April is definitely not my favorite month! In the world of teaching, April is known as “testing month”. This happens right after spring break, so it isn’t the most stress free month of the year. I did manage to escape with 6 (possibly 7 as I’m almost finished with one as I’m writing this post so we’ll see if I finish it before April 30th!) Here’s what I read during April and my thoughts on each. Enjoy! 🙂
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I started off April reading with a winner! I have really gotten away from young adult this past year and it has been a goal to read more in 2017. I don’t know what it is was about this book, but as soon as I saw it I put it on my TBR list. I was happily surprised when I saw it at Barnes and Noble the Saturday before its release date. The cover is gorgeous and the story is even better! I LOVED this one!
It’s about a girl who meets a boy online who lives across the country. They don’t know each other’s name and when the girl decides to move in with her dad who lives in the same community as the boy, she doesn’t tell him. And then she ends up working with her online crush unknowingly. A complete You’ve Got Mail story. It is sooo good! A must read summer book!
Rating: 5 STARS
One of my least favorite genres is historical fiction, but after reading The Nightingale last year, I’ve decided I maybe like this type of story more than I originally thought. I decided to try Wait for Me because it’s a YA historical romance.
The idea of the story is good. A German POW is taken to a young girl’s farm to work at the end of the war and they fall in love. Sadly it was just missing something for me. I didn’t connect with any of the characters and the writing was lacking. I’d love some more YA historical romance suggestions though! 🙂
Rating: 3 STARS
If you read my March reading recap, then you know I thought I discovered my new go to author in RS Grey. And then I read several of her books that I didn’t love. This month I tried Chasing Spring. It took me over a week to finish, but that isn’t necessarily the book’s fault because we had a death in the family while I was reading this one and that severely changed my schedule and gave me not as much reading time. And maybe it was because of all of this that I didn’t enjoy the story as much but I just felt like this one had too many problems with it.
It’s about a girl who has lived in the same town her entire life, but when her mom dies she leaves for a year. She returns and the story starts when she reconnects with her best friend/on again off again boyfriend. I just felt like parts of this didn’t add up. If she had lived in the same place her entire life and then returned after being away for a year, she would pretty much still know everyone and vice versa, but at times she acted like she didn’t know some of the students and other people in the community. It just felt underdeveloped.
Rating: 3, more like 2.5 STARS
Leave it to Lauren Layne to save a reading slump! Her newest romance book came out this month and I got to read an ARC of it. I love, love, loved it! This one is about a girl who “hates” her neighbor who is completely different than her. I love a good hate to love story and Lauren Layne never disappoints so this one was a no brainer! Such a cute story!
Rating: 5 STARS (of course! Lauren Layne is the best!)
This one was a random read, but I was surprised at how much I liked it. I found it at Target and thought the cover looked pretty and the back of the book sounded pretty cute so I decided to try it out. I really liked it! It’s about a girl who breaks up with her boyfriend when she finds out he’s cheating on her and she decides to take a trip to clear her mind. She ends up meeting a guy on the trip and falls in love. I liked it, but didn’t love it. It turns out that this is a series and this one was actually the second book. Each book follows a different character so you can read them out of order. I ended up ordering the first book and liked it too! The third comes out in May and I’ll be picking it up as well. They aren’t my absolute favorite books, but they are fun, quick reads and sometimes that just hits the spot!
Almost a Bride (book 2): 4 STARS
Burning Moon (book 1): 4 STARS
Is this not the prettiest book cover ever? I’ve been seeing this book for awhile, but I never looked to see what it was about. I finally looked it up on Goodreads and thought it sounded really good. And it was! It’s about a girl who has a rare allergy to other humans and after having an attack in front of her classmates right before she graduates high school, she becomes a recluse for 9 years. When her mother dies, she is forced to get a job and thus our story begins. I really liked this one, but the ending was too rushed. It was a 5 star book up until the end!
Rating: 4 STARS
And lastly we have The Hideaway. I absolutely love southern fiction and when I realized this was set in my home state of Alabama, I knew I had to read it. It’s about a girl who moves to New Orleans to start an antique business and has to return home when her grandmother, who owns a bed and breakfast, dies. In her will, the grandmother instructs our main character to redo the inn. In the process, she starts to learn more about her grandmother’s past. I loved the idea of this plot, but something was missing. I just didn’t connect with any of the characters and I didn’t fall in love with either of the romances. I found myself rushing towards the end of this book so I could move onto another book.
Rating: 3.5 STARS
So that’s what I read in the month of April! Have you read any of these? I’d love to hear your thoughts and I’d also love to know what you read and love (or didn’t love!)
