Books from April 2025

Mini book reviews and recommendations from my month of reading.

Sundaze Book Café is the home of everyday magic, joyful living and conversations likely to be had over a hot drink with a friend in your favourite café, capturing the syrup-slow feel and glow of a Sunday. I’m Michelle, and I’ll be your host today.

If March was my month of returning to books that felt like they gave me a sense of self, then April has been my month of reading about social issues and opening my eyes to causes outside of my own. Somehow, I keep finding good books in conversation with one another, and it’s really elevating my experience. Writing these monthly round-ups is great if only for being able to reflect on my reading and connect the dots a little!

I also read two non-fiction books this month, something I haven’t done in months and months. I have a fair amount of nature non-fiction to get through, so perhaps I should make a commitment to pick up one non-fiction a month, until the end of the year. And, speaking of the ol’ owned TBR, I am currently feeling fairly overwhelmed by my shelves and am considering popping myself on a three-month book-buying ban. No new books!

Find me on Goodreads and StoryGraph to see what I’m reading and reviewing in real-time.

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April reads

• Sociopath by Patric Gagne

• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

• Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt

• The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

• Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

• Seven Days in Tokyo by José Daniel Alvior

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

In review

Sociopath by Patric Gagne

Rating: N/A

N.B.: I no longer add star ratings to memoir works since it doesn’t seem fair to ‘rate’ somebody’s real, lived experiences.

Patric Gagne is a wife, mother, daughter; and a diagnosed sociopath. And in her eye-opening memoir, she presents her perspective of somebody living with sociopathy. Patric has always made others feel uncomfortable, and she’s always known that she simply doesn’t feel things in the same way as the others. From stabbing a fellow student with a pencil to her lock-picking expertise, Patric is in search of replacing the nothingness with ‘something’.

Sociopath is a really well-written and well-paced memoir. Patric guides you through her childhood, through college – where she confirms her suspicions that she is a sociopath, and also through adulthood in her search for treatment. Of course, I am no mental health or clinical professional, so this felt like a fascinating dive into how Patric became who she is, shedding light on life as a sociopath and how it affected those around her. It was a little repetitive at times, and I found myself wondering whether her sociopathy affected the writing and truthfulness of this book. But maybe that’s just me.

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

Rating: 3.5 stars

"Their screens had unlocked a whole world of differences they hadn’t even known existed."

Perfection is an uncanny study at the modern millennial condition. Anna and Tom are a millennial expat couple, living in Berlin and working as freelancers, keeping house in an apartment furnished with Danish design and potted plants. Through a slightly detached prosaic style, their desperate individualism shines through tightly polished personas and a thought that nothing is truly enough; nothing feels authentic or perfect or real or anything enough. There's no dialogue, just an endless commentary on Anna and Tom striving for self-fulfillment without ever getting to what that might be. Scarily on the nose.

Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt

Thanks Knopf Canada and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy!

Rating: 4 stars

I just love it when I take a chance on a debut author on NetGalley and end up finding a glorious story and budding great writing. Open, Heaven is one of those finds – it’s Irish poet Seán Hewitt’s debut novel – and I adored getting to know James and Luke, two teenage boys who meet in a small village and, over the course of one year, begin to learn the tumultuous nature of first love and desire. It gets off to an undeniably slow start, albeit the beautifully told landscape set-ups on the first couple of pages are magical, and then, like poetry, we tumble into James’s story.

I just love a good coming-of-age story once in a while, and this one demonstrates such simple but life-affirming growth from both James and Luke. I adored the shifting relationship between the main characters, and especially how their varied personalities melded and jumped off the page. But I also enjoyed the light commentary on familial relationships, brotherly bond, the delicacy of the late teenage, coming-of-age years. It’s intimate and brooding and obsessive in that unique teen-aged way, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

Rating: 4 stars

Let me preface this review with a disclaimer that I'm not really a romance genre reader. Yet, I'm trying, and The Seven Year Slip had me captivated. In fact, I really really liked it!

From the magical realism to a conversation about grief and regret, this was a beautifully balanced read that came just when I needed a lighter read and a momentary escape from real life. Clementine is wracked with grief after losing her aunt, somebody she was incredibly close to. (Side note: I sort of wish the author had bridged why Clementine seems to be much closer to her aunt than to her own parents, since there isn’t an estrangement.) When she moves into her aunt’s loft apartment, she soon realises that it really is a magical apartment – Analea wasn’t lying. You see, one evening, she returns home and a time slip has occurred, and a handsome stranger is suddenly living in the apartment as it was seven years ago.

What’s interesting about The Seven Year Slip is that it is full of clichés and it’s obvious there’ll be a happy ending, but I loved it regardless. I often cringe when books are stuffed with a book editor plot, yet this one worked. Clementine is at a career crossroads and there was just enough of this sub-plot to keep things interesting yet balanced. Also, there's minimal 'spice' (I'm just not a fan!), which gets a big plus from me. Instead, there’s a sweet, slowish-burn romance that is only a little bit cheesy. I loved the magical apartment plot, and the conversations about grief and remembering your roots. The perfect spring read.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Rating: 4 stars

If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I’m a huge environmentalist. It’s why I gravitate towards nature non-fiction, it’s why The Overstory by Richard Powers is one of my favourite books, and it’s also why I live the way I do, too. So it stands to reason that Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton has been on my TBR for many months. In this so-called eco-thriller, we follow a collective of characters brought together by a landslide and abandoned farm. Each character has their own connection to the farm, and their individual ideologies are tested as their stories intertwine.

I really enjoyed this book for its environmental commentary and, in turn, conversation about late-stage capitalism and politics. These bigger topics aren’t always for everybody but, for me, they always add fascinating layers to any story, serious or not. And Birnam Wood is the perfect balance – to me, anyway – of serious and fun. Catton paints beautifully in-depth characters and there’s a lighthearted satire that subtly runs throughout. While pacey and propulsive, there’s some beautiful passages in this book and it was a joy to read, as well as to uncover the mini mystery. One suited for those who do enjoy a slower-paced read, and have a vested interest in our planet.

Seven Days in Tokyo by José Daniel Alvior

Thanks Unbound Books and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy!

Rating: 3.25 stars

Seven Days in Tokyo is a quiet and introspective romance that sings with longing and shyness and human connection. In their debut, José Daniel Alvior bestows the story of Louie, a Filipino man awaiting his visa renewal in Tokyo, and Landan, a British expat with a coffee connoisseur tendency from his storied past. In just seven days (duh), their reunion shines with naïve love, hope, yearning, and a slowly unfolding love story. Alvior's light-handed touch to prose and dialogue perfectly suits Louie and Landan's tender, burgeoning love. It is lyrical and simple at the same time, a lovely mirror to the lyrical simplicity of Tokyo, which becomes a character of its own here.

However, I feel like a little 'oomph' was required in the pace just to develop the pair's relationship a little quicker. I found myself yearning for more, although perhaps that was the author's MO all along. I also thought there was perhaps a little too much of Tokyo embedded in here – it may exclude those who haven't visited the city, as the references are rather niche. Also, I had to knock a star off because I hated the random mention of how terrible a Chinese-American character was for no reason aside from their accent? Weird flex.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Rating: 5 stars

This glorious fable-like non-fiction by Robin Wall Kimmerer was the perfect read during spring, as the natural world bloomed into life again. Beautifully told using sweetgrass as a braiding thread, Kimmerer breathes love and life into life at all scales. She generously shares her experiences growing up in and around and near nature, entwining that with Native American mythology and her lived experience as an Indigenous woman, daughter, and mother, and her deep appreciation for our earth is clear to all. Lyrical language and frank botany entwine here to create something really mesmerising to read and transformative to absorb.

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What was your favourite book from April? And, please share your own monthly bookish wrap-ups in the comments.