Monthly Wrap-Up: April 2019

Ok, I will confess, I am a fantasy junky.  I want to quit, but I just can’t seem too.  Every time I come to the end of the month and I look back at what I read, it is still heavy on the fantasy.  I might have to go cold turkey pretty soon, at least for a week or two.  Part of the issue is my Netgalley reads.  Many of these I requested months ago, so I feel like I have to read them.   Next month I think I can do better, only two of my ARCs are fantasy, so as long as my other choices are something else, I should be able to take a little break from it.  

March was a pretty successful reading month for me.  I read 14 books, which is about my monthly average.  All of them were pretty good too, which is always fun.  Let’s break it down. 

Fantasy

All of these were excellent reads.  The Shadow Glass was the perfect ending for this series.  I always enjoy reading one of Terry Pratchett’s books and Moving Pictures was just as funny as I remembered it being.  Whispers Underground was the third book in the Peter Grant books and I am still enjoying them.  Finally, The Red Scrolls of Magic, was not as great as I hoped it would be but I still really enjoyed it.  

I spent a lot of time this month frantically rereading the first two books in this series, so that I could get the ARC of Finale done before its release date next week.  I did the audio books for both Caraval and Legendary and they were excellent.  I highly recommend them.  Finale was also very good.  My review should be up on Thursday.  But don’t read it if you haven’t read the others, because there is no way to talk about it with out spoiling the first two.  

Middle Grade

 

I also read quite a bit of middle grade this month. Both Sweeping up the Heart and Because of the Rabbit, were very quiet but beautiful books.  Spark had some great world building and finally Scorch Dragons which is the second in a trilogy.  Loved them all and can’t wait to share them with my students.  

Everything Else

While I liked A Question of Holmes, it was so different from the other books in the series that it almost could be read as a stand alone.  Absolutely loved Aurora Rising, it was such a fun and fast read.  As of this writing, (Sunday) I haven’t quite finished Defy the Fates, but so far I love it.  And I am pretty confident that I will finish it by Tuesday.  It is shaping up to be a pretty good ending.  

My May TBR

These are my three ARC’s for this month that I haven’t gotten too.  So these will definitely get down, probably in the next week.  

These are my library reads for the month.  I know that the first two are not what I typically read, but I got them for specific reasons.  I used to read James Patterson a lot, loved his Alex Cross books, but it has been a long time.  I came across The Chef and thought it sounded really interesting. I just couldn’t pass up a book about a detective who is also a celebrity food truck chef.  I also love Jasper Fforde and never pass up one of his books, so Early Riser went on the list.  Storm of Locusts is hopefully coming soon from my library, but they have been really slow getting new books processed and out to those of us waiting for them.  And then there is the next book in the Discworld series, Reaper Man.  I’m really looking forward to that one.  

The rest of my reads for this month will be from my personal stack and book shelves.  I’m hoping to start catching up on some of the books that I own this month.  So I don’t know which books I will decide to pick up, it will be a surprise for all of us.  

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I hope you all had a great reading month and I look forward to seeing what you all are planning to read next.