Hey everyone! Welcome to my reading recap for the Biannual Bibliothon. I’m pretty proud of how I did this time around, and I’m excited to share my update!
Day One
I started off the readathon with a bang by completing two books. One of them was Lumberjanes, which I used to complete the challenge of reading a graphic novel. The other was Truthwitch by Susan Dennard, which I didn’t put on my readathon TBR and which I’m not using to count for any of the challenges. This was the book I’d started reading before the readathon began, but wasn’t able to finish before day one. I was loving it, and I didn’t want to put it down until after the readathon was over, so instead, I decided to make it my goal to finish it on that first day—and I did. Then I also read Lumberjanes because I didn’t want to feel behind on the readathon.
Overall, I read 349 pages that day, 127 of which actually counted toward the readathon.
Day Two
You would think that after all that reading on day one, I would have been ready to go on day two, but in fact, I read nothing that day. Instead, I spent the day writing and putting up my blog post for the day (it was a Friday) and completing some of my various real-life responsibilities.
I also finished and submitted my guest post for the Novel Newcomers series over on Clo from Book Dragon’s blog (it went up on Monday—here’s the post, if you haven’t seen it yet).
Basically, I did a lot that day—just no reading. Maybe I’m making up excuses and I could have read if I’d just tried, but it’s too late now.
Day Three
I felt kind of bad about the fact that I hadn’t read anything the day before, so today, I decided that I was going to read a lot. And, surprisingly, I accomplished that—even while I also managed to do most of the other things on my to-do list for that day. I know, I was shocked too.
I read the first 209 pages of Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, which I was, and still am, obsessed with. It was all-around a great day.
Day Four
I didn’t do any physical reading this day, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get any reading done. I was listening to my audiobook for The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken off and on throughout the day, and by the end of it, I managed to make my way through about 144 pages in the audiobook (I also own a physical copy of the book, so that’s how I know).
Day Five
This was another great reading day. I did a little bit of work, got a call about an interview for a new job, listened to about 81 pages’ worth of The Darkest Minds, and tore my way through the rest of Aurora Rising, with my total page count for the day ringing in at 341.
On pretty much every count other than reading and my internship work, though, I failed. In my bullet journal, only one thing on my whole to-do list for that day is checked off, though I did manage to write my 444 words for Camp NaNoWriMo that day. You’ll see, however, that this was pretty much the start of a downhill slide in terms of productivity.
Day Six
It was another stellar reading day. I started and finished an entire book—Every Day by David Levithan—and also listened to a little bit of my audiobook (27 pages’ worth). In total, I ended up reading 349 pages that day, and in addition to all that, I wrote and posted and entire blog post (the Totally Didn’t Book Tag, which you can find here).
In order to do all of that, though, once again, I shirked a lot of my other responsibilities. This is another day where not much of my bullet journal’s to-do list is checked off. I didn’t write a word on my work in progress for Camp NaNoWriMo. And, in the interest of minimizing the redundancy, I’m going to tell you right now: I didn’t end up writing a single word on my camp project for the rest of this entire week, and I haven’t written anything on it yet today, either. So… wish me luck with catching up, I guess.
Day Seven
This wasn’t as good of a reading day as the previous two were, but it was still a pretty good one. I spent most of the day listening to, and finishing, my audiobook of The Darkest Minds while getting caught up on some of the things I had neglected the previous two days (though not writing, as I’ve mentioned).
I even started prewriting a blog post for the first time in forever. It’s one of those things that I always intend to do, but I rarely end up doing. I know, logically, that if I started working on posts before the day they have to go up, it would be a lot less stressful for me on posting days. And yet, I always end up spending 3+ hours on Tuesdays and Fridays writing, editing, and formatting posts to go up that day. Maybe someday I’ll learn.
Day Eight
I don’t know what exactly was happening this day. I started my last book for the day, This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, and I only managed to read 34 pages of my ebook during the whole day. I also did internship work, did a job interview (which went well, by the way), and finished up writing and scheduling the blog post that was supposed to go up the next day, but really, I should have been able to read more.
I think part of it might have been that the writing in this book is a little different from what I’m used to, and I didn’t click with it right away. I think this book might be the kind of book that I can’t read super quickly, which, while those sorts of books are great in certain situations, they’re not so great when you’re trying to do a readathon.
Day Nine
This was the last day of the readathon, and I didn’t get very much done at all. I read a little bit more than I had the previous day—70 pages—and I started to get into the writing a little more, but I wasn’t trying very hard to push myself to read the whole book, even though I probably could have if I’d wanted to.
I guess maybe another part of the reason for my slowdown during the last two days was that I felt like I’d accomplished so much that week already and, even though by not finishing this last book, I was also not completing all the challenges for the readathon, I still felt really good about what I’d managed to get done.
Overview
That was really long and detailed, so now, I thought I’d give a more concise snapshot of what I read, what challenges I completed, and all that fun stuff.
Pages Read: 1,508
Books Completed: 4
Challenges Completed: 7/9
- Read the group book – Aurora Rising
- Read an adult book – not completed
- Read a graphic novel – Lumberjanes
- Read a book based on its cover – not completed
- Free choice – Every Day
- Read a book by an author you’ve never read before – The Darkest Minds
- Read a book you were excited for, but never got around to – Every Day
- Read a predicted 5-star – Aurora Rising (and it was 5 stars!)
- Read one of the hosts’ 5-star reads – The Darkest Minds
Okay, that’s it! If you participated in the Bibliothon, let me know how you did down in the comments below! Or, if you didn’t, just let me know how your reading week went. Did you find any new faves? I’d love to know!
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!
-Ariel