Monthly Wrap-Up | April 2022

Hey everyone! Welcome or welcome back to my blog!

April really, really flew by. I know I say this for practically every month, but I don’t know how April flew by so fast. It was just April 1st when I pulled a prank on y’all and boom, here we are on 30th April.

Anyway, welcome to my monthly rant, where I share the highlights of my month. Feel free to skim read, although this month’s rant is pretty interesting after the first paragraph.

April was a weird month. I was, still am, super stressed about my boards, and I, um, have ended up ghosting all of my friends. To be fair, they haven’t really texted me either, although I did ask them to leave me alone, but oh well, I need these periods to keep my sanity intact. Friends, if you’re reading this, I am sorry, I’ll reach out to you soon.

Other than that, I ended up requesting a bunch of ARCs, and then I ended up feeling overwhelmed because of that, since I don’t have that much time to read. Oops, I guess?

What is more, I got addicted to a K-drama in the middle of the month. Yes, folks, you read that right, I, Riddhi Bhargava, started a K-drama. I actually read this book called The Noh Family (review coming on May 3rd!), and I enjoyed the very K-drama like setting, and I thought to myself, why don’t I try one? And I did try one called The Business Proposal, and really enjoyed the drama! To be fair, I was rooting for Jin Young-Seo and Cha Sung-Hoon (the side characters) more than Kang Tae-Moo and Shin Ha-ri (the main characters of the story). Young-Seo and Sung-Hoon are my OTP, ngl.
But on another note, leave your K-drama recommendations in the comments, since I do intend to binge watch stuff in July (I have entrances in early July😭😭, so no relief after boards, either😭😭), and that includes a lot of Stranger Things, trying to start The Office (like finally), maybe HIMYM (another popular sitcom I haven’t watched), Euphoria and there’s also Modern Family. So, yes, I intend to binge a lot of stuff before heading to college.

Oh, also, very irrelevant, but I lost my 48-day Wordle streak😭😭 I even opened my laptop that day, but I just forgot. Maybe this is a sign I should start playing it on my phone instead. Hmm, interesting. Also, Rachel @A Bookworm’s Paradise suggested I try Duotigordle and Maya @Pretty Little Scribbles suggested I try Taylordle and both are extremely fun, so I suggest you guys try those out as well!

Another good thing that happened this month was that there’s this South Indian food station in my city, where they make the most amazing dosas, and guess who went there after over two years? That’s right, me! And the thing is they are just open from like 6 A.M. to 8:30 A.M. in the morning, so like you have to be up early in the morning, but you know me, I have lately found it difficult to wake up early, let alone go out to eat that early, so my genius brain pulled an all-nighter, and as a treat went there to eat breakfast! I fell asleep at nine in the morning that day, but honestly, it was worth it. I had two super delicious dosas and one idli, and it was soo good. Twas very yum yum.
For those of you who haven’t eaten dosas or idlis or South Indian cuisine, peeps, you be missing out. North Indian’s good, but South Indian cuisine’s the real deal.

The dosa is the long cylindrical roll and idlis are the white round things. The bowl contains sambhar, which is also super tasty!

Oh, also, there’s this stand-up comedy bit by Kenny Sebastian on dosas, which will further elaborate on my point. I’ve linked it below:

The stand-up’s in English, so all of you can watch it!

Blogging-wise the month was pretty mediocre, since I posted like 12 times as compared to the 30 I used to, but I did end up being able to get interviews for a few blog tours, so that’s a win! But overall, I doubt I gained more than 40 followers this month, and while I know it’s not about the followers, it’s still a motivation factor, right. And I am super sorry I haven’t been that active on the blogosphere. But maybe it’s just my feed, but there isn’t a lot of great content on it lately either :((

Oh, and my sleep schedule is like totally messed up right now. I am working on like 5-6 hours of sleep instead of my usual 8 hours- I need my beauty sleep, y’all. I mean, like in a week, most days I sleep for like 6 hours, and the one day I sleep for eight hours. I am so tired at the moment, I wish I could drop everything and sleep and say, Wake Me Up when September Ends. If you got the reference, you’ve great music taste.
I want to tell my sleep timings as well, but that will make your head go round. So, all I am saying is afternoon naps>>>sleeping at night.

Okay, wow, that was a 650 words starting rant, that’s gotta be a record.

Anyway, let’s get to the wrap-up!

Books I read this month:

I read seven books this month, which isn’t too bad, but I could’ve done better, since I wasted a lot of time on YT and Netflix this month. Oh, well. Here are the books I read:

1. Very Bad People by Kit Frick
2. The Matchbreaker Summer by Annie Rains
3. Grow Up, Tahlia Wilkins! by Karina Evans
4. Nate Plus One by Kevin Van Whye
5. The Noh Family by Grace K. Shim
6. Twelfth by Janet Key
7. A Little Bit Country by Brian Kennedy

You can head over to my Goodreads to check all the reviews out!

Movies and TV shows I watched this month:

I watched one movie this month- 83, which is a Hindi film based on 1983 Cricket World Cup India won, and it’s honestly super inspiring! It was 2 hours and 40 mins long but they flew by! It’s amazing, and I am so happy I finally got around to watching it.

As for TV shows, I watched the K-drama, The Business Proposal, as I mentioned previously and I also got back into The Big Bang Theory a bit. Boy, that show’s long! I am on the 12th season, so I am guessing I’ll be done by mid-May. It’s not very addictive, so I am not hooked, and I watch it occasionally.

Songs I heard this month:

LET ME DOWN EASY (LIE) AND AS IT WAS ARE LITERAL MASTERPIECES, AND NOTHING YOU SAY WILL CHANGE MY MIND.

Ahem, sorry for shouting at y’all like that, but I just got overexcited. Here’s the link to my playlist for the month, a lot of the songs are from March, but it’s a good playlist.

Since exam season’s around as well, I had another motivational songs playlist, which you can find below!

P.S.- Why Don’t We’s releasing a new song soon, and I literally CANNOT wait!

My favourite blog posts of the month:

As you may have noticed, a lot of my blog posts were blog tours this month. Well, three, but that’s still like 25%. Buut, May has seven of them. Just a heads up.

Anyways, my favourite posts of the month are:

1. Book Tours: What are they and How to Sign up for them?
   
2. 5 Struggles of Being an Indian Reader
   
3. The Ultimate YA Contemporary Book Recommendations List (of 51 books!)
   
4. Book Genres as School Teachers
5. Struggles of an Indian Lover of foreign music

My Favourite Posts From Around the Blogosphere:

I didn’t really blog hop a lot this month, but these are my favourite posts!

1. Rania @Moonlit Notes did a post on desi representation, and how sometimes it’s super inaccurate and stereotypical. A must-read!
   
2. Sofii @A Book. A Thought shared 3 Literary Genres she wants to read more of, and some great books on her TBR!
   
3. Kaya @A Fictional Bookworm did a post on problematic characters and asked a very important question regarding them!
   
4. Sheri @Read Betwixt Words created a book tag on COVID-19!
   
5. Rabhya @Rab’s Bookish Planet did a wonderful post on the question: Are Readers Patient?

Goals for May:

1. Be more active on the blogosphere
2. Post at least 7 non-blog tour posts
3. Try not (Read- DO NOT in red letters!) to sign up for more blog tours or request more ARCs
4. Score well in boards !!! (It’s funny to think this time next month, I’ll be done with more than half of my board exams, more than half of the last step to finishing school.)
5. STAY ALIVE (This is a common goal for every month- DO NOT JUDGE)

How was your April? What’s something you’re looking forward to in May? Let me know in the comments down below!!