Beat The Backlist 2025 - April Update

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Today I'm sharing my fourth update for my April progress on the year long Beat The Backlist 2025 reading challenge, hosted by Austine Decker.  You can see my original tbr here.  In April, I completed 4 books for a total of 19 read so far out of 24 total books on my tbr.  Without further ado, keep reading to see my thoughts on the books I read in April:

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House of Marionne (House of Marionne #1) by J. Elle is one of those books where the premise sounds much better than the final product. It's like it mashes up several YA favorites, but doesn't wind up with what made those work so well. More often than not I found myself both confused and annoyed by the world-building, the one dimensional characters, and all of the terms/ events aren't explained to the reader. This book had plenty of potential, now if only it could have lived up to it.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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The Boy on the Bridge (The Girl With All the Gifts #2) by M.R. Carey is a pretty great prequel/ companion to  The Girl With All the Gifts.  It's set about 20 years earlier and I felt pretty invested in the story we get here.  I wouldn't quite say that I loved it as much as the original story, but I still couldn't look away.  It was definitely interesting to see the parallels between our characters here and those we meet in book one.  If you're a fan of the author, you can't miss this.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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Chill Factor (Weather Warden #3) by Rachel Caine was such a fun return for me to this series.  It had been far too long since I read the first too books, but I'm glad this had a handy little recap.  So much happened that I can't wait to see what's next.  I definitely won't wait as long between installments next time. I always like checking out the playlist Caine includes with her books as well.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

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Victorious (The Lost Fleet #6) by Jack Campbell is the finale of one part of a larger overarching sci-fi series.  I really enjoyed how it ended too.  I think I'll be back for some of the further adventures sometime in the future.  Military sci-fi isn't usually my favorite thing, but (and I know I've said it before) this one really hooked me.

My review is also on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.

Are you participating in this challenge?  Have you read these books?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!