Happy & Confused April Reading #amreading

/ Eve Messenger

April 2016 Reads

This month I got to go all over the place in books. Just looking at the graphic of the ten books I read in April makes happy and maybe just a bit confused. While there was definitely a YA fantasy slant to my reading selections (no big surprise there), I think this month each book ended up being from a different genre.

Consider by Kristy Acevedo-I kicked off April with a bit of YA sci-fi. Intriguing concept, shocker ending.

What We Need to Survive by Elena Johansen – My writer-blogger friend Elena published an adult post-apocalyptic romance that I just had to read. Her writing is flawless.

The First Time She Drowned by Kerry Kletter – This YA contemporary blew me away with its beautiful writing and All. Of. The. Feels. I posted a review of it here.

Captain Marvel Further, Faster, More vol. 1-6 Higher by DeConnick & Lopez-Another recommendation from Carolyn @ A Hundred Thousand Stories that I adored, this (graphic novel? comic book?) series predominantly features females in the lead roles, including of course Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel. Excellent writing by DeConnick and beautiful artwork by David Lopez. Now I’m off to read Ms. Marvel. . .

The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou-At last I sat down and read a collection of poetry by the modern goddess of poetry herself, Maya Angelou. She wrote deep, musical, personal poetry that does what poetry should–makes us see the world as very big and very small all at the same time and makes us think.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor-An outstanding YA urban fantasy. I liked the dark, imaginative story and the atmospheric Prague setting. From all the things I’d heard about it,  I expected the writing to be transcendent, which finally started happening on page 174. This story went to a place that, well–no spoilers–but what an ending.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld – I finally got around to reading this hugely famous book and had a fun time. Mixing things up with a bit of  YA dystopia every once in a while is a good thing.

The Uninvited by Cat Winters – YA paranormal. I’m always up for a story about ghosts, and I liked the historical setting of WW-I , flu-epidemic era small-town America, but this turned into a romance right away, which is not my favorite genre.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman – Adult urban fantasy. I read this as an audio book and, as someone who swore long ago never, ever to commute to work again, listening to it during my short ride to work and during errands took an excruciatingly long time. Five weeks, to be exact. I finally broke down, found a PDF of Neverwhere online, read the last 30 pages (with my eyes, not my ears), and enjoyed the book so much more. Also, an interesting thing happens when I read Neil Gaiman’s writing–it almost instantly makes me a better writer. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s really true!

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi- Yay, this highly anticipated YA Indian fantasy finally arrived! Thanks to Amazon, I received it on the release date, April 26, and read it in two days.Gorgeous imagery, poetic prose.

Happy reading! Did you have a crazy, mixed-up genre of a reading month, too?

–Eve Messenger

19 thoughts on “Happy & Confused April Reading #amreading”

  2. So glad you enjoyed Ms. Marvel =)
    I actually don’t think I’m an audiobook person; it just takes way too long and even if I speed it up, I’m the type of person that can’t stand missing some words..

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  3. Bummer you didn’t like the Neverwhere audio. Maybe if you listened to the Dramatized audio, now that you read the book that is. The Dramatized Audio has an amazing mix of cast members! Well worth it I thought.
    Btw, this is also my favorite Gaiman book, after reading this and Stardust. Interesting how he makes you a better writer, but then his stories are very imaginative.

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  6. I love Captain Marvel! I read two volumes of Ms Marvel (with Carol as Ms Marvel) this month. And Daughter of Smoke & Bone has been on my to read list since forever and somehow I can’t get around to it…

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  7. I’m glad you liked Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I read it last summer and I thought it was weird and confusing at first, but after the first half of the book I started to make sense of things. Laini Taylor is an absolute genius.

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    • Exactly! The writing and story were good in the first half, but the pay-off went somewhere I never would have expected. All bow down to Laini Taylor. The movie rights were bought by a major production company a few years ago. I wonder if they’ll ever make DOSAB into a movie–it seems like it would be hard to get right, as in the fantastical creatures would have to be done just right to maintain their dignity.

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  8. I also loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone, particularly the ending! And the 2nd and 3rd in the trilogy are even better (in my opinion anyway) – the story becomes so laden with conflict and suspense, and explores the characters and world in much deeper and more interesting ways than I expected. Anyway, I recommend continuing!

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    • Thanks for telling me! Honestly, I’m so excited now to read the rest of the books in the series. If what Daughter of Smoke & Bone morphed into is an indication of how the story progresses in subsequent books, it’s going to be great.

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  9. Uglies was actually my very first YA dystopia and, oh gosh, all the good memories are flowing back just from this post. (I think it’s pretty old?) And, I completely agree, a dystopia mixed in every now and then is always great; they tend to be fast paced and page turners!

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