March Wrap-Up

Happy Easter! If you celebrate, I hope that you are able to talk to your family and eat plenty of chocolate! If you don’t, I hope that you are having a wonderful and relaxing Sunday!

If you follow me on Instagram, or if you have seen my previous posts, then you will know that during the month of March, I took part in the #TisTheDamnReadathon, a monthly readathon based on Taylor Swift and her albums. At the beginning of the month, I had a pretty ambitious TBR, with books for pretty much every prompt, or at least every album. If you want to know what my plan was, you can find my post here.

Now that April has begun, it is time for me to check in and see how well (or how terribly) I have done this month!

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Taylor Swift

For the first album, the prompt was to read a memoir, which I decided to change to reading any kind of non-fiction. For this, I decided to read Women Don’t Owe You Pretty by Florence Given, which I was very excited to read. I was also just very happy to own the Waterstones edition, with its beautiful golden edges. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty explores questions of intersectional feminism, by talking of notions of patriarchy and sexism while also acknowledging sexuality, as well as LGBTQ+ and BIPOC people, who are often silenced when it comes to feminism. While this was not the most revolutionary book, and it did not introduce anything new to the conversation, I still very much enjoyed reading it. I think that it is a great first step into feminism, while also being funny, and just a very aesthetically pleasing book. If you’re interested in learning more about yourself as a woman, or about the women in your life, or if you think that someone you know could enjoy it, I really recommend picking up this book.

Fearless

I had planned to read two books for this challenge, and yet I ended up reading only one of the two. I had a few choices of YA novels that I could pick up, and there is more than one on this wrap-up alone, but the one that I picked for this specific prompt was Lore, by Alexandra Bracken. In this novel, every 7 years, some of the Greek gods are sent to earth for a week in a human mortal form as a punishment. During this week, descendants of Greek heroes can hunt and kill these gods, and can take their power if they succeed, bringing honour to their family. Melora Perseous, or Lore, is the last descendant in her family but as given up the hunt, at least until she is forced back into this world. This novel was fairly enjoyable, though it was not really my favourtite. As you can imagine, I was very excited about it, I loved the concept, and if there is Greek mythology involved, I will give it a try. However, I thought that the story was rather bland, and the story-telling was sometimes confusing between the flashbacks and dream sequences. I ended up giving it 3 stars on Goodreads, because I don’t believe that this was a particularly memorable novel.

Speak Now

This was maybe the most ambitious challenge out of all the album, as I set myself to read three books and try to complete all of the prompts. The first thing that I did was finally finish listening to Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare. I had started it a few months prior but never really finished it, so this challenge was the perfect time to go back to the audiobook and finish it. For those of you who may ot know, Clockwork Princess is the third and final book in The Infernal Devices series, which tells the story of Tessa Gray, a young girl with particular abilities who meets Will Herondale and Jem Carstairs, two young Shadowhunters in London. I know that this series is a huge fan favourite, but I will admit that I did not really get the hype. It was fun, like any Shadowhunters novel, but I was not really into it (I’m sorry, TMI fans).

I then managed to reread Ruin and Rising, the third book of the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. I found that I enjoyed reading it more the second time than I did the first. I have also realized that my opinion on some of the characters has changed with time – and maybe because of my love for the actors who will portray them in the show. While this is not my favourite book in the Grishaverse, I still really enjoyed rereading it, and I can’t wait to reread Six of Crows and her other books.

Finally, I read Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (yes there is a book). It is the short story that inspired the movie. The story was good, it was much shorter than I expected, especially since the movie is over two hours, but I still really enjoyed it. I would not particularly recommend reading it if you have seen the movie, especially since the movie is really good, but if you’re interested, you can read it in about an hour.

Reputation

Okay, I will admit, I skipped a few albums there. Unfortunately, I did not manage to complete the prompts for Red and 1989. For Reputation, the challenge was to read something that was recommended to you, and for that, I picked a play that I needed to read for one of my classes, called Angels in America by Tony Kushner. This was such a good play, though I would recommend watching it rather than reading it, as I do for pretty much every play. The National Theatre has a recorded version online (that you need to pay for) with Andrew Garfield as one of the main characters. This was so interesting to read/watch, and I loved studying it in class afterwards. There is also an HBO adaptation of the play which we watched in class and which was pretty good. If you like political plays with philosophical and fantastical touches, I think that you would really enjoy this one!

FolkLoverMore

I put the last three albums together because I wrote actual reviews for the three books that I have read in those challenges. If you want extensive thoughts, I would recommend reading those reviews.

For Folklore, I read Circe, by Madeline Miller, which was an absolute five stars and which I really enjoyed, as I do for every Madeline Miller book. You can find my review for it here. For Lover, I read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, another five star and, I believe, a new favourite for me. I also wrote a review for it, which you can find here. Finally, for Evermore, I read a thriller/mystery book, Girl A by Abigail Dean. While I enjoyed this book, I did not find it incredible, despite having a lot of potential. If you want to know what I thought about it, you can read my review here.

There is one more book that I read this month, and that is A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J Maas. It did not fit any of the prompts, but I finally felt like picking it up so this was the last book that I have read this month. I will admit, I am not a huge fan of Sarah J Maas, and while I have read all of the ACOTAR books, and have found a certain attachment to some of the characters, I do not find these books that amazing (sorry SJM fans). To be completely honest, I thought that the book was way too long for what it was trying to achieve, and while it had some good aspects, I felt like at least half the book could be cut. I will admit that I probably will read the rest of the series if she publishes more books, mostly because I am terrible at not finishing series, and I usually will read the entire series if I start it, but I was a bit disappointed by this one.

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There you have it! All 10 books that I have read this month. I will admit, this was probably my best month in terms of reading, and taking part in this readathon really helped me read more books; Now that I have finished my classes and that the school year is coming to an end, I will hopefully be reading a lot for the rest of the summer. I have a few ideas as to what I want to read in April, and will be posting my TBR very soon (so keep an eye out). Until then, have a good week everyone, and please let me know what you have read in March!