Books I Read in April 2016

I have not been the greatest reader for a good few months so it was pretty cool to read seven books this month (and due to how huge my TBR shelf is, I should hopefully read even more for the month of May, wish me luck). Even if half of those were books made for kids so were therefore quite speedy to read, it gave me a kick up the butt to read more because reading a lot when you're busy with college and very tired is hard! 

"Plague" by Michael Grant

There isn't much I can say about what this book was about considering it's the forth book in a six book series, but it pretty much says it all in the title. This series has been read by a majority at this point, though, so I imagine you already know what this book is about. I really didn't like "Lies" because it was very political heavy, it tied a lot of loose strings and I wasn't sure what another three books in a series could add, and its demographic is high school males so it was obviously male-dominated and mildly/moderately sexist, which got on my nerves. 

"Plague" restored my faith a little bit. It was still mildly sexist, and still male-dominated and the main characters (Sam and Astrid) get on my nerves so badly, I love the fact it's from different perspectives because if it was just from Sam or Astrid I probably wouldn't have even finished the first book.

The sex thing was also really annoying. Either have sex or don't, stop rambling on. 

"The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Completely Fantastical Edition" by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

Firstly, this book is stunningly beautiful. The cover is beautiful, the artwork inside is beautiful, and when you take the dust jacket off it looks like a leatherbound book. It's a work of art, it's absolutely stunning. 

Luckily, the writing was beautiful. The story was beautiful. I loved the characters. It follows Jared, his twin brother Simon and their sister Mallory in their broken home and when they discover a book filled with all sorts of secrets, they discover they're being hunted down by all sorts of mythical creatures like faeries, elves, goblins and ogres. It's wonderful and if you haven't read it yet, why not? 

"Sapphire Battersea" by Jacqueline Wilson. 

This is the second book in the Hetty Feather trilogy following a very vibrant orphan/foundling during the Victorian Era where she grows up with her foster family and is taken away at six to live in the Foundling Hospital until she's fourteen. This book takes us on the journey she has when she leaves the hospital to experience work.

I first read the first book when I was fourteen, and I still really liked the idea of the series and I had the next two books already so why not? It's like reading a Victorian Tracy Beaker, and I quite enjoyed it considering it's a children's book (common theme this month). 

"Our Endless Numbered Days" by Claire Fuller.

This is a standalone book following a young girl called Peggy from the age of eight to the years of sixteen where she was taken by her father into the cabin in a German forest where her father lied to her (not a spoiler, as this was it says in the very first chapter which starts when Peggy has arrived home) about her mother being dead and being in the middle of an apocalypse. 

It's quite a slow and uneventuful book, but I enjoyed the German and the piano references and The Railway Children references, even though the character development and actual plot was dull. Oddly, the story seemed to start just when it ended. Despite this, though, it had so many quotes that I liked, I really loved the writing style and the sheer weirdness of the whole thing, and it was only a short 300 page read so no harm done. I would recommend it. 

"The Alchemyst" by Michael Scott. 

People have been telling me to read this for months, and if you remember from a blog post I did months ago I got these for my birthday. The first book, and the second book. However, I didn't enjoy it that much. I enjoyed it enough to continue on to the next book but it was slow and it dragged, and there was no character depth or development at all. Granted, this took place over two days, so I'm hoping that really improves by the next book. It's also another children's book so I'm thinking maybe this month I'm just fed up of reading from a child's perspective of things, understandably. 

"Mind Games" by Teri Terry.

This book is about a girl called Luna (yes, it is based off the Harry Potter character Luna) who has this special girl who has qualities nobody else has in this virtual reality. It reminded me an awful, awful lot of Divergent but despite its resemblance to a lot of YA fiction (even though I don't generally read a lot of YA fiction) I really did enjoy the writing and the characters - even though it had no depth - and it wasn't the most amazing book, I just liked it a lot. My expectations were really low for going in this book because I've heard a lot of bad things about it, and maybe my awareness of these bad things is what made me like it a lot. I set up the barrier!

"The Magician's Nephew" by C.S.Lewis.

#1 The Chronicles of Narnia 

I feel bad to say that I didn't enjoy this one as much as I hoped I would. I thought the background information on Narnia and its creation was beautiful, the settings were beautiful - the sexism was not, and it was quite slow/dull in parts and I found it hard to pick back up again. It also took me a while to read it, and seeing as it's only a two hundred page book it really shouldn't have taken me as long as it did to read. Purely because I have the rest of the Narnia collection, and because it's Narnia (and something my dad gifted to me) I am going to continue reading the series - I have already read book #2 so I'm considering skipping that one, but otherwise, I will finish them all. Probably. I just hope it gets a little more interesting. 

Thank you for reading if you did get this far! Have you read any of these books? What books did you read this month?