The Rest Of My April Reading

I have to admit, I was looking through my draft blog posts, trying to prioritize what to post, and I realized I'd never posted the rest of my April reading. Ooops. Hopefully I remember what all these books were about :) <-- That sentence right there is why I'm not a book blogger! Ha!

I'd read this book many years ago, but since I'd read the sequel, It Starts With Us, a few months ago, I wanted to refresh my memory. This book was still very good but lost some of its initial impact. While I would have given it 5 stars when I first read it, it only held up to 4 stars this time around.

This was a Decades Reading Challenge book and I found it very interesting to read about the Hindenburg. I'd never thought about what travelling on an airship would be like. While this book was not the most amazing book I've ever read, I still thought it was worth reading. What I found most interesting is, that while it was fiction, the author had the same fate play out for her characters -- if they died in the real disaster, they died in the book, as well.

I crawled into bed one Friday night and, before I realized it, I had devoured this book. Who knew that I would find a book written by one of my least favourite Harry Potter characters so intriguing and delightful? If you are a Harry Potter fan, read this book. If you are a fan of well-written autobiographies, read this book. If you aren't a Tom Felton fan after reading this book, then I will be very surprised :)

This book was so good. Again, it was a book I discovered through the Decades Reading Challenge. I can't say very much about this book without giving it away, but I want my book club to read this book because I need to talk about it with someone. The premise is both disturbing (not in a creepy, bad way) but so very interesting.

This is one of the few books where you will hear me say, "The movie was better." At least, I'm really glad I saw the movie first because it helped me understand the book more. And I didn't feel like having the movie run in my head while I read the book, took away from the book at all. If you know me, I rarely say anything like that!

This was another Decades Reading Challenge book. I really appreciate anything from a Canadian perspective and while many parts were hard to read (the rise of Anti-Semitism in Toronto in the 1930s, the stories from the POW camps), this was a great book. At its core, this book is a love story, but it's also so much more than that. I highly recommend this book. I don't know if I've said this before but Genevieve Graham is becoming a must read author for me.

I thought this book was okay but I found that, the way the author wrote it, the story was a little confusing. I would have appreciated a clearer timeline. While I've always known about the Dionne Quintuplets (they were born in Canada, after all), I didn't realize how hard their lives started out, how contentious their upbringing was, and how much their lives were impacted throughout, due to all the attention they received as children. I also didn't realize how much the government had interfered in the quintuplets' lives. My overall impression of this book was one of sadness.

I thought this book was fascinating. I think it should be required reading for everyone. It was so well written, so well researched, and such an amazing book. I cannot say enough great things about it. Smith looks at different locations, mostly in the US, and writes about them from a Black perspective, through the lens of slavery. This book is so powerful.

This is also a book which should be required reading for everyone. This was an excellent book and while parts of it were really hard to read, as the author writes about a horrible piece of Canadian history, I just can't say enough good things about it. It follows the story of five children who were residential school survivors and writes how their lives intertwine. It is hard reading but it is necessary reading.

So that rounds up the last of my April reading. My May, thus far, has been dominated by two rather lengthy books so my next book post will likely be a little shorter.

Total April books read: 15

Total 2023 books read: 61