April was another four-book month for me (whatever mom thinks she will read more because of Spring Break is delusional… Spring Break is not for reading, it is for chasing children around the pool and losing sleep from the baby being in the same room as you).
I started the month by reading the suspense/thriller novel I Let You Go. Ooooh, y’all. This one got in your head! It took a while for it to really fire up, and the first half was really mostly groundwork for the real plot to thicken, but once it did, you were flipping pages faster than they flip pancakes at IHOP. I liked this one a lot and can confidently recommend it even for those who hesitate to read “scary” books (because I don’t like scary stuff, either). It was a thriller without being a keep-you-up-at-night caliber book. If you like being on the edge of your seat, check this one out.
Bear Town was #2 for the month of April. Fredrik Backman; what do I say about this guy? I’ve read several of his books now and they are all… quirky. This one, however, was probably the least quirky I’ve read of his works, and instead focuses on the turmoil one small town faces in the aftermath of a terrible act committed by one of the hockey town’s star players. My only real complaint about the book was the amount of setup time he dedicated to conveying that “Hey, this town reallyreallyreallyreally loves hockey and it’s a BFD.” Got it. Like, could have gotten it in a chapter. Instead, he built up the hockey culture over the course of chapters and chapters of setup (I’m finding this to be a characteristic of his writing; lots of character development but at the risk of becoming kind of, well, boring). I liked the book overall and it was a very timely book in a post-#metoo society.
Beneath a Scarlet Sky was a REALLY good WWII novel based in Italy. I hadn’t read any WWII novels that were set in or based on Italy, so this was not only a new and informative perspective, but I love learning about the country I studied in while in college, so this one struck a chord with me. It was graphic and heartbreaking, and very much along the lines of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale (if you’ve read that one and loved it, you’ll equally love this one). Left you really scratching your head when it was over and wondering how many loose ends were left untied at war’s end. Fascinating, beautiful, heartbreaking, and captivating.
Liturgy of the Ordinary was a random selection based on an Instagram recommendation I saw in someone’s story, and honestly, I won’t spend much time on its review. It wasn’t for me. It kind of bored me and I had a hard time connecting with the heavy liturgical underpinning (which was definitely implied in the title, so I’m totally blaming myself for choosing a book that just wasn’t written for me). If you have a spiritual background heavily rooted in liturgy, ritual, sacrament, etc., then you may find this book soothing and enlightening, it just wasn’t quite my pace.