April was a shaky month for my reading challenge. I started with a book that seemed interesting on the surface but was really a jumbled mess and I ended with a book I never want to read again. It was an unfortunate month choice wise so I only managed to get through 3 books. Annoyingly, I was actually on target for 5 books in April but that third book made me lose all momentum.
Enough of the self-pity, let’s start with book number one. Eating the Elephant by Alice Wells* intrigued me as it’s written by the wife of a paedophile who killed himself the same day their house was searched for child pornography. It seemed like such an interesting albeit tragic book but, while I did enjoy it to an extent, I found Eating the Elephant to be like reading someone’s diary after it had been torn apart. The “climax” of the story happens right at the beginning and the rest of the book is a messy timeline that didn’t make much sense to me. Eating the Elephant could have been so much more but unfortunately, it falls short.
It was my future mother-in-law that recommended the second book of the month. She mentioned her mother-in-law had read this book countless times and had passed it over to her to read. She actually wanted to pass it over to me but had recently given it to a local charity shop and the shop had already sold it by the time I went to visit. Regardless, I got hold of the book and positively devoured it.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini* follows the story of a girl born out of wedlock in Afghanistan. Her life is met with tragedy but after forming an alliance with a local teenage girl she once resented, she finds strength in herself to do the unthinkable and ultimately, become the true heroine of the story. I actually felt a little sad while reading this book because of how much hardship surrounds this one character but at the same time, I remained hopeful and I don’t think I’ve ever felt that strongly towards a story before. A Thousand Splendid Suns is such a compelling read I really wish I could go back and read it again for the first time!
Finally, we have the dreaded third book; the book that destroyed my reading mojo. I don’t know why I read it, I know fine well I detest young adults books and have done before I even hit the “young adult” age. I’ve always found YA books too easy to read regardless of what subject matter they’re covering. They’re not my cup of tea but for some reason, I picked up The Manifesto on How to be Interesting by Holly Bourne* and I still regret it.
The Manifesto on How to be Interesting features every cliché to exist in YA. It features high school age characters, the protagonist is a loser who suddenly becomes popular, there’s a boy everyone fancies who of course is interested in the former loser girl, the characters are rich and the mean girls get their comeuppance in the end. This isn’t the Manifesto on How to be Interesting; this is the Manifesto on how to Write a YA Book.
With the exception of A Thousand Splendid Suns, I’m extremely disappointed with April’s reading choices. The YA book was a lapse in judgement but I really hoped Eating the Elephant would be extremely thought-provoking. I guess you can’t win them all but I least I’ve learnt a good lesson for May’s reading; don’t read books you don’t like!
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