the 13 books i read in april🧚 | monthly reading wrap up

Ajouté : 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hello everybody. Welcome or welcome back to my channel. My name's Alyssa if you're new here and it is time to talk about all of the books that I read in April. I cannot believe that we are already in May, but I've been wanting to film this video for a few days now, but I've been deathly sick in my bed. I just could not move, could not get up, out of breath. I'm out of breath, my nose is still stuffed, but I kind of felt rejuvenated. I felt like I wanted to talk about some books. So, we need to film my April reading wrap-up before it gets too late. I read a total of 13 books. Most of them were fantasy, obviously. We had a few sci-fi, a few lit fic, few thrillers, a horror in there. Like, we were kind of all over the map, but mostly we stayed in the fantasy genre. Only one of them I don't own physically because I did listen to an audiobook of that one that we will get into, but the rest of them were off of my physical TBR. So, I call that a win. We're going to get into it and we're going to go from my least favorite to my most favorite because I like that format. I like going from my worst and then ending off on a good note, on a positive note. So, without further ado, let's talk about all the books that I read in April. And at number 13, my least favorite book of the month was The First Step by Tao Wong. I believe these books in the series were indie published first and now they're being traditionally published. Got picked up, which I love that. I love that for this author, but unfortunately, I just didn't love this one at all. I don't know what it was. It sounded really good because we have a main character who he is one of these people where he like studies martial arts and the martial arts skills and fighting styles. But then there's also this thing where you can cultivate your energy and you can get on different levels and he's kind of like in the bottom of the barrel. Like, he isn't very good at that and he's wanting to become stronger. But then he gets like enlisted into this army school and this elite academy where he becomes a novice and learns different things. It's an epic journey from like him being in his small rural town to basically becoming one of like the novices at this like empire and him going on that journey, but I just felt like we didn't spend enough time at each place we were going and I just didn't really feel connected to the characters.

[00:01:46]Everything just felt so surface level to me. I just wasn't rooting for him in the end. I was just like, I don't feel anything towards you. I'm kind of bored.

[00:01:53]I was kind of like, when is this story going to be over? Unfortunately, this one was a miss for me and I don't think I'm going to continue the series, unfortunately. I thought it was going to really love it because there were some really great martial arts style sequences were so good. Other than that, I just didn't care, and I was bored.

[00:02:08]Next book is Saturn Returning by Kim Narain. Kind of switching up the genre, this one is a queer coming of age lip vic where we follow three best friends, and their lives are so messy. They're three best friends, and this is the book that happens where it goes between past and present where we're in the present where there are these fundamental moments happening where two of the friends engage to get married, and they're kind of like teetering off on this little thing where they're like, are they going to get married? Are they not? But then the other friend starts coming in into different things, and it's just so messy. They're also deeply intertwined and interconnected in their thoughts and feelings and just the emotions with each other. Because we were going between past and present, I feel like sometimes the time jumps were a little jarring where I was like, I didn't really understand the point of that, or I'm just like, I don't really like you. It was between all three perspectives, and there were some that I really enjoyed way more than others. I'm like, I don't want to read about your perspective just being a [ __ ] to some other people. And the ending just ended so abruptly. I just was so confused as to what was happening. We didn't get like any conclusion. It's just like it kind of ended. I don't mind like an open-ended non-satisfying ending, but I felt like for this story and because it was so chaotic and messy and these characters really do truly care about each other that we just didn't get any satisfying conclusion with any of the three friendships. I was kind of let down for that. I was kind of let down, and I kind of just wanted them to be happy with each other because they have been best friends for so [snorts] long.

[00:03:31]It was just such a crazy ride of heartbreaks, desires, friendships, and just like the gravitational pull you feel to people that you just grew so close to. But it was just an okay read read to me. I didn't dislike it, but it wasn't my favorite, so. This book is definitely Fates by Tessie Ade Said.

[00:03:45]This one is a Y book that I thought the premise was so interesting. I I enjoyed the premise. We have a main character where who guides the souls of the dead to their homeland and is basically this in-between person between the living land and the dead and they guide this these souls in between and they take up different tasks from people when they're like this person died. I want you to go and take their soul and guide them and I thought that was so cool. Everything about this was so interesting cuz our main character, she gets this task to basically go to this battlefield and guide this one soul to the afterlife.

[00:04:15]But when she touches this person with her like talismans to like get this soul and guide them towards the dead, this person wakes up. That's not supposed to happen. They're not supposed to be like a actual living person and talk and have feelings, but then they like somehow end up communicating. He's not actually as dead as she thought he was going to be and then she also realizes that he's the crown prince. Whole whirlwind of emotions that she's dealing with and she needs this job and needs to get him from point A to point B because she needs money for her family because her dad is very sick and not doing very good. I enjoyed seeing them going on this journey from point A to point B. I know I'm dealing with all the spirits of the death and them trying to get enough energy to get him back and to bring him back to life essentially. I just didn't really vibe with the romance. I don't know. I just felt like because they were only going on this journey for like a week or maybe even like a week and a half two weeks, max two weeks. I didn't really understand how they were already like in love with each other. By the end all of the loose threads that we had throughout the book, it wasn't really a satisfying conclusion, but overall it was just okay. By the way, this is a wait is not a villain anymore by Emily Krumpholtz. Now, this one was really cute. It was really cute. It was cozy.

[00:05:21]This is a cozy fantasy that has a main character where she was known as this big bad villain, but she's turning on a over a new leaf. She goes and basically takes up shop in this little small town where she opens this flower shop cuz she can grow her own flowers. She has to share this greenhouse and her flower shop with the alchemist who is also one of the landlords of her new home. So it's so fascinating to see their tension and angst. Really liked all the talks about grief and identity and finding yourself again, life after loss for both of them, her losing the person that she was and losing her family that she had, and also him losing the family that he had, and just like how to grieve and how to manage that. I thought it was so cool, but I do will say the romance went too fast again. I don't know what it is, but when the characters get together like halfway through the book, I'm bored. I'm so bored and I'm just like I wanted more tension. I wanted more angst and this there was this whole thing that was building up to the end where I was just like, "That's it? You're not even mad at her for that long when you found out what happened?" I'm like it just didn't make any sense. There was this whole thing with the blight happening, which I thought was interesting and I thought the way that that played out was interesting, but the romance just bored me. It bored me. I liked the tension at the beginning. I wanted more of that before Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie, which is the second book after The Blade Itself. Definitely liked it way more than the first book. I think that Joe Abercrombie is such a talented writer in writing storylines and plotlines and characters, and I love the direction that this storyline went compared to the first book. I thought they we got so much depth to the characters, and just like even the characters that I absolutely despised in the first book cuz there were some where I'm like, "You are a [ __ ] [ __ ] I don't want to read your perspective about you." But the way that Joe Abercrombie can make that character and make me actually like them in this book, I'm like, "What is happening?" I think that this expanded the world so well. We got to see so many different creatures and learn more about the lore and the land. It was just so good. I know I need to read book three and read the rest of Joe Abercrombie's books cuz this was such a delight, honestly. The next book was Aisha, which I was pleasantly surprised by. I knew I was going to like this one, but this is a reimagining of Morocco's famous like warrior goddess. So interesting, the way that it was done was just done with so much depth and care. We have our main character, Aisha, and she is growing up in this time where she is part of this rebel family. It starts off with like eight days to the siege. So this whole book spans within the time of eight days. A lot about how the Portuguese empire has infiltrated Morocco. Loved all the rich history and lore and the characters and our main character something simmering within her skin. She has this rage that she always feels. She gets these intrusive thoughts that she just wants to murder people that she just wants to wreck havoc and I think it's just because her family and her people she has seen so much death. Can't help but feel this anger and rage. If you're looking for a magic heavy book, this one isn't that. It's more so learning about the politics of the world and the characters and just the relationship between her and the Portuguese empire and just the relationship that she has with the people of her family. You wish that the siege, the actual siege happened a little bit earlier because it didn't end up happening until here. You wish that was implemented a little bit earlier but overall very much enjoyed myself. The Cat of Babel by R.F.

[00:08:32]Kuang. Now this is one that I read very recently and I had a little bit of mixed feelings with this one but overall I really enjoyed myself. Those Alice and Peter. They are basically going on this journey to hell to save their professor's soul. This professor is their mentor and they know that a good recommendation letter from him can basically secure their chances at getting a good job. Don't like each other but there was something in the past that happened that you don't know yet but like they've known each other for a while. They know and have worked together but like you don't know why they stopped talking and why they don't really like each other anymore. So I thought that was a very fascinating aspect of this story. This is them basically journeying through the different levels of hell and the different courts of hell get repetitive.

[00:09:13]Because they are going through these different courts of hell and that they kind of all blurred together in my mind.

[00:09:18]Some of them were very distinct. Some of them were really interesting. There were some concepts in here where I was like that is so cool. I love seeing all those different details but I will say that it was kind of a little bit repetitive. As always a classic R.F. Kuang style. This is a critique and just a love letter to academia and how it's just so messed up in so many different ways and just the different layers to that which I thought was so fascinating as I do with all of her books because I think she does a phenomenal job at that. But also, I thought that the ending was so rushed. I don't know what it was, but I felt like we were leading up to this whole thing and then it just that was it. So underwhelmed. I was like, we could have started that way earlier and got more into depth about that. Overall, I did enjoy myself. I just wish we got a little bit more time in the ending. I just didn't really understand that and I was just kind of left confused and wanting more. Burn the Sea by Moniza Alwari, which I adored. Which I loved so much. Historical fantasy of that reimagines the Portuguese attacks on South India in the 1500s and it reimagines a fierce queen's real life story. It was so good. Main character where she is like the second born daughter, so she's not going to be the queen. Her older sister is going to be the queen. She's going to be the blade.

[00:10:33]So she protects the queen. She is just like there for protection and for support. But 50 years ago, there was this failed invasion done by these half men, half serpent beasts that are demanding money from them. They are colonizers. They want to take over the land. They want to take over anything and they are demanding money from them from these people who are being colonized and they're like, well, if you don't do this, we are going to wreak havoc on you. We are going to destroy every single one of you until there's nothing left. Negotiations that are happening and just like figuring out if they want to pay these beasts because it'll protect their family. Also, like is it worth it in the end to pay back towards these colonizers? So I loved seeing all of those aspects. And also our main character, there's a lot of themes about motherhood and just like life after this whole big thing that happens to you and just grief and everything. It was so good. All the topics about food and clothing and just the whole world, I just felt so transported. I loved it. I can't wait for the next book. I am I need to know what happens because there were so many twists and turns in this that I was not expecting. I was unwell throughout so much of this book. I thought this was a great debut. Audiobook of Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker, which was so fascinating. I'm actually reading Bat Eater and Other Names for Khorasan right now by the same author, which is another horror book. I'm eating it up, but this one is like a horror thriller. I would classify this more thriller-esque than horror, but there is some horror elements. There's two different timelines, one in the present in 2016, one many years in the past with like the samurai era in Japan. So, in the present we are following Lee. Big thing happened. He runs away to his dad in Japan, and he goes and lives in this house that was a former samurai house.

[00:12:13]So, he's like, "Well, it's a little bit odd here. The ceilings are low. I kind of have to duck, but that's okay." He slowly starts to realize that there are some weird aspects within this house that like nobody else seems to recognize but him. This closet of this room, there is this door that appears every so often where it's like he opens the door and there is this like film or something where he can see to the other side, and he realizes that to the other side is many years in the past of a real-life samurai. She is struggling with her family. Her dad is like one of the last samurai to exist, and she is training, she is fighting, and she is growing up in such a hard life, and they slowly start to interact and talk about each other's lives. Realize how things change from the present to the past, and there's so much about Japanese culture and lore and just like how samurai existed and just the extent of what they had to go through, the battles and just like the fight for everything. It was so freaking good. It was so good. Liked how it was so atmospheric and creepy because it's kind of like a haunted house aspect. Love seeing all the different aspects about like just like longing and grief and just like you feeling this kinship towards this other person that you know you can't see and be with forever. Even though it's not romantic at all, it's platonic, but you feeling like this person understands you so much, but like they are from a whole different time that you were experiencing. So good. I highly recommend this book to every single person. It was really, really good and fascinating. And I'm also really enjoying Cursed Bunny so far. That one is really, really good as well. Well Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. Now, this one was a wild ride. This one was a wild ride. If you watch my last vlog, I sobbed like a baby at the end of this. I sobbed like a little baby. I just could not get over the ending. Dominic Salt and his three children live in this little small secluded island. There's nobody there anymore. It's just them.

[00:13:59]Then we have this random woman that washes ashore, Rowan, and she might be there for reasons that they are not expecting. They're harboring secrets, she's harboring secrets, but they're also trying to figure out how to live here because the climate change is getting worse, the high tides are getting higher, so many things are going wrong with just like the atmosphere. I really enjoyed how we got all different perspectives that were so vastly different. I love seeing how Rowan was slowly going closer with this family and having such a deep connection to the children, to Dominic, and to the land because there were so many different things with like the plant biology of it that I was learning so much. And the ending genuinely shocked me. I don't know what it was. I was kind of expecting it to go in a certain way, and then it kind of got flipped on its head.

[00:14:42]I thought it was so fascinating, and I'm so intrigued to see and to read her other books, especially Migrations. That one sounds really good because that one's about birds, and I'm very intrigued by that. But this was such a great read. It also talks about climate change and just protecting the people that you love and you doing anything for those people that you love. I thought it was such a phenomenal read. And this is one that I have been thinking about since I finished it. My last book of the month, but one that will stick with me.

[00:15:06]A Galaxy by Sierra Brannam, which is a sci-fi book that I ate up. This is a sci-fi thriller, but also romantic and mix in reality TV.

[00:15:18]This felt like I was watching the behind the scenes of The Bachelor. In this book we have a main character, Tammy. She is from this planet that is very like bottom-of-the-barrel. She doesn't have really anything. The air is kind of radioactive and toxic and she is barely making it through. About to get evicted from her apartment. They need more money. She's not really getting any job.

[00:15:35]And she's doing like this job and collecting garbage cuz she's kind of like this like waste collector. She doesn't realize it's them, the heirs of the empire, of the big big big planet and the empire. She stumbles on them and she doesn't know that it's them. And their interaction because she is like the "Fuck are you doing here? Get out of the way." And this whole interaction goes viral. It goes viral and the prince is like, "I want her on the reality dating TV show that we're going to have." It's called Love Galaxy where there's this whole big group of women who are there competing for the hand of the prince and the princess. There's certain people that are there for the prince, for the princess, and certain people that are there for both. And she's supposed to be there for the prince. But what happens when she starts to grow closer and have more of a connection with the princess? And just like the way that they were slowly opening up and learning about each other. Whole politics of the space worlds and just the planets. It was so good. It was so good. It was so witty, so funny. It felt like I was reading behind the scenes of The Bachelor. But contestants start turning up dead and they don't know what's happening. They don't know what it is. They don't know what's going on and they're just all confused and don't know what's happening. And just the reveals at the end.

[00:16:40]Oh my god, this broke my heart. It ripped out my heart, stomped on it. I cannot stop thinking about this book. It hooked me. It's for lovers of reality TV. Like if you love reality TV, this is the book for you. I cannot wait for book two. First of my two five-star reads is Seasons of Glass and Iron by Ammal and Watanar. This is a collection of short stories, so it's kind of hard to review it because all of these stories are so vastly different, but they all certain themes that are just so prevalent throughout all of them. Like queer love, queer joy, and just identity, but also the feeling of otherness. Ammal and Watanar describes this feeling of otherness so vividly with the like so many different stories about you not feeling like you're welcomed here, you not feeling like you have a place in the world, weaving that in with so many different aspects and so many different things that are going on in the world today is just so good.

[00:17:28]Poems in here kind of like transcripts, documents, there was just everything, but I loved how they all focused on central themes in so many different ways and I just really enjoyed this one.

[00:17:38]There were some that I liked more than others. My favorites were Seasons of Blossom and Iron, which is the first one, Madeline, The Truth About Owls, and A Hollow Play as well. I think those are my top four. I love Alma Katsu's writing. Her writing just feels like I'm reading a fairy tale, listening to a story book, like I feel like somebody is reading me a bedtime story. It's just so magical and lyrical and I just think she did this absolutely perfectly. Like it was so beautiful. It was so beautiful and just like the the different metaphors and everything. I just really connected so much with these different stories. It was just so fascinating. So this was a really really good one. I highly recommend any of them. All of Alma Katsu's books they've all been five stars to me. I just think she is a writer that works so well for me. Last and final book, which is my favorite book of the month, one of my favorite books of the year, Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth. I also read this one in my last vlog. I tabbed the [ __ ] I tabbed everything. Oh my god, this was phenomenal. This one we follow a main character Lucy. It's set in the 1990s in Ireland and Lucy is part of this very little small conservative town where queerness not seen as something good. It is seen as something sinful and something that you shouldn't partake in.

[00:18:49]So Lucy, she slowly starts to realize, especially this summer when she's 15, she realizes that one of her friend Susanna, she starts to see her in a different light. She wants to be around her, she wants her attention. She just wants to always be with her and then she realizes that Susanna might feel the same way about her, but they are two women in this little small town and they cannot be together. They have all these secrets, hidden little extravaganzas where they are like pretending to just be friends, really they're not just friends. It's just so heartbreaking to see how they just can't be real with one another, how they just cannot just be themselves. How they just can't be themselves, they can't tell their family, can't tell their friends. And it just felt like I was reading Lucy's personal inner thoughts. It felt like a diary entry because of the longing and the yearning and just the yearning for female connection and just friendships, but also yearning just to like be seen and be heard was just so fascinating.

[00:19:42]And it was just so heartwarming but heartbreaking and the end truly broke me. Actually, this whole entire book broke me. It's just like the intense and all-consuming heartbreak that you feel in your teens, but also just like the intense feeling of just wanting somebody that you can talk to and you not having anybody that you can talk to is just so sad. I just thought this was a great exploration of identity conflicts and just like the upbringing and it's specifically the coming-of-age of being a queer teen. It was so good. It was so good. Definitely one that I will be thinking of forever because it just hit on so many notes. I underlined so many different quotes. I think about Lucy and Susanna every single second of every day. It was truly heartbreaking, heartwarming. It was so wonderful. I need everybody to read this one.

[00:20:24]Definitely a new favorite read of mine and I want to read the author's other book. I don't remember what it's called.

[00:20:29]That is definitely going to be one of my favorite reads of the year and one that I think everybody needs to read immediately. But, those are the 13 books that I read in April. I think I had a really good month. It was kind of hard to rank them, but my top ones were my top ones for a reason. They were so good. Anyways, I hope you guys really enjoyed. Please comment your favorite read of April or any books that you read that you think that I would enjoy. I would love that as well. I've been talking for too long. My voice is slowly going. I need to go make a tea or something. I can like feel it in my chest now. But, I hope you all enjoyed.

[00:20:59]Thank you all for watching and I hope to see you in the next one. Bye, everybody.

[00:21:11]>> Mhm.