Monthly Wrap-Up, January to April 2018

As it's the first time for me doing this, welcome to my Monthly Wrap-Up. It's supposed to be a Wrap-Up for the month of April but as I've been wanting to start that wrap-up serie since the January but never did, let's call it a first-quarter-of-the-year Wrap-Up.

Let's talk about books

Even if I'm not the fastest reader in the book blogging community, books have a huge importance in my life. Always with a book (or rather a e-reader when I'm outside) in my hand, it's my go-to activity whenever I have some down time. As a result, I managed to read and finish around 10 books up to this day. One half being in french, the other half being in english, here are the books I read in 2018 :

• They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera
• Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano
• L'amie prodigieuse by Elena Ferrante
• Neverland by Maxime Chattam
• Oz by Maxime Chattam
• Murder on The Orient Express by Agatha Christie
• Avec le corps qu'elle a... by Christine Orban

Different books, different languages and especially different genres and writing styles, it's hard to pick a favorite. But I would say :

• The best saga: Autre-Monde by Maxime Chattam (Oz and Neverland)
• The most instructive: How To Be Everything by Emily Wapnick
• The deepest: L'amie Prodigieuse (My Brilliant Friend) by Elena Ferrante — Read my review.

As I'm writing this post I'm currently reading History is all you left me by Adam Silvera.

What about music?

I love music and i like to classify all my most interesting music discoveries in my Monthly playlist on Spotify allowing me to go back on my musical influences and tastes at a particular period of time. There is no particular organisation in it, just a way of randomly keeping track of everything.

In the past few months I've been listening to quite different yet interesting musical genres, usually Rock, Metal, Pop Punk, Jazz, R&B and maybe a bit of pop. But, more than anything I've been listening to a lot of movie soundtracks. Whether while working, reading or writing, I just loved diving again in the ambiance of my favorite movies.

Here are some samples I would suggest you to listen this month :

• The Shape of Water Original Soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat
• More than Words by Extreme
• No Name (album) by NF

And some other very mainstream songs that I have listened on repeat :

Playinwithme by Kyle & Kehlani

Obviously, I had to listen to it on repeat. And as I'm writing this post I just realized the music video is out!

Friends by Marshmello & Anne-Marie

This one actually comes with a story I won't talk about on the blog, but it made me laugh very much. Plus it's a very catchy song !

Movie Time 🎞

Alright, so considering the number of movie reviews I post around here, you have probably figured that I'm a cinema aficionado by now.  According to my schedule and workload, I'm usually at the movies once to twice a week, or I watch movies at home. In April, I watched :

• Game Night
• Infinity War

Even though all of them were very good, as you guess, my absolute favorite is Avengers: Infinity War!

Here's the next movie I'm about to watch :

Articles I published this month

At the end of March, I was really motivated for my blog and I even published more than 3 articles in the span of the week (which is a lot for me). But as a result of the overwhelming feeling I had right after my birthday, I didn't get to publish as much as I expected. At least not for the beginning of the month. But I managed to finally catch my breath and publish some content :

• I feel lost. — I tried to find some words to tell you how I felt, some words to explain this dizziness and overwhelming feeling of pain I had at the beginning of the month.
• The Shape of Water: accepting and embracing the difference  — One of my favorite movies of 2018 as of now (right between Ready Player One and The Greatest Showman). And the review is one of my most detailed post!
• Game Night: let's play a game tonight! — Not usually my type of movies, but I really liked this one!

Let's share the love 💛

The first quarter of the year have been quite interesting for me. I got to meet, discover and become friends with so many beautiful souls around the blogosphere. I also discovered quite a lot of things, concepts, apps and ideas that have helped me grow in a way. So here is my turn to share the love :

• I am Strong But My Soul is Exhausted by Mitzi J Hernandez — Beautiful and so inspiring soul, Mitzi has so many ideas. Fun fact: this article is my go-to text whenever I feel bad and I got to connect and even become internet friend with the awesome writer behind the blog,
• What Attracts Me to a Blog by Lara Kareem — Special Mention to my now very good friend Lara. An amazing blogger, and incredible friend and such an inspiring woman. She deserves all the love and you should definitely check out her blog!
• Is book Blogging still relevant by Drizzle and Hurricane Books — So creative, so inspiring and so kind, I really think Marie should be appointed Knight (is there such a word for woman?) of the Book Blogging Community. Every trip to her blog makes me leave enlightened.

Let's chat

What about you? What is the best piece of content (book, movie, music, article, etc.) you came across this year?