Sorry I'm so tardy getting my April reads posted. May has felt like a super busy month, and I just haven't had a minute to sit down and pull this together. But better late than never. 

I read a lot of good stuff in April, and it was a healthy mix of authors I really like plus some new-to-me writers. 

Five Stars

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved getting to know Maverick in The Hate U Give, so I was really excited when Angie Thomas decided to write a prequel focused on Maverick's late teen years. You see Maverick trying to balance fatherhood, school and his social life. Thomas captures his struggles and makes you want to cheer for him even when you know he's about to make a questionable decision. If you read The Hate You Give, you know how Maverick's story ends, so in this book it's fun to try to pick up the threads of the later story and see how he got to where he did.

Four Stars

Everything After by Jill Santopolo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought this book was really cute and I love the way Jill Santopolo plays with the "what would life be like if..." question in her books. In this one, the big question is what would life be like if Emily and her college boyfriend hadn't broken up? Would they have literally kept the band together and become rock stars or would she have ended up where is she now anyway teaching at college and married to her current husband? This was a fun and fast read.

The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a bit outside of my normal reads with it's mystical and magical elements, but I loved that there was a strong central mystery pulling me along and making it easy to escape into the world of the secret circus that Constance Sayers creates. The book opens on the eve of Lara's wedding, but the next day her husband-to-be doesn't show up and though his car is soon found but there is no sight of him. In her quest to find out what's happened, Lara dives into her family's magical history as a circus family. Definitely recommend this for something a little different.

The End of Her by Shari Lapena
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've only recently discovered Shari Lapena's books, and I've come to enjoy them for their psychological twisty turns. In this book, Stephanie and Patrick are happily married with newborn twins. Everything is fine until a woman from Patrick's past shows up and accuses him of murdering his first wife. Did he do it? Is the woman just trying to blackmail Patrick? The book will keep you on your toes.

The Talented Miss Farwell by Emily Gray Tedrowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this tale of a woman living a double-life. In one version of her life, she's Becky Farwell, a loner-type who works as the comptroller of a small town in Illinois. In the other version of her life, she's Reba, a polished art collector, known for chasing expensive works of art and flipping them for a profit. The only problem is, Reba/Becky is embezzling from her small town in order to fund her art purchases. While I would have loved to see some more time spent on the Reba character development, I loved following along and trying to figure out how she was going to pull off her next scheme and constantly wonder if she'd get caught.

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of my friends recommended this series to help me get out of a reading rut, and I'm so glad she did. This is the first book in a series about a mysterious disappearance at a secretive bordering school in the 1930s. Flash forward to today and Stevie is a student at the school set on solving the mystery. But strange things happen on campus, and pretty quickly Stevie has a lot on her hands. This book does end in a total cliffhanger, which is annoying, but I didn't have to wait too long to get the second book from the library.

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought this book was so beautifully written. It follows the story of one family through generations of women, the sacrifices they make both in Cuba and the United States. It’s a short read and I do think it there were a few things that maybe could have been fleshed out a bit more, but it was a great book. Highly recommend.

Three Stars

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm only giving this one a three on Goodreads because the ending really let me down. After so much build up, the ending was rushed. Yes you eventually find out who killed the young girl, but you don't know what happened to the protagonist. The book goes from her recounting how she read an ad for a nanny job, was eventually offered the gig and moved in and started carrying for the family. The nanny recounts all the mysterious events that went on in the house in letters to her lawyer from jail. This part of the book was really great and I was trying to figure out who was behind everything. But then at the end of the book, the narrator changes and we have no clue what ultimately happens to the nanny. Is she still in jail? Did something else happen? You have no clue how her story ends, and after all the time spent with her, it felt wrong to not know what happened.

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