April 2023 Wrap Up: I wasn’t here…

~reading

How many books that I planned did I read?

Well, it turns out I didn’t do a TBR post for April apparently?? But as I recall I had about 4 books I was loosely planning to continue or start, and of those I finished one, started another (but might abandon it…), and have one listed to begin for a buddy read in May. In total though, I read 12 books somehow.

The Plan:

The Result:

Key for April: Green = finished, yellow = in progress, white = not started

The Magician’s Daughter might end up being a DNF for me. It’s not terrible, it’s just not that interesting to me. It’s not catching me at all. I don’t care at all about any of the characters or what they’re going through, and the magic is kind of interesting but not enough to make up for the rest. I have so many other books I want to read right now that I don’t feel like giving time to a meh one for me. We’ll see if I return to it (about halfway at the moment).

Besides that, as you can see, I went on a bit of a tear there! I read a ton of nonfiction graphic novels after seeing a list of them my library posted with a ton of interesting titles. I’d been considering re-reading Anne Frank’s diary now that I’m an adult, so when I saw there’s a graphic novel adaptation I was a bit nervous but also curious about how they would transfer it to this medium. Her writing is shockingly mature at times for such a young girl, but then again so were her circumstances.

I also read a few more Buddhism-related titles with Eat the Buddha which focuses on the history of Tibet, and The Radical Practice of Loving Everyone which is a man’s take on Buddhism and the lessons about it he sees epitomized by his dog. I loved both, though they were very different tones.

For fiction, I had a lot of run, really. I read some romances and some fantasy stories, as well as a long-overdue thriller that’s been on my shelf literally since the day it published. Sorry, Pavone.

Considering I was also on a trip for about two weeks and didn’t read much during that time, I’m absolutely SHOCKED at how much I ended up reading. I came home and devoured a bunch of graphic novels, I think because I had read so little up to that point that I swung the total other way and read voraciously for the rest of the month!

Reviews posted in April

• ARC Review: Twelve Hours in Manhattan by Maan Gabriel (4/18/23)
• Review: Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
• Review: Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone
• Review: The Karma Map by Nisha Sharma
• Review: One Cup at a Time: A Cat’s Café Collection by Matt Tarpley

~stats

• My reading was 58% nonfiction this month
• My top genres were memoir (4), graphic novel (4), and romance (3)
• I mostly read books that were reflective, emotional, or informative
• My average rating was 3.04
• I traveled to Ireland, England, Portugal, France, Tibet, The Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia. In the United States I went to Maine and California.

~life

WELLLLL I finally took a vacation that was much needed. It was my first big international trip in years, which is long overdue. I used to do several a year pre-COVID, and am finally getting a chance to get back to it. This one was extra special because I met up with two good friends for the trip and it was awesome to spend some time with them. So that was excellent. ^.^

Honestly the month is divided into three segments for me: about to leave for my trip, on my trip, and just got home from my trip. I can barely tell you anything else that happened because that was my sole focus for my brain the whole month, and I love that. 🥰

~blog

Shockingly, considering I was gone for 2 weeks of the month and didn’t post much during that time, I did still surpass 6,000 views! Not sure why…

• Views: 6395 (1240 more than Mar)
• Likes: 98 (91 fewer than Mar)
• Comments: 28 (90 fewer than Mar)
• Followers: 427 total @ end of month

So it looks like my previous theories are still tracking: that comments and likes are more affected by post frequency and indicative of engagement than views are. I wasn’t posting consistently and didn’t read and comment much from other bloggers since I was away, so that took a big drop here as well. I did recently realize that I think ping-backs are being counted as “comments” in the WordPress stats so that’s part of why there’s a huge drop there. Anyway, I’m pretty unconcerned with the numbers here as always because I’m doing this for myself, ultimately, and I had other important focuses in April. ☺

Here are some of my favorite posts I worked on this month, in case you missed them!

• 2022 Year in Review, Part 2: Deep Stats from Storygraph & My Own Tracking
• Is this still true or have we passed it yet?
• Spine Poetry: Recent Reads April 2023

And here are some of my favorite posts by other bloggers!

• Florida’s Sinkholes by Lenny @ Hidden History
• Book Review: Saint by Adrienne Young by Dini @ DinipandaReads
• Fishing for a Hat by Kamalia @ Kamalia et alia