Bout of Books 17 Wrap-Up!

In a shocking turn of events, Bout of Books 17, like so many other Bout of Books before it, didn't quite go to plan.

In my defence, I said that my main goal was just to read more than I would have if I wasn't taking part and I do think I did that. However, as I'm in the middle of a reading slump that didn't really equals many pages...

I managed to plough my way through Vivian Versus the Apocolypse by Katie Coyle (big fan - watch out for a review in the near future!) however that was about all I managed to achieve. A couple of chapters here and there of a few other books but nothing substantial. 

There were times that I thought to myself that I was going to pick up a book instead of doing something else which was definitely a conscious decision based on the fact I was participating in the readathon but ultimately when you're in a reading slump as substantial as this one you're not magically going to get out of it.

I'm planning to do a more detailed post about this monster of a reading slump I'm currently experiencing but I'm glad Bout of Books spurred me on to finish one book at the very least. In my eyes that's enough of an achievement.

Did you take part in Bout of Books 17? How was it for you? Let me know in the comments below!

Lucy x

Bout of Books 14 *COMPLETED*

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that this was not really my most successful readathon and I absolutely did not hit my target of 700 pages. That being said, my 319 page effort is by no means my worst readathon effort (who remembers the 120 page effort of Booktubeathon 2013?). 

I managed to finish How To Build A Girl by Caitlin Moran and I started reading both Girl Online by Zoe Sugg and Wicked by Gregory Maguire. Since my copy of Girl Online is hardback I decided to read a paperback alongside as I don't like carrying hardbacks around with my if I can help it. I'm also feeling extremely let down by Girl Online so far and I needed something else to distract me from it at times, but there will be a full review up when I've finished it (at the moment reviewing it is what is getting me through reading it which speaks volumes and is a real shame but more on that when you get the review).

So although it didn't go to plan I'm not too bothered, especially with BookTubeAThon 2015 being my most successful readathon to date. My main aim with these summer readathons is to make sure I've got a few books read ready to review, especially during the first few weeks of term, so I don't have to worry about my lack of reading when I start university at the end of September. I didn't really think you'd want to read reviews of my textbooks etc!

Did you take part in Bout of Books 14? How did you do? Let me know in the comments below!

Lucy x

Bout of Books 14!

Following a pretty successful BookTubeAThon I have decided that after a week away from intensive reading I'm going to go back to it with the Bout of Books readathon this week. I've participated in a few of these readathons before and have always enjoyed them so why not!

What is Bout of Books I hear you ask?

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, August 17th and runs through Sunday, August 23rd 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 14 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I've always loved how low-pressure Bout of Books is which is why I've decided to participate again. While most people will aim to read a certain number of books, I'm going to aim to read a certain number of pages because I find myself only reading short books and ignoring anything over 300 pages otherwise. I want to ideally read more than 100 pages a day so my target for myself is 700 pages in the 7 days. 

I'm not going to tell you what I'll be reading as I'm just going to pick up whatever I feel I want to read at the time to keep myself interested and to stop myself getting bored but there will definitely be a wrap up post at the end of the week for you to see what I've read!

Are you participating? Let me know below and we can motivate each other!

Lucy x

BookTubeAThon 2015 *COMPLETED*

Despite not being entirely optimistic about BookTubeAThon due to most readathon's I've participated in before not going all that well I'm happy to say I'd definitely count the week as a success! While I didn't quite complete all the challenges I read way more than I'd usually read in a week and, more importantly, it definitely achieved my personal goal of kick starting my reading.

Now to run through the challenges now and decide which were a success and which weren't:

1) Read a book with blue on the cover
I successfully completed this one by reading Animal Farm by George Orwell as my copy has a mostly blue cover!

2) Read a book by an author who shares the same first letter of your last name
Although I did search my shelves in the hopes of finding a book by an author who shares the first letter of my last name I couldn't find anything so I decided to cheat a little bit by using Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes and changing it to be the first letter of my last name being the same as the first letter of his first name. So that challenge is a success if you don't mind my cheating!

3) Read someone else's favourite book
As Ariel said in one of the BookTubeAThon YouTube videos that Animal Farm is her favourite book I think this one is a success!

4) Read the last book you acquired
The last book I acquired was Look Who's Back when I impulsively bought it from my local book shop a few weeks ago so this one is a success!

5) Finish a book without letting go of it
Although I thought I'd struggle with this one, I did actually manage it by reading Four Warned by Jeffery Archer which was one of the World Book Night books I got in 2014. For such a short book it took me a very long time to get around to reading it!

6) Read a book you really want to read
This is a bit of a different one but as well as really wanting to read Animal Farm I've been meaning to read Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey since I got it for Christmas. Since about half of the book is images  I found this to be a really good readathon book because I just sat down and read it easily without having to focus too much. Some of you may know I'm a musician which made this especially interesting for me but there will be a full review up soon!

7) Read seven books
If we're taking this one to mean 'finish seven books' I didn't achieve it. I had already started Look Who's Back and All I Know Now by Carrie Hope Fletcher before the week started and finishing the week I still had a long way to go with Landline by Rainbow Rowell. If we're taking it to mean 'read at least part of seven books' I did complete it (full list of what I read is below). My own personal target was less about reading seven books and more reading 1,000 pages in the week which is far more than I'd ever normally read and I'm very happy that I beat that by reading 1,120 pages in the week!

Books read/part read:
(Click titles to buy on thebookdepository)

1) Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes
2) Four Warned by Jeffery Archer
3) All I Know Now by Carrie Hope Fletcher
4) Animal Farm by George Orwell
5) Chickenfeed by Minette Walters
6) Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey by Ed Sheeran and Phillip Butah
7) Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Overall this was definitely the most successful I've been with a readathon and it's really made me get excited about reading again so I think it was a success!

Did you take part in the BookTubeAThon? Were you successful? Let me know in the comments below!

Lucy x

BookTubeAThon 2015

As those of you who have noticed the lack of posts on here in the last few months will probably have guessed, I'm still yet to get back into reading properly after exams and revision. For a while I wasn't bothered by it and just gave myself a break from staring at words on a page (I think I needed it!) but I've now got to the point where I really want to be reading but I'm just not. In a spur of the moment decision on Sunday night I've decided to participate in the BookTubeAThon which starts tomorrow (Monday) and runs for a week.

Readathons have never really gone too well for me in the past but I thought it might be a good way of encouraging myself to read and the timing seems to have worked well for me. While I'm not sure I'll stick it out until the end of the week and I'm sure I won't complete all of the challenges listed below if I read more than I have been recently I will be happy.

The challenges for the BookTubeAThon 2015 are:

1// Read a book with blue on the cover

2// Read a book by an author who shares the same first letter of your last name 

3// Read someone else's favourite book

4// Read the last book you acquired 

5// Finish a book without letting go of it

6// Read a book you really want to read

7// Read seven books

While I might attempt some of these challenges I'm not going to be too worried about completing them all. I see them as more of a guideline than a set of rules to follow which is, I am sure, what the hosts of the readathon want.

Are you participating? Let me know below!

Lucy x

Bout of Books 11.0: Wrap Up!

The Bout of Books readathon will probably always be my favourite readathon. I mentioned on here before that I love it because there is literally no pressure to read and you can set yourself goals that are realistic for you and I've not found any other readathon that feels as relaxed, which is definitely what works for me.

Although I posted a TBR, I knew I wouldn't stick to those books. I knew I wanted to read Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell but other than that I just wanted to read what I felt like reading, which is what I did. In my mind, the real goal for myself was to read 800 pages in 7 days because that's way beyond what I would normally read in a week. In a typical week I'd say I probably read about 400 pages which means I've managed to double that which is a great achievement for me!

I'm sort of sad to see the end of this readathon. I was enjoying keeping a tally of how much I'd read in the day and then sharing with you how the day had gone. I'd definitely gotten into a routine of blogging every day too! I'm going to try and keep blogging as much as possible for the next few weeks before I go back to school although most of it will be scheduled to appear over the next few months as I know I'm going to be crazy busy when school starts back.

If you found my blog through this readathon, hello and I hope you stick around for a bit! And don't forget to say hi in the comments so I know you're there.

How did the readathon go for you? Was it a success? Let me know in the comments!

Day 1: 142 Pages

Day 2: 86 Pages

Day 3: 78 Pages

Day 4: 120 Pages

Day 5: 60 Pages

Day 6: 216 Pages
Day 7: 136 Pages

Total Read: 838 Pages

Books read:
The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (started but not finished)

Lucy x

Bout of Books 11.0: Day 6 Update

Day 6 was by far the most productive day I've had of this readathon. I was home all day with nothing that really needed to be done so I just powered through Eleanor & Park and managed to finish it in the early hours of the morning so while I'm not including all of it for my page count for day 6 it does mean I was left to read something else for day 7. 

My page count so far is:

Day 1: 142 Pages

Day 2: 86 Pages

Day 3: 78 Pages

Day 4: 120 Pages

Day 5: 60 Pages

Day 6: 216 Pages

Total Read: 702 Pages

Lucy x

Bout of Books 11.0: Day 5 Update

Far from a good reading day so I'll keep this update brief. I had to head into Cardiff earlier and then ended up going for a bit of a wander through the shops with my mum (which involved going to Lush which if you follow my beauty blog you'll know is my weakness). This meant I couldn't read past midnight like usual because I had to get up at a reasonable time and I didn't have time to read in the morning like I usually do. I didn't get home until late afternoon and although I tried to make up for lost time in the evening I didn't get as much read as I would have liked to.

Still, I'm enjoying the readathon! I've decided that as long as I finish Eleanor & Park (currently reading) this weekend I'll be happy with what I've done. I'd never normally read 2 books in a week, especially when one of them was over 400 pages, so that would make the readathon a success!

So far I've read:

Day 1: 142 Pages

Day 2: 86 Pages

Day 3: 78 Pages

Day 4: 120 Pages

Day 5: 60 Pages

Total Read: 486 Pages

Lucy x

Bout of Books 11.0: Day 4 Update

Day 4 was far more successful than the last few days! I got reading just after midnight as usual because I couldn't sleep and found myself finishing The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey at 3am! Probably not the best idea seeing as though I had to be at a hair appointment at 10.30am but worth it nonetheless.

You can see my very brief thoughts on The Fifth Wave that I posted to my goodreads page as soon as I finished it here. There will  be a review coming sometime in the next few weeks so keep yours eyes out for that! 

Day 4 felt like an incredibly productive day. Although I didn't actually read much throughout the day, having read 100 pages before I even went to sleep meaning by the time we were 3 hours into the day I had already met my target for the whole day felt incredibly satisfying.

Day 1: 142 Pages

Day 2: 86 Pages

Day 3: 78 Pages

Day 4: 120 Pages

Total read: 426 Pages

Lucy x

Like This, Try This Challenge! (Bout of Books 11.0)

Today's challenge looked fun and it's quite a quick one so I thought I might as well take part. You just have to recommend a book based on another book, simple! So...

If you liked The Hunger Games, try Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell! 

Nineteen Eighty-Four is old school dystopian and has the same idea of the government controlling the people as is in The Hunger Games. Nineteen Eight-Four is a one of those books that you will either love or hate (I don't think I've ever found anyone who thought it was 'alright') and I absolutely love it. If you like dystopian, you should read this.

Lucy x 

Bout of Books 11.0: Day 3 Update

Again, I didn't read as much as I could've but that was because I actually left the house (not something I often do I'll admit). Although I only read 78 pages I think when it's factored into the equation that I was out of the house for about 6 hours that's acceptable. 

As I'm writing this on the thursday/day 4 I'm not worried about my total page count so far because I read a lot this morning which you'll have to wait until tomorrow's update to find out about!

My totals are as follows:

Day 1: 142 Pages

Day 2: 86 Pages

Day 3: 78 Pages

Total read: 306 Pages

Lucy x

Bout of Books 11.0: Day 2 Update

Okay so the bad news, I didn't read much on day 2 and didn't meet my goal. The good news, I read enough on day 1 that when both are added together I still met my goal for the two days. 

The main reason I didn't get as much reading done for day 2 is because a few exciting things were happening on my blog. You may have noticed the spontaneous post that appeared yesterday and the new fancy banner in the side bar but I am now officially an affiliate for The Book Depository! If you're not sure what that is you can click the 'Policies' page on the navigation bar just below the header and it'll explain everything. I'm super excited about this (as if you couldn't already tell) and I'm excited to be able to make my blog an even better place!

So the totals are as follows:

Day 1: 142 Pages

Day 2: 86 Pages

Total read: 228 Pages

Lucy x

Bout of Books 11.0: Day 1 Update!

It's currently day 2 of Bout of Books so I thought I'd update you on how day 1 went! I started reading at midnight (can you tell I was excited for this readathon?) but I still didn't read as much in the day as I probably could have, although I did go far beyond the 100 pages I'd planned to read which is always a nice feeling!

I'm currently reading The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey and as you'll know if you're friends with me on goodreads (if you're not feel free to add me here) I can't quite decide how I feel about this book yet. I'm enjoying the plot and the idea for the story in general but I found the beginning quite repetitive so I'm hoping it doesn't carry on like that for the full 400+ pages!

How did the first day go for you? Let me know in the comments how much you read and what you're reading!

Day 1: 142 pages

Lucy x

Bout of Books Scavenger Hunt

So Bout of Books is upon us and as I've already met my reading goal for the day (100 pages a day is beginning to seem not ambitious enough ) I thought I'd take part in the challenge for the day! This challenge seems like great fun so I didn't want to miss out! So let's start the scavenger hunt!

1. A Book that begins with “B”  (for Bout of Books!)

Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher!

2. A book that has been made into a movie/tv show

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (a bit of an obvious one I know but I just love both the book and the movie so much)

3. A series you love

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman - I was going to go with the obvious and say Harry Potter when I remember this. The history nerd side of me loves this series so much.

4. An anthology of poems or short stories

The Oxford Book of Modern Verse - I just love this book so much, look how pretty it is!

5. A book on your TBR shelf, or your full TBR shelves

I was just about to put the photo of my TBR for this week in for this one and then I thought, why not give you a glimpse of a haul that's coming in a few weeks! I bought these books a few weeks ago but you'll hear more about them soon!

So there we go, challenge complete! I'll post a full update of how much I read tomorrow because I wouldn't want to miss out what I read later today. I'm currently reading The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancy and I'm enjoying it so far!

Lucy x

Bout of Books 11.0 - Reading Goals

As I mentioned in my post the other day, I've decided to participate in Bout of Books 11.0! I thought I'd share with you my goals for the week. Although it's very likely that they will change/I will not finish anywhere near what I've planned, I thought it'd be nice to show you my plan for the week.

Top of my list is Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. I read Fangirl a few weeks back and absolutely fell in love with it and couldn't put it down so I thought another Rainbow Rowell book would be a good choice for a readathon!

I've had two ARCs that I won through Goodreads First Reads sat on my shelf for a few months so I'm going to try and read at least one of them. They are Purefinder by Ben Gwalchmai and Woman Master by Mehrnaz Stars. I'm not sure if I'll get through both of them but I'm going to try and read at least one of them to tick them off the list!

I've also got a few books I need to read before going back to school so I thought I'd throw one of them into the reading goals. The one I chose is The Reader by Bernhard Schlink which is the English translation of the text we will be studying in German next year. We've been asked to read the English rather than the German (thank goodness!) but I will probably try and read at least some of it with the German alongside it, just to gauge how difficult the language we will be studying is.

So that's my aim for the week! Like I said, it's highly likely that this will change and I'll end up reading way less than I wanted to but I thought I might as well share with you what my basic plan is. I'm aiming to read about 800 pages I think in a week because that works out to just over 100 pages a day, something which is more than I currently read but is still achievable. Obviously if I go over that it would be great but I want to try and be realistic so I don't plan too much and make myself feel under pressure.

Are you participating? Have you set yourself reading goals? Leave them in a comment below!

Lucy x

Bout of Books 11.0

As a bit of a last minute decision, I've decided I'm going to take part in the Bout of Books 11.0 readathon which starts next Monday! For those of you who aren't familiar with Bout of Books, have a read of this:

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, August 18th and runs through Sunday, August 24th 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 11 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I took part in the Bout of Books 8.0 readathon last summer so I'm excited to give it a shot again this year! In the past I've not been too good at keeping up with readathons and it usually turns out that I start a readathon and then end up having the busiest week of the year but I'm going to give it a go nonetheless! I also have a few books I want to try and get through before I go back to school in September so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to just plough through them and get them read!

Are you taking part? I'll be posting updates throughout the week so feel free to link me to updates you're posting so we can discuss what we're reading with each other!

Lucy x

Bout of Books 8.0 Update 3: Wednesday's Progress! (or lack of)

DAY 1: 172 Pages read  -  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
DAY 2: 185 Pages read  -  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows          
        +: 17 Pages read  -  The Oxford Book of Modern Verse         
        +: 23 Pages read  -  City of Bones
DAY 3: 61 Pages read - City of Bones

Total: 458 Pages so far!

So as you can see from the summary above, Wednesday wasn't a good reading day for me.

My 2 cousins and aunt have been staying in the UK for the last 6 weeks and went home yesterday (Wednesday) to their home in New Zealand. (For those who aren't sure how far away that is, it's half the world or a 24 hour journey give or take a few hours). Their flight didn't leave until the evening so I spent the day with them and then when I came home I was so nervous about picking my GCSE results up the next morning I couldn't concentrate on reading at all so settled for watching the 7th Harry Potter film instead.

How're you doing if you're taking part? Have you had any bad reading days this week?

Lucy x

Bout of Books 8.0 Update 2: Tuesday's Progress!

DAY 1: 172 Pages read  -  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
DAY 2: 185 Pages read  -  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
          +: 17 Pages read  -  The Oxford Book of Modern Verse
          +: 23 Pages read  -  City of Bones

Total: 397 Pages so far!

As I didn't have any plans for today, I decided to spend most of the day reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I ended up finishing the book (although I cried a LOT. I'm sure it wasn't so heart-breaking the first time I read it...) and my review will be up on here soon!

After finishing the Harry Potter series, I had the usual post-Potter feeling of 'no other book can possibly live up to this' so took a break for a few hours before deciding that next to tackle was City of Bones. I read about 2 pages however and didn't really feel like it so read a bit of a lovely little book I bought on a family trip to St Davids (West Wales) a few weeks ago (I have a post planned from this trip if I ever get round to writing it...) called The Oxford Book of Modern Verse before going back to City of Bones. Although The Oxford Book of Modern Verse wasn't on my initial TBR for the readathon and I don't plan on reading it in its entirety this week, I do think I'm going to read a little bit of it every now and then because it's the kind of book that you dip in and out of rather than sitting down to read it cover to cover.

If tomorrow goes to plan, although I won't have loads of reading time because of plans in the real world (shocking I know) I should be able to fit in some reading time on the train and when I get home so I'll be taking City of Bones with me I think!

If you're taking part in the readathon, how're you getting on with it? Are you still feeling motivated?

Lucy x

Bout of Books 8.0 Update 1 : Monday's Progress!

DAY 1: 172 Pages read!

Despite being out of the house for most of the day with my family, I managed to read far more in a day than I usually would have!

When I got home from our day out and I had eaten my tea and would usually go on my laptop for a bit (I say a bit, it would normally have been tumblr until the early hours of the morning followed by a little bit of reading) I told myself that instead of watching hours and hours of YouTube videos I needed to get some reading time in and seeing as though I wasn't doing anything more productive, that was the perfect time. I read a little bit and then at 9pm I decided to go and make a cup of tea and cwtch (for all you non-Welsh people, translated literally that means hug but in reality it's a little different, just go with it) up with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. One cup of tea and 3 hours later I could hardly believe that my reading time was up for the day! I'm definitely going to spend my evenings doing this more often, I found it gave me much more of a chance to get fully engrossed in the story whereas if I read just before I go to sleep for an hour or so my concentration is sometimes lacking a little.

After an emotional day of reading (Dobby-sob) I feel encouraged and inspired to do well in this read-a-thon! I might not be the fastest reader in the world and while some people might be reading hundreds and hundreds of pages a day I only managed 172 but for me, that's a lot! In the typical day I would usually read just under 100 pages (depending on the book of course).

How did you get on today? Is the read-a-thon going well for you so far or are you already slipping behind? Hang in there and keep reading!

Happy reading!
Lucy x

Bout of Books 8.0!

So after thinking about it for about a week, I've decided very last minute that I'm going to at least attempt the Bout of Books 8.0 read-a-thon!

If you don't know what Bout of Books 8.0 is, this is what it says on their website:
'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, August 19th and runs through Sunday, August 25th 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 8.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team'

The last read-a-thon I attempted (the booktube read-a-thon a few weeks ago) didn't go to plan as anyone who stumbled upon my blog during that time will already know. It was the start of my summer which meant I was actually leaving the house (a shock I know) to spend time with my friends pretty much all day every day while the weather lasted. Now feels like a much better time to participate in a read-a-thon because things aren't so crazy and I've been reading a lot this week anyway so I thought I'd give it a shot. Another encouraging thing about Bout of Books is that they say the goal is to read more in a week than you personally would normally read and there is no competition between others or anything similar and I feel like that is a good thing for me personally.

My TBR (for now)

Because I decided on doing this read-a-thon so late I'm not going to pick out many books for my TBR because I can always add more and I'd rather not set myself a daunting challenge that I can't finish. I'm currently half way through reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so I will definitely finish that and on top of that I'd like to read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and at least start City of Bones by Cassandra Clare but these may change depending on what I feel like reading.

Are any of you taking part in the read-a-thon? Let me know in the comments and we can motivate each other :)

Happy Reading!Lucy x