran with it in her post The Female Persuasion + Faith Frank’s Feminist Steak. You get a recipe with Megan’s reviews!
• Tara from Running and Reading shared When a Novel is Just Too Much: Short Story Recommendations in preparation for Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon last weekend. (I really need to do this sometime!)

Fun & Useful Blog Posts

• Where’s an Editor When You Need One? Don’t we all wonder that sometimes? Well, Catherine at The Gilmore Guide to Books examined that question with two mini-reviews.
• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is one of my all time favorite books and I thought I knew everything about it. I was wrong! Allison at Mind Joggle proved that with The Story of the Story: 15 Things You Didn’t Know about A Little Life.
• I have a hard time when I don’t like a book by one of my favorite authors, so appreciated reading Is It Hard to Fairly Review a Favorite Author? by Angela from Musings of a Literary Wanderer.
• The Book Satchel piqued my interest again with How to Read 20 Books in One Month + My Personal Reading Schedule. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hit 20 in one month!
• Discussion about rating books you don’t finish took off on more than one blog this month. The Ardent Biblio asked Do You Rate Books You Don’t Finish? in one of their April posts and Sarah from Sarah’s Bookshelves did a post entitled Behind the Scenes of a Book Blogger where talk of rating books that aren’t finished dominated the comments.
• And finally, I loved this article by Christina DesMarais on Inc. about Why Reading Books Should Be Your Priority, According to Science. Not that I need anymore excuses!

That’s a wrap! How was your April?

Disclaimer: There are Amazon Associate links contained in this post.