Bout of Books 15.0 Day 1 Update

Day 1 of the read-a-thon is nearly over, so it's time for me to do a quick overview of how my day has gone.

Today I worked from 9 till 5, but I was still able to read a decent amount of pages on my breaks, and I read a bit more tonight too (though not as much as I would have liked. :/) I started reading Room by Emma Donoghue early this morning and managed to get to page 158 by the end of the day. That's not nearly as much as I would have liked to have read, but I kept getting distracted tonight. Hopefully I'm able to read more tomorrow.

And as for the rest of the week, I don't have a set TBR planned at this point, but there are quite a few different books and graphic novels/manga I'd like to read super soon, so I'll most likely just pick and choose from them. (And I'll probably post a picture of the "pile" tomorrow on my Instagram. ;))

The challenge for the read-a-thon today was to introduce yourself #insixwords, and you can find my answer on my Twitter account. I'll also be posting frequent reading updates on my Goodreads account throughout the week (Sorry for all the shameless plugging. >>), and a running list of all my stats can be found at the bottom of each of the update posts I write, here on my blog, just for easier reference.

And... I think that's it for today? Tune in for another update around this time tomorrow. Happy read-a-thoning!


Total pages read: 158
Books started: 1
Books finished: 0
Challenges completed: 1

Bout of Books Read-a-thon 15.0!

Hello everyone! It is, once again, time for yet another Bout of Books read-a-thon! This will be my fourth time participating and I am just as excited as I was the first time! This read-a-thon has become one of my absolute favourites over the past few years and I particularly love doing it during its January session, as I find it's a great way to start off a new year.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Bout of Books, here's a quick note from the lovely people who run it:

"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 4th and runs through Sunday, January 10th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 15 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. 

- From the Bout of Books team"

Now, for my goals this time around, I think I'm going to keep with tradition and aim to read an average of 300 pages a day (which would work out to be 2100 pages for the entire week), do all the daily challenges and keep up with my daily updates, check out some of the other participants blogs (and maybe leave a comment or two?), and at least attempt to take part in one of the Twitter chats. I have been only semi-successful with this list of goals in the past, so hopefully this session I'm finally able to achieve all of them. Wish me luck! ;P

I'll also be sticking with doing separate, daily update posts, and aiming to have them up before midnight my time (EST) everyday, so be on the lookout for those.

And... that's it for my intro post. I hope, for all of you also participating, that you have a good week, full of lots of reading and fun. :)

Happy read-a-thoning everyone!

Bout of Books 13.0 Day 5 Update

Today was finally a good, productive reading day! Yay! I managed to get up quite early this morning, and I spent most of the day just reading, which was nice. :)

I read the last 136 pages of Koko Be Good by Jen Wang, 67 pages of Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and I also managed to read the rest of Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter (There was 202 pages left). That gave me a grand total of 405 pages for the day. Whoo! I'm, obviously, super pleased with this, and I'm feeling good about the last two days now too. I'm thinking I should easily be able to reach my page count goal for the week. ;)

Cover Colour

Today's challenge is on Wishful Endings. It required you to pick a colour and choose four books that were pretty much entirely in that colour. I chose blue (since it's my favourite colour) and you can see my chosen books in the picture below.

All of the books just happen to be from series I haven't read yet too! :P

And that's it for today! See you again tomorrow! Until then... happy read-a-thoning!

Total pages read: 1520
Books started: 6
Books finished: 6
Challenges completed: 5

Bout of Books 13.0 Day 4 Update

Ugh. So today didn't go as planned. I slept in again, read for a little bit this morning, but then I spent my afternoon doing more school stuff and just general, time-wasting-y browsing on my laptop. I also spent most of my evening catching up on TV shows and YouTube videos, so I really only read for about two hours today. Blah. I was hoping to read even more than I did yesterday, but obviously that didn't happen. :/ What I did manage to read was fun though, and I'm thinking I'm going to try to read more before I go to bed (even though it'll be after midnight at that point, so it won't count towards today's page count or anything).

But yes, I started two new books today. One is Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter, which is the second book in her Gallagher Girls series. I'm really enjoying these books so far, and they're perfect for read-a-thons as I find them super easy to get through. I only managed to read the first 34 pages of this one today, but I'm hoping to read the rest of it by tomorrow night. I also started Koko Be Good by Jen Wang, which is an adult graphic novel. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it yet, but the artwork is lovely and the characters are definitely interesting, to say the least. :) I managed to read 164 pages of it. That makes my total for the day 198 pages, which is my lowest for the week so far. Hopefully I can make up for it over the last three days though.

And now we have today's challenge.

From Modern to Classic

Today's challenge is hosted by Ranty Runt of a Reader. It required you to pick a book from 2005 or later that you thought could be a classic in 100 years and give two reasons why you chose it. And this one, like all the past ones, also had a giveaway for a book worth up to $15 from the Book Depository. :)

I'm choosing The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, as it was probably my favorite read from last year, and it's definitely in my top 5 favourite books of all time now, as well. I think it could be a classic in 100 years time because it has a very unique and interesting writing style that is not only engaging to the reader but also super well done and definitely adds to the overall reading experience. The book is definitely one of the most well-written books I've ever read, and I feel it will stand the test of time because of that. It could definitely appeal to make different types and ages of people due to that as well. It also is centred around WWII, and oftentimes classics are written around or about important times in history. This books definitely gives a new and intriguing perspective to one of the "great wars", that's for sure.

And, I guess, that's it for today! My totals can be found below, and I'll be back tomorrow around this time for another update. Happy read-a-thoning!


Total pages read: 1188
Books started: 6
Books finished: 4
Challenges completed: 4

Bout of Books 13.0 Day 3 Update

Today was a bit of a lazier day for me, seeing as I didn't have to work or leave the house at all, even. I slept in this morning and then spent most of the afternoon and evening doing things around the house and working on school stuff for my new semester. I didn't really get a chance to read, therefore, until after supper. I still managed to read the entirety of Sword Art Online: Fairy Dance (Vol. 3) by Reki Kawahara though (which was a chunky 336 pages) and another 67 pages of Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. That brought my daily page count to 403 pages! Though, again, the majority of those pages came from a manga volume, and I feel sorta guilty counting them, seeing as they're so much easier to read than a normal, full-length novel. But whatever, at least I made more progress with Catcher in the Rye. I'm liking reading a graphic novel/manga volume a day, along with reading a bit from a classic. It evens things out nicely, while also giving me a variety of things to read. It's nice. :)

I think my game plan for the rest of the week is going to be to continue to read one graphic novel/manga volume a day, along with reading a bit from the book or two I'm currently reading. It would be nice to get through another couple of books, at the very least.

Anyway, now for today's challenge.

Book Haiku

Today's challenge was on Kristina Horner. The challenge was to write a haiku about the book you're currently reading (which for me is Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger). This challenge, like the last two, also came with a giveaway. Yay! You had the chance to win a book up to $15 from the Book Depository. But yes, my attempt at a haiku can be read below. I don't know if it's any good or not, but I tried my best! haha

Holden Caulfied is
a strange and troubled boy. He
likes to think a lot.

That's it for today. See you all tomorrow!

Happy read-a-thoning!


Total pages read: 990
Books started: 4
Books finished: 4
Challenges completed: 3