April Reading Recap!

In case you were looking for March, I didn’t name it as a recap but rather as a double review.  You can go HERE to see it if you missed it!

Lets get on track in April! I fell behind in March with my reading and its been playing catch up with 2 books behind my schedule to reach my reading goal at the end of the year.  Still, I guess its not really in my control because when I start a book, I usually keep going even if its a tough read, in hopes that it’ll get better. Usually, it does pick up!

Before I ramble on even more, lets check it out!

1) Un Lun Dun by China Mieville

Un Lun Dun is a book about a mirror dimension of London called UnLondon. One day in the schoolyard, Zanna and Deeba are lead to this new strange city where broken and unwanted objects live. There, they realize that Zanna is the Chosen one against the Smog which is taking over UnLondon. They meet some interesting characters as well.

Un Lun Dun is a fantasy dimension that combines a lot of cute and creative characters. The story does have some dragging out parts. I liked the book quite a bit and there was some very smart play on words. However, I felt like the story ran out of steam as it was approaching the end. In this somewhat Wonderland setting, it started losing magic a bit more. The only thing that reminds us constantly of the fantastical creatures are the cute drawings inserted in the pages here and there.  Despite the story dragging out a bit in certain parts, I did enjoy myself for the most part and the imagination behind it was really quite impressive.

2) Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11) by Charlaine Harris

This instalment has Sookie being trailed by more enemies. Sandra Pelt who wants to revenge her sister’s death has escaped from prison and is after her. Eric and Pam are somehow caught in arguments and Sookie doesn’t quite like how her relationship has changed with all the secrets and she also questions whether their feelings would remain the same if the connection wasn’t there, while Victor poses to be a bigger threat. 

There’s a lot going on at the same time but yet, there’s something that doesn’t quite work. Sookie’s character is turning out to be pretty irritating. She thinks up the most random thoughts at the most ridiculous times and some parts made me roll my eyes a little. The biggest problem is that at the 11th book in the series, I’m starting to not care so much about anything. We’re finally getting a bit of insight on Sookie and how she has her telepathy and her family, the fairy connections. Still, the enthusiasm for her character has just stagnated… 

I didn’t hate it but I’m pretty indifferent to this one. It wasn’t as boring as the previous two and that was the unexpected part. 

3) Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse #12) by Charlaine Harris

In a sudden return from her great grandfather Niall, who takes back Claude to Faery to figure out who had cast the curse on Dermot that had caused all his badness in the past years, she starts to have to balance between the unrest of the faes and at the same time, deal with increasing problems from Eric who is now set, due to a contract set by his maker to marry the Queen of Oklahoma, and on top of that, the King Felipe is in town to investigate the death of Victor. On the night they welcome his arrival, a girl is found dead on Eric’s front yard and the police suspect him of being the one responsible. 

These plots are getting pretty long and messy. Its a whole bundle of stuff going on. I don’t really mind the plots having a lot going on, it does set up for a lot of potential of things to happen. However, most of this one was sprinkled with somewhat predictable situations. The ending did add a little surprise to it since there was a lot of suspicion cast throughout on various characters. 

As I had hoped, the ending of this one does set up various possibilities for the next and last book. I’m not sure I look forward anymore but I do want to wrap up this series and want to see what Charlaine Harris decides for the destiny of Sookie.

4) The Dinner by Herman Koch

The Dinner is a peculiar novel in a way that its course of events escalates to the pace over the course of a dinner, figuratively and literally. Two brothers, Serge and Paul meet up at an expensive restaurant with their respective wives, Babette and Claire to discuss a secret. As they go through various topics throughout dinner, our narrator Paul leads us into the situation to understand how he views Serge, Claire and eventually his children. Through his eyes, the reader can understand the dark situation they are in and at the same time, there is the question not only of right and wrong but just how far they are willing to go for each of them to protect their family, regardless of the gravity of the situation at hand. 

The characters are ugly and twisted to say the very least. Honestly, at the beginning, I hated Paul and thought he was a bit off and the way he described Serge didn’t make him out for a good guy that you’d root for either. The start was rough to get through. However, the more I read, the more it left a bitter taste in my mouth but yet I was interested to see how the story went and how they would pull themselves out of this mess. How they approached it showed each of their flaws and it does put down the dilemma and make one question how you would handle this and how there really is not “right” way, or is there? There are a lot of controversial issues at hand here. It has all to do with behaviorial issues and I like that sort of thing, especially when its dark and twisted.

Its a decent read but it touches on some iffy topics and every second of the read, I didn’t sympathize the characters at all. Still, somehow, when the book builds up to the main course, it pulled me in through to the end.

OVERALL…

This has been a pretty good month. If it wasn’t for my absolute fatigue and more dozing then reading on the bus rides in the past week, I’d be done with a fifth book.  Oh well, we’ll leave that for next time! Its already a pretty intense read up there.  If you are on Goodreads, I’m sorry, I cheated a little this time around.  I didn’t have time to write up unique short reviews so I just used what I wrote on Goodreads and edited it a little.  I promise to work harder on it next month.  My brain’s refusing to do anymore than that. As I finish writing this somewhere way past my bedtime, I still need to continue to do work.  Luckily, it is the last day so I’ll be back on track with more variety and more actual writing 🙂

Also, might I ask: Can you believe we’re stepping into May tomorrow? This year is going by so fast.

Have you read any of these books? What are you reading these days?