Hi everyone! Welcome back. I'm Di and
today I am bringing you my April wrap-up.
In April I was able to read eight things,
four novels and four volumes of manga. So,
pretty balanced. I don't think I've been
that balanced in my reading as far as
manga and novels in quite a while. I tend
to read more volumes of manga but I have
been trying to get my library borrows
under control recently. I have had
several books out from the library and a
lot of it has been manga. We've been
slowly making our way through that stack
and so I'm doing pretty well right now. I
really want to get to some of the manga
that I actually own and they are
stacking up. I really need to get to them
and I really want to read several of the
series that I have bought, so yeah that's
my plan for that in the future. Anyway
let's talk about the books I've read in
April. The first book I completed was
City of Bones. You all know what this is
about. It's the first book in the Mortal
Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. I
read this first one shortly after it
came out and never continued to the rest
of the books! Not because I didn't enjoy
it the first time but because I kind of
got caught up in other series and other
books, and you know I am NOT one to
read series until it's mostly out. I
don't know why this one just called to
me at the time that it was out and I
read it and I enjoyed it a lot and
then the next book didn't come out for a
while and I just never got back to the
series. So anyway after that long
explanation, I ended up picking up a copy
of the audiobook from Overdrive in my
library. Since it was a re-read, I wanted
to experience it in a different format.
The version that I was able to borrow
was the one narrated by Mae Whitman and
I really enjoyed her presentation. I
thought she did a really good job and
overall the experience was enjoyable. I
think when I first read this book I gave
it five stars. This time around I gave it
four stars. I've been exposed to this
story quite a bit since I've read it the
first time. I watched the movie
adaptation and I am watching the TV
series adaptation currently and I enjoy
both of them. I'm really glad that I
revisited this book and yeah really
enjoyed it. I hope I can get to the next
one soon but I know it's not going to be
in May and I'll tell you a little bit
more about why I know I won't get to it
in May at the end of this wrap-up, but
yeah, I ended up giving this one four
stars. So the next book I read was the
fifth book in The Others series and that
is Etched in Bone. This is by Anne Bishop and
this is a book that I have anticipated
for a while. I completely inhaled the
first three books in this series two
years ago and I've just enjoyed it
immensely. This book is the last book
in the Lakeside Courtyard arc I guess
you could say, arc is kind of a manga
term but this one does wrap up the story
of the characters that
meet in books one to five. The
series is not ending, its continuing in a
different area so we're going to have
different characters from the same world.
Anyway, I loved this book! It was
everything that I had hoped for as far
as the outcomes of some of the
characters storylines and such. This one
I felt focused more on family. Each book
in this series has some sort of mystery
aspect to it and this one was no
exception, but I feel like the overall
tone for this book was more about family
and what you would do to protect someone
you love. What family kind of looks like
different visions of what family is
and what can make up a family. It
also takes a look at how far you'd let a
sibling or child push you before you, you
know, do something about it. This story
does bring in a unsavory character and
with this unsavory character comes some
unsavory vocabulary. There were a lot of
instances where he just spouted foul
language and that
kind of made me cringe a little bit. I'm
not used to a lot of foul language and I
kind of feel like with this character
he used it a lot more. Now, you know, I'm
okay with foul language, but this
character already ticked me off
and having him spout foul language every
time he opened his mouth, was just too
much I think for me but for me overall
this story was still very enjoyable. I
ended up giving it five stars as I did
with every other book in this series. It
has become a favorite series of mine. I
know you've heard me recommend it
several times on my channel and yeah I
really enjoyed this one and I do look
forward to the next book coming out, I
think next year. Even though they're
going to be focused on different
characters it's still going to be the
same world and I really enjoy this world,
so yeah five stars. If you haven't read
this series and do like those paranormal
type of books I do recommend this one.
The first book is called Written in Red
and again it's called The Others series
by Anne Bishop. The next book I read was a
#Book1CoziesClub pick and that was A
Ghostly Undertaking. This is the first
book in the Ghostly Southern mystery
series by Tonya Kappes.... I'm
still not sure how to pronounce that. I
really should go look it up. But this one
follows Emma Lee Raines and she and her
sister kind of run their family funeral
home. Emma Lee is the one that the story
focuses on and she can see and hear
ghosts. She got into an accident a few
years back and almost died and when she
was recovering she realized in the
hospital that she could hear and see
ghosts.
Well obviously other people around her
can't hear or see ghosts and when she
tries to say something about it they
think she's loony. So people in the
town that she's at kind of think that
she has what they call "funeral trauma", so
when they see her, you know, talking to
herself when she's actually talking to
ghosts they're like oh ,was the "funeral
trauma". She is not comfortable with
this new ability at all and she tries to
avoid every situation she gets in where
a ghost is like "You got to help me, you
know I was murdered" or whatever. Well in
this one, the business partner /
roommate of her grandmother has died and
while she's setting up this lady's funeral,
the lady seeks her out she's like "I know
you can hear me. You got to help me!
I didn't die accidentally I was murdered".
Emma Lee keeps trying to brush her off
and of course because her grandmother is
this woman's business partner and
roommate, grandmother immediately goes on
the list of suspects. At first Emma Lee
is completely convinced that her
grandmother could not have done anything
to this woman even though these two
women did not get along very well, but
then Emma starts seeing bits and pieces
of things where it makes her question if
her grandmother is really truly innocent
or not. I actually really enjoyed this
one. This kind of story is, I think, right
down my alley. It's a little bit of that
TV series Ghost Whisperer with the being
able to see goals and help them pass on
and all of that. I do plan on continuing
as I did enjoy this one and I ended up
giving it four stars. I do want to check
out the author's other series. I think
she has one or two other series. Her
writing was really easy to read I really
enjoyed the way this story wrapped up. I
had no idea who the culprit was and the
outcome was very believable. So yeah,
really enjoyed this, four stars,
#Book1CoziesClub pick. If you are
interested in reading this even though
this was a prior pick, please feel free
to leave your comments or anything you
want to discuss about this book in the
thread. We do leave the discussion
threads up even though the books aren't
the active books of the month so yeah,
I'd really like to talk to you guys
about it if you find yourself wanting to
read this book. I hope to see you over
there in our threads in the Mystery
Madness Goodreads group. And the last
novel that I ended up reading was
actually the very first novel I started
in the month of April, and that was The
Fellowship of the Ring. This is the first
book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy
by JRR Tolkien. I buddy read this with
my friend Lee over at Totallee.net I
will link her down in the description box
below. You know Lee and I have read other
things together in the past and we are
trying to work our way through this
series this year. Unfortunately like I
said, this book took me all month to read.
I did absorb a lot of it on audiobook. I
listened to the one narrated by Rob
Inglis. The cover of that one says that
it's the only unabridged recording. Now I
don't know if that's true or not but I
did borrow it through my Kindle
Unlimited subscription.
I think he was also the one that
narrated the version of The Hobbit that
I listened to in March, but this one just
dragged. I have seen the movies. I really
enjoy the movies, so when I'm reading a
book that is the basis of an adaptation
and I've already seen the adaptation
what I'm looking for are the differences.
So with this I did notice some
references to the Hobbit which I found
interesting especially because I just
read The Hobbit the month before, so
those scenes were still really fresh
in my mind. But again with the singing...
The singing oh my gosh there was so much
of it! It bothered me in the Hobbit, it
bothered me even more in this one. Now
I give kudos to Rob Inglis if he's the one
that came up with those melodies in
order to put these verses to melody, good
for you but I couldn't.....
Every time a song came up I cringed
inside.
I told Lee at one point I wish there was
like indications on the audio book where
it says okay we're going to sing a song
because then I would've stopped immediately.
You may know, you may not know, I listen
to audio books as I'm getting ready
for work in the morning and you know, I
put all of this on. So it's not
feasible for me to like stop the
audiobook while I'm trying to get ready
for work and say okay there's a song - you
know flip to find wherever I am and read
it instead. That just... it just didn't work
that way for me. So the audiobook was
about 17 hours and some odd minutes long.
I did end up listening to most of it
even though I have this and I've had it
for a long time. This is my third or
fourth try to get through it and I'm glad I
actually did get through it this time. I
think the only reason I was able to was
because Lee held me accountable.
She finished this a week or
two before me and I was just struggling.
I didn't want to give up because I
didn't want to let her down for one and
do I really want to get through these. I
mean there's such beloved books but they
just don't agree with me. I don't know
what it is. I liked it
but it takes a lot of effort for me to
get through it. So I ended up giving this
one three stars. Again I enjoyed the
movies more than I did the book. I think
they did a really great job adapting
this to screen. I will probably never
ever read this again. I will stick to the
movies if I want to revisit this story
but I'm glad that I did actually get
through the book for once in my life.
Seeing as it took me this long to get
through this book, Lee and I have decided
to take the month of May off from
reading the series and we will continue
our buddy weed with The Two Towers in
June. Okay and so that brings me to the
manga that I read in April. Now the first
two volumes that I read I already
mentioned to you in my March wrap-up.
Those were Bride of the Water God
volumes 14 and 15. I will show you
the covers because the artwork on this
is just gorgeous. So this is volume 14
and this is volume 15. So again this
story follows So Ah who is this girl
that you see on the cover of 15, and she
has been sacrificed to the Water God by
her village because they are having a
terrible drought and they think that if
they sacrifice a maiden to the Water God
he will bless them with rain. Well So Ah
ends up not being killed but she ends up
being welcomed into the realm of the
Water God. The story kind of follows
her relationship with the Water God
Haebaek, who was the character you saw on
the cover of volume 14...or that's one of
his many appearances...I'll leave it at
that, and her kind of navigating being
human in a world full of gods. Again
I'll just say that I really enjoying
this series. I do plan on continuing it
when I am able to get the next few
volumes from my library. It is being
adapted into a Korean Drama
and I'm really looking forward to that.
I ended up giving both of these
volumes four stars. The next volume of
manga I read was volume 17 of Noragami.
This one is by Adachitoka and oh it's
very white...hope you can see that...a
little better. This one follows the
very minor minor god Yato as he is
struggling to kind of maintain
his godly status. He is growing a lot
throughout this story. I'm really
enjoying the development of his
character. At this point of the story
there is a battle going on
between a few of the gods and it's really
really interesting. I am up to the last
volume my library has at the moment. I
keep going back to check to see if
they've got the next volume every time I
go to renew the books that I already
have. But yeah, so this is volume 17. I
ended up giving this one four stars as
well and yeah, really enjoying it. Looking
forward to seeing more of the battle
that's happening with the gods in the
next volume when I'm able to get to it.
And the last volume of manga I read in
April was Fairy Tail volume 38. This is by
Hiro Mashima. You know I've been reading
this one for a while. This one follows
our Guild of Fairy Tail wizards. Here are
some of them on the cover right here. I
really enjoy this series. My daughter and
I are also watching the anime. The
last time I read a volume I think it was
in February. We still weren't caught up
to where we were at in the manga and
they were actually in a filler arc so we
were kind of waiting for my library to
get volume 38. They just never ever
had it so I ended up putting a hold on
it to get it transferred from another
library in our system, and I was finally
able to get my hands on it in April. So
in this volume they are wrapping up the
Magic Games... Grand Magic Games. I really
enjoyed this arc. It was very exciting
and we get to see several of the other
guilds that are in this world.
There's something going on right now in
the story where I'm super interested to
find out what happened.
My daughter and I did catch up to where
we are
in the manga so it's kind of - do we watch
some more and spoil the next volume or
do we wait. Now I know my library carries
volume 39 quite regularly and there
are not a lot of people that are reading
this at the moment so the next time I am
able to step foot in my library I will
be picking up a couple more volumes of
this series. So yeah, I think I ended
up giving this one 5 stars.
It was really really good. I normally
give this series 4 stars per volume but
this one was really exciting and yeah
I'm really enjoying this series a lot. So
that wraps up my reading for the month
of April. Let me know if you've read any
of these books or what you thought of
them or if you plan on reading any of
these books in the future. I told you I'd
let you know why I would not be able to
get to the next book in the Mortal
Instruments series in May and that is
because May is Asian Pacific Heritage
Month. Obviously I am Asian and I am also
a Pacific Islander by blood - I've got
Native Hawaiian blood in me and
I grew up on the island of Oahu in
Hawaii so it's kind of really important
to me to read Asian authors/stories in the
month of May to kind of bring awareness
and get myself more familiar with
stories of my heritage or you know set
in places of my heritage. So I'm really
interested in reading lots of manga. I am
going to allow myself to read a lot of
manga in May. Like I said I do have
several series that I have bought that I
haven't read yet
so I do want to get to some of those. I
have a collection of Asian stories I
guess they're stories set in an Asian
country or have an Asian background or
they are stories that are written by
Asian authors. I'm not good at doing
TBR's.
You know I never stick to them so I just
kind of stacked everything together and
I will pick and choose as I please, you
know, what I'm feeling like reading at
the time. So I'm looking forward to
reading these Asian stories or stories
by Asian authors in May. I'm excited! I
don't make it a point enough to read
stories that I could see myself in and
I think it should be quite a different
experience for me. So I hope I am able to
bring you some great recommendations for
Asian stories or Asian authors stories
in my May wrap-up. If you're interested
in seeing what I do pick up in the month
of May without having to wait for my May
wrap-up please feel free to follow me on
any of my social media. I will link it
all down in the description box below
for you and a plug - if you're interested
in some LuLaRoe clothing, I will also
link my shopping group down in the
description box as well. I hope you guys
are all doing great and until next time
Take Care
and Smi-Le Always. Bye!
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