April 2025 Wrap-Up

Hello and welcome – or welcome back! April is already a distant memory as May is in full swing by now. It’s a busy, busy season but with lots to look forward to. I have a few more half-written reviews which hopefully will see the light of day this month – if I can get myself sat down long enough to finish them lol.

Reading-wise, April felt pretty average. Nothing really blew me away, despite having finally picked up Water Moon, which was one of my most anticipated reads for the year.

What I read…

• A Dance to Wake a Dragon by Richard Pratt
• Gorgo CPR by Lorenzo Figoni and Luca Rondi (IT only for now)
• Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
• The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

What I added to my shelves…

Bought

I loved The Once and Future Witches when I read it all the way back in 2021, and I had been meaning to get my own copy of it. So, when I saw there was an old book box for sale on the Illumicrate website, I just couldn’t resist! The box also included a paperback version of Legendborn, which I hadn’t realised when I ordered it, resulting in a nice surprise when I unboxed it lol.

Borrowed

Quite a few library books for me this month, including two of my highly anticipated reads for the year!

• Gorgo CPR by Lorenzo Figoni and Luca Rondi
• Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

For Review

Thanks to the authors, publishers and The Tandem Collective for these!

• Boudicca’s Daughter by Elodie Harper – publication expected in August 2025
• Can Feminism Be African? by Minna Salami – out now!
• The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak – new edition expected in July 2025

What I’m reading…

What I watched…

I only watched four films in April, but surprisingly that ended up including two new favourites and one of the worst films I have ever seen. I finally caught up on My Neighbor Totoro, which I’d been meaning to watch for ages and it was the cutest, most heartwarming film I’ve seen in a while.

Sinners was also a very pleasant surprise and quite possibly one of the best films I’ve seen this year so far! I loved it so much I actually wanted to go back to the cinema to watch it again though in the end I sadly didn’t manage to do that. But if you have the chance, I heartily recommend it! On a polar opposite, I really hated Emilia Pérez – I actually can’t remember the last time I disliked a film so much.

I’ve also been watching a few TV series. I started The Residence on Netflix, which I’m finding to be really light and enjoyable – I still need to watch the final two episodes and I’m curious to see how they’ll wrap up the whole mystery. I also started on season 2 of The Last of Us, which I’m not overly enthusiastic about at the moment – but then again, I wasn’t a huge fan of season 1 either so…

My favourite thing to watch at the moment is season 2 of The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder’s new show. It’s fun and sad and genius and completely bonkers all at once, and honestly the only show right now I truly can’t wait to watch each week.

That’s it for now!
What have you been up to?
Tell me in the comments or leave a link to your wrap-up post so I can visit!