april was the month i read the steamiest book of my life (still not over it, i loved it) and returned to enneagram books and read 4 five star reads… a solid month, overall!

some fun facts about april’s reads:

•14 books read in total
•4,527 pages
•4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reads
•6 were by bipoc authors
•77% fiction (10 books), 23% nonfiction (4 books)
•i read 11 in print, 1 on my kindle, and 2 on audio

here are all of april’s reads and reviews:

ps— all links are amazon affiliate links, so any purchases made once clicked will put a few pennies in my pocket. thanks in advance for your support!

the idea of you

robinne lee

⭐️⭐️

imagine a divorced mom taking her daughter to a one direction concert, going to a meet and greet with the band, flirting with one of the guys who is many years younger than her, and then eventually having a full blown relationship with him while not telling her kid. it’s wild, it’s weird, it’s silly, it’s scandalous (kind of? if you think age gaps are? but they both consented so not really?), and it was not well written!!! i felt zero chemistry between them! i didn’t enjoy it! but i think it will make a fun movie maybe!

don’t want you like a best friend

emma alban

⭐️⭐️⭐️

if you liked bridgerton but want a queer version, this is for you! 💕 it’s a sapphic, friends to lovers, forbidden love story (because damn societal norms) with major parent trap vibes, and i wanted to love it but sadly didn’t. it went from zero to I LOVE YOU to we cannot do this so fast? and the plot just felt flimsy but it had potential! and still was cute and had tender moments i liked a lot! so maybe still give it a shot!

just for the summer

abby jimenez

⭐️⭐️

AITA for not loving this one?!?? (iykyk) 🫣

i’m bummed to say my streak of giving all of abby’s books five stars has come to an end with this one. it just didn’t hit for me, unfortunately, and as much as i love her and have thoroughly enjoyed her books in the past, this one felt one-dimensional in ways i couldn’t click with. i wanted more and was disappointed! truly, this was one of my most anticipated reads this year. 😔

with side characters in this one (aka the mothers of the main characters) having such deep and complex storylines, i wanted there to be more nuanced exploration of the effects of their lives/choices/the trauma they caused or for them to not be included in the story at all. what we got was just not enough to feel believably authentic but also too much to ignore.

i really just want everyone to go to really good therapy and take a LONG TIME to heal!!! like, please!!! 🤍

oh, and if you’re a fan of easter eggs and characters from other books showing up, you’ll love this one — familiar faves from abby’s other books make appearances! (i’m ready for a whole new cast, personally.)

OKAY PHEW this is tough to say and i encourage you to read it yourself to form your own opinions because maybe it really is just me!

i’d love to hear: what are your thoughts on this one?! 👍🏼, 👎🏼, or in between?

🫶🏼 tw for a parent going to prison, foster care, parental neglect, mental health disorders, a house burning

i found you

lisa jewell

⭐️⭐️

woman sees man sitting on the beach in the rain all day, decides to take him a coat, discovers he has no memory of who he is or anything else, decides to let him into her home (with her children?!?) and WAY too into her life. meanwhile, another woman’s husband goes missing (that she knew for all of three weeks), nobody wants to help her, and it turns out the dude had a fake passport. eventually the dual POVs and interspersed flashbacks all braid together but i found myself so bothered by how everybody in this book did everything that i didn’t enjoy the journey.

that one night

emily rath

⭐️⭐️⭐️

annie bot

sierra greer

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

my thoughts while reading this ranged from 🤔 to 😳 to 🫣 and mostly hovered a lot around 🥴 but it was so interesting to consider human-robot relationships and to see them play out in such… normal? ways. i was glad the MMC was a white dude named doug because it made it so easy to utterly despise him, and i never expected i’d feel so much empathy and compassion and even solidarity with an AI bot?! this book gives you so much to think about when it comes to intimacy and autonomy and what it actually means to be human. it was wild and yet also probably likely to happen in our lifetimes…???

i think i’m going ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for the originality and for the way it had me so hooked, evoking in me real uncomfortable feels and questioning all the things! 🧐

pucking around

emily rath

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

fanning myself from how STEAMY this book was!!! 🥵

✨hockey romance
✨reverse harem
✨why choose
✨f/m/m/m
✨m/m
✨FMC is a doctor (and her name is rachel 😏)
✨a golden retriever hockey player (who calls her baby!94 seattle), a moody tatted pierced equipment manager daddy (who calls her hurricane), a brooding finnish goalie giant (who calls her rakas)

this one pushed the boundaries of what i’ve read before for SURE 😳 i haven’t read “why choose” romances before, and polyamory isn’t my jam personally, but it doesn’t need to be for me to read about it and enjoy the story (and the 🔥🥵 scenes lolol). the beauty of exploring new things through reading!!! i was crying by the end because of how these characters showed up for each other and loved each other so fiercely and fully and truly became a family, even in such an unorthodox way. so tender and beautiful. yes, sex was a big part of this book, but it was truly just the avenue for how these characters broke down their walls and got vulnerable and discovered more about themselves. we love to see the growth!

(i do wish i was like 200 pages shorter, it did NOT need to be 700+ pages, but still a good time)

the rule book

sarah adams

⭐️⭐️⭐️

a second chance romance with a grumpy NFL star and a sunshiney rising star agent who meet again when nora (who is known in the industry as “mac,” a nickname of her last name) gets him as her new client. they are (not surprisingly) not on the same page about why they broke up and how they feel about it now, so they make some RULES to keep themselves in line... guess how long that works for!!!

a drunk night in vegas leads to a wedding that they decide to play out for the sake of their images... but is that REALLY why they’re staying married???

this is a cute one, it’s fun, it wasn’t my favorite from sarah adams, but i liked it! there’s a little more steam than i expected from her, but it’s still not overly spicy. this will be a great summer read!

How It Feels to Find Yourself: Navigating Life's Changes with Purpose, Clarity, and Heart

meera lee patel

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

this was such a beautiful collection of art and reflections on change, grouped in themes that felt so relevant to SO many seasons of life — i liked the art the most (so many venn diagrams and cool palettes and illustrations that perfectly depicted different transitions or emotions or circumstances) and think this would be a great grad gift! 💝 it didn’t blow me away but i think if i had read it in college, it would have been really meaningful to me and felt like one of those books that JUST GOT ME.

sisters of the lost nation

nick medina

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

april’s pick for our #alltheradreadsbookclubwas this haunting and all too real story of native girls going missing, by @nickmedinawrites, member of the tunica-biloxi tribe. it’s part mystery, part thriller/horror, part family drama, part crime novel, and i flew through it as the chapters jumped through time to piece together when and how anna’s sister went missing and how it all happened on the rez and in the hotel where they worked.

i really appreciated the author’s note in this one, with his thoughts about the reality and tragedy of how so, so many native girls and women have gone and still go missing without enough (if any) care, coverage, police involvement, awareness, and ultimately, resolutions, reunifications, and, ideally, prevention of it happening in the first place. it’s devastating and such a display of racism and white privilege and colonialism and so many other sicknesses in our world. i’m glad stories like this exist to help make more people aware and to help turn the tides toward a safer, more just world where this doesn’t happen and all of our sisters and daughters are safe. (lord, let it be so.)

somehow: thoughts on love

anne lamott

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

queen anne did it again. she brought her signature wit and warmth and wisdom packaged in a pretty punchy gem of a book that made me laugh and cry and highlight a bajillion passages and just feel so glad i’m alive at the same time she is. the way that woman wraps words around what it mean ms to be human is unlike any other!!! a GIFT. a spunky, sassy, stunning, sharp gift. i love her so much.

The Unfiltered Enneagram: A Witty and Wise Guide to Self-Compassion

elizabeth orr

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

if you’re a fan of @rudeassenneagram or want to be read to filth while also being helped (kind of like how really good therapy feels), this is the book for you. it had me like hahahahashutupyesthatsrealwowokaySTOPthathurtthankyou every page BUT IN THE BEST WAY, ya know? swipe for some pages about being an #enneagram1 — i can’t stop thinking about pursuing alignment over perfection. what a life-giving shift!!!

big fan of this one. (and i think many enneagram things are silly these days so that’s saying something.) it hits hard and is wholly honest and hella helpful and really good.

read it and grow.

remember love: words for the tender times

cleo wade

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

every @cleowade book feels like a love letter and a warm embrace, like she’s the friend who always knows just what to say or when to just hold space and let the feelings speak for themselves. this one found me at the perfect time, when i needed to be guided back into love, away from the weariness of worrying and wondering endlessly about things out of my control. it was a balm and a beautiful offering of poetry and light. ✨