Spring Reading Wrap Up

 Spring Reading Wrap Up

Hello and welcome back after a long long slump. I took all my AP exams and I have stopped trying in school so I am yet again back to update on my reading over the past few months. April and May have both been a little slow, but I have picked up the pace a recently. I hope to keep reading quickly, and especially keep you all updated, however we shall see the results of this in the end. (I understand that spring is not over, Lord has this Massachusetts weather told me, but I wanted to do a wrap up now so that I could write more posts while staying updated, so here we are)

1. The Book of Unknown Americans* 🌕🌕🌕

    Not my favorite. I read this for school, and although it is incredibly important to teach the themes of this story and the lives of these people, the writing was not super sophisticated even when it was young adult. It is a necessary book to teach right now, but personally I would not pick it up. 

2. Where Sleeping Girls Lie 🌕🌕🌕

    Technically a book club book for a book club I did not attend, but I enjoyed nonetheless. It was a little slow to pick up, and most definitely read like a young adult thriller, but I enjoyed the overall themes and messages of the book. 

3. The Railway Children 🌕🌕

    I read this a while ago, so I do not remember as much. I thought it was a lovely story, though I am certainly not the target audience. I think this would be a wonderful book to read to younger children, and would thoroughly recommend that, but I do not think it is imperative that each person reads it. 

4. Jean de Florette* 🌕🌕🌗

    This book was written in French, so I read it in that language for that class. I enjoyed the story, though a little questionable. The struggles of disability are centered in this book, especially due to the time period, so that lens can be easily and effectively applied to Jean, or le bossu. Additionally, justice for Manon. 

5. Sunrise on the Reaping 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

    Would it really be a 2025 review without Sunrise on the Reaping? This book obviously made a splash, and with that I would wholeheartedly support it. While many criticized this book for being unnecessary, I do not agree, as the manufacturing of a specified image is especially relevant nowadays. Suzanne Collins makes no decisions without purpose, and telling this story was certainly not without purpose. 

6. The Great Gatsby* 🌕🌕🌕🌕

    CharliXCX was not lying when she said that this book was spectacular and inspiring. The overall story of this book, however, is regularly overlooked for the more simplified interpretation of a man's unrequited love. Although that is accurate, it removes core elements of the story, such as Nick's chosen point of view or Meyer Wolfsheim's questionable character. 

7. A Moveable Feast 🌕🌕🌕

    I started this book a while ago, November I believe, however I wanted to wait until my trip to France to finish it. While cliché, I put this book immediately down when it mentioned the small town I would be visiting soon directly, Cahors. It was enjoyable, however the level of pretentious this book reached was truly unfathomable. Good in theory, but a little insufferable in practice. 

8. A Tale of Two Cities 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

    Another France trip read, cliché as it sounds. I reread this book, my first time being in 9th grade, and I enjoyed it a lot more the first time. I could follow the details of each character more and more, with my favorite scene being either the last one or Monseigneur's parade through town. Another relevant story, this book truly captures every role and emotion during a revolution, and the trials and tribulations that come with it. 

9. Watch Me 🌕

    I hated every single book in the Shatter Me series, so the fact that I paid for this book astounds even me. It is of no shock that I did not enjoy this book, as it was just Tahereh Mafi reheating her own stale nachos and passing it off as its own story. Rosabelle takes an interesting role in the reestablishment, similar to a career, yet I still have more questions than could ever be answered about the New Republic's governing system. Foremost, how is everyone supposed to be equal when Juliette and her family and friends live in a specified, high-security community only to be accessed by them, further protected by each of their unique powers that could overpower any and every civilian? 

10. City of Bones 🌕

    Shocker! Yet another young adult book I did not enjoy. I think I'm encountering a trend. With City of Bones, though, I think my only problems are incest, werewolves, and Simon. Incest made the book just plain weird, werewolves are my least favorite folkloric creature, and Simon was plain annoying. That pretty much sums up all 480 pages I read. I'm sure this book was transcendent in the 2010s, but now it just feels outdated and boring. 

11. Huis Clos* 🌕🌕🌕

    I won't say much about this book, but listening to your entire French class make fun of Inesbian the lesbitch every day at 9am, reinforcing stereotypes that took decades to unwrite was truly my form of hell. 

12. Mrs. Dalloway 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

    Now this, this was queer representation I can get behind. There is nothing quite like the disconnected yet connected lives that Sally Seton and Mrs. Dalloway live, each confined by their own marriages yet reminiscent on the life they could have lived together, or at least from Clarissa's perspective. A fascinating experience of one single day, and the reflection of each moment on another, examining the way that time bends as we travel through it. 

Current Read: The Floating World