Another month gone – hard to believe we are a quarter of the way through the year.  I know I said it last month (and the month before) but 2015 is flying by.  I am hoping that it starts to slow down so I can enjoy the glorious spring we are having.  Some days, I feel like I don’t even notice how nice it’s been until the sun goes down.  To make sure I get outside more during the week, I have made myself a May resolution to get my garden sorted – worse case, I’ll at least end up sitting out with a book and glass of wine.

Book wise, I managed to find quite a bit of time to read in April and not as much as I’d like to review them (again!).  For the most part, I really liked the majority of books I read and I don’t know if I could chose a favourite because they are all so different.  It’s probably a toss us between Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro.  A close third was Dead Wake by Erik Larson.

Not so successful for me were Frog Music by Emma Donoghue and Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming, neither of which I really got away with.  Sometimes, I find I like a book more after the fact and a week or so later, want to go back and redo my review to make it more positive.  I haven’t felt like that about either of these yet unfortunately and I couldn’t really recommend them.

A book that has stood the test of time for me was The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, which I first read almost 30 years ago (showing my age!).  I remember it as a powerful, more than a bit disturbing book, and it was just that when I re-read it.  Definitely worth checking out.

All in all, then, a very good month for me reading wise – especially when you add in the final book in my Play On! challenge, The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, which I really enjoyed too.

If you follow any of the links above, you’ll get to the reviews themselves and hopefully find something that you fancy reading.  You might also notice that, halfway through the month, I decided to stop giving books ratings out of five.  You can read why here but in a nutshell it was because it didn’t feel right for me.  Saying if I liked, loved or really didn’t care for a book felt much better and it’s what I’ve decided to go with.  So far, so good – though I’m still agonising over Goodreads reviews but you can’t have everything right?

And that’s it for April.  Let’s see what May holds. How was your month?

Emma