Bout of Books 9.0: Day 1

Day 1 :

Books completed: none

Currently reading: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Pages read today: 55 pages

Pages read in total: 55 pages

Challenge #1: Book Buying Spree by Bookish Comforts

(I'm not participating in the giveaway, I just thought making the list would be fun)

Challenge #2: Mad Libs by Cheap Thrills

character name – Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, by J.K. Rowling
adjective1 – Small Steps, by Louis Sachar 
adjective2 – Scarlet, by Marissa Meyer
item – The Golem's Eye, by Jonathan Stroud
occupation – The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare 
act of violence – Fight Club, by Chuck Palaniuk
adjective3 – Torn, by Amanda Hocking
noun1 – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson  
noun2 – The Goblin Wood, by Hilari Bell

I just read the greatest book!

This guy Harry Potter ends up in the middle of a small conspiracy. Turns out his ancestors were pirates, and he might be the key to finding the Scarlet Eye. It’s a mythic artifact that disappeared centuries ago, and now a shadowy group of merchants are looking for it. No one knows what uncovering it might do, but these guys are willing to fight for it.

I won’t say anything else. But believe me, if you like torn stories with dragon(s) and wood, you have to read this one.

Bout of Books 9.0

My first Bout of Books Read-a-thon! (I think, I may have unofficially participated before).

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 9.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

Time Devoted to Reading

I will be reading all week.

My Goals

• Read for at least 30 minutes before bed every day.
• Finish 2 books and start a third.

Books to Read

• Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson
• A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

2013 in review

Here's a quick recap of all the books I read, start to finish, in 2013 (mostly in the order I read them but with series placed together), with a 1 sentence review:

1. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare - Engaging read, I liked this even more than the first book in the Mortal Instruments series.
2. The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan - I loved this book and its focus on family.
3. The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan - I don't know how this had even more family focus in it than the first one but I'm loving it.
4. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer - This series is ridiculously addicting and it makes the very short list of books I must buy and read within the week it is released.
5. The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson - Not a great sequel, but an excellent introduction to the main villain and showdown to be explored in the last two books.
6. Divergent by Veronica Roth - Addicting read, but Four did not live up to all his hype.
7. Murder Past Due by D.R. Meredith - This book was not for me.
8. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett - Such a fun read for anyone who has read MacBeth.
9. Lost At Sea by Bryan Lee O'Malley - Interesting quick read, more literary and less fantasy than I thought it would be, but quite excellent.
10. House of Mystery, Vol 1. by Matthew Sturges - Too scary for my taste, not for me.
11. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl - I needed to be in a particular frame of mind for this book, I dragged myself through the first third of it and I flew threw the rest of it.
12. Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl - Not really my cup of tea, my least favorite of the series so far (I'm only 25% done with the 3rd book).
13. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan - It's like the author went into my head, took all the things I found lacking or wanted more of in the Percy Jackson series and put it into this book.
14. The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan - This series is only getting better.
15-17. The Summer Before I Met You, The Spring Before I Met You, and The Night After I Lost You by Sarah Rees Brennan - All short stories between Unspoken and Untold.
18. Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan - This is the other book series that makes the list of books I must buy and read within the week of its release.
19. The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer - Enjoyable take on fairy tale characters, but more suited for its middle grade audience.
20. Doll Bones by Holly Black - Not as creepy as I'd hoped, but enjoyable even for an older reader.
21. Valkyrie Rising by Ingrid Paulson - Interesting new urban fantasy, loved the tension between family loyalty and personal independence.
22. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black - New favorite take on vampires.
23. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins - It set up these cliched tropes, and I was so disappointed, until it completely disassembled those tropes and came together beautifully, so excited for the sequels.
24. No Place Like Home by Danielle Paige - This prequel put the new release in the category of books to buy and read within the week of its release.
25. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson - I love how this book series realistically depicts religious ideology leading to the justification of horrific actions.
26. The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson - This book series keeps upping the ante and I love it.

Happy reading,

Katie

New Year, Same Blog

Hello and happy new year!

I'm sorry about the long hiatus and the lack of posts, the reasons for which are long and boring, but I'm back so let's move onto the important stuff: BOOKS (of course)

I aimed to read 30 books in 2013 (and I only read 26 books on Goodreads, 3 of which were prequel stories and 1 was a comic book style and length graphic novel). This year my Goodreads goal is to read 25 books, with a personal goal of reaching that by July and upping it to 50 books.

I also had a poor completion versus started ratio this year. There are 12 books I started reading in 2013 that I still haven't finished. A few of these I only read a few pages before deciding I wasn't in the right mood for, while some of them were books I was really enjoying but had to put down because of life and then got too much space from them to immerse myself again.

In 2014, I aim to fix this by focusing on reading books I'm really excited about instead of ones I'm 'getting out of the way'. It doesn't make sense to read books I'm not enjoying, due to being in the wrong frame of mind, for entertainment.

For this reason, I reorganized my TBR bookshelf, putting the books I'm most excited about right across from where my face is when I'm laying in bed (aka the books I see most often).

That's all for now, stay tuned for a quick review of the books I read in 2013!

Happy reading,

Katie

July Book Haul

Sorry I've been gone for a while, here's a quick update of all the books I bought in July!

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire

Many Waters and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

(Third and Fourth books in the Time Quintet)

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

A Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Happy reading,

Katie

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.