A Month of Pure Excitement: My April TBR

It might be a week and a half into April, but I want to tell you lovelies about my April TBR because I don't usually have monthly reading lists. I was forced inspired to create one for the first day of #LILBookishApril, a Bookstagram tag that I'm doing this month - you can follow my (hopefully) daily pictures here, as you won't have seen most of them on the blog - and it was actually kinda fun, even if it did just involve pulling all the unread books in my house into a list. 

And I'm guessing, perhaps wrongly, that you want to hear about it. Even if you don't, I'm going to write this post anyway. ;-)

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

I never reviewed Cinder on this blog, but that was probably a mistake, because the exceptional worldbuilding made it an easy five stars. New Beijing was a bustlingly realistic post-apocalyptic metropolis, and it was impossible not to be riveted by the whole societal model, especially how it involved cyborgs at the bottom of the ladder.  

Scarlet - as well as being a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood - is partly set in TOULOUSE. So I get to see post-apocalyptic TOULOUSE.

Sorry, but the idea of Southern France, which is so laid back and traditional that it may as well be a time capsule (in a good way) plunged into a wildly technological age makes me do a dystopian fangirl happy dance. And from the two or three pages I've read, it looks like it's been done really well. Squee!

Jolly Foul Play by Robin Stevens

FINALLY! I GOT HOLD OF THIS BOOK! It might have been published less than a year after the previous Murder Most Unladylike instalment, so yay for authors who edit fast, but a release within a month would have been far too slow. I'm just obsessed with this series.

Daisy and Hazel have one of the best, most realistic friendships I've ever seen on the page, and when you couple that with a vivid 1920s setting, I'm always going to be in love. The covers are quirkily gorgeous. They're easy to read. I really can't wait to start this!

UPDATE: I read it. There should be a law against books being this good.

My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece by Annabel Pitcher

This book sounds absolutely morbidly fascinating. I am utterly dying to see how opinions on terrorism and race can be distorted through a child's eyes - especially a child who lost a sister to terrorists and therefore has a racist father.

We've talked a lot at school about how terrorism, particularly through the media, can make people scared of Islam, a religion which literally means peace, and I'm genuinely interested to read about someone who's been brought up to think like that, because it always seemed a bit alien to me. I'm also a hardcore fan of Annabel Pitcher (if Silence is Goldfish and Ketchup Clouds can be believed): she writes family trauma, especially hidden family trauma, really well, and I trust her to handle such a controversial topic.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

I know basically nothing about this book. No-one will tell me anything because 'going in blind is absolutely essential'. Apparently there's an island and four friends, and it was described by Cait @ Paper Fury as "agony on the page".

In bookworm language, that means that I'm absolutely dying to get started. I'm so odd that I believe getting your heart ripped out can be rather fun.

The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

Everyone keeps trying to make me read The Sleeping Prince, and I can't do that until I tackle this little ball of fantasy goodness. So I've bumped it to the top of by TBR for fear of being bumped off by a frustrated fellow bookworm who needs someone to fangirl with.

Apparently there's a princess with poisonous skin and a nice traditional fantasy world, which I need to sink my teeth into if I'm going to write a fantasy book. I just need to wait for the library to give it to me, and then I can descend into a papery paradise of medieval-esque courts and arranged marriages and a princess whose touch kills. At least, I'm hoping it's going to be a paradise. I haven't read it yet.

and, now that I've got a bit further into the month (and received some awesome gifts from some awesome friends) here are some additions that aren't on my initial picture. I'm never going to get through this list, considering I'm on the end of an eight day reading slump, but it's always good to dream, right?

The Selection by Kiera Cass

My friend gave me this book, and it was already on my Goodreads list, and yet most of what I know about it is 'pretty dresses on the cover'. And also competing for the affections of royalty, I think?

This is beginning to sound an awful lot like The Jewel by Amy Ewing, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Mostly because other bloggers seem to like it and 'pretty dresses on the cover'.

I'm such an objective and selective book reviewer, aren't I?

Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

This is another book that fought its way onto the TBR simply because so many friends have demanded I read it, but - however loath I am to admit it after being strong-armed into this - I do like the idea of a ghost pandemic that can only be solved by children, especially set in what seems to be the Victorian era.

I can work with the Victorian era.

This sounds like my kind of speculative fiction and apparently the main character is rather interesting, too. I'll keep you posted.

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In the comments: Do you tend to write a monthly TBR? Why or why not? What's on it? (Sorry, I'm asking a lot of questions here.) And can you tell me anything about these books?

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Labels: Monthly Wrap-Ups