I Finally Had A Good Reading Month | April Warp Up

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hello you guys and welcome back to Lily Reads. As you can tell by the title, today is going to be a April wrap-up. We are going to talk about all the books I was able to get to in April. I am really proud of my April reading month. I was really intentional about what I read in April. I was able to stay true to my mood reading that I want to do this year, but also I took some big swings. I was able to step out of my comfort zone in a lot of ways. I said back in March that I did not like my March. I did not read enough books and I wanted to read more books in April and that is what I did. I was able to get to about 12 books in April which is good for me. This is the most that I have read all year. So I feel like I am back to being the reader that I want to be. Of course like any month we have had some winners, we have had some losers. Then we have some stuff that kind of just sticks in the middle.

[00:00:55]So, I will tell you guys what books I plan on keeping in my library, and I will tell you what books I will be getting rid of that I do not see any purpose for in my life. And of course, I will give you my opinions on the book.

[00:01:08]So, the first book I want to talk about is a book that I read all on audio. I do not even physically own the book. That is atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed.

[00:01:19]So, in this book, we are following a woman who is in her 30s and she wants to be an astronaut, but there has never really been any women astronauts to go into space from NASA. And she is not she has not set out on the journey to become an astronaut, but they are starting this program where they are getting all of these women to come in and train to see if they are going to be a part of the new NASA program they have. and she decides to apply and she gets accepted.

[00:01:49]This book starts off with her working on this NASA mission. She is the person, you know, Houston, we got a problem. She the person who, you know, talks into the radio and there is a problem and a few people on a rocket ship. They have died and only a few of them are left and she is trying to give them information on how to get them back on Earth safely.

[00:02:12]And that causes us to go back in time and figure out who these people are, how they got on this mission and all of that. I did not explain that well, but just understand woman, regular woman becomes an astronaut. There's going to be a space mission that goes ary and she is going to try to save the day. You guys, I went into this book expecting to really enjoy this book. I am a Taylor Jenkins Reed fan. Taylor Jenkins Reed has never made a book that is my favorite book, but she always makes like four-st star books for me. Malibu Rising to me is her best book. Carrie Sodto is back is a really good book. I read After I do, I think last year. I enjoyed that.

[00:02:52]Evelyn Hugo is the only book from her I did not really enjoy that I have read that I didn't really enjoy all of that much. So, I went into this like Taylor Jenkins Reed is my girl. I didn't like this book. Okay, so you guys, I found the first twothirds of this book to be so boring and so poorly done in a way that Taylor Jenkins Reed usually does not do. So Taylor Jenkins Reads usually is good at building these characters, these plots, these worlds, but this book feels so hollow. The main character is so paint by numbers. There's no actual depth to her. We keep being told things about her, but we don't really see much about her. And everything we're told about her paints her as this manic pixie dream girl. Like she is perfect in all ways. She acts right every single time.

[00:03:41]She's always going to do the right thing. Everybody loves her. She doesn't offend anyone. The only thing that's kind of like interesting about her is that she's a lesbian. And this book is relying a lot on the fact that she's a lesbian to give her some type of characterization. And then we have some like villainous characters who are like so cartoonish. And then we have like the anti-feminist character. Like everything is so paint by numbers and expected.

[00:04:08]This book is also playing with this dual timeline thing and you don't really care about the astronaut timeline until you know more of the characters. So for the book to start there was really really odd and kind of jarring. And then this book takes place over like damn near a eightyear span and it doesn't feel that way. It feels so like choppy and like okay now another year has passed and now another year has passed. So I found the first twothirds of it to really be like what's going on here? Like what where's the meat on these bones? And then you get to the last third of this book where it's just emotionally manipulative.

[00:04:45]Taylor Jenkins Reeds is really good at like giving you something to care about really quickly. And that's what she does in this book. It gives you this moment that is so emotional that you're obviously going to be invested in it, but it's not good. [laughter] It's not actually good. It wants you to feel a certain way. So, it it emotionally manipulates you into believing that this is actually a good thing just because your emotions are being toyed with. I did not find this book all that well done. I gave it three out of five stars because anything Taylor Jenkins Reads makes is readable. I just don't understand why this book gets such high ratings from people. People who I respect give this book high ratings. I'm like, this book isn't doing anything.

[00:05:23]But I do understand why people I don't respect like this book. I called this uh this type of book airport middle America slop. What do I mean? I mean that your average middle American can go into an airport, pick this book up, and think it's the best book ever made because they don't read much and nothing else.

[00:05:42]like it applies to the lowest common denominator. I know that's mean, but that's what this book is. So like it like even the like queer representation is queer representation for middle Americans. Like there's nothing actually all that queer about it. There's not anything actually all that feminist about it. It's just touching on these ideas but has nothing interesting to say about them. So anyways, three out of five stars. Let's get into all the books I will be unhauling at the end of the year. Mustlo books is about this woman who is working in the publishing industry, but she does not like her job.

[00:06:18]She's not publishing books she is passionate about. And one day, she gets called into her boss's office and they say they are going to cut her pay. This makes her make a decision to char to start moonlighting. She is going to work at a rival publishing company and do some freelancing for them. But the problem with that is it's a conflict of interest and she finds herself in this weird situation where she doesn't know if she wants to stay at one job or work another job or does she even want to be at any of these jobs. So you're just following this woman as she is having like a quarter life crisis and doesn't know what to do. This book sucks.

[00:06:52][laughter] This book is actually quite awful. I have read a book by this author before and gave it five stars. So they this is no knock on Shauna Robinson.

[00:07:01]This book is so boring. And also, the main character of this book is just so hard to empathize with or like care what she has going on because she's not an endearing character. You're just like, "Girl, I don't care what happens to you." And like, if you knew what was going on in you, her life, you would think that's crazy because she's dealing with some serious issues, but it was just more of the same complaining every single day. So, I gave this book one out of five stars. I will be unhauling this book. Another book which you guys don't know I read this month was Admissions by Julie Buxom. This is one of my 26 books to read in 2026. And in this book we are following a girl whose mother gets arrested at the beginning of the book because her mother um paid for her someone to take the SAT for her and to get her into a prestigious college and now they are being looked into by the federal government. So, of course, this book is like heavily based on the admission scandal that happened like a decade ago. Decade ago. No, not really a decade ago. Maybe like six years ago, seven years ago. Um, that's what this book is based off of. And I don't understand why this book exists. It's not kind of based on. It's not loosely based on. It is literally a fictionalized version of the admission scandal, which could work if this book had anything interesting to say, but it doesn't. It doesn't want to paint anybody out as a villain, but it also doesn't want anybody to be fully correct. So, this book has nothing it actually wants to say. It's just like we all have our reasons, and it's like that for every single every single character has their reasons. It just there's not enough here. There's simply not enough here, and you would be better off just like reading about the admission scandal and then forming your own opinion. I don't know what the point of this book was. Two out of five stars. I read the entire thing, but it just wasn't worth the time. And because it was one of my 26 books to read in 2026, that is the only reason why I read the entire thing.

[00:08:58]And then unfortunately, the last book I probably will be unhauling is Four Eids and a Funeral. In this book, we are following two people who are ex best friends. This guy went off to a boarding school and he has not been in contact with our girl over there, but something brings them back together and that is somebody from their Muslim community has died and he is back for the funeral.

[00:09:20]Well, when they are at the funeral, they see in the distance there is smoke and they realize that the Muslim center that they all grew up going to is about to burn down. But the the community that, you know, this Muslim center is in, they decide that they are not going to rebuild the Muslim center and the Muslims are just going to have to find someplace else to, you know, come together and do all of their stuff. So that makes our two main characters go on this journey to try to save the Muslim center and get the Muslim center rebuilt. This book just didn't know when to start. [laughter] So you get this back. You learn very quickly what this book wants to do. Like you get the backstory. This is what this book wants to do. But it keeps false starting. It keeps false starting and you're just like there is a good book in here. If either of the two writers of this book would just write the book, you know, there's this like enemies to lovers thing going on that's kind of friends to love. I love that. I love friends to enemies to lovers. I love it.

[00:10:18]I love it. I love it. I love it. And I love this idea of this Muslim community.

[00:10:22]I love save the town. I love a good save the town, save the bookstore, save the Muslim center, save something story right up my alley. This book just never becomes any of those things. So, unfortunately, when I ended up logging this book, I ended up logging this book as a two out of five star, which means I really should not keep it. The only reason why I would keep it is maybe for a younger audience. They could jive with it. I do not know. But let's get into some books that I will be keeping. So, the first book that I didn't quite love, but I will be keeping is I'm a fan. So, loosely, this book is about a woman who is obsessed with another woman. So, she currently is living with her boyfriend.

[00:11:03]This woman who we are following lives with her boyfriend, but she is cheating on her boyfriend with this white rich man. And so once she starts this relationship with this white rich man, he constantly wants to cut it off with her. He doesn't want to be with her. But she's just like, "No, we should be together." He's like, "No, I kind of have some other girls who I'm giving attention." And so, he is sleeping with this other girl, and it's this white woman. And our main character becomes obsessed with this white woman, following her on social media, getting into her life, learning who the people are in this woman's life, and you are just following her as she does that.

[00:11:41]This book is not for me. That is what I'm going to say. I would never like a book like this. [laughter] This book is cool girl literary fiction.

[00:11:49]Those literary fiction books where you have this character who is like spiraling. You don't really know why they're spiraling, but the girls who get it are going to get it and they're going to understand. This book does have a few interesting things to say about how people of color try to assimilate into white culture. I dog eared a few of those things, but but but but I just think Kenya needs a story. [laughter] I read books to hear a story and that is not this book. This book at its root is honestly just a collection of essays about how this author sees the world.

[00:12:21]Some of them are interesting, some of them are not. And so overall, this book is like a 2.75 for me. The only reason why this book is not in my unhaul is because I doggeeared like six things that I thought were interesting. So, I would go back to those six things, but I still want I kind of want to like rip out the six pages that I think are good and like give the rest of the book away.

[00:12:45]But maybe one day I'll get back to and I'll like it. Another book that I was able to get to this month, probably my favorite, no, not my favorite book of the month, but close to it. Long Island Compromise. So, in this book, we are following a family, one of my favorite things. We are following an American family, and this American family had something really tragic happened to them in the 1980s. Their father was kidnapped outside of their house. And this kidnapping has affected everyone in this family since it has happened. So we jump forward 25 years. We jump no 40 years.

[00:13:21]We jump forward 40 40 years and we are following all of the people in this immediate family. So there are three kids and there is a mother and we are following them as they deal with the impact of what happened to them in the 1980s. That's pretty much the synopsis of this book. So it's one of those books where you were just getting into the lives of these people and you're supposed to learn something about life from these people. Boy, was this book so damn enjoyable. This is one of those books that I would know I know for a fact in a couple years I will pick back up up once I forget about it. I will pick it back up. I found this book to be so hilarious. I never knew what was going to happen on the next page. This book is not going to be for everybody.

[00:14:03]And you want to know something so crazy?

[00:14:04]When I read this in the blog, I was like, maybe I'm going to go back to it and be like, I'll give it four stars.

[00:14:11]Believe it or not, I've become warmer on this book. I actually think this is a full-blown five star read for me. I still have my issues with the ending and I still believe it should have ended 30 pages earlier, but I I enjoyed this book. [laughter] I think it's because like after I read this book, I read like five more books that I did not like as much as this book. But I am so hot on this book. Five out of five stars. Long Island Compromise. The next book that I read was a weird book. It's by Lisa Scotland. I have never read anything from this author before. Clearly, she's fab because she has a whole picture of herself on the back of the book. Um, it's called Someone Knows. Follow me with this. So, we start this book off and we are hearing about these grown adults saying something happened in their childhood and somebody died, but they can never speak about it again. So, that makes us the reader go back in time to figure out what happened in their childhood. We are like mainly following three people. There is no four people.

[00:15:11]We are following two young girls, one young boy and another young boy. We Yeah, we are following two young boys, two young girls who go to the same school, live in the same community, but they're all from like different types of socioeconomic backgrounds. They all have different types of home lives, but something brings them together. They find a gun. They find a gun and they all meet up at night to talk about this gun.

[00:15:35]You know, they're kids. They're fascinated and there's a gun. Well, someone ends up dying because of this gun. And so, they have all kept this secret for years, what happened the night with the gun. So, from this incident, we get into the lives of all the people in this community to see what is the aftermath of this gun accident or was it an accident? Who knows? Um, you guys, this book is so ridiculous. Do you guys ever pick up a thriller and it is so damn ridiculous, but when it's all said and done, you had the time of your life? That is this book. This book has so many twists, so many turns, some of them clever, some of them not. And what also makes this book even more chaotic is that yes, we have like our four people who we are following throughout this book and then we have like maybe like four other characters who we also start following for no damn reason.

[00:16:27][laughter] Like we just start following different people throughout the book.

[00:16:31]There's no like mark of like, oh, here's this new character. No, you just start following them and you just kind of have to keep reading their section to realize like what they have to do with everything. And when it's all said and done and you get to the who done it, it's so ridiculous and there's so many elements to the who done it. I enjoyed the hell. I 3.5. [laughter] 3.5. This book is not the best written thriller.

[00:16:53]It's not the most clever thriller. It is not for everyone. But I promise you, if you are just having a beach read day, you just want to read something in one day and you're just like, I want to be entertained, like entertain me. This is an entertaining thriller. I'm going to read more from this author. [laughter] This author's books is always like on discount somewhere. If I run into this author, some more discount books from this author, I will be reading it. And by the way, this was one of my 26 books to read in 2026. So, check, check, check. That's the thing about my 26 books in 2026. We've really had nothing but losers this year. I think I've read at this point. Um like eight eight books I've attempted to read from my list and I have not really loved a single one.

[00:17:38]Maybe one or two I've liked. But sometimes you get one like this and it's just like I'm happy I didn't unhaul you.

[00:17:43]Like this was worth, you know, I only I paid $8 for it. This was $8 worth of reading. I enjoyed myself with this book. The next book we have is Dad Camp.

[00:17:53]This is a book that I got my hands on last year. I kept seeing it at the bookstore and then I was able to get it on discount at some point and I was like, I want to read it. Like I don't usually read books like this. So in this book, it's quite simple. We are following a dad who is trying to get closer to his middle school daughter and he decides for her last week of summer break, he is going to take her to a dad camp so they can do all sorts of like activities and get closer to one another. But the issue is when he shows up to the dad camp, he realized that this is not an actual camp. This is like a rehab for dads. This is a rehab for awful dads. But he is going to stick it out because he just thinks that this is going to bring him and his daughter together regardless. And you are just following these two, this father and this daughter as they spend a week at camp. This book is perfectly enjoyable.

[00:18:41]It is perfectly enjoyable. Do not go into this book thinking you're going to have your mind blown. do not think you are going to learn something all that interesting if you just take this book as what it is. A nice little read. A nice little read. Like I said, beach read. This is such a beach read. This is a book that you can take down to the pool and just have a nice little day with this book. It's easy to read. I enjoyed this book. I'm going to go ahead and give this book the 3.25 stars that it deserves. And that's a good rating for this type of book because I don't usually read books about white men and children, but this book worked for me.

[00:19:15]in all the ways like it could have worked for me. I a stronger writer could have really made this an excellent book, but for what it was, I enjoyed myself and that was Dad Camp. Okay, we only have three books left to come and discuss. So, the first book we have, and I think it's my favorite book of the month, it is The Irish Goodbye. So, in this book, we are following an American family. You guys, I don't if I were to make a list of like my favorite things and books or books that automatically are starting ahead of the curve. Like it doesn't you would have to do a lot for me to dislike you. It is giving me a book about an American family, whether they be black, whether they be Asian, whether it doesn't matter white, it does not matter. Give me a book about an American family and I am already on board. I am already on this. Next is like marriages. You guys know I love uh books about marriages. You guys know I love books about people who are like keeping lies and secrets. It just there's just some things that just like I love so damn much. And an American family is just going to be that. And so I was already going to love this book.

[00:20:25]But this is about an American family who are meeting up on Thanksgiving to hash out what happened a couple decades ago with their brother in an accident that happened down on the ocean. And so you are following this family one Thanksgiving as they are all coming back home and they all have secrets. There have been lies and they are all just trying to get along. That's pretty much what The Irish Goodbye is about. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed every last bit of this. I ate this entire book up. Best characters of the year so far for me.

[00:20:54]Every single character in this book was so damn good and their lives were so damn good. It was perfect. And it's not even that long of a book, but it just did exactly what I needed to do. This was the book that I read this month.

[00:21:07]Well, last month at the right time.

[00:21:09]Like, it just did everything I needed it to do. So, The Irish Goodbye got five stars out of me. You know, reading with Jenna, unlike the Reese Witherspoon Book Club, she gets me. She gets me. Every time her little stick on something, I usually enjoy. You guys know I always tell you guys, I'm vanilla, baby. like I am a vanilla reader. [laughter] Like I don't need all the pomp and circumstance with my reading. And so that's that. The next book we have is Wreck by Katherine Newman. This is a sequel to the book Sandwich by the same author obviously and we are following them now with them being back home. So if you read Sandwich, we were on vacation with them.

[00:21:53]Now they are back home and dealing with life. So, the big thing about this, why this book is called Wreck, is because there was a train wreck near where they live and a boy that they knew a few years ago, like a a boy in a neighborhood, a boy in a community, he died in the um in the train wreck. And there was questions of like did he try to kill himself or was there like faulty equipment that made him not know the train was coming? And our main character, this 50-year-old woman, I think she's like 50, she is obsessed over this. But not only is she obsessed over this train wreck, she's obsessed over her own mortality. She's obsessed with like her getting sick and her kids getting sick and people dying around her. And you are just trying to grapple with the fact that she has a lot of anxiety about life and what will happen to her life. This was not as good as sandwich. I like sandwich cuz once again, an American family. This wasn't that. I love these characters. These are really good characters. The relationship between the mother and daughter in this book is always so good and sandwich. It was good. It was good here as well. But I just This is one of those books like if you are able to relate heavily, I think you could really like this book.

[00:23:09]But as it was, this was kind of just like a threest star book for me. This is a three star book for me. I don't know if there's going to be another book in this, you know, in this little series.

[00:23:19]Of course, I'll read it. It's nothing for me to read something. [laughter] And sometimes I come on these haul uh on these like uh wrapups. I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to read the next book.

[00:23:29]I read so much mess. I read so much mess. Like what would stop me from reading the next book in this series. So like I would definitely read the next book. It's just like h I don't know if we needed this one. But when I went to go log it on Goodreads, it had a pretty deep It had a better good readad score than I personally thought it was going to have. So people must like it. But then again, when Sandwich came out, people weren't that I heard a lot of people didn't like Sandwich. Like Sandwich came out, it had a bunch of hype, and then a lot of people was just like, "It ain't that good." And I enjoyed it. So like maybe I'm the opposite way now. Like Wreck just wasn't for me. And I don't know. Also, I think the writer kind of switched up her style on this one. She tried to be a little bit more funny, a little bit more cool literary fictiony. And I actually think it derailed the book a little bit.

[00:24:17]nothing was funny. Like every time she would try to be funny, I'm like, "Oo, that one ain't it." Anyways, the last book that I read this month and I'mma let y'all go. And the last book I want to come and talk about is Happy Land.

[00:24:32]So, in this book, there is this woman who has been summoned down to the country by her grandma. When she gets there, she wants to talk to her grandma about why her grandma and her mother do not get along anymore. But her grandma has other intentions. She's like, "No, you need to come down here and do some research on this land and understand what your ancestors did in order to get me this land that I live on." She doesn't want to do it, but you know how grandmas can be. She ends up doing it anyway. And that takes us, the reader, back in time to post slavery, like right right post slavery. And we learn about this land where these once former slaves ended up having this land and turning this land into their own little paradise where there were kings and queens and you know where they tried to live off their land trying to run away from the Ku Klux Clan. And so our main character, she's learning about this, but she's also trying to realize she's also realizing that there might be people coming to take this land from her grandma and what she can do to try to save this land. Anyways, that's kind of convoluted, but I enjoyed this book.

[00:25:37]Five out of five stars. My second favorite book of the month of last month. I enjoyed the hell out of this book. But once again, I'm always going to enjoy a book like this cuz like an American family. This blends both of those. You have an American family, but you also have these like ancestral like things. You guys know I love a book like think family lore by Emily Oscavo.

[00:26:00]Is that her name? Anyways, think books like that. I always Black Cake. I always love books like this. I always love books where you have this like current timeline and then we go back in history and learn how these two timelines are woven together. Especially when it's like slavery or like civil right. I just love it. I just simply love like black historical fiction is always my thing.

[00:26:21]And so this worked for me as well. Five out of five stars. And that's it. That is it. That is the wrap-up. I told you guys we had a good month. We had a good month. Let's like stack all. We haven't done a good stack in a while. Let's stack. This is our stack. Imagine that atmosphere is like somewhere. And these are all of the books we were able to read. I'm happy with this. I am happy with We're only getting rid of three.

[00:26:46]We're keeping the rest. And I just think this was a good reading month. Let's hope next month is more of the same.

[00:26:53]Well, I would hope to get a few more five stars, but like I I I can't complain. Anyways, I will see you guys in the next one. Peace.