The April Wrap: There Were Showers But Will There Be Flowers?

Happy may! We’ve made it through the weird rainy weather, and I’m full of hope that there will be better, more sunshiney days ahead.

This month was a rough one for me emotionally. I was filled with a bottomless pit of anxiety for the vast majority of the four week span. Life is hard, and my day job is certainly causing its fair amount of stress. All of this has finally started taking a toll on my ability to be creative. I haven’t been writing nearly as much, the podcast has been more of a drain on my mental state than a joy, and the new ideas that typically bombard me have been content to dance along the peripheries of my mind. I have this burning desire to do something, but what that is I just can’t figure out.

Times like this happen, I know, but normally when I’m unhappy with one thing I’m doing it’s because I want to put more of my energy towards something else. It’s rare for me to feel completely and totally unsure of what I want to do, especially because I’m not even depressed! I don’t want to be doing nothing! I just cannot wrap my mind around what it is I want to be doing. Does anyone relate to that?

That was a bit of an emotional dump, but back to business! The “m” key on my laptop is currently broken, meaning that I have to copy-paste it each time I use it. If there’s weird capitalization in this article, it’s because I was too lazy to standardize it and find the capital “m”! Apologies!

Books I Read

I didn’t read a ton this month, finishing just one physical book (NW) and four audiobooks. Of the books that I did read, I enjoyed all of them! I’m happy with my breakdown of nonfiction versus fiction books; lately I haven’t been reading enough nonfiction and I want to change that going into the next few months.

She Said, by Jodi Kantor and megan Twohey (5 stars)
Happy Place, by Emily Henry (4 stars)
NW, by Zadie Smith (4 stars)
The Villa, by Rachel Hawkins (4.5 stars)
Radical Intimacy, by Sophie K Rosa (4.5 stars)

TV I Watched

Abbott Elementary came to an end, and I’m watching Succession and Yellowjackets as they air, so it’s been a slow month in terms of TV watching! This resulted in me starting Firefly Lane, which is coming to an end, and boy what a ride that’s been.

Succession Seasons 1-4 (currently airing)
Abbott Elementary Season 2
Yellowjackets Season 2 (currently airing)
Firefly Lane Season 1

Movies I Watched

I hadn’t watched many movies until the last weekend of the month, at which point I binged five of these six all at once. I developed a temporary documentary obsession and I couldn’t stop. Reminder that you can keep up with everything I’m watching in real time by following me on Letterboxd.

call me by your name
tangerine
pretty baby: brooke shields
the l word mississippi: hate the sin
miss americana
orgasm inc: the story of one taste

Reviews You Can Use

Sometimes, we publish reviews long after we actually consume the material. Below is a list of all of the reviews we published this month, in case you want to read some reviews right now.

Books

get in my swamp, by gm fairy (3 stars)
happy place, by emily henry (4 stars)
twelve hours in manhattan, by maan gabriel (2 stars)
adult drama, by natalie beach (3 stars)
beauty reborn, by elizabeth lowham (3.25 stars)
hang the moon, by jeannette walls (4.5 stars)

Posts We Wrote That You Loved

It has been brought to my attention that it would be far easier (and less repetitive) to fill in this section of the monthly wrap if I made the list of posts on a month delay. For instance, since April just ended, I will talk about the 6 most popular march posts here. This way, articles will stop being punished for being released the last day of the month. Also, it’ll be a great reminder of old posts you may have forgotten to read. So, here are the most popular posts of last month!