Showing posts with label read-a-thon. Show all posts

The booktube-a-thon starts in about half an hour my time, and in preparation I thought I would post my schedule here, so I've made it public and hopefully, it will help me read as much as I want to.

The read-a-thon will last all week, but I'm going to be at Slottsfjell music festival in Norway from thursday to saturday, and I will spend most of wednesday and sunday on a train. I'm going to try and read as much as possible on sunday and wednesday, but while I'm at the festival I'm not going to participate.

If you want to see my original TBR, check it out here. I changed a few things though, because the plan was to drive to the festival in a car, but my dad broke his fingers, so he can't drive. I don't get as carsick on trains, so I'm not going to listen to The Fault in Our Stars on audiobook as I planned, but I will be reading Divergent instead, which will cover the re-read challenge, and the 500+ pages challenge(even though it's 11 pages less than 500, I'm still counting it)

There are several challenges you can choose to do:

1) read an average of 300 pages a day
2) read a book with over 500 pages
3) re-read one book
4) finish a series/trilogy
5) read a book that's been on your shelf forever
6) listen to an audiobook
7) read a classic

Here is my planned schedule for the week:

Monday: Anna and The French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, 372 pages, does not cover any challenges

Tuesday: Requiem by Lauren Oliver, 391 pages, covers the "finish a series/trilogy" challenge

Wednesday: Divergent by Veronica Roth, 489 pages, covers the "reread a book" challenge and almost the "500 pages" challenge, I'm hoping to read at least 300 pages and finish it on sunday

Thursday, Friday and Saturday: Nothing/read a few pages of Divergent

Sunday: Finish Divergent by Veronica Roth, 489 pages + The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 180 pages, covers the "read a classic" challenge, the "listen to an audiobook" challenge and the "read a book that's been on your shelf forever" challenge.

That completes all of the challenges, but there is also a bonus challenge to see how many challenges you can combine, and as you can see, The Great Gatsby covers three of the challenges. To read an average of 300 pages per day, I'm going to have to read 1200 pages over the four days I'm participating, and the page count for all of these books are 1441. I'm also hoping that I can squeeze in some reading whilst I''m at the festival, and if I have any leftover time, I will be continuing with City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. 

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO WRAP-UP

This was a really good reading month for me. I finished nine books in total, and since I'm usually a pretty slow reader, I don't think I've ever read that many books in a month. I enjoyed most of the books I finished, and I've reviewed about half of them.

The first book I finished was Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver, and you can see my review of it here.

I didn't enjoy it as much as Delirium, and I gave it 3.5/5 stars.

The next book I finished was The Elite by Kiera Cass. The Elite is the sequel to The Selection, which follows America Singer, who gets chosen to participate in a competition to marry the prince. In The Elite, there are only 5 remaining girls, and America is still figuring out if she still wants to be in the competition or not. I liked it a lot, even though I have some issues with the world building, but I still gave it 5/5 stars.

Then I listened to An Abundance of Katherines by John Green on audio book. The book is about a child prodigy who only dates girls named Katherine. Colin is working on a theorem to determine who will dump who in a relationship and while the book is described as a road trip-book, the road trip ends after about 100 pages. The book was pretty boring. I thought the plot sounded interesting, and it was, but the writing style and John Green's ability to write very similar characters in all his books, made it pretty uninteresting and difficult to get through. I gave the book 3/5 stars.

The Next book I read was Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. You can find my review of it here.  Scarlet is the sequel to Cinder, it takes place in both New Bei Jing and France, and is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. I gave it 5/5 stars.

I still have about six hours left of this read-a-thon, but I decided to only read two books even though I know I could have finished at least one or two more. I simply don't own any more debuts, and I don't have the money to buy any more books for a little while.

The books I finished were If You find Me by Emily Murdoch and Pivot Point by Kasie West. I read both of them in about a day, and I liked both of them a lot.

If You Find Me follows two sisters, Carey and Janessa who has been living in the woods with their mentally ill mother for as long as they can remember. When their mother leaves them and two strangers appear to take them into the city, the girls have to adapt to the outside world. It was a beautiful book about neglect, love and loyalty  What made me love the book so much, was the way Carey saw things. The book is told from her perspective, and seing her go to school and meet her father again was just heartbreaking. She was clever for her age, and her love for her sister was beautiful to read. There are a few mysteries in this book; Why doesn't Janessa speak to anyone but Carey? What made their mother run away with her daughter into the woods in the first place? All the mysteries wrapped up perfectly and I ended up giving the book 5/5 stars. It is definitely one of my new favorites! 

I also really love the cover, and although I read the book on my kindle, I think I might purchase a physical copy of the book just to see the beautiful book on my shelf. 

Pivot Point by Kasie West follows the story of Addison Coleman who has the ability to see both outcomes when faced with a choice. When her parents tell her that they are getting a divorce, Addison looks into the future to see what her life will be like with each of her parents. In one future, she moves out of the compound she previously lived in and starts school with "norm" kids, meaning kids without powers like she has. She meets Trevor, who quickly becomes her best friend. In another future, she becomes the girlfriend of a quarterback and with love and loss in poth possible futures, she has to face a difficult decision. I liked this book a lot, but not near as much as If You Find Me. I had some problems with understanding the world and powers of the people in the compound and I felt like the middle part was a bit boring. I also have to admit that I skipped a few of the chapters from the future where she stays in the compound, because they simply didn't interrest me. I gave the book 4/5 stars.

This book also has one of my all time favorite book covers, even though I don't want to spend any more money on purchasing the physical book.

Did you participate in the debut-a-thon?