April 2020 Month in Review

Posted 1 May 2020 in month in review /10 Comments

April in review banner

An Update on COVID-19 Life

April has come and gone… I don’t have nearly as much to update you on as last month. Read a bunch of books, wrote a bunch of posts, hopped a bunch of blogs (?), attended a bunch of online bookish events, did a bunch of yoga classes, and went outside to walk or bike a few times. I expect to be off work for another month or two, so I’ll be up to more of the same this month.

Books Finished

  • The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
  • Indian No More by Charlene Willing McManis with Traci Sorrell
  • The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman
  • Depeche Mode: Faith Devotion by Ian Gittins
  • With the Fire On High by Elizabeth Acevedo
  • The Girl Who Could Not Dream by Sarah Beth Durst
  • Two Dark Reigns by Kendare Blake
  • Queens of Fennbirn by Kendare Blake
  • Lalani of the Distant Sea by Erin Entrada Kelly
  • Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake
  • Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega
  • Why Indigenous Literatures Matter by Daniel Heath Justice
  • Bloom by Kenneth Oppel
  • Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed

Books Reviewed

Posts Written

Goals Check-In

  • 10/12 posts written
    • I’m starting to think 10 posts/month is ideal and realistic for me, rather than 3 posts/week. (Looking through my blog archives to 2013, I see only two months where I posted 11 times, and never more than that.)
  • 16/18 middle grade novels read
    • I previously gave this update in terms of books read/month but now I’m giving it against the one book/week metric. I.E. by the end of this week, I should have read 18 MG books to be on track for one per week.
  • 5/10 rereads (+1 since last update)
  • 4/10+ books with queer MCs (no change since last update >.<)
  • 3/10 graphic novels (no change since last update)
  • 3/10 works by Indigenous writers (+2 since last update)
  • 1/7 books about/by Tolkien (no change since last update)
  • 1/5 books with 500+ pages (no change since last update)
  • 12/60 books on my TBR that I don’t own (+8 since last update)

Shared on Twitter

I spent way more time than usual on Twitter in April. I don’t feel like digging through my timeline for the gems, so… skipping this section 😛

On My Radar in May

  • 23 April to May 23 – Ramadan Readathon (see my TBR here)
  • 1 to 31 May – Wyrd & Wonder (a month long celebration of fantasy – see my intro post here)
  • 1 and 2 May – Everywhere BookFest (two packed days of live and prerecorded panels on all things kidlit for all ages!)
  • 5 May – Release date of all five May books on my TBR :O
    • Julieta and the Diamond Engima by Luisana Duarte Armendariz (young MG mystery, Mexican-American #ownvoices)
      • Updated 3 May: This has been pushed back to 30 June
    • Any Day With You by Mae Respicio (MG contemporary, Filipino-American #ownvoices)
    • Once Upon an Eid edited by S.K. Ali and Aisha Saeed (MG anthology, Muslim #ownvoices)
  • 12 May – Release date of The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (YA contemporary, Muslim #ownvoices)
    • Updated 2 May: I forgot about this book because it’s on my YA-maybe-TBR! But I’m interested enough that I should probably move it to my regular TBR.
  • 9 May – Transcending the Binary in YA (Zoom panel and Q&A, see tweet below for details)
https://twitter.com/masondeaver/status/1256298567188254724

How was your April? What new books, or bookish events, are you looking forward to this month?

Jenna's signature

10 responses to “April 2020 Month in Review

  1. How was Ghost Squad? I’ve been seeing it float around the book community but haven’t really decided if I want to put on my TBR or not.

    I haven’t really done much in April other than finishing up on my classes and cleaning old blog posts when I can (I’m also not working, and probably won’t return until next month?).

    Hope you have a great May!

    • Ghost Squad is a pretty fun read. I enjoyed the found family theme, and there are some spooky parts with thunderstorms and graveyards. If you like ghostly middle grade, I would definitely recommend it.

      My last couple Aprils looked more like yours – just focused on finishing up classes. Hope you have a good May as well. Thanks for stopping by!

  2. Even with little going on for me right now, I still haven’t felt like I could commit to any events. I’m hoping this month will be better though, that author talk looks great!

Leave a Reply