How is it possible that April is already over? March felt it had 365 days and April had like two weeks? What is happening? We are one month away from the middle of the year and from a new Sims 4 Expansion Pack – sorry to plug that in, but I just found out the news! But before I start to care about what is yet to come, I better take a step back and talk about everything I read last month.

Wrap-up

If you didn’t know, April was the month of the OWLs, part of the Magical Readathon. I’m not going to explain again what this readathon is all about, for that read my TBR post where I explain everything (or almost everything). To start the readathon in full swing, I read The Beauty volume 1 by Jeremy Haun, the shortest book of my TBR. As much as I loved the concept of the story, I don’t know if I want to continue reading the series. That’s something I’ll have to decide over time depending on my mood.

In contrast, the next book I finished was the biggest one, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Well, this book gave me a lot to think about. More than that, it awakened my curiosity to learn about Korean history, and I’m very grateful. It was really an amazing book to read, and my only wish was for the story to be set in the early 20th century following Sunja every day.

In the middle of the readathon madness, I had to squeeze in Goldilocks by Laura Lam. And I mean squeeze in the sweetest way possible, because it was an awesome book. Too near-future for my liking, but none the less a sci-fi treat. I actually need to blame this book on my current mood for everything science-fiction and dystopian. It woke up the dragon, now he’s hungry.

Speaking of waking dragons, I also read Game of Throne by George R R Martin – see what I did there? Although to be fair, I only read half of GoT. The Portuguese edition is divided into two volumes – *cough* money grabbers *cough* – and I finished the first one. And it left me with a strange decision to make. Should I review it? It’s not that the original book was divided into two parts, and each part had a start, a middle, and an end. The story simply stops in the middle. There isn’t a mind-blowing cliffhanger last chapter to conclude the plot because that’s in the next volume. This book on itself is bad. Nothing happened other than a 14-year-old girl getting married, incest, an attempted murder, and other successful ones.

As you can probably tell, this is something that grinds my gears. But moving on, I listened to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis while working on a puzzle. I’m starting to realize that puzzling is probably the only kind of activity that I can do while listening to an audiobook. Those bad boys and I don’t have the best relationship. I can get easily distracted from the story and then get completely lost. But this time was different. The Chronicles of Narnia are written in a way perfect to be read out loud, so it was really enjoyable to hear it. And if I continue with the rest of the series is because I want to listen to it.

By the end of the month, I read If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. The book about the book itself. What a great start for what ended up to be the disappointment of the month. I’m really sad that I didn’t enjoy this book because the concept was great. The story follows a Reader that buys the newest Italo Calvino novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller. But has he’s reading, he realizes that his copy is missing the rest of the story. He goes back to the bookstore to get a new copy, but that only leads him to a different incomplete book that has nothing to do with the first one.

So the story goes on and on, jumping from one book to another, and the Reader still unable to finish a single one of those books. For me, the only problem was that I didn’t care for those half-books. I didn’t get excited by those stories like the Reader, and that’s a big part of the book. I was constantly bored and thought about DNFing it a few times. I just kept on reading because I didn’t want to jump straight to the last page. Change the stories, keep the same concept and I’m sure it will be a favourite.

With all the books read, it’s time to recap on my OWLs. I was doing exams for the Culinary Sorcerer career and the seminar in Legal Defence of Fantastic Beasts. Reading Pachinko and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe made me complete my exams in Care of Magical Creatures and History of Magic, respectively, making me conclude the seminar. While with Game of Thrones, I completed the Arithmancy exam, The Beauty completed the Potions exam, and If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, the Herbology exam. Although I failed one last exam Charms, that was A Muralha de Gelo (the second half of Game of Thrones). So I didn’t pass on all my exams, and I’m not a Culinary Sorcerer, but I’m not even mad. I read six books in April, and that’s amazing!

TBR

I have no idea how May is going to be. I saved my Scribd subscription to the end of the month so I could take the most advantage of it, and I don’t know what to read. I’m in the mood for sci-fi, dystopian and gaming stories with a little interest in YA thriller as well, but I’m in a very picky mood.

So far I’m thinking of Dry and Scythe, both by Neil Shusterman; The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak; The Final Six by Alexandra Monir; With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo; and Illuminae by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell is a possibility because I wanted more Simon and Baz after finishing Carry On, but I’m not exactly excited to read a romance novel. There is also the Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth, her more recent novel that I had my eye on for some time, although I’m scared it will be too fantastical for my liking.

Three things are for sure, I have ARCs to read: The Cruise Ship Lost my Daughter by Morgan Mayer, and I’m expecting the book to be as fun as the title; Last One to Lie by J M Winchester; and The Truants by Kate Weinberg. Not exactly the mood I was going for in May, but a good break from all the space travelling.