Hayley

"If you look the right way you can see that the whole world is a garden." In honour of spring, the April giveaway is a print of this wonderful quote from The Secret Garden (thanks, once again to www.thestorygift.co.uk) along with a Secret Garden tea (Victoria Sponge flavoured!) from the Literary Tea Company! (You can find them both at their own website theliteraryteacompany.co.uk and at their etsy store www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LiteraryTeaCompany ). As always, patreon supporters will be entered automatically and if you don't support but want to be included in this month's giveaway you can join the patreon here: www.patreon.com/bookclubforum A winner will be chosen at random on the last day of the month! (As long as I remember that it is the last day of the month this time )

Apologies for the delay on this one, April really crept up on me! The winner of the March giveaway is... @vodkafan! Congratulations

Great review of Bellman and Black, I agree completely. I really can't understand why so many synopses refer to this book as a ghost story, and even make out that it's tense or scary, because it just isn't. Very little actually happens and it's very metaphorical. I think if I'd known that when I started reading I would have liked it more.

Hi, welcome to the forum! I assumed, before I read that it's your nickname, that Moonie was a reference to the Harry Potter books. It's a great nickname though! What kind of books do you like?

Hi Jaymer, welcome to the forum! I haven't read the Throne of Glass books but I have heard from others that they're good. What other books do you like?

Thanks @muggle not I haven't been reading as much for the last couple of weeks but I do have two reviews to catch up on. Firstly: The Corset by Laura Purcell 4/5 - I really liked it The Corset is divided between two narratives, one from a wealthy young woman (Dorothea Truelove) and one from Ruth Butterham, a poor girl who's in prison awaiting trail for murder. Along with the Victorian setting, this instantly reminded me of Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, which I loved. It's actually quite different, apart from the prisoner / prison visitor relationship and the question of insanity. The tone is much more gothic horror in The Corset. This is one of those books that I'm finding it really hard to review without giving anything away... without saying anything that isn't already in the blurb: as Ruth reveals her story to Dorothea, she starts to wonder whether Ruth really is a murderer after all, because Ruth believes she has killed with nothing more than a needle and thread. In the mean time, we start to discover that Dorothea's life is more complicated than it appears on the surface. Both characters are brilliantly crafted. At the beginning I thought Dorothea was just there as a device for Ruth to tell her own story, but she really develops as her own very unique character throughout the book. There are some really shocking moments in the stories of both women and some very dark scenes. It really draws you in, both with the brilliant mystery of Ruth and the perfectly gothic atmosphere that Purcell creates. The one reason I didn't give five stars is I wasn't sure about the ending. I'm still not sure about the ending and I actually finished this book weeks ago. Partly this is because I think there's a point in the plot that's a little bit 'but why wouldn't they just have...'. The second thing is harder to say. So as not to give anything away, I'll just say this... I literally did not understand the ending until I read the author's explanation of it. And I'm not completely sure that's a good thing. Overall though it was a really enjoyable read and, whether the ending was good or bad, it certainly stuck in my head! Blood Rites by Jim Butcher 3.5/5 - I really liked it, but it had some problems I feel like I'm starting to develop a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Dresden Files. I really love the concept, the world, all the crazy characters and the unlikely supernatural scrapes that Dresden gets himself into but sometimes it just makes me want to cringe and roll my eyes. I don't want to say they're sexist but... at one point a female police officer has to have her trousers taken off to disarm a bomb that's potentially going to blow up some children, and afterwards she muses about how she felt in that moment because "it's been a really long time since a good-looking man took my pants off. I sort of forgot how much I enjoyed it" (see what I mean about the cringe?). It doesn't really help that in this particular book, a lot of it is related to the porn industry. And, of course, there were those unnecessary times, present in every book, where Dresden has to point out how much he can't stand to see women get hurt and how this triggers his protective instincts. But, apart from that, these are genuinely good books. We get to find out a little bit more about Dresden's past and his mysterious mother in this one, which was great because that mystery's been building since the first book. There are plenty of the great tense 'how's he going to get out of this one...' moments and a sufficiently tricky mystery to be solved. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens in the next book.

It's been really lovely here today and was yesterday, I didn't even need a coat! Here's a picture I took of the sunset last night as evidence

I'm so glad somebody else remembers it! I really did think I'd imagined it! I wonder why I couldn't find it though... if I look again now it will probably be right there . 'To be honest, I haven't been able to remember clearly everything that happened to me before and during the Trial, so where necessary I've filled in with possibilities - lies, if you want.' - Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin

Hi! I’m a bit late to this but, for children’s audiobooks, maybe Harry Potter, or The Hobbit? I really like the version of The Hobbit read by Rob Inglis, I think he has a really relaxing voice. For something like Sherlock Holmes, maybe try Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin stories, if you haven’t read them already (I think there’s just three - The Purloined Letter, The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget). I hope your exams are going well!

You can get flat bookends that would do the job perfectly but anything heavy should work, even just other books

I can definitely see why it becomes stressful having multiple read-a-thons when you have to choose specific books. I don't think I would like that either. And I suppose BookTube adds an extra layer of pressure, because if you've said you will do that read-a-thon you feel like you have to, even if you just really don't feel like reading those particular books that day. I don't think you should need to make a separate video explaining about not doing read-a-thons. If somebody asks you why you aren't doing them as much you can always just explain in a quick comment. I do think it would be very unreasonable for anybody to be offended that you find lots of read-a-thons too stressful anyway. People just enjoy different things! I wouldn't mind at all if you wanted to move the April read-a-thon forward and I think everybody else would probably be fine with it too. If even the Actually Autistic read-a-thon alone would be stressful that week I don't think you should feel like you have to do that either. As you said, it was a while ago that you said you'd participate, and people would understand that things come up. If you wanted to be involved still you could maybe do something like a mini video of which books you would have chosen, or your favourite books by actually autistic authors (I think I remember that you've read some before?) to help other people choose what you read. I know you worry about offending people or letting people down because you're such a lovely person, but it is your channel, and it should be fun for you and not stressful. The same applies here, if the read-a-thon is ever stressful don't feel bad about suggesting a new date for it. You created it and you organise it, so you definitely have the right to do that!

@Roderick99 I was sceptical about bubble tea until my sister got me to try it, it's such a weirdly nice texture! I just had beans on toast, one of my favourite simple things

Hi, welcome to the forum I think it might be that the books are sagging slightly at the back while they're on the shelf, I've had that happen to paperback books before. Do they completely fill the shelf? You could try making sure the books are quite tightly pushed together at the back, so they're completely upright all the way along. The best way to flatten them back into shape would probably be to lie them flat and put something heavy, like some other books, on top of them, that's worked for me!

I have to say, I think it's really impressive that you manage to keep up with recording and editing video reviews of all your books, especially when you read so much! I particularly like the cover of The Poet X. I've never read an entire novel in verse before, did you still feel like you got to know the characters properly? Glad you've generally enjoyed all of your recent books anyway, you've had lots of various read-a-thons to do!

Great reviews! I was looking at The Knife of Never Letting Go myself and thought the intentional spelling mistakes might be annoying to read, so it's good to hear that you ended up liking that element! Interesting thoughts on Eleanor Oliphant too. I haven't read it but I was actually thinking the other day about how some books seem to get far more attention (even before release, so not necessarily because readers love it) than others and I think that was one of those books. I can actually picture the cover of Eleanor Oliphant instantly because I've seen it so much, even though I've never actually picked it up.

I think that would actually have been the more sensible way to do it, since then you have more options for your team in the game, but I just missed loads. I think I’m still only on about 45% of the Pokédex! I like seeing what I can find in the worm holes too! The water type is particularly cute in the new trailer. Is there a reason you usually go for the water type? Is it for a tactical purpose or are they just your favourites usually?

I can see blue sky! It feels like spring again. Although we did still have plenty of wind and rain this morning...

I have Flowers for Algernon on my ‘to-read’ list too and had heard that it’s very sad. I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m glad your writing is going so well too, that’s great! I have no doubt that you’ll have work published soon

I’m glad you liked it! The Hangman sounds interesting, I like a good mystery. I have seen it in shops before but didn’t realise it was part of a series.

We had that crazy rain in the midlands too! Today was really windy here as well but at least it wasn't as wet. (I like that the Never Ending Song Titles are about rain at the moment - very appropriate )

Me too @Athena! I think I want the grass type . I definitely think it will be the old fashioned way of catching pokemon, I think I remember them saying that they'd still release traditional games when they did the Let's Go games. I tried the demo of Let's Go Pikachu but it just didn't feel as fun. I'm still playing Sun, I've finished the story but I like trying to collect all the pokemon!

It’s so addictive! I actually spent ages just gathering ingredients and cooking. I was looking at Octopath Traveller but I wasn’t sure if it seemed worth the price. I think it has a demo now so I might give that a try. I think Mario Odyssey is on sale at the moment too so I’ll have a look at that Does anybody else like the Pokemon games? They’ve announced the next one (sword and shield) and I can’t wait to play it!

Would you prefer a particular genre? What type of books do you usually like?

A predictable thriller is very underwhelming... if you’re not invested in finding out what happens next it really defeats the point of the genre doesn’t it? Hope you enjoy your new books!

How about the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (the first book is Storm Front)? It has a male protagonist, lots of supernatural creatures (including vampires and demons) and romance. Welcome to the forum by the way