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Cookie Read-A-Thon: Day 8

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I managed to meet my goal, although it did take me a strangely long amount of time to read 250 pages. I’m going to blame the fact that my lips and hands are all tingly from lack of oxygen. (I miss breathing… I bet it’s nice this time of year…)

I plan to make a post or two about Love & Gelato, but not tonight, too exhausted.

Books Read Today:

Time Spent Reading Today:  3 H 10 M

Total Pages Read:  2131

Total Time Spent Reading:  25 H 33 M

Books Completed During Read-A-Thon:  8

Tomorrow I will need to pick yet another book from my shelf (you can see the options here, and give me your opinion on what I should read next because I super need it!) and I’d like to make a sizable dent in it. Also I may try to work on Unmade a little more, but somehow I doubt it.

Cookie Read-A-Thon: Day 7

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I’m sad to admit I haven’t been doing very well at the read-a-thon yesterday or today.

Yesterday I literally slept all day. When I was awake I was in that half-asleep haze… I wanted to read, and at one point my fever was high enough that I thought I was reading, but then I realized I didn’t have a book. I don’t think I can feasibly count that as read-a-thon progress.

Today I only read for about an hour. I intended to make up for yesterday by reading a whole book, but after falling asleep reading 3 times (once in the bath, thank goodness the book fell onto the floor and not into the tub with me, that would have been horrible) I’ve given up.

Books Read Today:

Time Spent Reading Today:  1 H 27 M

Total Pages Read:  1881

Total Time Spent Reading:  22 H 23 M

Books Completed During Read-A-Thon:  7

Tomorrow I hope to finish Love & Gelato. If I can do that, I’ll consider it a good day. Wish me luck y’all.

The Cookie Read-A-Thon Kind of Daily Challenge, Day 7: Favorite Reading Spot

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I’m doing The Cookie Read-A-Thon, started by Mary @ Books & Cookies (on her tumblr blog though). Learn More

I’d like to take this opportunity to send a little shout-out to lost favorite reading spots: It’s been a long time, I miss you, you were the perfect comfort level…

I’ve had several favorite reading spots in my life, each one a little odd.

When I was 3 I used to have this little plastic shopping cart (you know, like a kid sized, brightly-colored thing) and I used to sit in it, legs hanging out over the edge — looking quite a lot like a turtle or beetle that’s been flipped over — and read for hours, oblivious to the fact that I should have been horribly uncomfortable.

When I was in elementary school my favorite reading spot was the shadowy spot under the trampoline in the church gymnasium. They had one of those big rectangular ones that folds over on itself and they would store it in the back corner of the gym, as well as a bunch of gym mats that were folded up underneath it. I loved to lounge on the mats under there where it was all dark and creepy and I could look up and watch everyone playing while I was reading. I’d still go under there if I could.

In middle school it was a tree. The church had this perfect climbing tree and I could get on this specific branch and lay back and when I looked up it felt like being in a tent made of leaves. It was the perfect aesthetically pleasing reading tree, and I would spend ages up there reading and occasionally eavesdropping on people who didn’t realize there was a child in the tree they were talking under…

In high school I discovered the joys of reading at a desk. I mean it wasn’t like I’d never sat at a desk and read before, but I guess I hit the perfect height or something because it suddenly got way more comfortable. I’m talking about those school desks with the seat attached to the table part. I even had an old one (from like the 60s) in my bedroom at home! It was the perfect combination of comfortable and uncomfortable, and I could rest my arms on it while leaning back and reading. When we lost the house I lost that old school desk, but it was a good spot; I hope whoever has it now loves it.

After high school was over and my then-boyfriend and I got our first apartment, I spent hours every day on the balcony reading (and smoking and drinking, but that’s beside the point). I could lean back against our front door, legs stretched out so my feet touched the railing, and breeze through some novel, occasionally pausing to people-watch or daydream. And as long as I remembered to move my legs when people wanted to go by, it was perfectly comfortable.

I don’t currently have a favorite reading spot, but that’s mostly because I don’t have a lot of options. I don’t really leave the house at all (last time was months and months ago and only happened because I was really sick and went to the ER) so I mostly just read on the couch or in bed. Not a lot of variety, no need for a preference. But being me, when/if I find a new favorite reading spot, I will inevitably be so excited I’ll have to post it on the internet.

I’d love to hear about some of your favorite reading spots over the years!

Cookie Read-A-Thon: Day 5

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Well, I met my goals, but only barely. To be completely honest I slept most of the day today. I’m only awake now because I got up for water and was thinking about my read-a-thon goals and just couldn’t stand the idea of breaking this good streak I’ve been on. So I spent some very drowsy hours finish the Gallagher Girls series. It’s a testament to the writing I think that it held my attention and I actually retained what I read.

I’ll probably go back to bed once this is posted…

Books Read Today:

Time Spent Reading Today:  4 H 6 M

Total Pages Read:  1745

Total Time Spent Reading:  20 H 56 M

Books Completed During Read-A-Thon:  7

I don’t even know what to set as a goal for myself for tomorrow… I don’t even know what I’d like to read next! (I’ll gladly take suggestions from anyone, the books I have to choose from can be found here.)

I suppose my goal will be… figure out what I want to read and read at least half of it (all of it if I manage not to sleep the day away, but I won’t get my hopes up).

The Cookie Read-A-Thon Kind of Daily Challenge, Day 5: Favorite Genre

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I’m doing The Cookie Read-A-Thon, started by Mary @ Books & Cookies (on her tumblr blog though). Learn More

Well the broad answer would be:  YA Fiction.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve tried general fiction (or adult fiction), but with few exceptions I typically find murder mysteries, which I don’t enjoy, or something claiming to be of some other genre, but is really just a vehicle for excessive and unnecessary sex scenes. I don’t begrudge a good smut scene, don’t get me wrong, but when there’s equal parts sex and plot, that’s unnecessary (unless you’re writing an erotic novel in which case, right on dude); when the sex scenes do nothing to serve the actual story, that’s unnecessary. I just want a story for heaven’s sake….

So I tend to stick to YA Fiction. Because even though there is romance (borderline excessive romance) and even sex scenes sometimes, for the most part there’s more story than anything else.

(I guess you can tell I don’t typically like to read romance novels either?)

To be more specific: YA Fantasy.

Perhaps it’s the fact that most fantasy novels involve battles and journeys and Adventure™ that make them the most enjoyable for me. Or maybe it’s the potential for mystical creatures and magic. Or maybe it’s just that it’s so very, very different from my real life.

There’s just something about a fantasy novel, a YA Fantasy novel specifically, that speaks to my imagination perfectly.

What are your favorite genres? Recommend me a book from your favorite genre, if you like.

Cookie Read-A-Thon: Day 4

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Ha! I stomped all over my goal from yesterday. Take that, Goal!

I’m pretty proud of myself considering I feel terrible physically, I waited a stupid long time to actually start reading today, and I didn’t even read for very long.

Books Read Today:

Time Spent Reading Today:  4 H 54 M

Total Pages Read:  1362

Total Time Spent Reading:  16 H 50 M

Books Completed During Read-A-Thon:  5

My goal for day 5 of the read-a-thon is to finish the Gallagher Girls series completely (just a little over 1 book at this point). I’m pretty confident that I can do that, but once that’s done I’ve got no idea what I’ll read next!

Musing Monday: October 16, 2017

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Musing Mondays is a weekly meme, hosted by Ambrosia at The Purple Booker, that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

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…

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: Do you like or dislike memoirs?

I don’t know exactly which prompt this fits under best, but basically I think I’m going to try reading John Green’s new book, Turtles All The Way Down. I read his other books, and while they weren’t terrible and I enjoyed some parts of them, ultimately I outgrew the stage where I enjoyed them quite quickly. I got tired of “mentally ill girl captivates boring white boy who learns stuff about life through his love of her quirkiness” and other related tropes involving teens and a mysterious lack of brown/black people…

But now I’m wondering, since John Green is or was active in the online book community (as well as others) he probably would have seen some of the criticisms of his works. Sarah J. Maas did, Maggie Stiefvater did. Maggie made apologies to her readers for the lack of POC and the insensitive handling of POC in The Raven Cycle when it was called out. Sarah J. Maas got sensitivity readers and made more efforts with her newest book. So did John Green hear his  readers and understand and try to improve?

I tried to find out from reviewers and such, but so far all I’m seeing are people who are already huge fans of his novels fangirling and people who don’t like him a bit talking about how they won’t be reading it. I think it might be too soon to find someone who can give me answers to this question I have. (If you’ve seen anyone talking about it, please please link me to it!)

So since my library has it anyway, I put it on hold. I’m behind a few people in line, but I’m in no hurry. I just want to satisfy my curiosity and since I’ve yet to see anyone posting about problematic things I figure I’ll have to read it for myself to find out if it’s better than his older books. I do genuinely hope he listened to the POC and mentally ill people and women who voiced valid criticisms of his work and decided to grow as a writer from it. We shall see. (I will say, if I don’t enjoy it or I spot problematic shit right away, I won’t be forcing myself to finish.)

Do you like or dislike memoirs?
I looooooooooove a memoir man! My favorites are celebrity memoirs, because a lot of times with them being so in the spotlight we get this idea that we already know them, but we don’t and it’s interesting to see what’s really going on with them and what they’ve been thinking during certain times of their lives. But really I’m down with any memoir, no matter who it’s about. It gives such a personal look to any event that I can’t resist.

Cookie Read-A-Thon: Day 3

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Despite finishing two books I still feel like I barely spent any time reading today! Ugh! And of course I have to be getting sick… I knew I would, hubby has been sick for days so it was only a matter of time, but now I feel blechy and that makes reading harder because I’m distracted by my own physical misery.

I did totally meet and surpass my goals that I set for myself yesterday though. I not only finished the second Gallagher Girls book, but I started and finished the third one too, and I read for more time than the past two days.

Books Read Today:

Time Spent Reading Today:  5 H 06 M

Total Pages Read:  893

Total Time Spent Reading:  11 H 56 M

Books Completed During Read-A-Thon:  4

My goals for tomorrow are to read the entire fourth Gallagher Girls book and at least start on the fifth one. I’d set more challenging goals, but with as sick as I feel already tomorrow is going to be a pretty crappy day. Although if I wind up in the ER again, at least I’ll get some good reading time in!

The Cookie Read-A-Thon Kind of Daily Challenge, Day 3: Book(s) You Read in One Sitting

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I’m doing The Cookie Read-A-Thon, started by Mary @ Books & Cookies (on her tumblr blog though). Learn More

I decided to interpret this prompt as “the type of book I usually read in one sitting” so here goes:

I’ve noticed that for the most part, I don’t usually read my favorite genre (YA Fantasy) in one sitting, but I’m not sure why. The genre I’m most likely to sit down and read all in one go is YA Contemporary, like the book I read last Thursday, Empress of the World (by Sara Ryan). That’s not to say there aren’t exceptions, but those usually have more to do with extenuating factors like lack of internet connection, unusually good writing (*cough* Cynthia Voigt *cough*), or the book being due back at the library the very next day.

The best I can figure, it must be the setting that does it. Because with a fantasy novel you have all this world building that goes into it, and with a contemporary novel it’s just your world so you can just jump right into it and go without having to remember where places are or how they do things or whatever.

Since I sort of mentioned her, I’ll point out that I can almost always read a Cynthia Voigt book in one sitting, regardless of genre. Unless something comes up that makes me have to stop reading, I won’t put a Cynthia Voigt book down until it’s over. (And possibly not even then.) I’ve read most of them several times over, but every single time I love them just as much as if it were the first time! I’ve never loved an author more honestly, as anyone who spends more than 30 seconds on this blog can probably tell.

Even if you’re not doing the read-a-thon, I’d love to know what sort of books you usually devour in one sitting, or even specific books you have (because I live for book recs, y’all). Comment (or reblog/message me if you are reading this on tumblr instead of wordpress) and let me know!

Cookie Read-A-Thon: Day 2

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Welp, once again I slept late (not complaining, I loooove sleeping) and then had….motivational difficulties, but I did eventually sit down to read.

I met my goals that I set for myself yesterday (finish the first Gallagher Girls book and make a start on some other book) so I’m satisfied, even though I feel like I should have spent more time reading today.

Books Read Today:

Time Spent Reading Today:  3 H 24 M

Total Pages Read:  452

Total Time Spent Reading:  6 H 50 M

Books Completed During Read-A-Thon:  2

Tomorrow my goals are to finish the second Gallagher Girls book which I started today, make a start on another book to be chosen when the time comes, and read more than 3 hours 20-something minutes because if I read almost the exact same dinky amount of time three days in a row it’s going to bug me.