**The grass prickles under your feet since you decided to not wear shoes on your walk through the forest. The sun shines through the gaps in the trees just so, creating an ethereal effect that makes you feel like you’ve been transported to some fantasy garden. You almost expect mushrooms to sprout ten feet tall and little dwarves to walk out of them carrying sunflower umbrellas and hats made from thimbles. A stream to your right would glisten in the sun, and trees would climb higher and higher until they could almost touch the sun. You decide to sit in the grass and picture your little fantasy world a bit longer before traveling back to reality.**

I was originally going to post this yesterday, but figured it would be better to just wait until today so it would actually be the end of the month. I could have just waited until next Monday, but I think I said I’d post my wrap-up this week, so this is what we’re doing. I read a total of six books in March, which actually doesn’t happen much anymore so I was pleasantly surprised. I feel like parts of March and my books going into April are the start of me experimenting with my reading so I’m picking up some things I normally wouldn’t read, but it’s been interesting since I can learn more about my reading tastes. Anyway, this post is going to be a bit long, so let’s just get into the books.

• Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent

I’ve had this book for maybe two years now. I picked it up because it was indie and because I heard some good things about it, but I never thought I’d get to it. Well, I finally read it and I did enjoy it. I don’t think it was amazing or anything, but it was entertaining. The magic was interesting to learn about and I liked watching Tisaanah’s growth in her magical abilities. Her training sessions kind of reminded me of Avatar: The Last Airbender when they have those quiet in-between moments where everyone is training. I also thought Tisaanah was a strong lead for the story with her strength and perseverance and need to help people. I’m intrigued to see what happens next and really hope to get to book 2 in April.

• Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz

This has hands down been my least favorite book of the year so far. I do have a whole review on it, which I’ll link here, but I did not enjoy this one at all. I thought the story sounded interesting and the cover was beautiful. However, I didn’t really like any aspects of the story. It wasn’t engaging and I didn’t really care why the rot or whatever it was called was spreading. I really did not like the love interest either. He seemed rude to Violet for no reason and I didn’t actually buy the romance between the two of them. He seemed to only think about her looks, and she didn’t think about him much at all. I also wasn’t convinced of Violet’s villain origins. We see that being a villain is natural to her, but I don’t understand why. She seems polite and like she was never evil, but she says that it’s so easy for her to revert to her evil ways. The only things I really liked about this book were Bartleby and Peri, and I was hoping we would get some more closure with Bartleby.

• The Wish Switch by Lynn Painter

This is Lynn Painter’s debut middle grade book about a girl whose wishes are coming true, but not for her. I think the story was very unique with this book. It’s not a concept I have ever really read about, even when I was reading more middle grade. I enjoyed the growing friendship between our two main characters, and the unique mechanics of making a wish. This book goes by very quickly so I don’t feel like I really had time to process it, but it was fun and a great middle grade book.

• Big Dumb Eyes by Nate Bargatze

I’ve been saying for a while I want to read more classics and nonfiction, so at the beginning of the year, after saying I wasn’t setting any goals for myself, I set three: read five books in genres I don’t usually read (i.e. classics and nonfiction), read five library books, and read the five oldest books on my physical TBR. I was never interested in nonfiction or classics, but I read one nonfiction last year that I enjoyed, so this was going to be the year. I read one in January and decided in March I needed an audiobook (something else I don’t really like), and decided on Big Dumb Eyes, mostly because it was short and currently available. This is just stories from Nate Bargatze’s life with each chapter detailing a new story. I think there were a lot of interesting stories, but I think I just wasn’t a fan of the way it was written. I was expecting a more humorous approach going into it and didn’t really get that. This one was fine, but just something I didn’t love.

• Happily Never After by Lynn Painter

This was hugely disappointing. I love Lynn Painter and have been reading her books since 2023, but this one was just not it. It follows Sophie, who is getting married but wants out after she learns her fiance is cheating . . . again, so her friend makes a call to a guy who has been known to come and object to weddings on occasion. So he objects, and months later recruits Sophie to help him with an objection, and together they do this for a few weddings, and build a relationship even though they are both anti-love. I don’t need to know what the book is about to know I’ll read it when it comes to Lynn Painter, but this one was just not one I liked. I feel like every plot point was lost along the way in favor of the “romance.” We don’t learn about Sophie’s strained relationship with her parents, we barely get anything with Max and his ex, even though it’s brought up on the back of the book, making you think it will be an important plot point, and we don’t even get to see any progression of Sophie’s anti-love beliefs. We push that all to the side to focus on the relationship between Sophie and Max, which seems more physical than anything else. Sophie seems to use Max to experiment, and Max seems to play along since he liked her. They don’t really think about each other in ways other than appearance, and their whole relationship is built on them making out with each other. I don’t think there is really any other connection between them. I think we lost a lot of Lynn Painter’s humor and romance in this one, and I was really disappointed.

• The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo; illustrated by Sara Kipin

I actually don’t have much to say on this one, which is probably good because this post is so long already. This book is composed of short fairytales in the world of the Grishaverse. I started watching Shadow and Bone two or three weeks ago and wanted more Grishaverse content (sorry to Rule of Wolves which is sitting on my shelf, unread), and decided to pick this up from the library. The writing is good and some of the stories are interesting, but it doesn’t add much for me overall. I think my favorite story is probably Ayama and the Thorn Wood.

Six books was actually pretty good for me, but I think I may end up reading a bit more in April. We’re not going to talk about the fact that I’m in the middle of three other books right now, but I’m hoping to finish two of them by the time the weekend is over, so I’ll be able to go into the month finishing two books the first week. We shall see what happens.

xoxo,

Just another reader