April in a Reading Slump
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April starts off with one of the worst reading slumps I’ve ever been in. I just have not had the motivation or desire to read much lately and it sucks.
As May begins, though, I think I’m getting back to it.
Authors are getting into controversy yet again, so let’s talk about it.
Monthly Stats
This was a romance month! As you can tell, I loved each book I read.
What I Read
Each book this month was an electronic advanced reader copy (eARC) from NetGalley. One was a re-read.
The first book I read this month was When the Tides Held the Moon by Vanessa Vida Kelly. It was released on April 22, 2025.
It’s a historical fiction/fantasy LGBTQ+ romance, and it was a beautiful read. This author perfectly captured the time period in the way she wrote the setting and the characters’ interactions. The author also included art in her book to show certain scenes and I loved it!! It was such a nice touch.
The romance was so sweet and genuine between Benny and Rio. They come to trust each other and learn about each other, while learning about themselves in the process.
The characters in the book are diverse, and what I love about this book is that the author doesn’t treat them as background characters. They each bond with Benny in a different way, and we learn about them more than just surface-level.
I rated this five stars, and I definitely recommend this book.
The next book I read was No Ordinary Love by Myah Ariel. It was released on April 1st, 2025.
I really enjoyed this! It’s a contemporary romance between a popstar, Ella Simone, and Miles Westbrook, a major league baseball player. Ella is currently going through a divorce with her ex-husband, Elliot Majors, who is a music producer who helped Ella garner hits and win awards.
Miles is an absolute sweetheart in this book. He is a great love interest, and one of my favourite parts of the book is that there is no stupid third-act breakup. They talk through their troubles.
The author portrayed great relationships between Ella and her friends and manager. They support her completely through her divorce process, and it’s never one-sided; Ella supports her friends back.
The few issues I had with this book included the short-lived tension between Ella and Miles. Their relationship didn’t have as much build-up as I would’ve liked. It felt like they were in love so quickly into it.
After Ella’s divorce, she talks about not wanting to jump right into another relationship, but she kind of does with Miles. I think having more scenes between them would’ve been really nice.
Another thing that kind of threw me off was the couple of flashbacks we got showing Ella and Elliot’s relationship. The thing is, is that they didn’t really add anything to the story? They seemed random and did not showcase Elliot’s horrible behaviour.
Regardless, I’m glad Elliot got what he deserved. The ending was a bit rushed, but Myah Ariel is a fantastic writer, so I will definitely be looking out for her future novels.
I rated this one four stars.
Lastly, I re-read Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone. It was released March 4th, 2025, and I read this originally back in November 2024.
This book. How do I describe it? It’s beautiful, heart-wrenching, will make you cry, but also believe in love, kick your feet as you read, and a lot of other things.
Lenny is grieving the loss of her best friend. She takes a babysitting job and meets a grumpy stranger, Miles, who promises to help her live again. In return, Lenny helps Miles connect with his niece, Ainsley, whom Lenny is babysitting.
I loved this book. Re-reading it helped me rediscover why I loved it in the first place, and I’m so glad I decided to re-read it. I need to re-read more books.
Lenny is a very unique fmc. She is so funny, I swear, I’m laughing constantly at her inner monologue (and her outer one, too), she is wild, and wears her emotions so openly. The way she handles grief in this book made me cry multiple times as I read.
Miles, on the other hand, is such an amazingly written love interest. He is grumpy and misunderstood in the beginning, but he is seriously a softy. The connection that Lenny and Miles create is so special and unbreakable. They know each other so deeply that it is probably impossible for them to do anything to make the other leave.
Here is a quote that I think should convince you to read this book:
“This is a love story, I swear. This is what happens when you’ve promised someone you’ll live again.”
It is a love story, but it also navigates the complex and difficult feelings surrounding grief and how you move on from the death of a loved one.
When I first read this, I rated it 4.5 stars, but on the re-read, I bumped it up to a 5.
Not a big reading month for me, but at least the quality of the books I read was high.
Authors have been the ones causing a lot of controversy on BookTok lately. This time, I’m actually on the side of one of the authors I’ll talk about.
Abby Jimenez #1 SJM Fan
Abby Jimenez’s new book, Say You’ll Remember Me, came out on April 1st, 2025. I was actually excited to read it, because I enjoyed Just For the Summer by her when I read it last year.
The reason this book has created such an uproar in the bookish community is because of the abundance of ACOTAR references in it. And it’s not just on the ACOTAR-haters’ side, it’s on the ACOTAR-lovers’ side as well.
A lot of SJM fans talked about how cringey it was to read the constant reference to Rhysand in her book to describe the main love interest. He was mentioned about ten times, twice in twenty pages.
Jimenez loves to put modern references and slang in her books. She also loves referencing McDonald’s and Starbucks as seemingly the only available restaurants in the whole universe of her books. It ruined the immersion for me in Just For the Summer, and I opted to ignore them in favour of the romance plot, but she puts it everywhere.
With how much controversy SJM has been in lately, I feel like it’s very pointed to add so many references to her and her books in her own work. It’s also just weird. It’s like when an author references Harry Potter in any way in their books. It just doesn’t work the way they think it will.
This put Jimenez off my TBR list indefinitely. There’s honestly probably nothing she can do to make her books desirable to me.
Trump Supporters Getting a Taste of Their Own Medicine
All throughout April, author Emily Rath was in the hot seat when she made a bold statement on her TikTok page. She told Trump supporters that her page is not a safe space for them, and questioned why they would like her books, considering that she includes queer relationships and other “woke” stuff the Trumpies hate.
Emily Rath is the author of multiple hockey romance books. I haven’t read any of them, but let’s just say, many people were suddenly interested in her books when they found out just how adamantly anti-Trump she is.
As expected, Trump supporters were furious. I find it very funny because they are the ones who preach “separate the art from the artist” when people point out how their favourite authors are problematic. But as soon as it affects them, suddenly the artist is very attached to their art, and they can’t separate the two.
It’s not new that Trump supporters only care when things affect them. But to have it so blatantly displayed here is ironic. It’s too bad that they can’t extend that logic outside of their own periphery and see why books are political and an author’s politics do affect their novels.
Trump supporters made many videos of Rath insulting her and throwing away her books, if they had any. Many swore off her books, which is just funny because Rath doesn’t care, as she made the statement in the first place of her page not being a safe space for them.
Again, if only Trump supporters could extend that logic to actual problematic authors and see why it affects people.
Colonizer Master x Colonized Slave Romance
Another book that took BookTok by storm was Firebird by Juliette Cross. Now, there are many issues with this book and its marketing.
If you haven’t heard of it, Firebird came out on April 8th, 2025. It’s set in Ancient Rome with a Roman conqueror general named Julian, and a Dacian dancer named Malina.
Historically, Dacia was conquered by Rome, and apparently, the author was so entranced by that event that she wanted to create a romantasy book based on it. However, she didn’t do it well. At all.
Malina is a Dacian dancer, yet Cross conflates Dacian, Roman, and Romani people. She puts a lot of Romani stereotypes on Malina and throughout the story, too.
When Julian takes an initial interest in Malina, she is a minor. She is doing a very provocative dance on the first few pages (and it is described that way in the book), which is worrisome because of her age, and Julian likes it. They don’t get into a relationship then, but it is still weird that a grown man liked how a minor was dancing and found it attractive. The man’s “dragon” was screaming at him to “mate” her.
Another big thing everyone had an issue with is the master x slave “romance” this book turned into. Firebird was never marketed as such, so a lot of people went in blind, not expecting it. There is no mention of this dynamic in the synopsis or trigger warning page. I think it has since been added to the TW page, though.
While the master x slave “trope”, for lack of a better term, is problematic, it is between a colonizer and the colonized. Which is not okay. However, as always, BookTok will defend it.
People who loved the book defend it, saying it’s “not that deep” and other things. White people are defending it hard, saying POC should “not have an issue with this”.
In this video, there is a comment that says this under the author’s post on Instagram:
“POC shouldn’t be having an issue with it, it literally has nothing to do with them. This book is historically accurate to the time of the Roman Empire. Which had very little, next to nothing to do with POC. The main character is not considered a POC, she’s from what is considered modern day Romania where some people have slightly darker skin, they are still culturally and scientifically considered Caucasian. And the main character is not, at any point, a real slave.”
There is a lot to unpack here.
Firstly, the author liked the comment and replied with three hearts, showing her clear agreement with the comment. Which is disgusting and contradicts many things in her own book.
As the video I linked above points out, Juliette Cross literally puts in the opening of her book that it is not meant to be historically accurate, and she took creative liberties with the story. So, the author directly contradicts herself.
Another thing is that the commenter says she’s never a “real slave”, even though Julian point-blank tells her that she is now his “body slave”. Which is a slave. So, wrong again.
The commenter says she is not considered a “POC”, which is strange. Romani people have origins in South-East Asia, and the author projects Romani stereotypes onto Malina. She is a person of colour. The author also uses Kohl in the book on Malina, which originated in ancient Egypt, not Rome. So, Cross is cherry-picking aspects of different cultures and placing them onto the Dacian main character.
This makes the claim that people of colour should not be upset very ignorant and clearly shows the lack of research and education that went into this book, and with the author herself. Blatantly brushing off the concerns that people of colour have with this book is gross and insensitive.
White people will always love using people of colour’s culture, but will never give them their proper credit or acknowledge when they’ve handled it offensively.
Another ridiculous thing I’ve been seeing is that people are defending Julian, saying he’s “one of the good slave-owners” because he doesn’t kill or rape his slaves, he treats them “nicely”. Again, absolutely disgusting rhetoric and in a bookish space, it is truly astonishing. There is no critical thinking present here, and it shows that these people read their books with their eyes closed.
It is problematic if you don’t see the issue with this book, period. The author hasn’t taken any accountability and continues to not see the issue with what she wrote. I can proudly say I will never read anything by this author.
Conclusion
This year so far has been very wild, and a lot of authors have been exposing themselves. Emily Rath, though, is a true gem who has been irrefutable in her beliefs.
Hoping May is a better book month for me. I need to get out of this book slump!
What have you guys read last month? Let me know your thoughts.