Sitting with my cup of coffee at 5am on a Saturday morning, I try to think of April and realize, it snowed, didn’t it? I gave myself the month off. In March I finished my PBT Institute coaching certification. I decided to start my coaching classes in May. There was some prep work to do in  April, but I also focused on rest and enjoying springtime between rain storms. I received both my vaccine shots during the month, and I attended a beautiful outdoor wedding. Maybe April was the month things started to find their way to a new normal. And oh yeah – it snowed. These are the six books I read for the month. they are listed in the order that I finished them. Click the underlined header or the book cover image to go to Amazon. If you read something you find here, I would love to hear about it.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

This book was a Goodreads award winner, which made it qualify for the reading challenge I am participating in this year. When I picked it, I didn’t realize it was so long. The audiobook was 32.5 hours long! It was also really well done. The author, Christopher Paolini, is best known as the guy who wrote Eragon when he was a teenager. I read the entire Inheritance series, and I tried to enjoy the movie. I was very curious how an adult Paolini would write sci fi. My verdict – very well. I’m tempted to contrast this with Andy Weir’s Artemis, which I wrote about here. I felt that Weir botched the female perspective. Paolini, however, does this really well. I always don’t want to say too much, because I want you to read these books and discover the characters for yourself, but I really like Kira. She has depth and complications. She might be a tad bit OP, but she is not a Mary Sue. And this is a sci fi book with a female protagonist that does not turn into a romance novel. I appreciated that. And the supporting cast is full of wonderful characters. They are the reason I hope this gets turned into a TV series.

The only thing I didn’t like, was the fact that this is how many years in the future and everyone feels the need to sign their name at the end of every text message. What? No. We had that autosig feature on our Nokias. It didn’t last long. We won’t be in the middle of a space battle sending messages and tacking our first names onto the end. There’s an alien species that starts every sentence by identifying themselves. Okay, that’s how they do it. I was fascinated by their communication style. It was interesting and made sense for them. The text message sign off didn’t make sense. It just made the audiobook longer. Overall, I gave the book 4 stars, Really Liked It.

The Gilded Ones

This was recommended by a friend and will meet one of my reading challenge tasks. I loved this book and I loved the world it creates. I see this get a lot of comparison to Children of Blood and Bone, and I think that is racist. Two fantasy books written by black authors don’t necessarily need to be lumped together. I gave Children three stars, and The Gilded Ones gets five. So if it’s necessary to compare them, this one is better. However, they are totally unrelated. This reminded me more of a fantastic Mulan because of the military camp and training. I should mention, there is some very brutal violence in this. Mostly we don’t witness it directly but are told about it. It’s very effective. My heart broke and my body hurt for Deka. There’s a good twist in this one. A heartbreaking twist that I didn’t see coming.

I will also say, that this is YA and has a bit of romance, but it doesn’t become the center of the story, and I am relieved to see that the love triangle trope has died. There’s a cute little love story in the midst of her coming of age story. There are even some side characters in a same sex relationship and there’s an actual conversation amongst the kids about sex and virginity, which is, by the way, a social construct. The story of Deka’s friendship with Britta is another highlight of the book. I found a lot to love here and I can’t remember anything to criticize. I read a lot of first books and never get to book two, but I will be anxiously awaiting the sequel to this one.

The Wishing Spell

I needed a middle grade book for my reading challenge I stumbled upon this one written and audiobook read by Chris Colfer, best known as Kurt from Glee. It seemed long for a middle grade book, but I think this was a reminder that I am not much in touch with this genre. Middle grade doesn’t mean wimpy or simple… except sometimes it’s wimpy if you are reading those wimpy kid books. Nevermind. I had to reframe my expectations a bit, because this is middle grade. There were things that seemed a bit obvious, but if I was a kid just learning how to embrace things like foreshadowing, I think this book does a good job of using those tools in an age-appropriate way.

I always love to look at things from a new perspective, so I like how this takes some of the stories we know (mostly from movie versions) and gives them a new spin and breathes extra life and personality into the characters. Meanwhile, the twins at the center have their own story. This was cute and I enjoyed it. I gave it four stars, but I probably won’t read the rest of the series.

Patriarchy Stress Disorder

It felt like it took me forever to read this book. I bought it last spring, and I thought I started it in October, but according to Goodreads it wasn’t until December. It isn’t very long, but it’s not a light subject. Patriarchy sucks. It sucks for everyone, but especially for women. There are things that we accept as true that are constructs of the patriarchy. Things about life, the world. Things about ourself. Dr. Valerie Rein shares a plan to help us break free from this. If you are familiar with the IFS (Internal Family Systems, AKA Parts Work) therapy modality, you will see how she is using that to teach you how to deal with your “prison guards.” I have to admit, using the prison break analogy really set me off, because I see that as a masculine example. According to Google, 93% of prison inmates are male. There is another section where she uses a Formula One race as an example. I wondered how someone teaching us about the literal disorder caused by trying to exist in the patriarchy let this language slip into her book. But it also served as proof of how deeply these things run. And how triggered it made me indicated how much work I have to do.

I was fortunate to attend a weekend virtual retreat that Dr. Rein hosted and was even fortunate to have a one-on-one Zoom call with her directly. I didn’t mention these issues. The event was a great experience and she has a wonderful community of women who are doing wonderful things. I am already in a few communities, so I didn’t join hers, but I think she’s doing good work. I gave the book five stars, because I think it is important and helpful even if it was a challenging read for me, or because it was.

Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe

This book was a suggestion when I searched for Gabor Mate’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, so I checked it out via the Libby app. I thought it was going to be about symbolism and what certain signs mean. It turned out to be about getting signs from “the other side.” It was a pretty quick read, and I think it’s interesting to ask for a sign from someone on the other side then see what happens. I experimented, and I felt like I got the sign I asked for. Nowhere in the book does the mention that your reticular activating system will help you see things that you are looking for, but that doesn’t make a nonbeliever out of me. She doesn’t address anyone being malevolent on the other side. She says people who were jerks while they were here quickly learn once they get there and now they will be loving and helpful. She gives lots of examples of people looking for a sign to answer a question. Lots of them seem to be about whether someone should have another baby or there’s one about a woman wondering if she should have an abortion. I would have liked to have seen one of those examples be a time when the sign said don’t have another baby. It felt like the other side was always saying “go for it.” I don’t think that’s always the answer. This was a quick, easy read, and it made me feel more hopeful. I gave it four stars. That might have been a bit generous, but I am a generous person.

Rosette

I must give full disclosure here and state that I consider Rosette’s author, Cindy Rinaman Marsch, a very dear friend. That makes me embarrassed to say that I’ve known her a couple of years and only now read Rosette. I finally purchased her debut when she made a wonderful bundle available with the follow-up Solomon Ramsdell. The premise of this book is fascinating. Cindy’s mom bought found an old journal at a junk store and gave it to Cindy suggesting that she write a book about it. The journal is written by a woman in her late twenties who lived in pioneer-era Michigan. This journal happens to be the volume in which she records her marriage and the birth of her first child. Then she later edits the entry from her wedding day! What!?

Cindy did extensive research and visited the area of Rosette’s home. She learned as much as possible about this real woman, then she turned her into a compelling character. I love the way her story unfolds. It reminds me of a college class I took that studied autobiography and memoirs. Even when writing our own journal, we create characters. We have a point of view. We might be an unreliable narrator. Those concepts made reading Rosette a lot of fun. I couldn’t put this book down. Five stars!

Let me know what you have been reading. Leave a comment!