April Wrap Up + May TBR

I am finally here with my April Wrap Up. April was a good reading month for me. I read 4 novels and 2 comic books in April.

1. Big Mushy Happy Lump by Sarah Andersen – 5 stars I loved the first book by this author so much that I had to get her second book. Her comics are very relatable, at least for me. This book had many of my favorites by her which I had seen earlier on Facebook – especially the one about buying books which has been my absolute favorite comic by her. This collection is too funny.

2. Fowl Language: Welcome to Parenting by Brian Gordon – 5 stars I love these comics so much online that I had to get a copy. These are perfect for parents with small children! Absolutely funny.

3. Dune by Frank Herbert – 2 stars I finally read this book in April after wanting to read it from so many years! It is all thanks to the small book club we have on Facebook for sci-fi and fantasy books. I found the book pretty meh for some reason. I know many people who consider this book to be the best science fiction ever but I did not like it that much. My review is as follows –

World building – 5 stars. Read this book just for the world building, if not for anything else. Other than LOTR, I don’t remember reading a book ever with such amazing world building.
Story – 1 star (didn’t see anything new. Mostly overused tropes).
Characters – 1 star (very flat and boring. They are either white or black) Especially the main character Paul was extremely boring.
Writing – 2 stars (Long drawn conversations stretching for pages together. Very descriptive writing which I did like when he was describing the desert or the Fremen. I also found scenes with Baron interesting)
Setting – 4 stars (the premise sounded promising and it had great potential to begin with)
Most favorite parts: Sandworms and how Fremen survive in the desert. Stillsuits and other technology.
Major turnoffs: Arrogant main protagonist Paul and how religion played an important role (Agnostic person here who doesn’t like any religion).
Major complaint – the way women were treated in this book. And that last paragraph at the end *cringe-worthy*

4. The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley – 4 stars This book changed the way I looked at women in science fiction. I always wondered why women did not write hard sci-fi or why there weren’t many sci-fi women writers. Now I have the answers to all these questions.
Some parts were really good, some parts I didn’t quite agree with and some parts were not that interesting. But she kept repeating few statements again and again and it got repetitive in places because of that. Overall, a great read and I highly recommend this book to everyone.

5. Star Wars: Catalyst – Rogue One novel by James Luceno – 3.5 stars My first Star Wars novel. I bought this book last year hoping to read it before watching the Rogue One movie. But finally ended up reading after watching the movie. Reading it before watching the movie would have been better in a way as this is a prequel to the movie. But still I am glad I read this novel since it gave me a lot of backstory about Jyn’s parents who played a major role in building the Deathstar. We saw Jyn’s parents for hardly 5 mins in the movie and we had no idea what they were doing on that deserted planet and why the Imperial troops came and took Galen. Reading this book bridged the gap between Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One. It kind of made me understand what happened before and after the Jedi were killed, from the perspective of the Republic. Also Has and Lyra were amazing characters. We also get to know more about Krennic and Tarkin and their rivalry in this book. I loved all the characters and the roles they played. Plot wise there wasn’t much going on in this book and I don’t think reading this book without watching Rogue One will work. This book cannot stand on its own without the movie but along with the movie, it is great.

6. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas – 4.5 stars I loved this book and have already reviewed and shared my thoughts about this book in this post.

May TBR:

I don’t think I will be able to read many books in May as I am pretty busy in May. I have also enrolled myself for a course so I don’t think I will be able to even read the two books I have on my TBR currently which are Embassytown and Snow Crash – both of which I am sure are difficult reads. Let me see if I can complete at least one of these two books.

What did you read in April? And what is on your May TBR?