BookTubeAThon Reading Updates

Apparently I have no chill. My motto at the moment is: see a Readathon? Join in! So, this week (from the 24th to the 30th) I will be reading along with the annual BookTubeAThon, hosted by the lovely Ariel Bissett. I am not a Booktuber, but I couldn't pass up this opportunity so here we are!

I haven't been keeping up with my reading as well as I could have been this year, and I have fallen four books behind on my Goodreads challenge, so I really need to step up my game. I'll record my progress throughout the week in the one big masterpost, and update it every day (or as often as possible) so stick around if you wanna!

MY PROGRESS

✰ DAY ONE (Monday, July 24th)

• Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst - 67 pages (66-133)
• Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Jeremy McCarter - 160 pages (1-160)
• Pages Read Today: 227 pages
• Total Pages Read: 227 pages
• Commentary: I had already begun reading Of Fire and Stars before the ReadAThon began, but my reread for Hamilton: The Revolution came out of left field. It hadn't been in my original plans, but I've been in such a Hamilton mood lately that I felt compelled to reread it, and lucky I did! Unlike last time, I actually listened to the songs as I read them, and both of those things combined just add such a depth to the music? I'm enjoying it a lot!

✰ DAY TWO (Tuesday, July 25th)

• Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst - 72 pages (134-206)
• Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Jeremy McCarter - 126 pages (161-286)
• Pages Read Today: 198
• Total Pages Read: 425
• Commentary: I finished Hamilton: The Revolution today, and it was just as moving and inspiring as the first time I read it (and the first fifteen times I listened to the musical...shh). It truly is a work of art, and I'm only slightly envious that I'll never be able to write something as good as it. The other part of me is just glad that the musical was shared with the world.

✰ DAY THREE (Wednesday, July 26th)

• Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst - 108 pages (207-315)
• Pages Read Today: 108
• Total Pages Read: 533
• Commentary: Man, this book is really getting good! It's sweeping, mysterious, romantic, tense, gritty, and epic all rolled in to one novel. It's written in such a way that it feels like so much has happened already in these 300 pages, and the stakes just keep getting higher. There's only around 70 pages left, so I'm planning to try and finish this one tomorrow - a feat which will prove easy if the ending is just as compelling as the rest of the book.

✰ DAY FOUR (Thursday, July 27th)

• Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst - 21 pages (316-337)
• Pages Read Today: 21
• Total Pages Read: 554
• Commentary: Yeah... it was a bit of a "Reading Slump" sort of day, I suppose. I didn't get much reading done, but I'm going to try to aim for finishing Of Fire and Stars tomorrow since there's only around fifty pages left!

✰ DAY FIVE (Friday, July 28th)

• Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst - 51 pages (338-389)
• Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn - 60 pages (1-60)
• Pages Read Today: 111
• Total Pages Read: 665
• Commentary: I finally finished my second book of the Readathon! I really did enjoy Of Fire and Stars, and the main characters were really amazing. I've just barely started Tokyo Heist, and it's a bit harder to get into, but I'm sure I'll grow to love it. I seemed to gain back my reading momentum today, partially due to all the reading sprints I participated on with the BookTubeAThon twitter account! The community there was so great and really kept me motivated.

✰ DAY SIX (Saturday, July 29th)

• Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn - 58 pages (61-119)
• Pages Read Today: 58
• Total Pages Read: 723
• Commentary: Well, I didn't read a ton of pages today, but I think that's okay. Especially because I was visiting with family for the majority of this afternoon and evening (and then, of course, I had to watch some Sherlock and rewatch some of Lost. It was a necessity). I did end up finishing Part One of Tokyo Heist and I'm intrigued to see what happens next. I have some ideas for whodunit, but nothing I'm willing to commit to yet...

✰ DAY SEVEN (Sunday, July 30th)

• Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn - 253 pages (120-373)
• Pages Read Today: 253
• Total Pages Read: 976
• Commentary: So... I kind of both finished my third book of the ReadAThon and read the most pages in one day out of this entire week? I'm pretty proud of that, even if the sentence proclaiming it wasn't entirely grammatically correct. I did a few more sprints on Twitter, including some 2am ones, which may have contributed to the fact that I felt very in the zone reading-wise today! I will probably have a full wrap-up tomorrow, but for now, I just want to say that I had a blast this ReadAThon and I'm satisfied with my results!

      

May & June | Reading Wrap Ups

I ended up reading 7 books throughout May and June and all of them (er, well... most of them), I was quite pleased with!

MAY:

1. Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine - Whoa. I was so impressed with this book. It was a book we read in school, but I ended up enjoying it immensely. It's a middle grade that follows a young girl named Ling in Communist China and it's based off the author's own experiences. I loved Ling's relationship with both of her parents - especially her father - and the writing was simplistic yet powerful. I feel like I also learned quite a lot, and it turned a lot of my views of things on their heads!
2. Dumplin' by Julie Murphy - Ordinarily I don't pick up contemporary (for whatever reason), but I decided to pick this one up both due to the cover and due to the fact that many people seemed to enjoy it. Luckily, I was amongst those people! I felt the main character was a bit hypocritical about some things, but other than that I did really like the characters and the friendships that were found. It was a quick and easy read, and would be perfect for the beach. Or, in my case, for the riverside, as we were camping while I read this! I had such a fun time reading it!
3. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake - I'd been itching to read this one for quite a while. A story about triplets who have to fight to the death to be queen? Sounds dark and twisted and magical, so clearly, I'm in! I loved the action in this, and the characters (Team Arsinoe all the way!), however there were a few boring patches in the middle that sort of brought my enjoyment down just a bit.

JUNE:

1. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them: The Original Screenplay by J. K. Rowling - Whew, that's quite a long title! Anyways, as I've mentioned before, I loved both the movie and the written screenplay. Newt Scamander is my precious Hufflepuff child, and I'm so proud to have him as a housemate. The illustrations in this version were really cool as well, and sometimes I just couldn't stop staring at them!
2. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling - Speaking of long titles! This was a collection of memoirs about Mindy's life, and as we know, I love her. However this book just wasn't for me I think? A lot of the stories were kind of difficult for me to relate to? Like a lot of it was about boys and relationships in dating which was fine. Like it's your book, so you do you! But I had just expected there to be more on friendships and comedy and such.
3. Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer - This was actually a reread for me, but the first time I hadn't watched Glee and didn't know who Chris Colfer was, but this time I had and did and I loved him. So clearly it needed a reread. And it held it's own again! This was just a really cute and fun middle grade story. While it had some predictable elements both in the plot itself, and in the writing style (if that makes sense), I still found it to be really enjoyable and I will be looking for the sequels!
4. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger - This is my dad's least favorite book of all time, so clearly I had to read it. Plus, it's a classic! I'm... not sure why. I guess because the style of writing was such a breakthrough, and it dealt with topics that were more... sensitive for the time? Like smoking and alcohol? Apparently? I don't know. I wasn't the biggest fan of this book, mainly because all the narrarator really did was flirt with girls, drink, smoke and make excuses. Not to be hypocritical, but he also complained like... a lot. Open to any page of this book, and it'll have him complaining. Go on, do it, I dare you! Of course I didn't hate this book, it is an easy book to read (which is something coming from me, especially when it comes to classics) and there's something about that once I started reading it, I really couldn't stop. So I guess it was enjoyable in that aspect of it!

TOP THREE:

My top three of these seven books are probably...

• Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party
• Dumplin'
• Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them

With, of course, honorable mentions going to Three Dark Crowns and Land of Stories.

Until next time, happy reading!