Bout of Book 16 | Update Post

Bout of Books is one of my favorite readathons, if not just plain my favorite. It's a ton of fun, and I'm always excited when it's time for another one (so glad this one isn't only once of year, I'd go insane waiting).

And so it's time for the May bout of Bout of Books (see what I did there?), and I've got stacks of books I want to read, we'll see how far I can get through them. If you're confused, you can check out the website, and definitely join in - there will be mini challenges, and twitter chats (I heart the twitter chats, everyones awesome).

Now onto the important stuff! I'm using the same set up as last time, the suggested template, and I enjoyed using it last time so here we go again. (I won't be finish my full TBR this time, though, or ever again).

Feel free to leave me comments letting me know if you're participating - how you feel about anything I'm planning on reading, or really just anything book related. And I hope, if you're participating, you have a fantastic week!

My Goals

• Read. Read. Read.
• Twitter chats! (should be able to make both of them)
• Visit blogs, comment, interact with people in the hashtag on the medias. (Basically: talk to the awesome people)
• Have fun! (Flailing, not failing)

Books to Read (I have so many books that I want to read that I'm going to just list a handful and then add in what I end up reading, crossed out is finished):

• Deadman Wonderland, Vol 3 ++
• Crush by Richard Silken
• Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal
• The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan
• World War Z by Max Brooks
• Lumberjanes, Volume 1 by Noelle Stevenson, +
• Lumberjanes, Vol 2 by Noelle Stevenson, +
• Lumberjanes, Vol 3 by Noelle Stevenson, +
• Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Updates

Monday
Number of books I've read today: 2
Pages read: 328
Time Spent Reading: 2 hours, 7 minutes
Books:
Lumberjanes, Volume One: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen (started and finished - 128 pages)
Lumberjanes, Volume Two: Friendship to the Max by Noelle Stevenson, + (started and finished - 112 pages)
The Hidden Oracle (Trials of Apollo #1) by Rick Riordan (continued - 88 pages)

Notes:
Lumberjanes is so damn good, and they're all adorable characters (And I kind of want to dress up as April?) It's amazing, highly recommended, I ordered volume three so I'll be reading that this week, too.

Had started The Hidden Oracle - just couldn't wait - and feeling a little eh about it. Would of probably just set it aside if not for favorite characters being back or mentioned. I've missed Camp.


Tuesday
Number of books I've read today: 2
Total # of books I've read: 4
Pages read: 480
Total # of pages: 808
Time Spent Reading: 2 hours, 17 minutes
Total Time Spent Reading: 4 hours, 24 minutes
Books:
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (started and finished - 272 pages)
Deadman Wonderland, Volume 3 by Jinsei Kataoka, Kazuma Kondou (started and finished - 208 pages)

Notes:
I totally forgot to add yesterday, and am not really sure where to add it besides in time spent reading - but have also been listening to the World War Z audio. One of my favorite audiobooks and it's been a while since I've listened to it, so damn good.

Nimona was amazing, so damn good, and Deadman Wonderland is so fucked up and weird but I'm going to keep reading it because of that.

Also I've been struggling reading because hello my old friend eye strain - it feels like whenever a readathon happens, I've got eye strain. I think it's because I spend the few days before doing a lot of reading over stuff and writing on my computer and my eyes want to implode. Bleh.

Wednesday & Thursday
Number of books I've read today: 2
Total # of books I've read: 6
Pages read: 333
Total # of pages: 1,141
Time Spent Reading: 7 hours, 27 minutes
Total Time Spent Reading: 11 hours, 51 minutes
Books:
World War Z by Max Brooks (finished - 221 pages)
Lumberjanes, Volume 3: A Terrible Plan by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, Carolyn Nowak (started and finished - 112 pages)

Notes:
I could finally stand a few minutes on the computer to update here! Yayyy! It's been the only thing I've been tweeting about, but if you didn't know - eye strain sucks. It's the worst. And I've mostly been listening to audiobooks.

Wednesday was over six hours of listening to World War Z, I just couldn't do anything else. It was hurting to even have my eyes open. And still is at points yesterday and still today, it's been a long week, honestly.

Friday
Number of books I've read today: 1 (and a single issue)
Total # of books I've read: 7
Pages read: 374
Total # of pages: 1,515
Time Spent Reading: 5 hours, 22 minutes
Total Time Spent Reading: 17 hours, 13 minutes
Books:
The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan (Finished - 235 pages)
Black Panther #1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze (started and finished - 32 pages)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (started - 107 pages)

Notes:
I'm really enjoying my reread of The Name of the Wind - the audiobook is incredible - but I had been hoping to reread in physical. I guess it doesn't matter, it's gorgeous either way.

Mostly just eh about The Hidden Oracle - it was fun at parts, mostly the parts where we were seeign characters we already knew - but I was relieved that Apollo was less annoying by the end of the book. Maybe he'll actually learn something at some point.


Saturday
Number of books I've read today:
Total # of books I've read:
Pages read:
Total # of pages:
Time Spent Reading:
Total Time Spent Reading:
Books:


Notes:

Sunday
Number of books I've read today:
Total # of books I've read:
Pages read:
Total # of pages:
Time Spent Reading:
Total Time Spent Reading:
Books:


Notes:

May 9th | Weekly Wrap Up #33

The first week of May started off with a kick in my reading that honestly surprised me, but I was just in the mood for reading. (And then the real caffeine withdrawal set in, which I've never experienced before but I do not recommend).

I also keep forgetting to include this, but I've been tracking my time (which I mentioned recently in my April wrap up). And so I know how much time I've been spending reading. Since I haven't done a weekly wrap up since the beginning of the month, and it's one day off, I'm going to just include all eight days of May so far. 13 hours, 4 minutes. Which I think is the most I've read in a week since starting to track my time, and I might of figured out a routine that works, as soon as I'm feeling better I can try and get back to it.

Besides that - onto the books, I guess!

Reading: (finished this week and actively currently-reading)
The Raven King (The Raven Cycle #4) by Maggie Stiefvater (5/5)
And that's all there is.
I think I might be in shock, which is why I read so much after. Is that really the end?

Prince's Gambit (Captive Prince #2) by C.S Pacat (5/5)
Way different then the first book, for sure. I'm working on writing a full review for the whole series, speaking of....

Kings Rising (Captive Prince #3) by C.S. Pacat (5/5)
This series. I read it shockingly fast, though I was told to expect that, and damn that was good. (It's a dark series, though, I'd suggest looking into it before diving in). I really enjoyed it, though, it was interesting and fun.

Stuff:
I've been either reading or almost too damn tired to see straight, so I haven't been collecting anything for here. And I guess I don't have to, I've just chatted here before, but I'm still in the tired/muddled face of the caffeine withdrawal. I'm really hoping I feel better tomorrow for Bout of Books.

I guess I could mention that? Talk about it? If you didn't know - Bout of Books 16 starts tomorrow, week long readathon, my favorite honestly (I need sleep, guys, right now like all the sleep). Besides that, I'm not really sure what I'll end up reading during the week. I've got some things I'm currently reading and a stack to choose from - but there's also a back up stack, and also just generally my apartment is full of books.

And that's a little stressful in itself - I totally understand why people stick to TBRs, I wish I could just do that - but I'm still hopeful of getting a lot of reading done if I just don't think about it too hard. (my secret to everything I ever get done - not thinking about it too hard).

Besides that, it's been pretty run of the mill around here since the spur of the moment New York trip. And I want like one day without having to interact with people, generally - people are seriously exhausting.

Oh - well I saw Civil War, but I'm not going to say anything about it? Because I know people probably haven't had the time yet and most people don't like spoilers. It's Steve and Bucky focused, obviously I enjoyed it.

What have you been up to, read this week? Let me know!

On the blog:

April 2016 | Monthly Wrap Up

Bout of Books 16 | May 9th - 15th (sign up)

Bout of Books 16 | May 9th - 15th (sign up)

It is May, which means it's time for another Bout of Books. Definitely my favorite weeklong readathon. (Possibly my favorite ever, but I've pretty fond of Dewey's, too). To explain to you what this readathon is, here's a blurb from the team:

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 9th and runs through Sunday, May 15th 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 16 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. 

                                    - From the Bout of Books team

That's mostly all the information you need to know: low pressure, readathon, weeklong. What isn't included in that blurb is the best part of this readathon: the community. The twitter chats - and the general social media interactions during the week - is my favorite part of these readathons. Everyone is just plain awesome, and loves books as much as you do.

This is just my sign up post so I'll keep it short and week - but I'll be posting a kick off post with goals / TBR probably the day before it starts. And probably just add my updates to that post - I've done that before, and then done a different post every day, still not sure which one I like better.

Let me know if you'll be participating! And happy reading.

Bout of Books blog
Sign up post

April 2016 | Monthly Wrap Up

Another month is over - how is it so many months into 2016 already? Where has the time gone? April was a really good month reading month, and a pretty good one overall (we'll get to that). First off, I participated in Genrethon and Dewey's 24 hours readathon, so ended up reading more then expected, but also was mostly reading more even outside of those read-a-thons (my posts about them will be below).

Books:
Disney At Dawn (Kingdom Keepers #2) by Ridley Pearson (3/5)
The Raven Boys (TRC #1) by Maggie Stiefvater (5/5)
Disney in Shadow (Kingdom Keepers #3) by Ridley Pearson (3/5)
Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes by Scott Cawthon, Kira Breed-Wrisley (5/5)
The Type by Sarah Kay (5/5)
The Dream Thieves (TRC #2) by Maggie Stiefvater (5/5)
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz (5/5)
The Confessions by Tiffany Reisz (5/5)
Legend by Marie Lu (3/5)
Captive Prince (CP Trilogy #1) by C.S. Pascat (4/5)
Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest (4/5)
Blue Lily, Lily Blue (TRC #3) by Maggie Stiefvater (5/5)

Graphic Novels/Trades/Manga:
Dimension W, Volume 1 by Yuji Iwahara (5/5) (!)
Deadman Wonderland, Volume 1 by Jinsei Kataoka, Kazuma Kondou (4/5)
Deadman Wonderland, Volume 2 by Jinsei Kataoka, Kazuma Kondou (4/5)
Deadpool, Volume 2: Soul Hunter by Brian Posehn, Scott Coblish, + (4/5)
Suicide Squad, Volume 1 by Adam Glass, + (2/5)

First off - reread 1-3 of The Raven Cycle this month in preparation for The Raven King. Which I haven't even really started yet! For multiple reasons and then I ended up going to New York for the day (I was like I'll bring it on the train! And then I thought about the real possibility of crying in public and noped out of that). I love the series so damn much, it's so good. I'm going to start it after I finish writing this, hopefully not finish because I want to take it slow (also I need sleep).

Besides that, I also read a good amount of other things. Mostly good things, even. I picked up This is How You Lose Her on a whim, and started reading it almost immediately - I knew the author but wanted one of his lesser known works, and it'd been forever since I'd done that. Just bought something and started reading it.

Rereading the Kingdom Keepers books has been interesting, and I think I'm kind of taking a break from it, but interesting. And Legend was fine but I guess I wanted more then what I knew was going to happen, if that makes sense.

And I knew I was going to like the Five Nights at Freddy's book because I'm a sucker for those games, but I didn't expect to be scared of it. Possibly, terrified. I probably should of been because of my fear of animatronics - which is why the games scare me, and why I like them. Ah, horror.

And in that same vein, but a totally different not - Captive Prince. I knew I'd like it because, from what I could pick up from people talking about it (and tumblr, mostly tumblr), it seemed very fan fiction-y. And I've talked on here briefly about reading fan fiction, and I could see people not liking it as it got more popular. It did feel like a fan fiction - for what characters, no idea, but it did - and that's not a bad thing. A lot of the fic I read can be seriously well written - Not Easily Conquered is the first thing that comes to mind but a lot of what I read is just good writing. (And fluff - happy fluff).

I think that's all I've got to say about the books - besides the books I ended up taking a day trip to New York on a whim to basically visit a friend for a few hours. Also to see a workshop, seems like th right term, of the in the works Percy Jackson musical - which I was pleasantly surprised about. My friend Jenn filmed out thoughts, so when that's up I'll link it here (and probably tweet it).

Six hours in New York, six hours on a train. A very, very tired Casey - who was very freaked out about seeing my name on a building with some weird symbol as the "a". I'm pretty sure it was a storage company now, but it was almost midnight and I'd woken up at seven after not some good sleep, so my conspiracy theories might not be too wrong.

Let me know what you've been reading, been up to. What the most ridiculous spur of the moment thing you've ever done.

On the Blog:
March 2016 | Monthly Wrap Up
#Genrethon (readathon) TBR + kickoff
April 11th | Weekly Wrap Up #32
April 18th | Genrethon wrap up
Dewey's 24 hour readathon | April 2016
Dewey's 24 hour readathon | Full Wrap Up

Dewey's 24 hour readathon | Full Wrap Up

Ah, sadly, another Dewey's is over and done with (it takes forever to get here and always seems to be over in a flash). I didn't last very long, for a few reasons, but I was still more then okay with how much reading I got done even considering that. (My body apparently has, cruelly, forsaken caffeine. Also the night before there were assholes firing off fireworks, so that kept me up later then expected).

Now for the full wrap up - I do this every time, and it's always kind of fun, but there's really no point to it besides me liking to put everything together neatly.

Books:
Deadman Wonderland, Volume 1 by Jinsei Kataoka, Kazuma Kondou
Deadman Wonderland, Volume 2 by Jinsei Kataoka, Kazuma Kondou
Deadpool, Volume 2: Soul Hunter by Brian Posehn, Scott Coblish, +
The Confessions by Tiffany Reisz
Legend by Marie Lu
Suicide Squad, Volume 1 by Adam Glass, +
Captive Prince (CP Trilogy #1) by C.S. Pascat
Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest

total # of pages: 1,440
total # of books: 8
total time spent reading: 9 hours, 7 minutes

I really need to strengthen my reading muscles, I guess, give my brain a work out. Bout of Books is coming up in two weeks, as well (yay! My two favorite readathons), and I'm hoping to get a lot of reading done purely because there's just so many things coming out this year I want to read, so many books I want to reread. 

Surprisingly, I didn't end up rereading anything this readathon, but it was mostly because I just love the idea of putting a stack of books together and then reading as much from that as I could. I'm really hoping to try and pick two more days this week to read as much as I physically can (probably less then this, because I did almost nothing else).

And with those random thoughts - how did your readathon go? What did you read?

Dewey's 24 hour readathon | April 2016

And here we are, at another Dewey's readathon! I decided this year that all my Dewey's stuff would just be all in this one post (since no announcement post, might as well). If you have no idea what I'm talking about - FAQ - and I hope you'll end up joining us.

Now for this readathon there's less a "TBR" and more just "pile of things I want to read soon anyway and graphic novels for small boosts," which is kind of how I approach readathons in general (probably because Dewey's was one of my first, and that idea just stuck with me, I guess). I'm probably not going to list all the books in my stack from the get go because there's always way too many of them - I'll add a bunch, the ones I really think I'll get to, and then we'll go from there.

So down below is going to split into three sections - Stack, Goals, and Updates - and so it should be pretty easy to see what's what. For the updates, I'll probably update in 4 hour chunks, it's normally how I do it and it seems to work pretty well. And then the normally the next morning I'd type up a full wrap up, but it depends on how much I read (because I do a weekly wrap up now, but I'll probably do it anyway because it doesn't normally have my thoughts).

The Stack:

• Legend by Marie Lu 
• The Bane Chronicles by Cassie Clare, +
• Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest
• The Confessions by Tiffanzy Reisz
• Deadman Wonderland - Volumes 1 &2
• Deadpool, Volume Two: Soul Hunter
• Captive Prince by P.C. Pacat
• (am going to add more - crossed out ones are ones I've finished because who knows what I'll pick up and I don't feel like listening everything)

The Goals:

• Read. Rest eyes. Social media. Read more. (oh and eat, eating is probably important).
• Finish at least 2 book books (I don't know yet if I'm going to just drop my currently-reading for the weekend of try to finish them, we'll see in the moment. Hello the epitome of mood reading).
• Cheer people on on twitter even though I'm not signed up as a cheerleader (because it's always fun to interact with people during readathons, and if we go by last year there's so many readers).
• Have fun, don't get eye strain. (And also, hopefully, keep the momentum going. That's normally what I fail at, because by the end of the readathon I'm in such a reading mood, but if I stay up too late then I'm too tired to read the next day and all that is lost. I have a good feeling about this year).

The Updates:

8am - 12pm

Books:
Deadman Wonderland, Volume 1 by Jinsei Kataoka, Kazuma Kondou (started and finished - 215 pages)
Deadman Wonderland, Volume 2 by Jinsei Kataoka, Kazuma Kondou (started and finished - 208 pages)
Deadpool, Volume 2: Soul Hunter (started and finished - 136 pages)
Legend by Marie Lu (continues - 58 pages)

# of pages read: 617
# books read: 3
time spent reading: 2 hours, 27 minutes

Notes:
Well I got off to a good start with the manga, but I'll be slowing down after that (unless I decide to jump into some other manga volume I have but I doubt it). For some reason Legend is just so slow for me, I had started it before the readathon (got to page 80), but it just feels so damn slow. I'm determine to finish it, though (might read something else before getting back to it, though).

12pm - 4pm

Books:
The Confessions by Tiffany Reisz (started and finished - 140 pages)
Legend by Marie Lu (finished - 167 pages)

# of pages read: 307
total # of pages: 924
# books read: 2
total # of books: 5
time spend reading: 2 hours, 31 minutes
total time spent reading: 4 hours, 58 minutes

Notes:
Anything Tiffany Reisz writes is just so damn good, honestly. And I'm so attached to those characters now. Legend was... kind of a let down? Though I think the second one should be way more interesting, just don't think I'm going to risk it today (but who knows).

4pm - 8pm

Books:
Suicide Squad, Volume 1 by Adam Glass, + (started and finished - 160 pages)
Captive Prince (CP Trilogy #1) by C.S. Pascat (started and finished - 270)

# of pages read: 430
total # of pages: 1,354
# books read: 2
total # of books: 7
time spend reading: 3 hours, 1 minute
total time spent reading: 7 hours, 59 minutes

Notes:

Whew - struggled a bit with what the hell to read during that time. And I definitely will not be making it all night but I'm going to try as long as I can (my body, apparently, doesn't like caffeine. Not that it normally wakes me up much anyway, but it's the thought). Suicide Squad  - ehhh. Captive Prince - good, it didn't blow me away but it was very good.

8pm - 12am

Books:
Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest (started and finished - 64 pages)
Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater (continued - 22 pages)

# of pages read: 86
total # of pages: 1,440
# books read: 1
total # of books: 8
time spend reading: 1 hours, 8 minutes
total time spent reading: 9 hours, 7 minutes

Notes:

Normally I make it to, at least, midnight - but I can't have caffeine right now. It makes my eye twitch, which is very, very irritating and distracting - haven't been able to have coffee for months to begin with. Anyway - not the point.

I'm going to try to wake up in the morning and read a little more before the readathon is officially over. Either way, I'll have a full wrap up probably up by midmorning or so (not that it'll be any different from this if I don't read anything, but I like putting everything in on post - all my ducks in a row, I guess).

If you're still reading - I wish you the best of luck, a body that can handle caffeine, and no reading positions that cause you pain. Also good books! (Let me know what you're reading). I am going to watch something calming)

April 18th | #genrethon wrap up

I ended up taking part in genrethon this week - which I made a post about earlier in the week - and I'm so glad I did because I really needed to give my reading a kind of kick. I didn't get as much reading done as I wanted to, but then again I never do. Is anyone else super hard on themselves in that area? I mean I'm hard on myself in all areas, but readathons I'm always just like 'could of read way more.'

Honestly, I'd just like to have never-ending readathons, all back to back. (The Booktube community seems to think the same because there's another themed one from April 18th - 24h, authorathon, probably won't take part because the end of that is Dewey's and I need to be ultra focused for Dewey's).

Books:
Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes by Scott Cawthon, Kira Breed-Wrisley (5/5)
I am not an easily scared person with horror books, but apparently fear of animatronics can be terrifying even in writing, when you can't see the animatronics. Of course, I know exactly what they look like because of my obsessive watching of a let's play of this game - it's so good, the lore is so interesting, which was the main reason I read this. The fact it honestly scared me was just a bonus point for it (might have to do with reading it after dark, maybe don't do that - highly recommended otherwise).

Dimension, W: Volume 1 by Yuji Iwahara (5/5)
This was so good. I'd watched the first episode of the anime before realizing manga (duh, of course there's a manga). After reading this I accidentally marathoned the rest of the twelve episodes. Whoops, except it was fantastic. Next volume doesn't come out in the US until May, though, sadly - but that's okay. Technically, I don't have to read it because I know what happens, but also I do have to read it because so damn good.

The Type by Sarah Kay (5/5)
I'm not sure this should even count? it's a small, gorgeous little book of one of Sarah Kay's poems, illustrated. And it's amazing and gorgeous - if you don't know who Sarah Kay is, she's an incredible spoken word poet, go to youtube immediately - but it only took me two minutes to read. Well, four, because I immediately read it again (and then listened to read it because yes).

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater (5/5)
Ah, this series, especially how this book seems to happen. I don't know what it is about it, because it's actually kind out a diversion from the story arc in general - but it also isn't? This whole series is just so good (The Raven King is so soon!!)

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz (5/5)
I picked this up on a whim in a Barnes and Noble - I've heard a lot about his other novel, but next to nothing about this one. So I picked it up. And was not disappointed. I still can't put my finger on my I loved this book so damn, it might just because I haven't read anything like it in a while and the writing was just really enjoyable (it was beautifully written but not in a flowery language kind of way?)

Stuff:
The first thing on my mind is how close the release of The Raven King is. Is anyone else ready for that? I'm not ready, at all, my chest hurts when I think about it. That's one of the few series I've honestly fell in love with, and I'll be so sad when it's over. But it's also one I can probably reread, and relisten, to hundreds of times.

Besides that - I mentioned above next weekend is Dewey's 24 hour readathon, which I will probably put a post up later in the week (so I can include my TBR). I love this readathon. It's such a focused amount of reading time and it's so great to see everyone freaking out on twitter and such. I won't make it all 24 hours but I'd like to read for a good percent of the time I'm awake - but also spend time on twitter/such because that's a large part of the fun.

Anyway, all of that is for a post all about the readathon. If you're going to be participating, though, feel free to let me know!

I've been logging my time - which is and isn't a good thing to do - which started because a few weeks ago I was trying to log how long I spent reading (hello finally using a time logging app I had downloaded). So update for you, this week I spent 8 hours, 48 minutes reading, which I'm very pleased with.

Besides that it's been a pretty quiet few weeks here, which is exactly what I wanted. Though, I'm honestly looking forward to locking myself in my apartment for the weekend to read. What have you been up to?