 It's my channel. Today is time for our April wrap-up to chat about my reading in April, how it went. Um, I've got to be honest, it was a pretty mere reading month. Like, just average. Nothing exciting. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day has ruined. As we'll talk about, you know, last month if you watched my wrap-up, it was one of my best reading months ever in terms of number of books. I think I had 16 books, something like that, in March. I just can't sustain that level. Like, I knew it would take a different April, because when I have a great reading month, then I kind of fall down a little bit the next month. But that's natural. You know, we can't read the same amount every month. So yeah, we're gonna chat about my reading in April, we'll go through my reading stats, then we'll go through each book and just when I rated them, and then we'll do my disappointment surprises and hits. There's not a lot, because I don't feel like much stood out either way, negative or positive. Anyway, should we just get into it? Okay, so in the month of April I read nine books, but two of those are reread, so only seven new books I hadn't read before. Total number of pages read was 2,662, which means an average pages per day of 89. So again, a lot of you know, I like that average to be above 100 on average, like I said many times. Some days I read zero pages, some days I read 300. I'm not a particularly, like, linear, same amount of pages every day kind of reader. The average pages per book was 295. I feel like a lot of time my kind of average pages per book hovers around their 300 mark. What was it last month? Because I know I read a few short books. 262, so higher than that. But I feel like it kind of often hovers around that. I like to read a few novellas or short stories every month just to kind of keep up, keep up the flow. You know, some 400 page books, some 200 page books is kind of the average for me. Okay, so my average rating technically was a 3.83, which is very similar to last month. I think it was like a 3.85 last month. But if you remove those two rereads, which were five styles, which how about them in a sec? My average rating was a 3.5, which feels more realistic to my month. I feel like I enjoy rereads, but I don't feel like they set the tone for a reading month. The new books that I read set the tone for a reading month for me. And so yeah, like a 3.5, just average. That's pretty low for me. I think my average rating overall was like a 3.9. So 3.5 is quite low for me. A lot of 3s this month. It's just very, very blah. Meh. Very blah. I can't lie to you. It just felt like, you know, fine. I was like, don't even do a wrap up. I had some good books and some low books that there's stuff we can talk about, but it just feels like, you know. The average time a book could spend on my TBR was six months, which is pretty low. But that's because there were quite a few books that A, I did a booktube twin test where some of the books weren't on my TBR and I had to buy them for that. And that means they'd been on my TBR for zero months. And the rereads I counted as zero months because they weren't on my TBR. I'd read them, you know. In terms of genre, I read six fantasy, one mystery, and two thriller. Wow, that's not a very good split. That's like, usually I read a very wide array of genres. You already see one genre having over 50% of the reading I did this month. Did I really read that many fantasy? Okay. In terms of the source, four were physical and five were the mixture. That means I had the audiobook and the physical book. In terms of audience, I read five adult, one middle grade, and three YA, which is by far like, I feel like the most YA I've read in any single month so far this year. I haven't been reading a ton of YA and I enjoyed the YA that I read this month. I feel like it was fun to read a bit more YA. So maybe we'll continue to feed that into future months. By the way, I read some of the way we're children series we'll talk about. And I do class that as adult. I don't think it's YA. I think it technically is adult. So I class it as adult, even though we're following young characters. In terms of format, I read six novels and three novellas. Oh, I didn't tell you the individual star ratings. So in terms of individual star ratings, I had one two star, two three stars, two 3.5 stars, one 4.5, and three fives, but again, two of those five stars were rereads. Okay, in terms of series stats, three books were part of a series, three books were standalone, two were first in the series, and one was last in the series. Finally, we finished a series, baby. It only took us four months of the year. I'm hoping to finish at least, let's say two, finish at least two in May. Although we did start two and I am continuing both of those series, we finished one. That's a win. A win is a win, baby. In terms of where the books were from, five were gifted, quite a lot of them were gifted, three were books I bought myself, and one was sent to me by the publisher. In terms of author stats, one was a debut, five were authors I read from before, and three were new to me. Is that all the stats? Yeah, that's all the stats. Okay, let's just go through each of the books now and give their ratings. First, I read Ghostwood Song by Erica Waters, and I gave this 3.5 stars. Then I read Along with Sault By Sea by A. D. Brebaker, aka Sean McGuire, and I gave this three stars. House of Hollow by Crystal Sutherland, which I gave three stars. Confessions by Kanay Monato, I gave two stars. The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson, I gave 4.5 stars. Finney Donovan is killing it, I gave five stars. Girls of Fate and Fury by Natasha Nyang, I gave 3.5 stars, and this was the series that I finished this month. And then I did re-reads of Come Tumbling Down and Across the Green Grass Fields by Strona McGuire, and these were both five stars. Again, of course. Okay, that's all the books I read this month. Let's get into the Disappointment Surprise and Hits, but again, there's not a ton. I feel like the tone of this is down. Let's come on, energy up everyone. Okay, Disappointments, I have two this month. Let's start with the biggest. We have Confessions by Kanay Monato. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it, okay? Because I feel like the whole of BookTube loves this book, apart from me. I didn't love it. I would like to defend myself, but sadly, that's the truth. So we're following a teacher whose daughter, what do you know before we go into this? Yeah, yeah. Her young daughter was murdered by two people in her class, and she's kind of like telling them, yeah, I know what you did at the beginning. And then this goes on to have like, I think six or seven, I don't even know, different perspectives of different characters in the book talking about the events of what happened for them. And generally, I feel like everyone on BookTube is love this. Everyone on BookTube is give this five stars. I feel like I was reading a different book. You know, usually when I read a book, though, I'm able to say if everyone else loved it, I'm able to say like, I can see it, right? I can see how you could love that. It wasn't for me. I'm convinced I read a different book because I don't get it. I have come to the conclusion from, I think I read six stories in March, maybe. But I didn't love that either. And both these books have in common is that we've got like one central event. And the whole book is different chapters, one chapter per perspective, telling their perspective of what happened. And I just don't like that. It's not interesting to me, because I feel like once I've read the first chapter, I basically know the whole story, right? I find if I've met these characters or know all these characters, I feel like in this, they're so like one dimensional, I can kind of predict everything that's going to happen. Some reviews and this is like, oh my god, I was gasping, there was so many twists. What twists? What twists? What twists? Nothing shocked me. You're shocked? You're shocked? I feel mean, but not every book is for everyone. You know, I think it's interesting that I've noticed that pattern that I don't like one central event being retold again and again from different perspectives. It just doesn't work for me. I obviously find it boring. It's again, I think it's similar to like I struggle sometimes with dual perspective, dual timeline. Like I think I do just like one linear story. I like the, is it Save the Cat? I don't know. Like the traditional story timeline and story arc, I think I like. But I do like books that mess with it in different ways, but something about perspective story being broken up in some way doesn't work for me. And then I'd say my other disappointment was the March Book Club pick for my Patreon. I always tend to read it in the next month, so I read it super close to our live show. And that was House of Hollow by Crystal Sutherland. This one, we're following these sisters who disappeared as children, came back, changed slightly and we're following them in present day and one of their three sisters and one of them has gone missing. And this is a book over time. So many people have told me I was going to love. You know, I love Wilder Girls. This has got some kind of similar body horror-esque stuff. And so many people told me I'm going to love the writing. I'm going to love the way this was told. I didn't. I didn't like the writing in this. I just, I didn't like it. It felt so melodramatic, poorly written, one-dimensional characters. Whoa. I'm upset, guys. I'm really upset because so many of you are telling me I was going to love this and I just don't get it. This is a book I read right at the start of the month and I feel like I've kind of pushed it out of my brain. But I didn't feel like the mystery was particularly compelling. I didn't feel like the character relationships were that compelling. There were elements of it that I did enjoy. Could I tell you what they are right now? Not really. Some of the sister relationships I guess I enjoy. You know, sister relationships is usually something that I love. I actually, I think I should have watched my book club live show for this before coming and speaking to you because I cannot remember anything. I do like it goes there with the ending, right? I predicted the ending. I think the ending is fairly obvious. What's going to happen in this book? But I do like that it goes there, right? It commits the bit which I like, right? That's the positive for this. I gave it three stars. It wasn't terrible, but it was a disappointment for me because this could have been like a five-star prediction. Like it was up there. It was up there with the girlies. You know, some people are telling me I love it. Sisters, body horror, mystery, like, oh, you know, creepy. It's my kind of thing. Surprises, I only have one. Like I said, it's pretty sparse picking. And that was the kind of worth killing by Peter Swanson. I read this and confessions and the one book we're going to see and hits in my book shoot twin test episode with how to chain your gab in. So if you watched that vlog, then you've heard me speak about these books. So we'll keep it brief. If you haven't watched it, go watch it. But I gave the kind of killing 4.5 stars. I was really shocked by just how much I enjoyed this. I really enjoyed it guys. I was shocked. So in this we've got these two characters who meet on a plane. The guy jokes that he wants to kill his wife because she's having an affair. He's like, I could just kill her, you know. And the woman that he's met on the plane is like, why don't you? So we're kind of following their perspectives. And I loved this book. It had like, it had that thing where there's a midway twist that completely changes the trajectory of the book and shakes it up on you. And like, you get too comfortable with what facts you think you know. And it completely switches up on you. I love when a mystery book does that. I just thought this was a solid great thriller. If you've never, if you've never had thrillers, right? Maybe you're a fantasy girl, maybe you're a horror girl, whatever. You've never read a thriller, right? That was me once. My first thriller is up there. It was Ten of the Key by Ruth Ware. I'd never read a thriller before. I think this is a perfect beginner's thriller. It just does so many tropes and like, plot beats of a thriller so well. You know, I think it's a beginner's thriller. Perfect. It's great. It was a great thriller. The way you stuff twisted, the way you rooted for certain characters whilst thinking, should I be really rooting for them? The pace in this was wonderful. It kept you moving. Oh, I loved it. It was so good. The only reason it was not a five is that it is like fairly typical. It wasn't, you know, for me, increasingly a five has to do something new, something different or something fresh. And this didn't really do that. It was just like a solo thriller, you know? But this is my first Peter Swanson. And I know everyone clowns on all of his like newer books and doesn't like them. Maybe I'll give you a chance with some other books. I think I will pick up The Kind Worth Saving, which has just come out, which is the sequel to this. So, yeah. And then we had one hit this month. Like I said, I had three, five stars, but two were those rereads of the Mary Trun series. So no need to chat about them here. But my other hit, which you guys have told me for so long that I was going to love is Pretty Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosmano. It's incredible. It's incredible. It's incredible. You deserve an Oscar. You actually deserve an award. I need to get my hands on the rest of the series and not put it off reading it like I need to just read it because it's made for me. It's made for me. I just, I, I spent so long not reading it out of fear. I was terrified. I was petrified. Like what if I didn't love this? Anyways, we've got Finney Donovan. He's a single mum struggling for money. She's a writer, but she's like struggling with all the stuff going on in her life to write the moment. She meets up with her to show the coffee shop. She's giving her her plot. Another woman over here thinks Finney Donovan is a hit woman and hires her to kill her husband. And Finney just gets like wrapped up in this world of shenanigans and murder and darkness. And she's just trying to survive. She's like bumbling her way through it. Firstly, Finney does some stupid shit in this. I've got to say like Finney has not watched enough she cried. They're like, Finney don't drop. Like she's leaving traces of stuff that she shouldn't hear there and everywhere. Let's just say that. Oh my girl, you're stressing me the f*** out. But this is so fun. It's such a fun mystery. I love the relationships in this. There's a really strong relationship between her and her like nanny, ex nanny kind of. I hate her husband with a burning passion. If I could kill any fictional character, it would probably be him. Actually now I feel like death is too, is too, uh, too kind of punishment. I just like, oh, I hate men. I hate men. I really hate men. I really hate men. I really just hate men. One way to get me to hate a man is to a man who's cheated and broken up a family with young kids. Like that gets me going. Like I hate him. I hate him. I'm so excited to continue this series. I thought the writing was so great. Again, the pacing, this was really good. It just kept you moving, kept you wanting to read more. Listen, you guys told me for years I was going to love Finley and I did. This is the standout of the month for me. This is the best of the month. Yeah, good old Finley, eh? Finally read it. So there we have it. That was my reading month for April. Not the best reading month, not the worst. It was okay. I felt a bit meh, but you know, Finney donovan was that and I reread some of my children and Peter Swanson shocked me. So everything else was like a three star basically. But thank you guys for watching this video. If you got to the end of the video comment a sunglasses emoji for Finley. Comment that down below if you got to the end. Thank you guys so much for watching. I love you and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye!