Booktube-a-thon: Day #7 Update

It's the last day of Booktube-a-thon, and while I only completed 1 of the challenges, I still finished 2 books this week, which is pretty good for me.

I started The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, and I know this is a spoiler but I just have to say it, I love The Lost Hero's main characters, they are my babies, but I missed Percy SOOO MUCH and I am so thrilled that he is not only back, but back to being the POV character. YAY Percy!. I cannot wait to finish this book, and I'm very disappointed in tomorrow being Monday again because I have a whole 5 days before I can read this book all day.







Anyway, I didn't read 100 pages like I'd intended, but I did read 69 pages which bring my Booktube-a-thon page count to a grand total of 1,010 pages. I won't lie, that's pretty impressive for me.

I mentioned yesterday I want to spend the rest of July finishing all the books I've been "currently reading" for the past few months. For now I'll be focusing on the ones I started for Booktube-a-thon, namely The Son of Neptune and the Wuthering Heights audiobook (along with The Mark of Athena, let's be real), but once those are finished, I will get back to the books currently listed in my 'hibernating book list' (see middle right).

I've also updated my Google Calendar with the book release dates and book-to-movie release dates I am personally most excited about. It is far from complete, so let me know if there's anything you see missing. That is, once I figure out how to make the calendar public.

Have a great week!

Happy reading,

Katie

Booktube-a-thon: Day #6 Update

So much for posting every day of Booktube-a-thon. I started my second post on Tuesday night after 10:30pm, even though I already should have gone to bed and I had just gotten home and hadn't even showered after my roller skating class, and halfway through writing it on my phone, my phone died. I took it as a sign that it wasn't meant to be, and by Wednesday I realized I was so behind it would be better to spend my time reading rather than writing posts. But now Booktube-a-thon is almost over, and I wanna talk about my progress.

I don't have any idea of my page count per day, so I'll just run through what I've read and my total page count so far.

I started my Wuthering Heights audiobook (written by Emily Bronte, read by Emma Messenger) on Tuesday, but after four days of listening during my commute, I'm only on the second CD out of eleven. Since I only listen to my audiobook in the car when I'm driving to and from work and it is now the weekend, there's no way I'm going to finish it for Booktube-a-thon. I'm okay with that, since I need time to read classics in order to appreciate and, well, understand them*. The audiobook challenge was attempted and failed, but I will be continuing to listen to it on my commute. I've just started chapter 8, and according to my Kindle version, that counts as 44 pages.

I also started and finished The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I don't know why I waited so long to start this new series that's within the same world as the Percy Jackson saga, but I am so happy I finally read them now because A) there are now the 2 sequels, Son of Neptune and Mark of Athena, that I can read right away and B) the Sea of Monsters movie is coming out next freaking month and I am so much more excited for it now that I am back in the Heroes of Olympus world and C) the fourth book in the series, House of Hades, will be out in three months! I am definitely doing 2 posts for this book, and I am going to start the next book tonight once I finish this post. This counts towards two challenges, both the 500 page novel and the sitting on your shelf forever.** This book was 553 pages.


I also finished Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I can see why this book is often compared to Twilight, and while it had a few similar aspects (first-person paranormal romance), I think managed to stay true to the genre while also distancing itself from that particular set of novels. A lot of people like to make fun of Twilight (I'll admit to being one of them) and that ends up giving all of the paranormal romance genre a bad name, which isn't fair at all. I've been reading this on-and-off for a month or so, but the only reason I put it down the first time was because my Kindle died and by the time my Kindle charger got delivered I had been separated from the story for too long. I read this on the Kindle app on my phone, but even though it is over 500 pages, I was already almost halfway through it before Booktube-a-thon began. This did not count for any challenges, just pages. In total, I read 563 - 219 = 344 pages.

That's brings me to a total of 941 pages in 6 days. Yeah, not even half of the 2,100 page challenge, but I didn't take on that challenge anyway. Anyway, I should be able to read at least 100 pages tomorrow and get a solid 1,000 pages read for Booktube-a-thon. I think I'm going to try my own type of challenge for the rest of July, but instead of focusing on pages read, I'm going to try to finally finish all the books I've been 'currently reading' for months now. There are also a ton of movies based on books that are coming out within the next year, and though they are mostly books I've already read, it would be a good idea to have a similar type of challenge next month to read all the books I've been meaning to read so I can see the movies when they come out.

I'll see you back here tomorrow for my Booktube-a-thon wrap-up post. Wish me luck!

Happy reading,

Katie

*Confession: I didn't finish reading most of the assigned reading in school, either junior high or high school, mostly because I couldn't abide the time crunch. I had no problem finishing the summer reading, so I'm not sure why I never wised up and did the school year reading over the summer as well. At least now I know that it's not that I hate classics, I hate having to read on a short deadline. Which is maybe why I'm not doing so great at Booktube-a-thon?

**Yes, I know I was going to count The Ring of Solomon towards the "been sitting on your shelf forever" challenge, but I wasn't in the mood for Bartimaeous right now, and both books were released within 4 days of each other anyway so it's been on my to-read list just as long.

Booktube-a-thon: Day 1

I didn't get quite as much reading in as I'd hoped. I bought and downloaded Wuthering Heights written by Emily Bronte, read by Emma Messenger, off of Audible last night, but by the time I figured out how to burn them to CDs last night it was too late to do it then, and I didn't wake up early enough to do it before leaving for work, so there goes 1 hour of potential audiobook time. I did manage to burn all the parts onto CDs tonight, so I'll have it all set to go tomorrow. This is good because I really need an audiobook for tomorrow. I have a roller derby class for almost 2 hours, and I won't get home in time to do much before going to bed. However, I will get another forty minutes added to my commute, so that will help in getting through the audiobook.

I also started The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan, the first book in the Heroes of Olympus series. I just read 106 pages, bringing my total page count for day 1 to... 106 pages. OK, it was a slow start, but it's a lot for me. While I'm happy to be flying through this book so far (always good for a book-a-thon), I am a little worried to start an addicting but incomplete book series.

I don't think I'll finish The Lost Hero until Wednesday, but I'm not too worried since I'll be working my way through both this book and Wuthering Heights. That counts for something, right?

Happy reading,

Katie

Booktube-a-thon!

I'm going to be participating in Booktube-a-thon! Even though I'm not a booktuber, I would like to be one eventually, and the only real requirement for participating is to read as much as you possibly can.

I won't be doing all of the challenges, but I'm going to try for most of them.

1. Read an average of 300 pages per day.

2. Read a book over 500 pages.

3. Reread a book.

4. Finish a series.

5. Read a book that's been on your shelf forever.

6. Listen to 1 audiobook.

7. Read a classic.

-Wuthering Heights audiobook - challenges 3, 6, and 7.

-The Ring of Solomon - challenges 4, 5.

-The Lost Hero, The Son of Neptune, and The Mark of Athena - challenge 2, 4.

I doubt I'll get to all of these, but I'll do more reading than I would have otherwise. You might notice that I'm not including any books I'm currently reading. None of them have turned out to be fast reads, otherwise I wouldn't still be reading them. Slower pacing isn't a bad thing for a book, but it certainly isn't a good thing for a book-a-thon.

Since I have a full-time job, I won't be following the booktubeathon hashtag on twitter or any of those challenges, but I'll do a super-short update every night on here to share how I'm doing.

Happy reading,

Katie

Blogging Promises

I'm new to book blogging, and I'm still trying to figure out the best way for me to manage this blog. There's a lot of room for improvement, and that's going to need some more solids decisions on how often I post (daily, weekly, whenever I remember?), what types of posts I make (book hauls, book reviews, reading goals, other general thoughts on book-related topics, other?), and which books I review (all of them, none of them, my favorites, my least favorites, new releases only?). So, how about I make some promises I can't keep?

1. Frequency of posts: I'd love to be able to post several times a week, but trial and error has proved that writing posts on weeknights requires me to stay up past 11 or 12 at night, and I can't handle that on top of getting up early for work. Maybe eventually I will start writing shorter entries that I can post throughout the week, like What I'm Reading Now updates, or answering one question a day from one of those lists of questions regarding favorite or most relatable characters/books/authors/etc, but for now I take a long time to write, and weekends are the only time I can find the huge chunks of time I need. I'll aim for 1 post a week for now, then ramp it up a bit once I've got the hang of that schedule.

2. Subject of posts: My main conundrum here is whether or not I should keep to the lighter side of book blogging like book reviews and book hauls and reading goals, or whether it is ok to talk about the more controversial topics related to books, like the Coverflip related post I made. I'd like to write about more than just my book-buying addiction, but I don't want to alienate readers. Maybe once I figure out more of Blogger's settings, I can hide the main text of some posts under a link so people can seek them out if they find the title interesting but not scroll through the wall of text if they don't.

3. Books to review: Maybe someday I will come to a point where I physically cannot review every book I read, and then I will have to revisit the issue. For now, I read much less than your average book blogger, and though I do still owe you reviews for 3 books, I am not reading enough to pile up any more. However, I have made it twice as difficult for myself by writing 2 reviews of every book I read, one with spoilers and one without, not to mention the occasional GoodReads review. The main purpose of doing spoiler-filled reviews was an excuse to rant or rave about books in incredible detail, and all three of the books I have yet to write reviews for didn't inspire those responses from me. From now on, every book I read gets a normal spoiler-free review, but only the ones that really get under my skin and warrant in-depth analysis (or intense fan squeeing, let's be real here) will get a second review with spoilers.

Well, that's it from me. I've got another post in the works which should be up before the night is out.

Happy reading,

Katie

Book Review: The Demon's Covenant (Spoilers!)

Spoiler filled book review! You know the drill, just highlight the blocked-out text below if you've read the book already or if you want to be spoiled.

But before we get to the spoilers, I will first provide a link to the author's talk about this series, which I will be addressing a bit in my review.

June Book Haul

Hello blog readers!

I've got a a riddle for you. What has two thumbs, a book blog, and can't hold to book buying bans?

Yup, it's this girl. *points to self*

So, I broke my book buying ban last month and bought 3 books. There was no sale, no book store closing, no reason other than I was in a terrible mood and I thought book shopping endorphins would help. (side note: It did not. That's how bad of a mood I was in.)

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

If I hadn't spent as much on these three books as I spent on the 4 books last month and the 5 books the month before that, I would say I'm getting better. No such luck.

However, I realized I have been saving more money than I thought (and spending less money than I'd feared) so for now the book buying ban is officially off. At least for July, as Half Price Books is having another weeklong sale this week and I already bought 11 books there today. In my defense, 4 of those books were for other people, but 7 books is still a LOT of books. I probably will go back on the ban starting next week.

I'm off to finally write one of the many review posts I owe you guys. Have a great day!

Happy reading, 

Katie