Reading Thoughts
Honestly, a lot of people seem to hound themselves about reading a certain number of books per week, month, or year. I was at that stage one point in my life, but honestly I'm so tired about setting a reading goal for myself every year. The first year that I really got into reading, I read the most, and it seems that since I didn't set a reading goal for myself, I enjoyed it more. (I believe I read around 95 books or so...)
The year after that however, I decided to create a reading goal/schedule for myself. Part of the reason was that I wanted to see if I could read more than I did the previous year, and the other reason was other booktubers and bookstagrammers were also setting reading goals for themselves. But from setting such a high goal, and feeling pressured to read, I then ended up burning myself out with reading so much and not actually enjoying the books. (And I ended up reading around 45 books that year.)
READING PLANS
So now I have decided to not do monthly TBR's or take reading goals to heart anymore, it's just too much stress and I don't feel like putting in hours of time thinking about how I plan on squeezing more reading in for the rest of the month. I just want to enjoy and feel the bliss whenever I pick up a novel.
Anyways now that we got that out of the way, I still plan on doing monthly Wrap-Ups and occasional TBR's. But my TBR's will be slightly different than before, instead of making ridiculous goals to finish a 7 book series or something crazy like that. I plan on focusing on a specific subject or genre per monthly TBR, and only selecting one to two novels to focus on. Now I still plan on reading YA and Fantasy, but I'd love to branch out eventually and read contemporary or historical fiction. (But YA will always be close to my heart and my absolute favorite).
APRIL TBR
OOOOKKKKAAAYYY! WHEEW!
Now that we've gotten through all of that let's talk about the books I ended up reading for the month of April!
1:
The first novel I read for the month of April was
An A+ for A Darker Shade of Magic!
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, first novel in the Darker Shade Trilogy.
I went into ADSOM without reading reviews or summaries on purpose, and I was pleasantly surprised with all of the content in the story. I have a feeling that ADSOM will be one of my favorite fantasy trilogies/series of the year! I find that V.E Schwab's way of writing is rather beautifully orchestrated.
The main character, Kell, had to be my favorite, as there's still so much about his character that's been left unsaid. I'm overall excited to learn more about the 4 parallel worlds of London there are in the Darker Shade Trilogy.
2: I decided to join in on a readathon that my friends from Instagram created, which was to read/reread A Court of Thorns and Roses and the sequel A Court of Mist and Fury.
B+ for ACOTAR
It was my first time reading ACOTAR, or any of Sarah J. Maas's novels for that matter, so I honestly didn't know what to expect when I started the novel.
Other than the fact that there has been major hype surrounded by not only this trilogy, but also her Throne of Glass series.
And I have to say that I throughly enjoyed this novel, the fact that it's a "Beauty and the Beast" retelling made it all the better.
The main character Feyre has some guts and ambition to go through all of her trials, which I admire greatly about her character.
The development of the novel was surprisingly smooth, I was hesitant to start ACOTAR because I'd heard about many mixed emotions about the beginning of the novel.
But it was quite refreshing that it did start off slightly slower than other fantasy novels, because it gave me the chance to really soak in all of the world building and depth behind the plot. ACOTAR was a great entry for the trilogy, each and every character took a subtle part within the novel that leaded up to the very ending, which is nice because it felt like none of the characters were ever neglected.
3: Since I participated in the readathon for ACOTAR I had to read the sequel to it, which is A Court of Mist and Fury also known as ACOMAF.
An A++ for ACOMAF
Now... ACOMAF was a game changer for me, honestly if ACOMAF went in the same direction of ACOTAR I still would've read it, but it went in a completely different direction. The content in ACOMAF was shocking, stunning, and beautiful all at the same time. I LOVED LOVED LOVED it!!
There were so many things in this novel that I didn't see coming, and that rarely ever happens in what I read these days. In the interest of Feyre's companion, which I won't give away because that'll be spoiling you, let's just say that there's an abundance of steamy romance that I guarantee you'll love!
I have to say that ACOMAF is by far my favorite in the trilogy so far, I can't say how I'll feel about A Court of Wings and Ruin since it just came out on the 2nd, and I barely started reading it today. But I'm expecting it to be amazing, if not better than ACOMAF.
4: The next novel I read was Shattered Blue by Lauren Bird Horowitz!
B+ for Shattered Blue
I actually won this book on one of Lauren's giveaways! So thank you Lauren and Lauren's wonderful team!
Anyways I really enjoyed this novel! I especially love the fact that it's set in the area I live in, the Monterey Bay.
Plus I love anything to do with Fae, I especially loved the magic system that Shattered Blue had, and I'm intrigued to learn more about it in the sequel Renegade Red.
Our main character Noa has endured a lot of sorrow in her years, and now that she's close to graduating, it seems like things just keep getting worse for her, until Callum comes along and shocks her world. Shattered Blue is very reminiscent of Twilight, actually one of Lauren's main inspirations for writing this novel. I love everything about Twilight so when I read some similarities in Shattered Blue, it made me love it even more.
5: And the last novel I read for the month of April was The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaimen.
I buddy read this with one of my friends over on IG, and reading the novel for me at least was a little hard, so I ended up doing what my buddy reader did, which was listen to the audiobook, making my experience with it all the better.
Our main character Bod also endures a lot in his life, he never even got the chance to grow up with his true family, but he learned to make due and truly be himself with his adopted parents, a couple of ghosts.
This novel was very interesting and intriguing to say the least, it's set in present time, but the main focus is in the "in between world".
Funny enough, I'm not actually entirely done with listening to The Graveyard Book, so I'm not going give it a full rating as of yet. But since I only have about 15 more minutes of audio let, I figured I'd let it be in my April Wrap-Up, since I read and listened to the majority of it during April.
I really hope you all enjoyed my April Wrap-Up! I was very pleased with every novel I read this month.
Anyways if you're interested in following some of my friends that created the readathon or that I buddy read with all of their IG accounts will be listed down below.
The Bookstagrammers that created the ACOTAR and ACOMAF readathon were Cerise @justacupofteawithbooks and Kayla @justabookfreak , both of them have stunning accounts with such lovely content and conversations! So I recommend you check them both out.
As for the Buddy Readers, Kayla and I buddy read A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E Schwab.
As for The Graveyard Book, I read it with @Belles_book_club and it was amazing as well. It was actually our first time buddy reading together, and really hope that we get another opportunity to do so!
As for following me on social media you can find me on
IG: @Metamorphicbooks
Facebook Page @Metamorphicbooks
Goodreads: Jade Klinger
Twitter: @Crowklinger
Book Club:
IG: @YADiversity
Twitter: YADiversity
Goodreads: YA Diversity
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