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good morning, everyone.
you may have noticed that i didn’t mention the number of books i read this month in the pull quote above …and that’s because i did terrible.
something has been different about this month and i can’t really tell what. maybe it’s my allergies flaring up and making it harder to focus. maybe it’s the fact that i fell behind while i was sick and never caught back up. maybe it’s sunrise on the reaping causing me to just not care about any new books. maybe it’s my staying up late every night taking a toll.
whatever the case, i still blame myself. i just haven’t been as committed to reading lately. i think the idea of a challenge and trying to read a certain amount in the year is making me focus less on the books and more on the numbers. it’s like in crazy writing week where i was so caught up in winning that i didn’t have fun writing and ended up writing less than i would’ve wanted.
reading should not feel like a chore. that’s already nearly happened with writing and even this publication. reading is a pastime, not a commitment; it’s a relaxing activity to help unwind or escape. but for many of the books i’ve read this year (like powerful or when among crows), i simply blazed through without truly enjoying or valuing the story because i just wanted to get x amount of books read.
i did think about announcing in this post that i’m terminating my reading challenge to help me enjoy reading more… but the thing is, i’m not even behind. i’d already read 30 books by march and my goal is only 75. even though i’ve fallen behind in comparison to the previous months, i’m still 8 books ahead of schedule.
i’ve found that i’m really bad at committing to things and consistently focusing on them. but i’m not going to prove that right with this reading challenge. i just need to make a few adjustments in my mindset.
alright, it’s time for the big reveal.
books read this month:
3
yes, you read that right. in the span on 30 days, i’ve only read three books.
i did try to squeeze in another book at the end (i stayed up way too late reading it last night), but alas. maybe i’ll finish it today and count it for this month, but i can’t review it this month unfortunately.
the sad thing about this month is that i set a concrete goal for the books i wanted to read this month:
the caraval trilogy ~ stephanie garber
the atlas six trilogy ~ olivie blake
the scholomance trilogy ~ naomi novik
and as you can tell… i miserably failed.
so, time for the reviews. hope you enjoy <3
1) caraval
by stephanie garber
caraval is the first book in the caraval trilogy (duh). i started it with sunrise on the reaping still on my mind. and, going from a book where you care dearly for the characters and the world since they’re familiar makes jumping into an entirely new world with entirely new characters pretty difficult.
thankfully for caraval, it has the aspect of intrigue. the plot and worldbuilding was very mysterious and enticing. everything was so unpredictable that it wasn’t hard to keep going. however, i still wasn’t on the edge of my seat so it took a bit longer than i would’ve hoped. but finally, i finished the book.
the strong suit of the book is definitely the writing and the worldbuilding. the characters are alright but i found them a bit under-described—i didn’t feel like i knew them very well. also, the little bit of romance added in at the end was not very entertaining nor satisfying. everything about the characters and their relationships just felt… oddly juvenile.
but don’t get me wrong, i did enjoy caraval overall. so i ended up rating the book four stars because it was enjoyable and had plenty of good aspects to it.
2) the atlas six
by olivie blake
i really wanted to like this book. i checked out the whole trilogy from the library and the covers were just gorgeous. and also the concept just looked so cool. but alas…
the atlas six takes place in a world where a secret society of magical academics selects six insanely talented young magicians to compete for a spot in their ranks. only five will make it. it’s dark academia, lots of philosophy, lots of magic theory, and morally questionable characters, all of which i would normally fall in love with instantly. but the execution just didn’t do it for me.
the pacing was… rough. it felt like nothing happened for ages, and just when i was about to give up, something huge would happened… then it’d go quiet again. yes, the characters were super fleshed out—we got deep into their thoughts, insecurities, and motivations, which was cool and way more than i got from caraval …but it also made everything feel really slow.
also, the writing style was just so much. it was good: very eloquent, very profound, which sounds good in theory but made it hard to stay focused, especially since i was sick while reading it. it dragged, and by the time i reached the end, i just felt kind of done. the ending didn’t feel worth the effort; i felt like i’d wasted way too much time. so i gave the atlas six three stars for the characters and concept, but i returned the rest of the trilogy unread.
3) legendary
by stephanie garber
already turned out to be a disappointment.
i won’t go too deep into the details because both of these books have been so complicated that it’s hard to summarize well. the point is, legendary follows the sister of the protagonist in caraval (who i just didn’t like as much) and a cliché romance plot reminiscent of that movie the proposal.
again, while the worldbuilding was phenomenal, the characters were just so dry. i didn’t care for the main characters or the romance, and i was also somewhat confused about what the motivation for the entire plot was. at least caraval had a decent plot, but legendary… this book was all over the place.
that said, i think the ending tied everything together pretty well, and even though the plot was pretty slow (which sucked because i’d just finished the atlas six), i ended up appreciating everything in the end. so while this book was better than the atlas six, it definitely wasn’t as good as its predecessor, earning three and a half stars.
and that’s every book i read in april of 2025.
so you may be wondering, what even happened? why didn’t i finish the caraval trilogy? what happened to scholomance? well, it’s weird because i don’t really know. after legendary, i truly didn’t feel motivated to go back into the caraval universe. but i only just got the scholomance trilogy in the last week of april. also, i have a life outside books and sometimes it’s hard to set aside time for reading (i know, excuses excuses).
at the end of the day, i just… didn’t care as much this month. i didn’t care about reading, i didn’t care about the books i read, i didn’t care about my book challenge. and that’s something i’m going to change in may (especially since i have to return scholomance to the library soon and i just got fearless, the last book of powerless!!). i really do care about reading, it’s something i’ve always loved, and i’m not ready to cut off this challenge.
i foresee a bright end of 2025, with a full, completed reading challenge and lots of new favorite books on my shelf. all i’ve got to do to get there is have fun and read.
i know that was a bit of a let down, i apologize. i really will try to do better next month.
anyways, thanks for being here. i wish you all a wonderful day and i’ll see you next month. much love <3
heyyy that’s more than most people read in a month haha and some months just are slower 🤷♀️
Completely get not reading a ton of books, it’s happened to me so often (and just recently too haha). maybe a genre shift is needed? fantasy/scifi is AMAZING but maybe some other genre is needed. like a change of scenery yk?