April 2021 wrap up

Hello bookworms!! It’s time for the April 2021 wrap up. Which was only like a week ago. Who is this person who has already posted FOUR times this month?! Apparently we met organisation, and are now friends. Who knew?!

Don’t get me wrong, life is still kicking my butt a little. OK, maybe a lot. But I’m trying very hard to prioritise things that I genuinely enjoy doing. You know, as opposed to just working forever.

So, let’s look at what I did in April.

April 2021 wrap up

HAHAHAHAHAHA… OK, so I might have slightly overdone the reading phase of my life in April. In previous months I’ve been all “Yay, I’m tracking upwards!!” This month I kind of side-eyed myself for sheer volume if nothing else. Is the suspense killing you?? I read 17 books in April. SEVENTEEN BOOKS. I know.

I don’t even normally do this, but this is a snippet from my reading stats spreadsheet just to show you how crazy it was. That’s not a slow curve, that’s a giant skyrocket.

the books

Yes.. the books. So many books. I’m not entirely sure how this even happened. In fact, I’m sure I was behind on my Goodreads goal at the start of April. And now I could probably take off reading until mid-June and I would still be ahead?! Although, let’s not do that, since I’m on a roll!!

I even read a pretty decent mix of genres, although I have still been leaning very heavily on the romance side of the fence. But, my first mystery/thriller of the year, and some fantasy too, including knocking some books off my physical TBR. It was quite a month, really!!

Book	Author	Series	Symbols / Year of publication	Rating	Cover
I Promise You	Ilsa Madden-Mills	Waylon University #4	❤️ ? ? ?‍? ? 2020	3
The Bounty	Janet Evanovich	Fox and O’Hare #7	? ? ?‍? ? 2021	4
Back in the Burbs	Tracy Wolff / Avery Flynn		⛱ ❤️ ?‍? ? 2021	4
Second First Impressions	Sally Thorne		⛱ ❤️ ? ?‍? ? ? 2021	5
Beach Read	Emily Henry		⛱ ❤️ ? ?‍? ? ? 2020	4
Fable	Adrienne Young	Fable #1	⚔️ ❤️ ?‍♀️ ? ? 2020	4
Namesake	Adrienne Young	Fable #2	⚔️ ❤️ ?‍♀️ ? 2021	4
Shacking Up	Helena Hunting	Shacking Up #1	❤️ ? ?‍? ? 2017	3
The Girl and the Galdurian	Tim Probert	Lightfall #1	⚔️ ? ? ? ⏰ ? 2020	4
Getting Down	Helena Hunting	Shacking Up #1.5	❤️ ? ?‍? ? 2018	3
Lip Smacker	Alison G. Bailey		❤️ ? ?‍? ? 2019	2
Hooking Up	Helena Hunting	Shacking Up #2	❤️ ? ?‍? ? 2017	3
I Flipping Love You	Helena Hunting	Shacking Up #3	❤️ ? ?‍? ? 2018	4
Making Up	Helena Hunting	Shacking Up #4	❤️ ? ?‍? ? 2019	2
Handle With Care	Helena Hunting	Shacking Up #5	❤️ ? ?‍? ? 2019	3
The Crown of Gilded Bones	Jennifer L. Armentrout	Blood and Ash #3	⚔️ ❤️ ? ? ?‍? ? 2021	2
A Lie for a Lie	Helena Hunting	All In #1	❤️ ? ? ?‍? ? 2019	3

the faves

Outstanding favourite for the month is Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne. If I haven’t explained the depth that I love Thorne’s books, please let me say it now. The Hating Game and 99 Percent Mine were adorable romances with some steaminess. This one is just 100% adorable. Wholesome even. There’s nothing that I didn’t love about this book. I do have a review half drafted, but at the moment it’s mostly me screaming about how much I love it.

I’d say The Girl and the Galdurian probably comes in second for the month. It’s the most adorable graphic novel about acceptance and found family. I can’t wait for the sequel to come out later this year. Tim Probert will be one to watch, I think. Review coming for this one too.

And finally, I also want to give some love to Fable and Namesake. I was anticipating that this duology would be amazing, and it did not disappoint. The scenery, the characters, and the plot were all on point. The story itself reminded me a little of Six of Crows x Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought it was about mermaids though… so I definitely missed something when it came out. Or I’ve been not reading blurbs again, and just buying from recommendations. Great story though, and again, reviews are coming!!

gaming

Ok, I’m back on the Animal Crossing train. There were a couple of things that I needed to collect in April, some of which I got, and some I didn’t. My biggest issue with this game is that I’m a completionist, and playing in real time with a hectic life schedule doesn’t really allow for this. Or it means that I will just continue coming back to it forever… *screams internally*

We’re also still playing a nice amount of D&D. We’re still playing two campaigns simultaneously with Ben and Drewf switching Dungeon Master duties depending on who is available. Last month I talked about how I wasn’t sure if my Tiefling Cleric, Karou, had a solid backstory for her motivations. I’ve kind of been playing with her backstory, but I’m still not 100% set on it.

tv and movies

Things I watched in April were:

• New Amsterdam season 1-2
• Falcon and the Winter Soldier episodes 3-6
• Nancy Drew season 2 episodes 1-5
• Community season 5 episodes 1-6
• Shadow and Bone episodes 1-4

Hello. Have I found a new medical drama to obsess over? Why yes, I have. And boy did I watch the absolute crap out of it. There are 40 episodes between the first two seasons of New Amsterdam. I’m not even upset about how much I smashed through it. Except, now I have to wait for season 3 to finish airing so Netflix Australia gets it.

I’m trying to eke out watching Shadow and Bone because I am loving it so much!! The casting it literal perfection. My only sadness so far is that I need Nina and Matthias to have more screen time because they are my BABIES.

And finally, can we talk about how freaking amazing Falcon and the Winter Soldier was?!! I am still dying over what was in the box. DYING. ??? I honestly hope they do a second season of this. Also, who could say no to more screen time with Sebastian Stan?!! Now we just need to wait until June for Loki to get our next dose of new Marvel content ?

music

Am I here to talk about how another month went by and all I listened to was Taylor Swift? Perhaps… In all fairness though, the From the Vault songs for Fearless (Taylor’s Version) are amazing. I’ve been playing Mr. Perfectly Fine and You All Over Me on non-stop repeat. You know, among listening to folklore and evermore also on repeat. I seriously can’t get enough of new Taylor.

And while I can absolutely acknowledge that for the past year, Taylor has been my happy place, I do think about my love of emo music. In fact, I never listened to Taylor before she released 1989 and I fell in love with Style. Before this I was all about My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, AFI and Jimmy Eat World. I never listened to Fearless the first time around, so this has been a new experience for me (and I’m not generally a fan of country music).

However, I found this interesting article on NPR where they interviewed staff and asked them about listening to Taylor when Fearless first came out. The reason that I found it so interesting, is that a lot of the staff were MCR fans, who listened to Taylor’s music despite the genre difference.

I know that Taylor is quoted as saying FOB in particular are a huge influence on her. The first time I listened to her singing was on the Boys Like Girls song, Two Is Better Than One. While the band are predominantly pop-punk, the song itself is a bit country.

Basically what I’m trying to get at is, I’ve always felt like a bit of a Taylor-fraud because I haven’t been a fan from the start. Or a sell-out emo because now I listen to pop/folk music. But I think Taylor transcends genres.

Top 5 Tuesday for April didn’t really have a set theme. I tried to do something around new beginnings for Easter, but it wasn’t hard and fast. April topics were:

• Books I wish I could read for the first time again
• Books I would re-rate
• Debut novels
• Graphic novels

If you ever feel like joining in late (sometimes we are busy people on Tuesdays) please just drop me a comment or a pingback, and I will happily add you to the list.

Apart from Top 5 Tuesday, I barely did any blogging in April. I have to say, I was feeling pretty creatively uninspired. Every time I think of something cool that I could write about, my brain now turns it into a Top 5 Tuesday topic, and it gets added to the (very long) list. I’m not joking. I have a list of 45 topics that I add to every week or so. That’s almost enough to get me through a whole year.

So, I think it’s time to start stealing back from myself and write some recommending posts and other fun things!!

I have so much love for a lot of posts that I read in April, and I’ll be splitting them into two sections. Firstly, blogging posts with tips, and then some amazing book lists posts. Seriously, I do love me some books recommendation lists.

blogging and reading tips

• Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books told us 5 thing you need to know before starting a book blog (it’s too late for me, but maybe good advice out there for someone else!!), and then followed it up with 10 tips to overcome reading and blogging fatigue
• Kal @ Reader Voracious wrote about refreshing evergreen content for optimal SEO use, which is actually perfect timing because I have been going back and fixing the SEO of some of my older posts
• Tracy @ Truffle’s Literary Wonders made me remember the power of writing book reviews
• Cam @ Camillea Reads shared what she loves about audiobooks
• Sabrina @ Wordy and Whimsical gave us some tips on getting personalised recommendations from Storygraph
• Sam @ Taking on a World of Words shared her experience at an author event with Neil Gaiman and Jenny Lawson (and I’m super jealous!!)

reading posts

• Rukky @ Eternity Books wrote about why she thinks Muslim representation is important, and provided a list of some great books and authors to support
• Kay @ Hammock of Books shared a guide to the Grishaverse books, including what you should and shouldn’t read before watching the show
• Jayati @ It’s Just a Coffee Addicted Bibliophile celebrated lesbian visibility day by sharing 5 books with great lesbian representation (also, after some technical issues, Jayati started a new Instagram account and you can follow her here)
• Malka @ Paper Procrastinators shared her thoughts on bookish stereotypes
• Nyx @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books listed 10 YA retellings you need in your life, and Marie shared 10 YA books that will make you cry

How was your April 2021 wrap up?