In many ways, I fit the bookworm archetype. Although I refuse to wear my glasses, I am nearsighted enough that sometimes my loved ones play a game called “what does that sign say, Emma?” I enjoy a hot beverage in a mug. And above all, I am an introvert and I like to be in my house.
But you wouldn’t know that by looking at how busy my April and May are. Which is a long-winded way of saying…the reading challenge will be taking a hit.
I went whole weeks (or one week, kind of) without picking up a book last month, and then read like crazy to try to make up for it. More of that to come throughout the coming weeks, but for now…
Let’s talk about the reads we do have.
Projects
It has been, and remains, the usual. I’m still doing YEAR AND PEACE, in which I will spend a year reading War and Peace at a chapter a day clip. I have four months to go and we’ve been in the war part for a punishingly long time.
I got the bad news out of the way first so we could get to the loveliness: I broke all of my project long classics rules in order to justify reading The Enchanted April, and it was worth it. Wildly charming book.
I’m also starting another project for an upcoming post, in which you guys pick what I read. Watch this space!
Review copies
Even though I spent all of March catching up on review copies, I somehow had a million more to read this month.
I keep trying to make rules to rein in my Netgalley addiction — I will only request books by authors I know, say, or books I would read whether or not I got approved for them — but nothing works. It’s too fun.
What paid subscribers got
In addition to my undying love, chosen one status, and the other varying benefits of favoritism:
The first paid post of the month was on every book I’ve ever five starred. Of all the 2,120 books I’ve read, only 101 of them have gotten that coveted rating, which makes me picky and annoying and those select few very fun to talk about.
In a moment of (accidental) planning and organization likely never to be seen again from me, the next was my Gatsby review, shared exactly on the book’s centennial. From the thousands of reviews I’ve written on Goodreads, this is the only one (to my knowledge) that has been straight up deleted.
Still in the midst of the positivity vibes that apparently struck me this month, I also wrote a love letter to my favorite authors. I feel my liberal Netgalley requesting has caused many of my go-tos to let me down, but not this all-star lineup.
Finally, I answered the question I get every day of my life on every platform I’ve ever had: how do you read so much?
These monthly wrap-ups will always be free, and paid subscribers will always get (AT LEAST) weekly posts. More fun stuff in the future too. And I’ll always lo- I’ll lo- I’ll love you, Darcy style.
The books in question
I’m always trying to invent as many introductory sections to put off getting to this one, but I’m out of ideas, so. Here they are.
Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin
April 1-8 | Source: Purchased
Family Happiness could just as easily be the title of the niche subgenre Laurie Colwin created for herself. Her books are so cozy and comforting and also so clever and wry and also so satisfying and familial. I feel existential dread when I think about running out of them.
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
Don't Sleep with the Dead by Nghi Vo
April 8-10 | Source: Netgalley
Nobody but me liked Nghi Vo’s last take on the Great Gatsby, but she lost even me on this one. Why am I following an even more boring version of Nick Carraway through devil-ridden automats for 112 pages and no one’s head is even getting ripped off?
Rating: ✯✯
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
April 10-11 | Source: Libro.fm ALC
We are SO BACK. EmHen’s last couple of releases were misses for me (and, I think, the other 4 members of the Let’s Return to YA Magical Realism fan club), but this was just so fun. Who wouldn’t read what essentially amounts to an Emily Henry Evelyn Hugo rewrite?
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
The Folklore of Forever by Sarah Hogle
April 9-13 | Source: Netgalley
It was an act of hubris to follow one highly anticipated advance copy of a romance release by one of my go-to authors with another, and the universe punished me accordingly. Sarah Hogle has missed many readers with her personal brand of oddness, but she was unable to push me away. Until now. But I’ll be back on the next one.
Rating: ✯✯
Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake
April 13-15 | Source: Netgalley
I keep assuming one of these days I’m going to like an Olivie Blake book. I don’t know why I feel that way. It doesn’t appear she’s going to give up on her one-sided love affair with adjectives anytime soon.
Rating: ✯✯
Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata
April 13-16 | Source: Netgalley
Hi my name is Emma and every time I pick up a Sayaka Murata book I expect it to be Convenience Store Woman but it’s always Earthlings. If I am going to read about how disturbing societal expectations I’d like to have breaks to think about onigiri.
Rating: ✯✯✯
Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. Smith
April 14-17 | Source: Netgalley
Sometimes you can read what feels like 16 books by one author and never really click with any of them and then they write about a subject you’re into and you’re like yup. That’ll work. Thank you to Jennifer E. Smith for writing about siblings.
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
The Family Recipe by Carolyn Huynh
March 31 - April 18 | Source: Publisher
Unfortunately I think the amount of time it took me to read this book speaks for itself. It had 11 perspectives and 52 characters (both of those are exaggerations and not real numbers but feel true in my heart) and in two weeks I won’t remember any of them.
Rating: ✯✯
When the Harvest Comes by Denne Michele Norris
April 15-21 | Source: Netgalley
Periodically I allow myself to read books billed as “heart-wrenching.” To build character. Fortunately I actually thought this one was pretty happy and nice, so. I guess I’m not sure what that says about me as a person.
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla Barnes
April 21-22 | Source: Publisher
I’ve been known to judge a book by its cover, but what really gets me is a good title/cover combo. I mean. Come on. That’s irresistible. Ultimately this was more a collection of funny moments than a novel, like when popular Twitter accounts used to get book deals, but there are worse things.
Rating: ✯✯✯
Authority by Andrea Long Chu
April 16-23 | Source: Netgalley
I may hate many things, but my fellow hater will never be one of them. I spend a good amount of time reading Andrea Long Chu’s criticism online so it was very fun to be able to do that and also count it toward my reading challenge.
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
The Snares by Rav Grewel-Kok
April 23-24 | Source: Netgalley
Kind of fun, in this world of morally grey characters and anti-heroes and whatnot, to just write about a bad guy doing bad stuff. Not a huge plot twist but why not get back to basics every once in a while.
Rating: ✯✯✯
Worry by Alexandra Tanner
April 24 | Source: Publisher
The upset of the month!!! I’m back to my roots of loving books that everyone else hates! Low average ratings hate to see me coming! I feel so alive! This book was so good!
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
Friends of the Museum by Heather McGowan
April 21-25 | Source: Publisher
Shoutout to this book, which is a million pages long and has a million characters and a million perspectives, each somehow more pointless and boring and fatphobic than the last, for bringing me right back down to earth.
Rating: ✯✯
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
April 26-28 | Source: Library
The first book for a post I’m doing where you guys (via Instagram and Goodreads) choose what I read, and boy did you treat me right: the library hold I’d had for like 2 months (which, yes, still makes me very late to the bandwagon) had just come in. Happy to say it’s worth the hype!
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo Chong
April 25-28 | Source: Netgalley
I did not really like this author’s first book, but this one worked for me. I mean. Sushi! Family! Finding yourself after a long-term coma! Very little talk of bedsores, considering! It’s a good time.
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
A Family Matter by Claire Lynch
April 25-29 | Source: Publisher
Kind of fun that I read so many books with “family” in the title. What was that about? Who knows. This was a good book that was too short because I was enjoying it and then I had to deal with that phantom feeling all day where you try to pick your book back up but you can’t because you finished it.
Rating: ✯✯✯✯
The Influencers by Anna-Marie McLemore
April 23-30 | Source: Netgalley
The theme of this post has been “authors I should give up, and authors I should give another try, and I don’t know how to tell the difference and I probably never will.” In other words I keep reading Anna-Marie McLemore’s books to varying results.
Rating: ✯✯
Summing things up
Ultimately, I guess it was an okay reading month. The patches where I frantically tried to catch up on my reading challenge did a fine job covering for the weeks I didn’t pick a book up at all, and I ended up reading 19 books.
Even better, I can straight up recommend 9 of them, which is a whopping 47%. That is, I believe, the second-worst so far. Maybe someday I will like half of what I read.
The very best book I read was Worry, and the very worst book I read was Friends of the Museum.
As always, pie charts below for my fellow data lovers! But first:
What were your best and worst reads of April?
i love reading your wrapups and i love that you're on substack <3