Hey everyone, its Maddie and Bee,
and today we're going to be doing our
April wrap-up! And we have exams in May
so we procrastinated by reading a ton so
let's get to it! First we both read One
Italian Summer by Keris Stainton, and this
is the story of three sisters whose
father has died. They decide to go on an
Italian vacation to the place where they
always went with their dad, so it brings
up a lot of memories for them. Milly is
the main sister and she tells you the
story, but the two other sisters Elise
and Leone still play a really big part
in story (and one of them is definitely
the catalyst for the very end and also
the relationship between Luke and Milly).
Luke and Milly have had a history before
and I didn't really like how their
relationship played out too much in this
one because it uses the trope of them
using other people in order to make each
other jealous, and that just wasn't fun
to read about, but I loved the setting
and I loved the exploration of their feelings.
Next we both read The Star-Touched Queen
by Roshani Chokshi and I don't think we
liked this as much as we were perhaps
hoping. The writing style is the kind
that wants you to be aware of how
flowery and metaphorical it is and
whilst I can take that in small doses
when it's like appropriate (maybe the
tone of the scene) I really can't deal
with a whole book written in this
flowery purple prose. As the magic
elements of the world started to unravel
and things get a little bit vague and
there's, like, a talking horse?? Things got
weird.
Next we read The Monstrous Child by
Francesca Simon. We were really intrigued
for this as she's well known for a big
middle grade series in the UK. This tells
the story of Hel who kind of
personifies hell the place. Hel has a
very distinct voice. She's very sarcastic
and whiny, and hard to relate to in that
way, and I think that the voice
definitely carried the story. I thought
when I was reading it that we were going
to be introduced to new mythology but
this draws very heavily on Norse
mythology, which I don't know that much
about, but I felt like the story could
have done more. It just felt like a
prequel to something bigger.
Next we both read Just One Year by Gayle
Forman, and this is the sequel to Just
One Day, which followed the main girl, and
this one follows the boy, who I didn't
care about in the first book, but I was
like this is one of the series I've had
on the go for ages may as well finish it
now that's popped up in my library. I was
so aware when reading this that this is a
male POV written by a woman for female
audiences. I felt really manipulated with
the way we were supposed to see Willem,
and I didn't really buy into it. My
biggest issue is that in Just One Day
Alison gets over Willem, moves on with
her life, and makes decisions that aren't
tied to her day in Paris. Willem was
always motivated by Paris, which just
seemed a little bit ridiculous and I
would have wanted to see his character
outside of that situation.
Next we both read Windfall by Jennifer E
Smith, which is the story of a girl
called Alice who gives a winning lottery
ticket to her best friend Teddy, and it's
for millions. It's so much money. And he
wants to give her half the money but she
refuses for some really strange reason
that I can't even think of because she
has no legit reason for doing this. Alice
also happens to be in love with Teddy,
but he doesn't know this and he's a real
jerk to her throughout the whole book.
She's the kind of girl that has a really
great work ethic and gives all of her
time to charity - it's very
holier-than-thou - but she's also super
judgmental towards how Teddy is using
the money, so it feels like a character
arc is just being pushed on him and
we're meant to see this relationship as
balancing out the best and the
worst in each other, but I really didn't get
that. They felt like a complete mismatch.
But we're also told at the beginning that
Alice and Teddy are best friends and
also they're best friends with Alice's
cousin, Leo, who was the best character in
the whole book. But when a romance plot
came to the scene he was completely
sidelined, which was not okay.
Overall, we were just disappointed with
how a story with so much potential was
used in the most cliched ways.
Next we both read Team Awkward by Katy Birchall,
and this is the second book in the It
Girl series. So, this follows Anna trying
to become more of a leader, so that she
can deserve the role of celebrity. And
she decides the way to do this is to be
the captain of her - I don't know - her
house, her school house's sports day team.
It started with this running joke where a
video of Anna falling into a plant pot
went viral for some reason, so she's kind
of obsessed with how clumsy she is, which
made me roll my eyes, and I wasn't really
buying the humor that much in this story.
But from reading this one I decided to
go on to reading the third which is
Don't Tell The Bridesmaid, so obviously
the wedding happens in this one! What I
wasn't expecting was Lizzie McGuire
Movie realness, as Anna and her friends
go on a trip to Rome and
almost the same things that happened
in the Lizzie McGuire happen in this.
She creates a scandal, manages to go to a
concert, and her friends go with her.
She's also rooming with her enemy, who
turns out to be not as bad as she
thought. My favorite part of this
book was definitely the emails that Anna
was exchanging with her mum and her
soon-to-be stepmom, because they had a
really good and healthy relationship ,and
I was just all about that.
Next we have Waiting for Callback by Honor and
Perdita Cargill, and this is the story of
Elektra, who really wants to become an
actor, so she goes about getting herself
an agent so that she can pursue this
professionally. If you like Geek Girl.
and your favorite parts of those books
are when she does the modeling
adventures in different countries or
different shoots then this is the book
for you, because it definitely focuses
more on Elektra in what she's doing in
acting rather than what's going on in
her other life, which kind of felt a little
bit flat for me, but luckily the acting
was so much fun as she was taking on
different roles. This was really
enjoyable, and I really liked Elektra's
voice, and just this idea of a young girl
like chasing her dreams, just like
Harriet did. I totally recommend this to
fans of Geek Girl.
Next we read The Opposite of You by Lou Morgan, and this is the
story of twins Bex and Naomi, and
they're just about to do their exams
and Bex leaves early and she
is sat right at the front of the hall
and Naomi's supposed to sit at the back.
At the end of the exam Bex looks
around and Naomi isn't there, so it's a
quest of where is she? What has she done?
And what has driven her to leave?
Bex then finds out that Naomi's been
living this completely separate life
that she never knew about. She's got a
separate Facebook page where she's
pretending to be older and that she
attends University, and while Bex is
trying to find Naomi she starts having
these visions about their childhood and
also believes that some things are there
even when they're not. This is because
Bex and Naomi share a very special link.
As a twin I couldn't suspend my disbelief that
they genuinely had this sort of psychic
connection. So I would have preferred
just full-out psychic powers. Like, if
you're gonna do it at all you may as
well do it 100%. It was exciting and
fast-paced but altogether I couldn't be
entirely invested in Bex and Naomi as
twins. They obviously had a history so I
would have liked way more flashbacks
into their childhood past to see how
things had changed into the future.
And the last book we read together was
Flirty Dancing by Jenny McLachlan, and
this is the first book in the Ladybirds
series which is a companion series that
follows four girls. So this one focuses on
Bea, and there is a dance competition and Bea
wants to audition, so she's trained by
family friends to do the jive with the
most popular boy in school.
It was just like quirky and sweet and
kind of silly, and it had all of these
really dated references that also made
it funny in probably not the way it was
supposed to be. We already have the third
book in this series, and we are going to
slowly collect the rest when they are in
the Amazon used new marketplace.
Next I read Hello, Goodbye and Everything In Between by Jennifer E. Smith, as I was
preparing to read Windfall, and I'm so
happy I read this one first, because I
can say that it's my favorite of her
books. This tells the story of Claire and
Aidan who are on their last night in
their hometown before they go off to
university, and they're deciding
whether they should keep going with
their relationship or break it off
before either of them can get hurt. This
was a really odd conversation to have
because throughout the whole book I was
like 'why do you have to break up though?
Is it really that big a deal? I'm sure
you can make it work!' And so you see the
couple as they explore their hometown,
going to important spots in their
relationship history. I really liked this
format of storytelling, it really pulled
the story forward, and the secondary
characters were well woven into the
story, without feeling like unnecessary
additions. I'm really interested in books
that take place over a really short
period of time, so this ticked a lot of
boxes for me in the contemporary genre,
and I'd really recommend it if you're
looking to start reading Jennifer E. Smith
because this is my favorite.
I read Naondel byMaria Turtshaninoff, and
this is the prequel to Marisi, which is a
very feminist sort of fairy tale story
about a island just of women in a kind
of convent sort of... Naondel tells the story of how
the women that run that convent got there.
Trigger warning: it is full of rape, so
it's slightly uncomfortable to read at
times. I thought it was harrowing but I
wasn't as touched as I was hoping to be.
I think this series is going to continue,
but after Maresi, so they just kind of
jumped back for this one, but I don't
think I'll be reading it. I think I've
taken enough time with this Red Abbey
Chronicles series.
Next I read Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and I don't
have anything new to say about this that
hasn't already been said. It's a story
that mashes up a lot of different
dystopian novels, and does it fairly
successfully to begin with, then descends
into this weird war that tries to pick
up a theme for the second book, and I'm
not sure if I could say I'm interested
in that. This is a story that
just blends into the background and
really shows you the reason why you
shouldn't write to trends.
Next I have The Wildings by Nilajana Roy and
this is the story of cats in India. Very
sort of Disney movie-esque accept dark
and evil because they're all in castes,
and they have like a hierarchy. And then
there's this fabled cat, which will have
superpowers essentially and that will
help them defeat this big evil. I really
really enjoyed this - surprisingly more
than I thought I would. I wanted to read
it because it was shortlisted for the
Waterstones children's book prize
so when Pushkin press reached out to us
asking if I wanted to review I was like
yes please. You can tell that the author
has cats. I don't have cats but I
appreciated it anyway, because the humor
is great and I was reading out passages
to Maddie because it was just funny, so
if you have cat,s I think you are going
to adore this story, because the
observations are so minute and the way
that all of the cats are characterized
is really really fun. It has a sequel which I
hope to get round to in May.
Next I read Entangled by Cat Clarke, which tells you
the story of a girl who tries to commit
suicide and after an unsuccessful
attempt that's where her story starts.
She's been kidnapped by a man called
Ethan and she's writing down her story
and all of the things that led up to her
suicide attempt, and I'll warn you that
this is extremely triggering for
self-harm. It's very very explicit and I
wasn't expecting this. And I felt like I
was trying to constantly work out the
story as it was going and I had my
fingers crossed like please don't let this have
been all in her head, please don't let her
already have been dead, and I had so many
thoughts about it that took a really
long time to be confirmed or denied. So
it's one that you really have to stick
with if you want to find out the mystery.
But it was an interesting read for me
because it was slightly darker than I'm
used to, but I'm not sure I'd recommend
it, just because I can't say I enjoyed
the experience of reading it.
Then I read Wintersong by S Jae-Jones. So I buddy read
this with my great friend Lea at drumsofautumn.
Thank goodness I did, because Lea is
German and this story incorporates the
German folk tale of the Goblin King and
it has like some German writing in it
and I just so valued having Lea's
insight into what was wrong and what was
terrible. I'll also leave a link to Lea's
Goodreads review because she highlights
all of the problems with consent because NO. This was trash. It
was straight-up the worst book I've read
this year. I couldn't take it. It was
generally contradictory and not fun to
read and lots of people have been saying
that it was originally going to be for
the adult market and then got changed to
be a YA story and you can definitely tell.
I also better mention that I would have
dnf'd this story after 100 pages had I
not been reading it with Lea, and Wintersong
will be finding its way into a
charity shop very soon.
And the one tome I
managed to complete was Days of Blood
and Starlight by Laini Taylor, and I read
this in preparation for the event that
she was doing a Waterstones and we
filmed the whole thing so I'll put a
link to that in the cards, so this is the
second book in a series, and I read the
first book Daughter of Smoke & Bone
about two years ago. My favorite
character is Zusanna, and her
relationship with her boyfriend. They
offered some comic relief throughout the
story and, although their sections are
the smallest, they were my favorite bits,
because I found myself smiling
throughout all of them and the rest of
the story is quite dark. Like some /things/
happen in this book, and I'm not going to
spoil anything but I'm definitely going
to continue to the third one,
even though it's a hundred pages longer
than this one so I am a little bit more
intimidated, but it's definitely one I
don't want to put off for another two years.
Next I read Kill The Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky.
So this is the story of four kind of
friends who are completely obsessed with
this boy band called the Ruperts. In the
course of the day that this story takes
place over they managed to capture one
of the Ruperts, hold him ransom in their
hotel room and then - wait for it - kill
him. Yeah, that's right, they kill him. So I
really enjoyed the story, but I just wish
that things had escalated quickly. You
know that something is going to happen
to this boy band because of the title
and the titular event doesn't come until
halfway through the book! When things got
down to it I did enjoy it, and I just had
to keep reading to know what was going
to happen. I would really really
recommend it if you're okay to poke fun
at yourself for being a fangirl.
I don't know how actual One Direction
fans will feel about reading this book,
so let me know if you've read it and how
you felt, because I'm sure it's a book that
splits opinion.
In trying to read more books from our own shelves, Bee picked out
Arsenic For Tea for me by Robin Stevens,
and this is the second book in the
Murder Most Unladylike series,
following Daisy and Hazel as they solve
another mystery at Daisy's home. This
gave me exactly the same vibes as the
first one. It was super fun and I'm
really looking forward to continuing the
series, because Daisy and Hazel's
friendship is really progressing as they
get closer and as they solve more
mysteries. They have a really hilarious
relationship with the local police and
the next book takes place on a train,
which is one of my favorite settings for murder.
Next I read Defy The Stars by
Claudia Gray. So this is the story of
Noemi and Abe.l Abel is a very advanced
AI/robot. I'm not really sure. Noemi
is a pilot for Genesis, which is kind of
an Earth away from Earth. I talk about this
a lot more in the haul that we have of this,
which will probably go up after this so
when it does I will leave a link to that
in the cards. I also have a review of it,
which I will leave in a link below.
And then because I realized that reading
books we had on the shelves for ages was
so much fun, I picked up Dangerous Girls
by Abigail Hass, which has been on our
shelves since the beginning of our
booktube channel. Dangerous Girls tells
the story of two friends Anna and Elise.
Elise ends up dead and Anna is charged
with her murder, and this whole story
takes place mostly in a courtroom
setting, as Anna is interrogated for her
role, but also tells you the story of all
of the other friends that were part of
that holiday that they all went on, and
their perspective on the murder. If you
love How To Get Away With Murder, the TV
show, then I'd really recommend this one,
because it was so thrilling and I read
it all in one sitting even though it's
like a 400 page book, because it was just
fantastic. I never knew what to expect and so
I was really really thrown by the plot
twist at the very end. I really wish that
this had a companion book, because I'd
absolutely love to know what happens
next, but it was a really great story
that had a brilliant build and I
couldn't recommend it more.
Alex as Well shows the story of Alex transitioning
from mostly identifying as male to
mostly identifying as female, it's a
really short book and Alex isn't a huge
part of it surprisingly. It is told
through her perspective, but you also get
these chapters from her mum's point of
view, and her mum is a complete psycho.
She's posting on a mothering forum/
social network. She writes about what's
happening with her and how she's losing
her son and it's all a complete tragedy
and she is, you know, suggesting that
she's going to force-feed Alex the
hormones so that she remains a boy. So
it's probably the most horrific parenting
experience that I've ever had to read
about, but it makes up a huge part the
plot and without it it would be a
completely different story.
Next I read But Then I Came Back by Estelle Laure,
which combined some of my favorite
things including: ballet and discussions
of an afterlife. This tells the story of
Eden, who suffers from a near-death experience.
She's in a coma and then when she's in a
coma she's communicating with a girl in
the room next to her who's also in a
coma. It's really fascinating to see this
magical realism element of the story
play out as Eden wakes up and the other
girl doesn't. She also meets up with the
other girl's kind of love interest/
best friend - you're not really sure where
he stands in relation to Jazz, and it's
all about them creating a relationship as
Eden learns more about Jazz outside of
her coma, and how she can try and help
her, and how she can communicate what
Jazz wants people to know about her. And
it was just really really interesting.
I've never read a book like it, but the
only one I can think of that is slightly
similar is Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin,
and that is one of my favorite books
just with how it deals with all of the
topics it does.
Next I have Violet Grenade by Victoria Scott, and this isn't one I'm going to talk about for very
long because I thought it was a mess!
This follows the story of Domino, who is
a homeless teenager, and her best friend
gets taken in by the police and she
wants to make his bail, but she has no
money, so she decides the way to make
money is to join this weird cult which
is madame something's establishment for
entertaining young girls. Essentially.
Then this establishment is ordered into different flowers, and the different
flowers mean different levels, so when
you're at the top you're kind of given
the opportunity perhaps to leave, but you
have to go up the ranks. You can't leave
if you're in the middle, and it's very
hard to move up the ranks. However the
top woman of this establishment decides
to give Domino, and a girl that Domino
takes under her wing when she goes to
this place, a chance. If they can be the
best performers every week they will
move up the different flowers. This book
completely loses sight of the reason why
Domino joined this tower of weird flower
entertainment system and I really
couldn't care about the romance that was
forming between Domino and a guy that
also works in this entertainment place
mostly as 'wall of meat'.
Next I have The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan, and one
of the only reasons why I picked this
one up is because I want to say I've
read all of this author's books, and I
think this is the last one I had. This is
another verse novel about a girl who
moves over from Poland and it's about her
kind of acclimatising to the UK school
system, and also falling in love with a
boy on the swim team. I'd really love to
appreciate verse novels
but for some reason my head just can't
get around the purpose for them. It
does tell a story in a really efficient
way and that's what I liked about it -
that we still got a really big story and
it tackled with a lot of things in so
few words - but I don't really understand
the benefits of telling in verse rather
than telling it in prose.
And the final book I finished this month was Legion by
Julie Kagawa, which is the fourth book in
the Talon series. I didn't really think
I was going to continue and then I did
because I like Dante, who was everyone's
least favorite character, because he's sort
of the villain. I think he has the most
interesting perspective. I won't give any
plot spoilers because fourth book in a
series, but I did like that there was
some sort of settlement on the love
triangle situation. The characters were
having conversations with each other and
Ember was telling the boys what she
thought, and how she was feeling, which
was super important. It was probably the
best communication we've had all series.
But what I didn't like was that I felt
like all guns were blazing and then at
the end there's a line where one of the
characters is like 'and it's only just the beginning.'
And I'm thinking 'what more is there to
come? What more can they do??
I just don't know???' and I think there are
still two more to come in this series so
I have no idea. I might not read them but still spoil myself
on what happens, because I'm still
interested in how this is going to wrap
up, because I'm still expecting one of
the main characters to die, and honestly
I want to know who it is.
And the last book I read this month was One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M McManus and this was my
favorite book of the year maybe. It was
so amazing! It tells the story of five
people who all get detention, so you're
obviously seeing The Breakfast Club
vibes here, and then one of the five,
Simon, who is kind of the outsider
character, is murdered and so the other
four in the room are all suspects for
his murder. The one thing that I was
really really impressed by with this
book was the characterization, because
going into it you kind of expect the
characters to just subscribe to the jock,
the princess, the criminal, and these
don't. I wrote a full review of this book
telling you why I liked each character
so much because there are so many little
things that make them so great that it
will be hard to talk about all in one
video. So, when this comes out in June I
could not recommend it more you need to
get your hands on this, and then read it
in one sitting, as I think that's the
best way to read it, so that you can be
constantly surprised as you go, and
you can fall in love with each and every
one of these characters as they surprise
you in ways that you wouldn't expect.
And finally we dnf'd three books. One
each, and then one shared. So my first is
Sweet Pea by C. J. Skuse, and this is her
first adult novel and people are calling
it a psycho Brigit Jones. I got like
halfway through this and then decided I
didn't care enough.
And then I dnf'd Like Other Girls by Claire Hennessy and,
already from the title, you can kind of
tell that this is going to be a
problematic book, but within the first 10%
Lauren, the main character, was so
transphobic I just noped out of that one
so hard. And then we both dnf'd
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas,
and we still have our tabs in so I can
tell you that Maddie managed to get 222
pages through (ohmygosh!) which is quite far actually, and
I got 377 pages through. We decided to
DNF this story because we were alerted
to some Ace phobia in the first few
chapters of ACOWAR. I will leave a link
to the Twitter thread down below. So we
were just trusting this was a aphobic
and I do not want to read anything that's
aphobic ever. Now Sarah J Maas is just on
my ban list because I don't care to
read anything else. So those are all the
books that we read in April. Thank you
everyone so much for watching, and we'll
see you in our next video! Bye!
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