Reviewed: Everything I Read in April
Hello! I hope your springtime has looked something like mine: listening to birds sing, watching all the green things grow, and of course, reading lots of good books. I’ve been enjoying the return of warm temperatures immensely.
I’m so late getting this post up that I briefly considered skipping it altogether, but then I remembered that one of the reasons I started this blog was to keep track of what I’ve read. So, with that in mind, here’s everything I read in April.
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Funny enough, this is a book I DNF’d two years ago. I listened to about 20% of the first installment in the series and simply could not wrap my mind around the behavior of one of the main characters. Because the book was translated from Italian into English, I wondered if some of the jarring moments were simply the result of cultural distance. At any rate, several of the choices and dynamics in the story repelled me enough that I abandoned it for something more pleasant.
Since then, though, the series has been recommended to me several more times, and when I stumbled across the first three books together at a thrift store, I decided to give it another try.
This time, the reading experience was completely different. I think I finally understood what Elena Ferrante was doing—and why she made the writing choices she did. As the story unfolded and understanding slowly settled over me, I found myself repeatedly stopped in my tracks by her brilliance.
There’s a particular experience I occasionally have while reading: someone says or writes something so piercingly true that I literally stop what I’m doing just to absorb it and marvel that they managed to find words for it at all. These books are full of moments like that.
The story begins in the 1950s and centers on two young Neapolitan schoolgirls, Lila and Elena, who become friends at school. Lila is dark, moody, and mysterious. She seems to understand things about people and the world that others don’t. Elena—intelligent and impressive in her own right—is captivated by her friend and often filters her choices through the lens of what might impress Lila. Together they grow up in a rough neighborhood marked by domestic violence, sexual violence, and criminal behavior, all unfolding in a society where these things seem almost unremarkable.
Elena is allowed to continue her education after elementary school while Lila leaves to work in her family’s business, but the girls remain deeply intertwined. Their friendship is strange. It is marked by ferocious loyalty and sacrifice, but also by jealousy, resentment, competition, and harsh retaliation. It felt so true as I read, and I realized that authors don't normally push past the veil into the realm of things that just don't make sense about human behavior. And she didn't hold my hand to explain it! Her characters did what they did and I was left to make sense of it, but never once did I feel that she led them to do something false. Does that make sense? It was remarkable!
By the third book, the chips have fallen where they may, and I found the outcome devastating—but truthful. I didn’t always like the author’s choices, but they felt emotionally authentic to the characters and the world they inhabited.
While I loved reading this series, it will not be for everyone. Some will struggle with the unlikeable characters, difficult subject matter, poor choices, and the harsh realities of the time and culture.
Lots of content warnings throughout this series. Definitely look into them if you would like to avoid certain content.
My rating: 4.5/5
Continuing my spring curriculum goal of revisiting beloved books from my childhood, I listened to perhaps the quintessential adventure novel of my elementary school years: Hatchet. Would you believe me if I told you I remembered almost all of it just from reading it in fourth grade? Clearly, it made an impression.
Listening to it again was like hearing an old song you’d never claim to know by heart—only to find your mind supplying each line a split second before it arrives. Pretty cool.
My rating: 5/5
This was a fun one! In need of something lighter, I picked up this novel, which has been sitting on my TBR for a looooong time.
Once a promising high school athlete and student, Lillian’s life has not turned out the way she imagined. Now she’s what most people would call a “loser,” and she doesn’t see things improving anytime soon. Then she gets a call from her old friend Madison, now the wealthy wife of a politician, asking if she’d be willing to nanny her husband’s twin children for the summer.
Sure. No problem.
One small issue: the children catch on fire when they get upset.
Yes, really.
So there’s some magical realism here, but also plenty of humor, and—surprisingly—real heart. I think some readers will pick this up and immediately think, What on earth is this? But if you’re willing to suspend disbelief and laugh a little, this book might charm you.
There are some content warnings for this one, so it’s worth looking those up beforehand if you have subjects you prefer to avoid.
This was our April book club selection, and one I hadn’t heard of before a fellow member recommended it. The premise is compelling: what if The Screwtape Letters were written for the modern woman?
In this epistolary novel, senior temptor Madame Hoaxtrot instructs and advises junior devil Hoaxrot on how best to derail the woman she has been assigned to tempt.
At first, I struggled to focus on agreement and application because of the tone the author takes throughout the book. When I read The Screwtape Letters, I get the sense that C.S. Lewis is grappling with his own humanity and reflecting on the spiritual forces at work in ordinary life. Here, though, the tone sometimes felt more like harsh commentary directed at the failings of modern women.
To be fair, many of the observations are correct. But at times the voice struck me as overly cynical or uncharitable. I know part of my discomfort came from recognizing some of those same tendencies in myself. Harshness is something I’m very capable of, and not particularly proud of. I kept thinking, "Compassion, compassion, compassion."
Once I moved past that initial resistance, though, I forced myself to focus on what was excellent in the book. There’s genuinely so much here worth reflecting on. I just think it helps to go in prepared for the tone and perspective the author brings.
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