April 2023 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-up

Howdy, y’all! It’s time for my April 2023 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up. I wonder if this will help me reduce the number of books on my TBR. Who am I kidding? I’m a reader; of course, I will forever add books. In March 2023, I had 618 books. Today, I have 616. That is a bit of a decrease, so not too bad. Yay me! Will my April 2023 Goodreads TBR shelf clean-up help that number drop more?

I saw this Goodreads TBR Clean-Up post at Megan’s Book Stacks and knew I had to try it, and Megan found it over at MegaBunnyReads.

Click the titles to go to the Goodreads page for the book, and the image will take you to Amazon.

How It Works:

• Go to your Goodreads want-to-read shelf.
• Use a random number generator to pick a number between 1 and however many books are on the list.
• Go to that book and look at the four after it for a total of 5.
• Read the synopses of the books.
• Decide: keep it, or should it go?
• Discuss here.

Books To Be Read: 616

Starting Number: 339; it looks like I’m going through the books I added in October 2021

Shelf Sorted: Date Added

Let’s get this April 2023 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up underway!

My Sister’s Big Fat Indian Wedding by Sajni Patel

Zurika Damani is a naturally gifted violinist with a particular love for hip-hop beats. But when you’re part of a big Indian family, everyone has expectations, and those certainly don’t include hip-hop violin. After being rejected by Juilliard, Zuri’s last hope is a contest judged by a panel of top-tier college scouts. The only problem? This coveted competition happens to take place during Zuri’s sister’s extravagant wedding week. And Zuri has already been warned repeatedly that she is not to miss a single moment.

In the midst of the chaos, Zuri’s mom is in matchmaking mode with the groom’s South African cousin Naveen—who just happens to be a cocky vocalist set on stealing Zuri’s spotlight at the scouting competition. Luckily Zuri has a crew of loud and loyal female cousins cheering her on. Now, all she has to do is to wow the judges for a top spot, evade getting caught by her parents, resist Naveen’s charms, and, oh yeah . . . not mess up her sister’s big fat Indian wedding. What could possibly go wrong?

My Thoughts

The premise for this sounds like a fun rom-com! Even as a YA, it still seems like a fun read.

KEEP

Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us by Colleen Kinder

Sixty-five extraordinary writers grapple with this. How can a brief encounter with a stranger leave such an eternal mark?

When Colleen Kinder put out a call for authors to write a letter to a stranger about an unforgettable encounter, she opened the floodgates. The responses—intimate and addictive, all written in the second person—began pouring in. These short, insightful essays by a  remarkable cast of writers, including Elizabeth Kolbert, Pico Iyer, Lauren Groff, Gregory Pardlo, Faith Adiele, Maggie Shipstead, Lia Purpura, Kiki Petrosino, and Jamil Jan Kochai, are organized around such themes as Gratitude, Wonder, and Farewell and guide us both across the globe and through the mysteries of human connection.

Addressed to a first responder after a storm, a gambler encountered on jury duty, a waiter in  Istanbul, a taxi driver in Paris, a roomful of travelers watching reality TV in La Paz, and dozens of others, the pieces are replete with observations about how to live and what we seek, and how a stranger’s loaded glance, shared smile or question posed can alter the course of our lives. 

My Thoughts

Who hasn’t had an interaction with a stranger that has stuck with them for a long time? Some experiences are sure to be better than others, but either way, they impacted you in some way, right?

KEEP

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life will be marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. . . .

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss, and immense joy. Her life will be shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics.

My Thoughts

I have only read one book by Allende, a memoir about her experience with her daughter’s illness and death. I have heard that she is a fantastic writer with strong female characters.

KEEP

The Lighthouse on Moonglow Cove by Lori Wilde

It was an inheritance neither sister expected—a lighthouse in Moonglow Cove, left to them by a grandmother they never knew! Harper and Flannery weren’t exactly best friends either. For years, Flannery had held down the home front, taking care of their sick mother and raising a daughter, while Harper sent nothing but checks. And after their mother’s funeral, the two sisters had an argument that left them not speaking for six years—why, Harper didn’t even know she has a niece!

But life has a way of changing when you least expect it. And the sisters discover their grandmother’s will has a stipulation: the two of them must live there, work out their issues… and compete in baking challenges with a hundred-year-old sourdough starter. If either of them gives up or fails to keep the starter alive, they lose the lighthouse. Will they be able to come together and see their grandmother’s wish come true, or will these two sisters forever be estranged?

My Thoughts

This book sounds interesting, especially with the estranged sisters being forced to work together. Will the forced proximity be enough to help heal the rift? But it’s the third book in a series, and I haven’t read either book.

DELETE

Christmas by the Book by Anne Marie Ryan

In small-town England, two booksellers facing tough times decide to spread some Christmas cheer through the magic of anonymous book deliveries in this uplifting holiday tale for book lovers everywhere.

Nora and her husband, Simon, have run the beautiful oak-beamed book shop in their small British village for thirty years. But times are tough, and the shop is under threat of closure–this Christmas season will really decide their fate. When an elderly man visits the store and buys the one book they’ve never been able to sell, saying it’s the perfect gift for his sick grandson, it gives Nora an idea. She and Simon will send out books to those feeling down this Christmas. Maybe they can’t save their bookstore, but at least they’ll have one final chance to lift people’s spirits through the power of reading.

After gathering nominations online, Nora and Simon quietly deliver books to six residents of the village in need of some festive cheer, including a single dad of twins who is working hard to make ends meet, a teenage boy grieving for his big sister, a local Member of Parliament who is battling depression, and a teacher who’s newly retired and living on her own. As the town prepares for a white Christmas, the books begin to give the recipients hope, one by one. But with the future of the bookshop still up in the air, Nora and Simon will need a Christmas miracle–or perhaps a little help from the people whose lives they’ve touched–to find a happy ending of their own.

My Thoughts

A holiday book about books and book lovers! What’s not to love about it?

KEEP

Wrap Up

And that is my April 2023 Goodreads TBR Shelf Clean-Up. It looks like I cleaned my shelf up a little! Out of the five books, I’m keeping four.

This was fun. I may do it now and then to help keep my shelf realistic. In the past, I just added books without really thinking about it. Will I stop doing that? Of course not! What kind of animal do you think I am?

What do you think? Have you tried doing something like this to see if you can get your TBR under control?

Looking for some more ideas to read? Check out my monthly reading wrap-ups.