My 3rd favourtie time of the year has come to an end: the booktube-a-thon! (Christmas is the 1st and fall is the 2nd.) Every year I've looked forward to the week in the summer where I can dedicate my time to reading, and every year I've succeed in doing just that. I didn't read as much this year as I thought I would, but I'd still consider this week successful.
Since I posted about my TBR for this week, I figured a wrap up was needed to let y'all know how it went.
The House of Hades (Rick Riordan)
I loved seeing each character's journey in this novel. I've loved this series so much and this was no disappointment. No spoilers, but Percy and Annabeth's journey was incredibly unique, and I think Riordan did an amazing job creating practically a whole other world around them. The environment they found the
mselves in not only tested their development as characters, but also their relationship. I felt like this novel was really vital to Leo and Frank, as well. Their character development sky rocketed, and my feelings towards them went from neutral to love.
Challenges completed:
- read a hyped book
- read a book with a person on the cover
The Eleventh Doctor: After Life (Al Ewing, Rob Williams, Simon Fraser, & Gary Caldwell)
Finished reading on day 2. 128 pages read. 3/5 stars.
I really enjoyed this graphic novel in being in the Eleventh Doctor's world again. He holds a special place in my heart. This gave me mega Bad Wolf vibes, too. However, the art style wasn't my favourite, and it just sort of lacked something for me and fell flat. I'm not sure if I'll continue reading these yet.
Challenges completed:
- read a book in one day
- read a book completely outdoors
The Blood of Olympus (Rick Riordan)
Finished reading on day 3. 502 pages read. 5/5 stars.
I absolutely loved this conclusion to the series. It wasn't perfectly wrapped up in a bow, it had a rocky-ness to it - and I like that. To me, that's what makes a good conclusion. I liked not having Percy and Annabeth's point of views because at this point, we've been following them for so long, it was time to really see the other characters shine. And that set up for the Trials of Apollo series makes me want to read it so bad! I don't want to say too much, though - spoilers!
Challenges completed:
- read a book about someone completely different from you (they're half-human half-god! That aside, though, there's a lot of diverse characters, here.)
No More Heroes (Michelle Kan)
DNFed at 30%. About 83 pages in.
The premise of this novel really intrigues me. I love books about teenagers with powers getting themselves in trouble. But this didn't grab me the way I wanted it to; especially when I'm in the middle of a read-a-thon. The writing threw me off a bit - it told a lot of story and jumped between characters when it felt like the scene wasn't over yet. Too much was being hidden and I didn't get to know the characters as much as I want to 30% into a book. I would like to revisit it at some point to see how it plays out.
The Girl at Midnight (Melissa Grey)Finished reading day 5. 357 pages. 5/5 stars.
This is one of my new favourite books. I loved the story, I loved the writing, I loved the world, I loved the characters. Everything felt so well thought out. I thought Echo was an awesome main character; she felt real and relatable. She had real emotions but was still a bad-ass. I feel like just this little wrap up post won't do it justice, so you may see it's own review post soon. If you liked Six of Crows or Daughter of Smoke and Bone, you're going to want to read this one. The trilogy is complete as well, so you can binge read it if you want. (Which I plan to do very soon.)
Challenges completed:
- read a book you bought because of the cover
All The Crooked Saints (Maggie Stiefvater)
Still reading, 158 pages read during booktube-a-thon (out of 311 pages).
This book comes out in October, but I got an ARC of it and knew I wanted to read it ASAP. I'm enjoying so far, but the only words that can explain this novel are: weird, interesting, magical realism. Like serious magical realism. It even follows Latin American characters (see Merriam-Webster). But this is not a read-a-thon appropriate book. It's so complicated that you have to read it slowly. It's a lot of narration too, so not a quick, nor a light read. But I am looking forward to continuing reading it!
That leaves just one challenge not completed: read seven books. Even if I had been able to finish No More Heroes and All The Crooked Saints, I wouldn't have completed this challenge. I did, however, read 1,840 pages this week. Which is the most I've read in a week all year. And now I'm only 2 books behind on my goodreads goal. So this week was a success for me.
If you want to see my past years doing booktube-a-thon, they're on my youtube channel:
2014 - playlist of daily videos
2015 - TBR - Wrap-Up
2016 - TBR - Wrap-Up
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