Today was a rather lazy day. It was my only full day off for the week, so I was able to sleep in and also still manage to read quite a bit. :)
I read 60 pages of Flyte, 70 pages of City of Bones, and 84 pages of Anatomy of a Boyfriend for a grand total of 214 pages. I'm still feeling very ambitious and optimistic in hoping that I will be able to finish all of these books, plus also start the next ones in their series. I work all day tomorrow though, so I have quite a bit of reading to get done tonight and tomorrow night if I hope to reach that goal!
I'm again not going to complete the challenge today since I do still want to read a fair bit tonight.
I'm sorry for the lack-luster updates the last couple days. School starting has really messed up my schedule/routines. :/ I plan to get organized early next week though, after the read-a-thon is finished. You may have noticed I also haven't posted my Room review yet, but that will be going up on Monday or Tuesday. The rest of the reviews from this week will follow in the days after that, so stay tuned. I will also be starting to post other sorts of posts as well, so you have all that to look forward to starting early next week.
Until then... happy reading!
Total pages read: 1280
Books started: 3
Books finished: 2
Challenges completed: 5
Saturday 11 January 2014
Friday 10 January 2014
Bout of Books 9.0 Day 4 & 5 Update
Okay, so it's been a couple of crazy days for me. My new semester has FINALLY started, and I have had classes for most/part of the last two days. I forgot how tiring waking up early and going in to school for even a couple of hours is (which is why you didn't get an update post yesterday. I was just too tired). The weather has finally returned to "normal" at least though.
Because of having classes/school stuff to deal with, I have not been able to read quite as much as I would have liked the last couple of days. During Day 4, I managed to read 106 pages of Flyte and exactly 50 pages of City of Bones (For a total of 156 pages). As of right now, my Day 5 total is 206 pages. I have read 122 pages of City of Bones, and I have also finally started Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky, which I have received for review from the author (I've read 84 pages of it today). This means that my grand total for the five days, as of right now is 1066 pages! Not quite where I'd like to be, but still pretty darn good.
Now, seeing as I didn't do my Day 4 update post last night, I haven't done any of the challenges for that day, and I also haven't had a chance to do today's yet either, so I think I'm just going to skip doing them, even though I sorta don't want to. I want to give myself as much time to read tonight as I possibly can though too, so it's probably for the best.
And, I guess, that's it for now. My totals can be found below, and I'll be back tomorrow around this time for another update. Happy reading!
Total pages read: 1066
Books started: 3
Books finished: 2
Challenges completed: 5
Because of having classes/school stuff to deal with, I have not been able to read quite as much as I would have liked the last couple of days. During Day 4, I managed to read 106 pages of Flyte and exactly 50 pages of City of Bones (For a total of 156 pages). As of right now, my Day 5 total is 206 pages. I have read 122 pages of City of Bones, and I have also finally started Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky, which I have received for review from the author (I've read 84 pages of it today). This means that my grand total for the five days, as of right now is 1066 pages! Not quite where I'd like to be, but still pretty darn good.
Now, seeing as I didn't do my Day 4 update post last night, I haven't done any of the challenges for that day, and I also haven't had a chance to do today's yet either, so I think I'm just going to skip doing them, even though I sorta don't want to. I want to give myself as much time to read tonight as I possibly can though too, so it's probably for the best.
And, I guess, that's it for now. My totals can be found below, and I'll be back tomorrow around this time for another update. Happy reading!
Total pages read: 1066
Books started: 3
Books finished: 2
Challenges completed: 5
Wednesday 8 January 2014
Bout of Books 9.0 Day 3 Update
Today was sort of a weird day. I feel like I did lots of things, but still managed to get nothing done! It was, for the third day in a row, yet another snow day for me. Lucky I know. ;) I think the streak is finally over though, as it stopped snowing this morning, and my family and I spent the better part of the afternoon digging ourselves out. The ploughs have finally been by as well, so I'll be surprised if I don't have classes tomorrow, now that the roads are at least somewhat drivable.
Due to all the busy-ness in the afternoon though, I haven't read nearly as much today as I had hoped. (This seems to be turning into a pattern, and, with classes finally starting for me, it may persist. I don't like it. :/) I've only managed to read 106 pages of Flyte, and 62 pages of City of Bones, for a total of 168 pages. I'm really hoping I can make it to 300 today, but we'll have to see. I'm quite tired after all the shovelling I did earlier. hehe
Now, before getting into the one challenge for today, there's another couple of things I want to address: my book and movie reviews. I think I've decided that I'm definitely going to do a review for Room (It should be up tomorrow or Friday at the latest), but I haven't quite decided how I'm going to review the Septimus Heap series (or series' in general for that matter). I was originally planning on reviewing each book separately, but 1) that's a lot of work, and 2) I feel like the reviews will get repetitive. I therefore think that when reviewing series I will either do an entire series review, or review multiple books in a series at once by doing mini-reviews of each book in one, big post. In regards to the Septimus Heap books though, I'm thinking an entire series review at this point, but that might change after I finish another book or two. If anyone wants to read my thoughts on all the books I read (as I usually write a blurb when I finish them), you can add me as a friend on Goodreads. (My username is BookishlyBecca.)
For movie reviews, I have really only watched a few new anime movies so far this year, and I feel like I need to re-watch the two that I plan to do a review and/or discussion on, so those may not be up for another week or so. Stay tuned!
My Favourite Genre
Today's challenge was on Doing Dewey. The challenge was to pick a book or two to use as a way to introduce someone to your favourite genre.
My favourite genre is Fantasy. The books I would recommend to someone to get them into this genre would be the Harry Potter series (of course!) by J.K. Rowling and The Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare. (I personally like The Mortal Instruments series quite a bit as well, but I know that most people prefer TID, so I'm going with those books as my recommendation.)
That's it for today. See you all tomorrow.
Happy reading!
Total pages read: 704
Books started: 2
Books finished: 2
Challenges completed: 5
Due to all the busy-ness in the afternoon though, I haven't read nearly as much today as I had hoped. (This seems to be turning into a pattern, and, with classes finally starting for me, it may persist. I don't like it. :/) I've only managed to read 106 pages of Flyte, and 62 pages of City of Bones, for a total of 168 pages. I'm really hoping I can make it to 300 today, but we'll have to see. I'm quite tired after all the shovelling I did earlier. hehe
Now, before getting into the one challenge for today, there's another couple of things I want to address: my book and movie reviews. I think I've decided that I'm definitely going to do a review for Room (It should be up tomorrow or Friday at the latest), but I haven't quite decided how I'm going to review the Septimus Heap series (or series' in general for that matter). I was originally planning on reviewing each book separately, but 1) that's a lot of work, and 2) I feel like the reviews will get repetitive. I therefore think that when reviewing series I will either do an entire series review, or review multiple books in a series at once by doing mini-reviews of each book in one, big post. In regards to the Septimus Heap books though, I'm thinking an entire series review at this point, but that might change after I finish another book or two. If anyone wants to read my thoughts on all the books I read (as I usually write a blurb when I finish them), you can add me as a friend on Goodreads. (My username is BookishlyBecca.)
For movie reviews, I have really only watched a few new anime movies so far this year, and I feel like I need to re-watch the two that I plan to do a review and/or discussion on, so those may not be up for another week or so. Stay tuned!
My Favourite Genre
Today's challenge was on Doing Dewey. The challenge was to pick a book or two to use as a way to introduce someone to your favourite genre.
My favourite genre is Fantasy. The books I would recommend to someone to get them into this genre would be the Harry Potter series (of course!) by J.K. Rowling and The Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare. (I personally like The Mortal Instruments series quite a bit as well, but I know that most people prefer TID, so I'm going with those books as my recommendation.)
That's it for today. See you all tomorrow.
Happy reading!
Total pages read: 704
Books started: 2
Books finished: 2
Challenges completed: 5
Tuesday 7 January 2014
Bout of Books 9.0 Day 2 Update
Today was... interesting. It's like a blizzard here still, so I had no school once again (Yay!), and was therefore able to stay inside and read all day again. (Double yay!) It's like the universe knows that it's a read-a-thon this week, and it wants me to read lots or something... hehe Anyway, I actually didn't get quite as much reading done today as I would have liked, but I still read quite a bit, so I can't really complain.
Before I get to today's stats and challenges though, I first just want to quickly go over what I was able to read late last night, after I did my Day 1 update. I managed to read another 40 pages of Flyte, and I also read the first 19 pages of City of Bones, bringing my Day 1 page total up to 317. I'm VERY pleased with this, as I had originally only hoped to read around 200 pages a day.
Today stat's aren't quite as good as yesterday's, but they're still quite good. I actually managed to read the last 115 pages of Room, as in I finished it, and I have also so far read another 104 pages of Flyte, bringing my current Day 2 page count to 219. Not too shabby. :) I also hope to read more of City of Bones tonight, and potentially start Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky. (I received the latter for review months ago, so I should really finally get around to reading it...)
Now for today's challenges.
My Reading Tactics
On Sarah Says Read, there was the Reading Tactics Challenge (This one also includes a giveaway). All you had to do was answer the following question(s): How do you fit in as much reading as possible in Bout of Books? How do you squeeze in those extra pages?
And my answer: First off, I try to pick books that are fairly short/quick reads, that I know I'll be able to read at a fast but steady pace and I won't get bored of. I then bring said book(s) with me everywhere, and read whenever I get a chance. I also like to get up a little earlier and stay up a bit later than I normally do to get in as many pages as I can.
Audiobook Cast
On Geeky Blogger's Book Blog, there was the Cast Your Book Challenge. This involved picking your favourite book and casting the main characters in it for the book's own radio show. Cool!
My Book: Room by Emma Donoghue
My Cast: Jack would be Jacob Tremblay, and Jack's Ma would be Kirsten Dunst. (Jack's Ma is hard to cast... but I tried my best. I went for both voice and looks/age for both characters, even though the latter doesn't really matter for a radio show.)
And... that's it for today. Happy reading everyone!
Total pages read: 536
Books started: 2
Books finished: 2
Challenges completed: 4
Before I get to today's stats and challenges though, I first just want to quickly go over what I was able to read late last night, after I did my Day 1 update. I managed to read another 40 pages of Flyte, and I also read the first 19 pages of City of Bones, bringing my Day 1 page total up to 317. I'm VERY pleased with this, as I had originally only hoped to read around 200 pages a day.
Today stat's aren't quite as good as yesterday's, but they're still quite good. I actually managed to read the last 115 pages of Room, as in I finished it, and I have also so far read another 104 pages of Flyte, bringing my current Day 2 page count to 219. Not too shabby. :) I also hope to read more of City of Bones tonight, and potentially start Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky. (I received the latter for review months ago, so I should really finally get around to reading it...)
Now for today's challenges.
My Reading Tactics
On Sarah Says Read, there was the Reading Tactics Challenge (This one also includes a giveaway). All you had to do was answer the following question(s): How do you fit in as much reading as possible in Bout of Books? How do you squeeze in those extra pages?
And my answer: First off, I try to pick books that are fairly short/quick reads, that I know I'll be able to read at a fast but steady pace and I won't get bored of. I then bring said book(s) with me everywhere, and read whenever I get a chance. I also like to get up a little earlier and stay up a bit later than I normally do to get in as many pages as I can.
Audiobook Cast
On Geeky Blogger's Book Blog, there was the Cast Your Book Challenge. This involved picking your favourite book and casting the main characters in it for the book's own radio show. Cool!
My Book: Room by Emma Donoghue
My Cast: Jack would be Jacob Tremblay, and Jack's Ma would be Kirsten Dunst. (Jack's Ma is hard to cast... but I tried my best. I went for both voice and looks/age for both characters, even though the latter doesn't really matter for a radio show.)
And... that's it for today. Happy reading everyone!
Total pages read: 536
Books started: 2
Books finished: 2
Challenges completed: 4
Monday 6 January 2014
Bout of Books 9.0 Day 1 Update
Okie dokie. So Day 1 of the read-a-thon isn't quite over yet for me (It's currently just after 10 PM where I live, so I still have around 2 hours left to read as much as I possibly can today), but I figured I would post my update now so that I am able to include the challenges for the day in this post.
Before I get to my stats for the day and said challenges though, I just wanted to explain why my day turned out way better than I was expecting. It just so happens that today was my first day of my new semester of college, so I wasn't sure how much time I was going to have to read. Luckily for me though, we have had a TON of snow fall over the course of the last 24 hours, so the college I go to was closed (as were all the schools around here), and I was able to stay inside all day and read instead. Yay! I therefore have read quite a few more pages than I expected to, and I even plan to read a bit more still!
Anyway, today so far I have managed to read 258 pages. I had started a couple of books quite a few months back: Magyk by Angie Sage and Room by Emma Donoghue. (Total opposites I know. :P) And I actually managed to finish Magyk a couple days ago. I then moved on to the short story between Magyk and Flyte (the second book in the Septimus Heap series), The Darke Toad. I hadn't quite finished that before the read-a-thon started, so I began Bout of Books 9.0 by finishing the last 39 pages of that. I have also managed to read 66 pages of Flyte so far today (I hope to read a bit more of this before bed), and 153 pages of Room. I'm also planning on reading a few pages of City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.
I'll start my update tomorrow (and the rest of the week's) by first stating how many more pages and whatnot I was able to read the previous night. I'm also going to keep a running list of all my stats at the bottom of each of the update posts, just for easier reference. (I also have a thing for lists. hehe)
Now for the challenges. Today there were two.
Book Buying Spree
On Bookish Comforts, there was the Book Buying Spree Challenge. This challenge involved going to The Book Depository's website and putting $100 worth or less of books in your cart (without buying them of course). This challenge also includes a giveaway. The winner will be able to pick one of the books in their cart to actually buy that is worth up to $15. I'll include my list of books below.
Wildwood Imperium (Paperback) $12.56
Cress (Hardback) $16.14
Unhinged (Hardback) $14.69
Frostbite (Hardback) $17.96
Shadow Kiss (Hardback) $17.03
Last Sacrifice (Hardback) $16.37
Total $94.75
Mad Libs
On Cheap Thrills, there was the Mad Libs Challenge. This challenge was fairly straight forward. You just had to choose words from book titles that match the types of words that they were looking for. My list was the following:
character name- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
adjective1- The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
adjective2- The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket
item- The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
occupation- Guardian of the Gate by Michelle Zink
act of violence: Torment by Lauren Kate
adjective3: A Perfect, Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson
noun1: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
noun2: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
And my resulting story...
I just read the greatest book!
This guy, Harry Potter, ends up in the middle of an old conspiracy. Turns out his ancestors were pirates, and he might be the key to finding the wide trumpet. It's a mythical artifact that disappeared centuries ago, and now a shadowy group of guardians are looking for it. No one knows what uncovering it might do, but these guys are willing to torment for it.
I won't say anything else. But believe me, if you like gentle stories with hobbits and feasts, you have to read this one.
Baha! It's a little weird, but I suppose it mostly makes sense.
And... that's it for today. Tune in for another update around this time tomorrow.
Happy reading!
Total pages read: 258
Books started: 1
Books finished: 1
Challenges completed: 2
Before I get to my stats for the day and said challenges though, I just wanted to explain why my day turned out way better than I was expecting. It just so happens that today was my first day of my new semester of college, so I wasn't sure how much time I was going to have to read. Luckily for me though, we have had a TON of snow fall over the course of the last 24 hours, so the college I go to was closed (as were all the schools around here), and I was able to stay inside all day and read instead. Yay! I therefore have read quite a few more pages than I expected to, and I even plan to read a bit more still!
Anyway, today so far I have managed to read 258 pages. I had started a couple of books quite a few months back: Magyk by Angie Sage and Room by Emma Donoghue. (Total opposites I know. :P) And I actually managed to finish Magyk a couple days ago. I then moved on to the short story between Magyk and Flyte (the second book in the Septimus Heap series), The Darke Toad. I hadn't quite finished that before the read-a-thon started, so I began Bout of Books 9.0 by finishing the last 39 pages of that. I have also managed to read 66 pages of Flyte so far today (I hope to read a bit more of this before bed), and 153 pages of Room. I'm also planning on reading a few pages of City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.
I'll start my update tomorrow (and the rest of the week's) by first stating how many more pages and whatnot I was able to read the previous night. I'm also going to keep a running list of all my stats at the bottom of each of the update posts, just for easier reference. (I also have a thing for lists. hehe)
Now for the challenges. Today there were two.
Book Buying Spree
On Bookish Comforts, there was the Book Buying Spree Challenge. This challenge involved going to The Book Depository's website and putting $100 worth or less of books in your cart (without buying them of course). This challenge also includes a giveaway. The winner will be able to pick one of the books in their cart to actually buy that is worth up to $15. I'll include my list of books below.
Wildwood Imperium (Paperback) $12.56
Cress (Hardback) $16.14
Unhinged (Hardback) $14.69
Frostbite (Hardback) $17.96
Shadow Kiss (Hardback) $17.03
Last Sacrifice (Hardback) $16.37
Total $94.75
Mad Libs
On Cheap Thrills, there was the Mad Libs Challenge. This challenge was fairly straight forward. You just had to choose words from book titles that match the types of words that they were looking for. My list was the following:
character name- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
adjective1- The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
adjective2- The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket
item- The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
occupation- Guardian of the Gate by Michelle Zink
act of violence: Torment by Lauren Kate
adjective3: A Perfect, Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson
noun1: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
noun2: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
And my resulting story...
I just read the greatest book!
This guy, Harry Potter, ends up in the middle of an old conspiracy. Turns out his ancestors were pirates, and he might be the key to finding the wide trumpet. It's a mythical artifact that disappeared centuries ago, and now a shadowy group of guardians are looking for it. No one knows what uncovering it might do, but these guys are willing to torment for it.
I won't say anything else. But believe me, if you like gentle stories with hobbits and feasts, you have to read this one.
Baha! It's a little weird, but I suppose it mostly makes sense.
And... that's it for today. Tune in for another update around this time tomorrow.
Happy reading!
Total pages read: 258
Books started: 1
Books finished: 1
Challenges completed: 2
Bout of Books Read-a-thon 9.0!
Hello all! I have decided (just now and very last minute-y) to sign up/participate in the Bout of Books Read-a-thon this year! Yay! If anyone doesn't know what this read-a-thon is about, please check out the blurb below:
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
I have actually never participated in a read-a-thon before, so I am both very excited and slightly nervous, as I am just now getting out of a rather huge reading "slump" that started around the time I began my new school year (last September-ish). Funnily enough though, my second semester of said school year starts today, so hopefully I'm not sucked into another non-reading period as that would not be a very good thing to happen in the middle of a read-a-thon. :P Anyway, I'm rambling. All I mean to say is that I'm participating and I'm nervous-excited!
Now, with having just gotten out of a slump and all I haven't really read very much the last couple months, so I have nothing to really base off of how much I should be aiming to read (as I believe the point of a read-a-thon is to read more than you normally do... Correct me if I'm wrong), but I know generally I read about a book a week depending on how long/short it is, so I suppose as long as I read at least two books over the course of the week I have succeeded right? ;) That isn't good enough for me though. Right now my Goodreads Reading Challenge for this year is set to 50 books, but I'd really like to bump it up to 100, so in light of that (a.k.a. to get me on the right track) I'm hoping to read around 200 pages a day (1400 total) or 3-4 books over the course of the week.
Let me know if any of you are participating. I know it would be much more fun to do this along with some other people. :)
But yeah, you should be seeing daily updates on here about my progress, and I'm also going to try to keep up with writing and posting reviews of all of the books that I manage to get through. You can also expect a review of a book I just recently finished being posted later today as well.
Happy reading!
Wednesday 1 January 2014
Happy New Year!
Happy 2014 everyone! A new year holds so much potential, and I plan to take full advantage of it!
Besides a few things (like the fact that I have yet to put up any real posts on here), I feel very good about the new year and what I was able to accomplish last year. I have many plans and goals for 2014 and I am determined to stick with them.
You may have noticed already that I have added quite a few new tabs to the side bar. Feel free to peruse them at your leisure. They basically are what I plan to do on this blog over the course of this year. Along with frequently posting reviews and putting up other, more random posts, I hope to read 50 books and watch 100 new movies (or more). I therefore encourage you to check those tabs (and keep coming back to this blog) often, as they will most likely get updated at least 2-3 times a week. I also hope to put up at least that many posts every week.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a safe, happy new years. I also hope you are as excited about the new year as I am! Leave your own new year's resolutions below if you feel like sharing.
Talk to you again soon!
Besides a few things (like the fact that I have yet to put up any real posts on here), I feel very good about the new year and what I was able to accomplish last year. I have many plans and goals for 2014 and I am determined to stick with them.
You may have noticed already that I have added quite a few new tabs to the side bar. Feel free to peruse them at your leisure. They basically are what I plan to do on this blog over the course of this year. Along with frequently posting reviews and putting up other, more random posts, I hope to read 50 books and watch 100 new movies (or more). I therefore encourage you to check those tabs (and keep coming back to this blog) often, as they will most likely get updated at least 2-3 times a week. I also hope to put up at least that many posts every week.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a safe, happy new years. I also hope you are as excited about the new year as I am! Leave your own new year's resolutions below if you feel like sharing.
Talk to you again soon!
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