Read-A-Thon Day Two

Here's the update doe today

Pages read on Tuesday
Cinder - 222
Dead Ever After - 50
Total for the day - 272


Books Completed to date - Cinder
Pages read to date - 437

Read-A-Thon Day One

Right after midnight I started to read Cinder. Unfortunately I didn't get to read as much as I wanted to because of work...

I read 165 pages.

Tuesday is my day off so I plan to read as much as I can.

Sorry this update was so short... Got to get back to reading!

Read-A-Thon Goals

Time Devoted to Reading

I will be reading all week. Hopefully at least 1 hour each day.

My Goals

• My goal is to read at least 2 books this week. Hopefully I will be able to do more than that.
  

Books to Read

• Cinder
• Dead Ever After

Number Nineteen (Audiobook)

Title: Matched

Author: Ally Condie
Publication Year: 2010
Publishing Company: Dutton Juvenile
Number of Pages: 369
Part of a Series: Yes (Book One)
Read for Pleasure or School: Pleasure
Would Recommend: Maybe
Rating: 3 out of 5

Starting Back with a Bang

Now that my life is calming down, I am up and running again. I figured what better way to get back into the swing of things than with a read-a-thon.

I am going to join in on the Bout of Books Read-a-thon which is being on Monday the 13th.

Here is their official blurb:

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, May 13th and runs through Sunday, May 19th 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 7.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. 
- From the Bout of Books team

 My personal goal is to read 2-3 novels in the week. I think that is a reasonable goal. I guess we'll see if I'm right next Sunday.

Number Eighteen (Audiobook)

Title: Academ's Fury

Author: Jim Butcher
Publication Year: 2006
Publishing Company: Ace
Number of Pages: 704
Part of a Series: Yes (Book Two)
Read for Pleasure or School: Pleasure
Would Recommend: Yes
Rating: 4 out of 5

Struggling to Find Time

With school coming to a close I am truly struggling to find time for anything.

Here are the next few weeks of my life:

This week

• 15 page paper
• presentation
• 33 hours at work

Next week

• 10 page paper
• 5 page paper
• 2 presentations
• 31 hours at work

The following week

• 3 finals
• 12 hours at work
• trip to New Jersey/New York

The up side? After that I am done with college! Even better? I have a full time job waiting for me in the middle of May.

Yes, yes I'll get to the point. What does this mean for you? Basically the rest of this month I will not be around. I doubt I will post again until May. I am truly sorry about this. May will be another story though. I will have a set work schedule therefore I can plan my life accordingly. You can expect 2 (maybe 3) posts a week. Also I will have time read again. 

I can not express in words how thrilled I am about having time for the things I love again. I am sorry that I still have a few more weeks to wait though.

Number Seventeen (Audiobook)

Title: Thirteen Reasons Why

Author: Jay Asher
Publication Year: 2007
Publishing Company: Razorbill
Number of Pages: 304
Part of a Series: No
Read for Pleasure or School: Pleasure
Would Recommend: Yes
Rating: 5 out of 5

Coming to a Close

My final semester as an undergrad is coming to a close. As it finishes, I realize that there is so much left to do. I have presentations, papers, and exams galore. That is not even including the extra hours I took on at work. Something is going to have to be let go. Since I can't ditch school or work, it will be reading that is lost in the madness.

Don't misunderstand me, I will still be posting on here and trying to make videos. Also I will still read, just not at the same pace. If I am going to be completely honest with myself, March was a slow month of reading as well. Had it not been for audiobooks I would have fallen behind on my goal. So this month, I will continue listening to audiobooks, and I will read as much as I find time for.

This is just a heads up that if I want to graduate in May (which I desperately do) I will need to have less reading time. Come May it will be an entirely different story. I will only be working (and looking for a big girl job) so there will be more than enough time to catch up next month.


P.S. After graduation I also plan to put much more effort into this blog as well as my videos. That's something to look forward to.

Success and Failure

So currently I am sitting 4 books ahead of schedule to complete my 50 Book Challenge this year. Go me! Clearly this is my success, but I didn't just challenge myself to read 50 books. The second layer to my challenge was to read a certain number of books in the following categories.

Read 3 Classics

•  Lolita
•  
•  

Read 3 2013 Releases

•  Etiquette and Espionage
•  
•  

 Read 2 Non-fiction

•  
•  

Complete 3 Series

• Hush, Hush Saga
•  
•  

As you can see, in this regard, I am failing. Yes, yes, it is only the 4th month of the year, but that is almost halfway through. My fear is that the last few months of the year I will be suck trying to finish out these challenges and not getting the chance to read what I want at that moment.

Now is the time to kick it into gear. I am not worried about the 2013 releases, but the others I am going to try harder on. That will start today with the beginning of April.

Number Sixteen (Audiobook)

Title: Entwined

Author: Heather Dixon
Publication Year: 2011
Publishing Company: Greenwillow Books
Number of Pages: 472
Part of a Series: No
Read for Pleasure or School: Pleasure
Would Recommend: Maybe (To the right reader)
Rating: 3 out of 5

The Proper Choice

This month I decided to read the first book in both of Gail Carriger's series.

Finishing School - Etiquette and Espionage
The Parasol Protectorate - Soulless


At first I wanted to read Soulless first only because I have owned it for so long, but then I heard everyone comparing the two novels. Overall what I got was that E&E was poor in comparison to Soulless. Surely it was just the jump from Adult fiction to YA that caused the change in style, but either way hearing this changed my decision. Maybe I am just weird that I did not want to read the better of the two novels first, I don't know what other people would have done honestly.

Here was my thought process: If I read the weaker of the two novels first, it might not seem so bad. If the novel was a strong novel on it's own, but only weaker in comparison to Soulless, then I would be satisfied with it. Having not read Soulless yet, I would have nothing to compare the novel to. If the novel were in fact a weak novel all on it's own then I would have the stronger novel to look forward to. I would just have to make my way through E&E to get to the novel everyone enjoyed.

I think I was right to make this choice. E&E was not poorly written by any means, it was just slow. The story was there even if it did drag at the beginning and go too quickly at the end. I will be picking up the second one when it is released, but I was definitely glad to get to Soulless. Now I am only about a third of the way through Soulless, so I can't say much just yet. So far though I am much more satisfied with this novel, just as everyone said. I will wait to see how it finishes out before I make my final judgement though.

Number Fifteen (Audiobook)

Title: The Book Thief

Author: Markus Zusak
Publication Year: 2006
Publishing Company: Knopf Books
Number of Pages: 550
Part of a Series: No
Read for Pleasure or School: Pleasure
Would Recommend: Yes
Rating: 5 out of 5

Number Fourteen (Audiobook)

Title: The Help

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Publication Year: 2009
Publishing Company: Putnam
Number of Pages: 451
Part of a Series: No
Read for Pleasure or School: Pleasure
Would Recommend: Yes
Rating: 4 out of 5

Number Thirteen (Audiobook)

Title: The Night Circus
Author: Erin Morgenstern
Publication Year: 2011
Publishing Company: Doubleday
Number of Pages: 387
Part of a Series: No
Read for Pleasure or School: Pleasure
Would Recommend: Yes
Rating: 4 out of 5

Including Audiobooks

I have decided that I will include all the audiobooks I am listening to in my 50 Book Challenge.


Today I will add all of the audiobooks I have completed so far (there are three) to by book posts.

Sorry for the overload, I just made the decision.

Number Tweleve

Title: Etiquette and Espionage
Author: Gail Carriger
Publication Year: 2013
Publishing Company: Little, Brown Books
Number of Pages: 307
Part of a Series: Yes - book one
Read for Pleasure or School: Pleasure
Would Recommend: Yes
Rating: 3 out of 5

Supergirl Vol. One

Let me start off with the fact that I loved this!

Once again I had no prior knowledge of Supergirl. Honestly, I am not very familiar with Superman either, so the back story of Krypton was new as well.

This Vol. One is probably one of the best I have read in regards to back story and forming a solid foundation for a series. Most of this trade was in fact just Supergirl's background information. That can turn some people off, especially those already familiar with the character, but for me it was a true selling point. I feel like I learned everything I need to know in order to appreciate the story arc that will come with the next volume.

Let's get on to the emotions of this volume. Supergirl wakes up on a new planet with no real memories of how she arrived there. She then bumps into her cousin, finding him a man when only yesterday (or so she thinks) he was a baby. Superman informs her that her planet is gone and all of her family is dead. These are some pretty heavy things to wake up to. Her emotions are just right to make the whole story believable. The reader almost goes through all five stages of grief with her. This realistic portrayal only made the story stronger.

Then there was Superman. I thought that when he came into the story near the beginning he might overshadow Supergirl, but that was not the case. Superman was used almost as a tool. He informed Supergirl about where she was and what had happened to her family, but he did little else. He tried to explain his beliefs on humans, but he did not push Supergirl towards any one path. I appreciated this because sometimes in comics the more popular characters can overshadow lesser known ones.

Supergirl herself feels like a well founded character. She acts appropriately for her age and situation. More than that though, she is just likable. I wanted to follow her story, because I wanted to know what happened to her.

Overall I give this one a five out of five stars. I read the entire thing in one sitting because I just did not want to stop at all. This is definitely something people should go pick up.

Trying Really Hard

I think I ruined my reading month by doing so well last month...

As of right now, I am still 2 books ahead in my reading challenge. I'm not worried about that, I'm just bummed about not reading much this month. Shame on me.


Hopefully, I will get back into it now that I am on my spring break (aka week of reviews). Talking about a bunch of books should get me excited about reading again.

I'm trying... I am.

Organizing Books

Here's the deal, the majority of my books have not been with me recently. They have been living in storage in a number of locations just waiting for me to have the space for them. It's not that I haven't wanted to keep my books close, I have. It's just that there is no room for them.

Well, it finally got to the point where all of the new books I have gotten recently have no place to go either... In fact, they have been sitting on the floor mostly. So I sucked it up, did some creative rearranging, and bought a bookshelf. Now, this shelf will not completely fix the problem, but it will help. Also my boyfriend is finishing some wall shelves he is making for our room. Hopefully between all the new shelving I can fit most of my books. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

In hopes that I can now house them, I brought a laundry basket full of my books to my new place. So that is another thing I will be doing this coming week. I will organize my books. I will do it. I will.

There will be pictures to follow. Get excited for pictures.