I read 18 books in April 📚☕️🪐📖 (a lot of sci-fi, horror, and romance) APRIL WRAP UP

I think I love this book so much because it was so darkly funny and it just really delivered on all of the like messiness that I was hoping it would.

There's something about the way that Cat Sebastian writes her romance books. They're just so like cozy and so sweet and I immediately feel so connected to the characters. And this one was no different.

This is from the same author as Bat Eater and Other Names for Corazang, which is a book that I read last year and it ended up in my top 15 favorite books that I read last year.

I thought the first chapter was by far like the most interesting to me. And then I really wasn't a fan of like the final chapter in this book. It just really didn't work for me.

It was mostly because this book was reading a lot more like historical fiction as opposed to sci-fi. And it just wasn't exactly the vibes that I was expecting it to be, but like the writing was really beautiful.

If you enjoy weird books like Big Swiss where you're following a main character who's like not exactly likable but she's absolutely hilarious with like her narration style, I think this would be the book for you.

I think the only reason why it ended up being a three and a half instead of something higher is because it did feel a little bit repetitive to me, especially in the second half with like how much they would talk about like the difficulties of living in Alaska and surviving in the wilderness and the talk about bears and like the danger of bears always being around.

I think part of the reason why the horror is so effective in this book is because stuff like this happens, you know, and like sometimes people don't need an excuse to be violent, and I think that's really scary.

I have so many mixed feelings. I gave it three stars. I think it's a really, really, really cool concept once you actually get to the story of like what's happening when they're in space.

The concept sounded so cool and so interesting, but the book itself, the writing was just really not for me and I was so bored by the perspective because you kind of follow almost from this like clinical like legal perspective and it was more about like the legal side of things as opposed to like the user experience with this app which is kind of what I was hoping for.

In this book, I DNFed it at like the 15% mark because what do you mean? Why was it so insta lust?

I saw this book getting pitched as Gone Girl meets Big Swiss and I was like, "Okay, hold up." Because those are two books that I absolutely love.

It just hit me so hard. It was so powerful. I absolutely loved these characters and like the connection that these characters had.

I was so excited for this book because of how much I love Lights Out, which is the first book in the series.

I just really enjoyed this one for the most part. I thought it was a really quick read and I would highly recommend checking this one out when it comes out in June.

The horror in this book was really well done. And honestly, like by the ending of this book, my jaw was like on the floor. I was like, "No way that's where they end this."

I got like a 100 pages into this and I was just so not vibing with it. I just really didn't like the writing in this at all.

After the way that I loved One Golden Summer last year, like that was genuinely one of my favorite romance books that I read last year.

There were some parts of the romance in this book that were so good that had me like kicking my feet. So like I did have a really good time with this one. I only ended up giving it three and a half stars because I wanted a little bit more.

There were some moments of this book that really had me laughing, though, because it was so meta with like the way that it was talking about sequels and the way that like sequels are almost never better than the original thing. It just felt very self-aware in a way that I really liked.

Last month I read Staripped for the first time. And because this is my favorite romance book that I've read this year, I've just been dying to read more books from Cat Sebastian.

This is a literary fiction book that I've been so excited to read because of how much I loved the book The Bright Ears from this author when I read it.

I got about 80 pages into this one and I just wasn't really vibing with it. But again, it might just be my brain right now.

As far as like the reveals go and like the pacing of this book, oh my god, it was just so bland and so boring and so predictable and it ended up being such a letown, which is such a bummer because I really expected more from this.

This does not have any of the charm or any of the banter or anything that I love about her previous romances was like missing from this book entirely. All of these characters were awful and they were all kind of douchebags and I couldn't stand any of them.

The romance was just very like juvenile and kind of like bland and just basic. Like I don't know. I really didn't connect with the romance in this at all the way that I expected to.

The plot was like one of my favorite thrillers. I gave that book five stars.

I have such mixed thoughts about this one because it had the potential to be a new favorite and then it just kind of like went off the rails.

I just loved this book so much. Like these characters had the cutest and sweetest chemistry. Like there were so many moments I was underlining.

After the first 200 pages, I was so convinced that this was going to be like a five-star new favorite of mine. But I really feel like it's unfortunate that the back half of this book really started to drag for me.

We learned a lot about her family and her childhood throughout this book, but I also loved learning about like her romantic experiences and like the way that she talked about them was just so inspiring and like so moving.