Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon: Hour 13

Hour: Hour 13.
Currently Reading: 

Pages Read Since Last Update: 6

Total Pages Read: 71

Time Read Since Last Update: 06 minutes

Total Time Read: 1 hour, 11 minutes

Comments: I haven't gotten much reading done today, but I just came back from visiting some extended family and that was nice!  Later I might watch the movie Zoolander with my brothers, but until then I'm going to try and read some more! 

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon: Mid-Event Survey

I'm back from visiting family! It's no longer the 'half-way' point of the Readathon, but I'm going to fill out the survey anyways. My answers might be a bit boring, since I haven't gotten much of a chance to read yet...

1. What are you reading right now?
Lair of Dreams, by Libba Bray. It's the second book in The Diviners series.

2. How many books have you read so far?
I'm still working on my first one!

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?
I'm just looking forward to my current read!

4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?
I've only had one real interruption, but it was a six-hour interruption: visiting family! I can't complain though, because I had lots of fun playing Wii Sports, eating donuts, and catching up. Also, I learned how to use chopsticks!

5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?
How little I've read, whomp whomp. But I'm all settled in now, so hopefully the rest of the evening will give me time to read distraction-free!

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon: Hour 6

Hour: A quarter til Hour 7.
Currently Reading: 

Pages Read Since Last Update: 24

Total Pages Read: 65

Time Read Since Last Update: 23 minutes

Total Time Read: 1 hour, 05 minutes

Comments: For breakfast, I refueled with bacon, blueberry pancakes, and a glass of chocolate milk. I managed to read some, but my reading will have to take a break for a few hours, as I'm heading off to my aunt's house for that time. I'm enjoying the book thus far though, and part of me just wants to stay here and read, hehe! 

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon: Hour 5

I thought I'd post a bit of an update before I head off to find some breakfast! I've already read plenty this morning, which I'm very pleased about. Here's my first update of the Readathon!

Hour: Half past Hour 5.
Currently Reading: 

Pages Read Since Last Update: 41

Total Pages Read: 41

Time Read Since Last Update: 41 minutes

Total Time Read: 41 minutes

Comments: I woke up at around 8am this morning, or just after, and just cozied in bed reading, warm and snug, as the rain from outside beat against the windows. It was a very nice morning and I'm really enjoying the book so far! 

It's time for me to briefly pause reading, however, as there's a stack of pancakes call my name!

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon: Opening Meme

Good morning! It's time once again for the semi-annual Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon! And it's an extra special one today, seeing as how it's the ten year anniversary! That's amazing!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
I'm Emma, from the Pacific Northwest of the United States, making it just after 9am here.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I actually only have one book planned for today -- Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray. It's a long one, so I anticipate it taking the whole day to read, not that I'm complaining since I loved the first book, The Diviners.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Well, seeing as I haven't had anything to eat since waking up this morning, the answer to this question is currently "breakfast"!

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
Oh, goodness. I always have to try to think up something new and exciting for this question! I'm currently a Senior in High School, and I've had this blog for four years now!

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
This will be my fourth Readathon, but my first Readathon in October! One thing I'll be doing is actually cohosting for an hour on Goodreads -- huzzah!

I hope everyone has a fantastic Readathon!

A Belated Book Busters Wrap Up

Hello, all! It's been a while since the Book Busters Readathon concluded, but since I posted a TBR I thought it would be best if I posted a little wrap-up as well. I had a ton of fun doing this Readathon, and even had the house to myself for the first day, which was nice as it meant plenty of quiet reading time for me!

I ended up finishing two books, and starting a third one:

A BESTSELLER

• For this one, I read The Girl on Train by Paula Hawkins. I was so pleasantly surprised by this one! It started out a bit boring but the last third of the book balanced that out in my opinion.

FEMALE MAIN CHARACTER

• This is the one I didn't quite finish! I read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and to be perfectly honest... I didn't enjoy it as much as most people seem to? Eep! I just wasn't expecting it to be as focused on the romance as it was, I think.

YELLOW ON COVER

• The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall was my choice for this one. I read some of it outside on the hammock... that was before all this rain started! (Not that I'm complaining; I love the rain!) This one was just as good as I remembered, seeing as how it was a reread.

I also completed some of the mini-challenges! 

• "Post a TBR"
• "Post a Wrap Up"
• Hehe, check! Even if it is up a bit late. 
• "Tweet about the Readathon"
• I did do this, and I also participated in a couple of Readathon reading sprints on Twitter!
• "Review a Book Read"
• I reviewed both The Girl on the Train and Penderwicks during the Readathon.
• "Build a Blanket Fort" 
• I did, and it was very small. But! It was nice and cozy that way. 
• "Post a Photo of a Snack You're Eating" 
• 
• Cinnamon roll, yum! This was technically breakfast, but still. 
• "Post a Currently Reading Photo"
• 
• I did this as well! 

This was a very fun Readathon! And surprise! I'm participating in another Readathon this Saturday -- Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon. Stick around for a bunch of posts about that, if you want! 

Until next time, happy reading!

Book Busters Read-a-Thon | TBR

It's time for another Readathon! This time, it's a Readathon hosted by Elena Reads Books on YouTube, called the Book Busters Readathon. It runs from September 30th to October 6th.
I thought this one looked very unique because it has a card to base your TBR on - the goal is to complete a row left to right:

I'm rather busy this week, so I'm going to take this very casually and some of my options are a bit loose or open - so they might be a bit spur of the moment. I figured I'd just make a little stack of options, and then dive right on in!

A BESTSELLER

• I'm starting with a bestseller that I plan on finishing this Readathon, and that is The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. I'm exactly 200 pages in at the moment, meaning I'm a bit over halfway so I know I'll finish it sometime this week!

FEMALE MAIN CHARACTER

• I... haven't really thought about this option yet, though I might end up rereading The Penderwicks on Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall for this one. Another option is Julia Vanishing or another book off the library shelves that I find intriguing at the time!

YELLOW ON COVER

• I definitely plan to read The Penderwicks on Point Mouette for this one, and if I end up reading that for the previous challenge, I'll continue on with the Penderwicks series and read The Penderwicks in Spring. Although I'm now realizing I could read a couple of Nancy Drew mysteries... 

WRITTEN BEFORE I WAS BORN

• I'm thinking of reading a classic for this one. More specifically, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I've never read it but I really do want to. Another option, of course, is Hamlet by William Shakespeare. (I'm not sure why I put "of course" there. It's not like that was a particularly obvious answer.)

or SHORT STORY COLLECTION

• I might end up avoiding the classic route completely and opting instead on Slasher Girls & Monster Boys, a collection of what I believe to be horror short stories. I'm a scaredy-cat, but these would be perfect for that chilling October mood!

COVER BUY

• Honestly, I'd be very impressed with myself if I made it this far. If I did, my strategy would be to choose a random book from the library based solely on the cover, which might actually be fun! 

There's another sort of scorecard, of participation points. These rows don't have to be done in any particular order: 

Here I am, posting a TBR. I also plan on posting a Wrap Up, a currently reading photo on Twitter, reviewing a book on Goodreads, and you can bet I'm building a pillow fort tomorrow to cozily read in! 

I'm sorry this post is a bit all over the place, but I always love participating in Readathons, and I can't wait for what will hopefully be a fun and successful week of reading!

July & August | Reading Wrap Ups

I ended up reading 8 books over the course of the past two months! (Although one was a reread and one was a collection of short stories...)

JULY:

1. Tales From The Shadowhunter Academy by Cassandra Clare (and others) - There were a lot of people who helped out with writing this book, but I didn't feel like listing them all... whoops! My individual ratings for each story are linked above, but as a whole I felt positively about this bind-up. I wasn't the biggest fan of The Bane Chronicles, so my great like for this book came a bit out of left field for me! Out of the ten stories featured, my favorite was probably Nothing But Shadows. It makes me so excited to read The Last Hours trilogy when it comes out...
2. Like a River Glorious by Rae Carson - This one is the sequel to Walk On Earth a Stranger and follows a girl who can sense gold... during the time of the California Gold Rush. I've always loved reading about the Oregon Trail (and similar scenarios) just because it's something I don't see too often. I loved the last book, and this one was amazing as well. I liked how it delved into more sensitive issues - such as the treatment of women, Chinese immigrants, and Native Americans during this time.
3. Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Jeremy McCarter - This was a shameless reread but NO REGRETS. I love-love-love this book (thing?) and I listened to the soundtrack while reading the book (thing) this time, which only heightened the experience for me. Hamilton - while one of the only musicals I've listened to - is definitely my favorite musical, and I have so many memories with it already that I know I'll hold on to for a very long time.
4. Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst - When a book makes you want to write, you know it's good. I loved the atmosphere of this one. The world and characters and mystery all just positively screamed "fantasy" to me (to be fair, it was a fantasy novel. And a great one, at that) and I just loved it. I'm not usually a huge fan of romance in books, but I adored the romance in this one and thought it was so cute! It was trope-y in places, but I didn't mind in the slightest.
5. Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn - Oh boy. Such mixed feelings on this one, honestly. I love a good mystery, and my experience reading this was great. I participated in Twitter's "reading sprints" and interacted with other readers and generally had a blast. The actual book was just okay to me. I felt like a lot of things were sort of convient, because the characters were so young. Also, the writing felt a bit too tell-not-show for my tastes. It was fun to read and very quick, though!

AUGUST:

1. The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius - A novel translated to English from Swedish, featuring a gorilla protagonist named Sally Jones. This was absolutely lovely. It takes place in many different settings, as Sally Jones tries to prove the innocence of her human friend after he's sent to prison for murder. The characters were strong and the writing was skillful. I realize it was translated to English fairly recently, but it deserves way more reads than it has. I enjoyed it immensely!
2. On Writing by Stephen King - I have a confession: while I enjoyed this book, I didn't love it as much as everyone else seems to. A lot of the stuff I'd been lucky enough to have learned in English classes of the past! However it was cool to get to know more about his life and who he is, and I appreciated the tips on editing!
3. Now I Rise by Kiersten White - The sequel to the Vlad the Impaler gender-bent retelling And I Darken. But oh man, And I Darken seems like backstory for this novel. It was dark, riveting, opposing, action-packing, intriguing, political, and just overall epic. I love both of the characters - Lada and Radu - although I enjoyed Radu's chapters a bit more this time around. I really can't wait for the conclusion of this saga, although I'm dreading this trilogy's end at the same time.

TOP THREE:

My top three books of these eight were probably...

• Hamilton: The Revolution
• The Murderer's Ape
• Now I Rise

Although I read lots of good books these past couple of months! Happy Autumn (or... almost Autumn) everybody! I'm excited for hot cocoa, sweaters, rain, Halloween and - of course - NaNoWriMo!

Musing Monday | Aug. 21

Time for another Musing Monday! This is a weekly thing hosted by The Purple Booker and asks you to answer two reading-related questions each week.

The first of these questions is one of the following:

• I’m currently reading...
  Up next I think I’ll read…
  I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
  I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
  I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
  I can’t wait to get a copy of…
  I wish I could read ___, but…
  I blogged about ____ this past week…

And the second is a random question each week.

This week's random question is: Do you steer away from heavy emotional books?

♚♚♚

I'm currently reading...

I'm actually in the middle of three books at the moment! One of them is required summer reading for school, one of them is a classic novel, and one of them is just a "for fun" read. The required reading is On Writing by Stephen King, the classic novel is The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, and the "for fun" read is Now I Rise by Kiersten White. My favorite so far is definitely the latter, and I actually may end up DNFing the Hemingway novel. I just can't really get into it at the moment, but maybe someday?

Do you steer away from heavy emotional books?

Not purposefully! I actually really like books that make me feel something! Like the Purple Booker mentioned in her post, if an author succeeds in making me tear up or get misty-eyed, I'm actually more likely to pick up another book of theirs in the future!

♚♚♚

I woke up early to see the Eclipse this morning, it was so beautiful! I live near a field, so we had close to a hundred people from our neighborhood watching it together in the field, it was a lot of fun. The rest of my day is free, though, so I'm probably going to try to get some more reading done! Have a great day!

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!