Reindeer Readathon 2022

This was my third year participating in the Reindeer Readathon. I like how it’s organized and and while I don’t keep up with all activities – reading sprints, giveaways and events by the team leaders I still try my best to do my part. For those who are not familiar with this readathon HERE is a link for my original post explaining how everything works. Not much has changed in that regard, Readathon still lasts trough the whole month of December and there are four teams for people to be a part of. Readers are all put into teams randomly so that each team has a nice spread of all types of readers and participants. Team laeders or hosts are different each year.

This year I was put into Team Stocking and my team host was Kristin from Kristin Kraves Books and you can check out her YouTube videos HERE to find some interesting bookish content and show her some appreciation.

Each year there are some great prompts and some extra ways to get your team more points trough reading. Here are the prompts this time.

Since my reading this past year has been sporadic at best I got all my choices but did not try to get the extras at all. All nine books I’ve chosen were from my own bookshelf and I had fun trying to fit them into the prompts. I did not manage to read trough all nine books for the challenge but did in the end read six books and finished the seventh one just past the deadline on January the first. In order to be fair towards the other teams I did not submit my score for that one.

Here are the possible bonuses

And here are the books I fitted to the prompts:

Dasher – 15 Pts

Finish A Series Or Pick Up A Book That You Started And Put Down. If Neither Of These Are Options, A Short Story/Novella.

Finish A Series: House of Many Ways (Howl’s Moving Castle, #3) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★

Dancer – 10 Pts

A Book With A Cursive/Flowy/Elegant Font On The Cover.

Cursive On The Cover: Holidays Are Hell By Kim Harrison Et. All. – DID NOT READ

Prancer – 20 Pts

A Book With Your Favorite Season On The Cover Or The Book Cover Has Colors From Your Favorite Season On It.

Cover Has Colors Of Favorite Season: Daughter Of The Deep By Rick Riordan ★★★★

Vixen 15 Pts

A Book You Want To Read But Think It Might Be Overhyped.

Might Be Overhyped: The Love Hypothesis By Ali Hazelwood ★★★★★

Comet – 25pts

A Book With An Astronomical Word In The Title (Sun, Moon, Star, Sky Etc.)

Astronomical Word In The Title: Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2) By Amie Kaufman And Jay Kristoff ★★★★

Cupid – 15 Pts

A Book With A Favorite Trope In It.

Favorite Trope: Shift (Shifters #5) By Rachel Vincent ★★★★ – FINISHED A DAY LATE

Donner – 20 Pts

A Book That You Want To Read But Are Not A Fan Of The Cover.

Not A Fan Of The Cover: Sword Of Destiny (The Witcher #0.7) By Andrzej Sapkowski ★★★★

Blitzen – 20 Pts

Use A Random Number Generator To Find A Number Between 0 And 9 And Find A Book That Ends In That Page Number.

Random Number Generator – 0: Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1) By Amie Kaufman And Jay Kristoff ★★★★★

Rudolph – 15 Pts

Start A New Series.

New Series: Desperate Measures (Wicked Villains #1) By Katee Robert DID NOT READ

Thoughts on the reading challenge

I liked participating in Reindeer Readathon. It helped me get back on my feet in reading more and assisted in ending the year on a high note. Thank you Erik from Breakeven Books!

You can show support for his content HERE

I did not read all I wanted and planned but I don’t see it as complete fail. If I want to read more I will need to take care of myself better and concentrate on the positive things in life. This type of attitude will help me to create more bookish content and plan better for the future challenges.

Challenge yourself but give yourself the love and support you deserve 🙂

Project Buddy Readathon 2021-2022

For the year 2021. I decided to do a Buddy readathon for the first time. My reading buddy Vivone was a friend from book club and we wanted to challenge each other to experience and see how we liked some books we would not be able to read for the book club. We decided to make a list of 10 books to read during the course of the year and we both agreed to present our suggestions for the list. From our suggestions we picked five from each list and ended up with the final list below!

Buddy Read list 2021.

Alien ( Alien Movie Novelizations #1 ) by Alan Dean Foster ★★★

Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer #1) by Laini Taylor ★★★★

Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny ★★★

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein ★★★

The Last Wish (The Witcher #0.5) by Andrzej Sapkowski ★★★★

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells ★★★★

Proklete Hrvatice : (1&2) : Dvadeset životopisa by Milana Vuković Runjić ★★★

Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove #1) by Shelby Mahurin ★★★★

Castle in the Air (Howl’s Moving Castle #2) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★★

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers ★★★★

I will take few moments to reflect on the statistics of the books we chose. Out of 10 books we picked there was one genre that dominated with five books and that was science fiction. Four books were fantasy and one book was nonfiction.

Out of all those books, six were part of a series. Only one book was written by a Croatian author and all the rest of the books were translations. From nine translations only one was from a Polish author while all the rest were English native speaking authors. For me the number of books from this list that I have read in Croatian translation is much higher than usual.

Total number of pages for the ten books we read was 3188!

We each had a different book from the list as a favorite. Vivone’s favorite was Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer #1) by Laini Taylor and my favorite was All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells.

We both agreed on the book that was our least favorite book to read – Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. We were not sorry for reading it but the experience was very different than we expected and that is the reason for it being dubbed the least favorite.

Our most memorable books were Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny and Proklete Hrvatice : (1&2) : Dvadeset životopisa by Milana Vuković Runjić. And our average rating for the books differs a bit: Vivone’s average score for the books was 4 and mine 3,6. We are happy with the books we read in general and are looking forward to the books we picked for 2022.

We have decided to make some changes for the 2022. list. We decided to expand the ten books approach by each adding five books and keeping on three more sequels from the 2021. list. This gives us more pages in total since the number of books for Buddy reading challenge is now thirteen. The total number of pages we will read is 2867 for the ten books and another 1324 pages for the added three sequels. We have decided to take down the number of new book series on the list which gives us more standalone books and those have a bit less pages a piece. We have two new book series on the list and if we count the added three sequels we still have less book series than we had on 2021 list.

Again we have one dominating genre only this time it is general fantasy with five books. Other genres we have are two nonfiction only one science fiction and two contemporary genre books. All three added sequels are fantasy as well. We did not account for more diversity on the authors front. Again we have one Croatian author and nine translated titles with all those authors being from English speaking territories. We both plan to diversify with our personal plans since our tastes with those tend to go in totally different direction because Vivone really enjoys middle eastern authors and even has a growing collection of translated editions in Croatian and my tastes are more far eastern with contemporary Japanese authors and I plan to try adding Indigenous authors.

Buddy Reading list 2022

Holes (Holes #1) by Louis Sachar

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

The October Country by Ray Bradbury

Kraljica crne obale: i druge priče o legendarnom barbaru by Robert E. Howard

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick

The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

Ima jedna priča… (2nd ed) by Mauro Lacovich

This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay

Sequels from 2021. list:

House of Many Ways (Howl’s Moving Castle #3) by Diana Wynne Jones

Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove #2) by Shelby Mahurin

Sword of Destiny (The Witcher #0.7) by Andrzej Sapkowski

Our expectations on the 2022. list

We have both agreed that the list could have been better and we both compromised on our suggestions. Vivone is most excited for Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain and Kraljica crne obale: i druge priče o legendarnom barbaru by Robert E. Howard, which is a first Croatian collection of stories on Conan the Barabarian. I’m most excited for Blood & Honey (Serpent & Dove #2) by Shelby Mahurin because I plan to finish up the whole trilogy and have found it difficult to restrain myself and not pick it up sooner.

The books we are most apprehensive about differ. Vivone is very unsure how Holes (Holes #1) by Louis Sachar is going to go for her and I am having mixed feelings on The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl. While she is happy with the amount of new book series on the list I think we could have gone with a bit more of those and I actually had problems with finding some suggestions that were not part of a book series for the 2022. list. Because of this I was very straight forward with deciding to continue reading the sequels on some of the books that are part of a book series while Vivone was much more reserved and will have to see how the continuation will reflect on her reading plans trough the year.

December Book Warp Up 2021

Monthly reading review – December 2021

This December I have read:

Castle in the Air (Howl’s Moving Castle, #2) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★★

The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1) by Roshani Chokshi ★★★

Polaris poslednji grad by Snežana Kanački ★★

Čitam da se pročitam by Miha Kovač ★★★★★

1. How many books have you read last month? Are you happy with the amount you read?

I have been totally beaten down by work and a whole week being sick that I managed to read only 4 books for the whole December. At this time I am not happy with how many books I have read and in life in general.

2. What was the best of all the books you’ve read in December? Any scenes or characters that made a lasting impression?

I read less books in December but strangely enough there were some memorable parts in all of them. I liked the character dynamic from The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1) by Roshani Chokshi even though the setting was not something I could get into no matter how hard I tried. Polaris poslednji grad by Snežana Kanački gave me Wayward Pines vibes all the way and this kind of futuristic view of the future is very intriguing to me in an evolutionary sense. Castle in the Air (Howl’s Moving Castle, #2) by Diana Wynne Jones proved to be better than expected and I loved how the character from the first book were incorporated in this one. The dialogue was particularly entertaining. Čitam da se pročitam by Miha Kovač is a book about love of reading and those always warm my heart! This last one was also my best book for December.

3. Were there any not so good books for you last month? What made it hard or not enjoyable to read?

The reasons I gave 2 stars to Polaris poslednji grad by Snežana Kanački was because the book was so very short that the lack of depth for characters and world building was acutely apparent. The characters were the least impressive and I could not find a single one that felt interesting enough to keep my attention.

4. How did the books you were reading last month fit in your reading plans if you had any?

All the books I have read this December were part of my Reindeer Readathon 2021. I did not read trough all the books I have set for myself for that. Castle in the Air (Howl’s Moving Castle, #2) by Diana Wynne Jones was the last book for my Buddy reading challenge for 2021. and I hope to write more about all the books I read with my friend in 2021. and about all the books we picked to read in 2022.

5. Any updates on the series you are reading or are you starting any new series?

Two out of four books were part of a series. Castle in the Air (Howl’s Moving Castle, #2) by Diana Wynne Jones I hope to continue in 2022. with House of Many Ways (Howl’s Moving Castle, #3) by Diana Wynne Jones. I have the book ready and waiting on my shelf and feel a lot more excited about reading it after Castle in the Air. The other one I had very high hopes for: The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1) by Roshani Chokshi. I even put it down as a 5 star prediction! There was something about the setting that I just could not get into.

6. Would you like to recommend any books or authors you’ve been reading this last month?

With the year end and my over the top reading plans not fullfilled, I am left with evaluating my free time and reading plans for next year. In accordance with this my recommendation from December is to get ready for more surprises and give more chances to new authors!

Final thoughts on December 2021 reading

From December I have a pile of books left I wanted to read for Reindeer Readathon 2021 and the sad part is I am eager to read most of them. I will utilize these to create a reading TBR for January. I have lost half of the month to no reading at all and really do not like the result. Creating a fine balance between work and my reading plans is going to be a challenge and I might find myself with some disheartening results for the first few months of 2022. as well. December was busy and I did not take the time to contemplate. My sole desire from this December is to try for more, read more, do more, laugh more, enjoy more and experience more.

Bookopoly TBR game – December 2020 Experience

Last Bookopoly rolls for December 2020 left me with seven books I got to read along with a whole bunch of books I had left for the last month of the year! Usually I get five rolls and five books but since for December I was especially lucky I got two double rolls and had to add two more books to the pile! As it turned out I managed to read six out of seven books from this pile and barely started the seventh by the last day of the month. On the picture above there are five books I own from my bookshelves and the two missing I have read in digital format. I will not count the book I only started reading as a fail since I am in the middle of reading it and plan to finish it soon. Here is how I did with my December Bookopoly TBR picks!

Prompt: Becca and the Books Recommendation

Book: Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle #1) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★

I got lucky with this one since it was the book I had to read for my book club in December as well! I was very happy to find it as one of the books that Becca recommended in one of her videos. This might be a good time to remind you all how our first Bookopoly TBR game started in September 2020 when Becca and the Books had her Bookopoly TBR game presented as a reading challenge. If you would like to learn more you can check the announcement video HERE and show her channel some love!

Prompt: Fire on the Cover

Book: The Color of Magic (Discworld #1) by Terry Pratchett ★★★

This was the prompt that gave me the most headache since I could not fit any of the books I had on my other lists. I remembered to check with the books I was thinking about suggesting for my book club to read and finally stumbled on this one. I must admit I kinda ran trough the book and the speed might have something to do with my rating of this book. I could not find many thing to keep me emotionally connected with this book and the sharp pace and change of scenery made my reading a blur sometimes. There were moments of the book I really liked but they were few and far between. I will probably stop trying to promote this book for my book club since I could not find enough material for the book club discussion my friends from my reading group are used to. Still I’m glad to have finally read this book.

Prompt: Sad Book

Book: Saga (Collected Editions) #7-9 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples ★★★★★

This is the prompt that gives me the most grief from all the spaces on the Bookopoly board. This time I managed to pair it with the hardcover collected edition of Saga graphic novel. This ended up being the best reading experience for December 2020! I love the epic and tragic moments of this graphic novel and it’s head spinning story. I will probably have to reread all nine volumes until I get to read next edition since it will be probably around two years at least until it comes out! Awesome story and it made a frustrating prompt a lot easier to endure!

Prompt: Most recent purchase

Book: The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5) by Rick Riordan ★★★★★

This book gave me a chance to finish a book series that was a part of one of the favorite book universes in the last couple of years. I got to read two more books for this book series in December and this was a sugar on top of it all. I thought the ending a bit sappy but mostly rewarding and it gave me such nice feel good moments while I was reading. While I was a bit sceptic from the first book I am glad to have read the whole book series because for me it was the well rounded godly but not too godly point of view to the world of Percy Jackson that started a whole fifteen years earlier with The Lightning Thief. Did I mention that I can’t wait to see the new Disney+ TV series?

Prompt: Chance card

Book: The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu ★★★

I have tried reading this book once before and did not manage to get farther than the introduction. To be fair, introduction is rather long and not easy to read trough but still… I did not know what to expect from this book. I even used it for one other reading challenge in December as a “book that intimidates me”. Not surprising the narrative was a bit harder to get used to due to the whole millennium has past since the book was written. What surprised me was the similarities I did not expect to find in everyday life of Japanese nobles from one thousand years ago and lives of the rich and popular which we get to read about in news feeds and watch on modern media outlets. Some of the more intricate details were left to the imagination and of the reader and were they not this would have been to explicit to read. I am still at odds about what to think about this book.

Prompt: E-book or Audio book

Book: Taken by The Hunger (Blood Thirst Affair #1) by Harnet Spade ★

Since I got to read the most enjoyable book for Bookopoly in December it is only fair to get to read the least enjoyable book as well! This book was a mess. The plot was chaotic and it mostly described sex crazed female heroine running from one male character to the next without actually having any real sex. This was the first book in a long time I wanted to DNF. Since it was a rather short Kindle freebie I felt ridiculous to do so. I am not sorry for reading it since it gave me something to think about on the things I can value in the books and I believe that reading bad books is necessary for any reader’s reading experience and growth.

Prompt: Chance card

Book: Elminster: The Making of a Mage (Forgotten Realms: Elminster #1) by Ed Greenwood

Last but not least book I got to read and another Chance card prompt – I am running out of these a lot faster than I anticipated! This is the book I have only started on and I am still reading it. So far it is not what I expected it to be. I am enjoying Forgotten Realms related bits and I am interested in how this great mage comes into being because so far his path is much more different than thought it would be. I like not getting what I expected in this case! I hope to finish it soon so I can start on one of the books I got for January 2021.

December Book Wrap Up 2020

Monthly reading review – December 2020

This December I have read:

Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle #1) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★★

Pride (Shifters #3) by Rachel Vincent ★★★★★

Prey (Shifters #4) by Rachel Vincent ★★★★★

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years #1) by Gregory Maguire ★★★

Narcissus in Chains (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter #10) by Laurell K. Hamilton ★★★★

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu ★★★

Naked City by Ellen Datlow (Editor) ★★★★

Saga (Collected Editions) #7-9 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples ★★★★★

The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3) by Rick Riordan ★★★★

The Tyrant’s Tomb (The Trials of Apollo #4) by Rick Riordan ★★★★

The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5) by Rick Riordan ★★★★★

The Color of Magic (Discworld #1) by Terry Pratchett ★★★

Taken by The Hunger (Blood Thirst Affair #1) by Harnet Spade ★

1. How many books have you read last month? Are you happy with the amount you read?

This December I made myself very busy by reading 13 books total! In order to get all my reading plans done I was off by a few books I ran out of time to read and even with all that I think I did better than I expected! I am pleased with all the books I have read in December and how many of them from my own shelves!

2. What was the best of all the books you’ve read in December? Any scenes or characters that made a lasting impression?

There were quite the few books I enjoyed this month and the one I liked best was Saga (Collected Editions) #7-9 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples. There were some moments in this epic space graphic novel that shook me and as a whole I think it was the most memorable book I read this month. I kept being amazed at the artwork in the book and at times it just sang the song of the times we are currently in!

3. Were there any not so good books for you last month? What made it hard or not enjoyable to read?

I had a lot of luck with the Kindle freebies and new stories and authors I tried out so far. This December after quite some time I ended up finding and reading a book that just felt bad and was the least enjoyable book this month: Taken by The Hunger (Blood Thirst Affair #1) by Harnet Spade. It takes a lot for me to rate a book with only one star and nothing about this one could crank it higher no matter how I looked at it. The narrative was chaotic and most of it was angst ridden and sex crazed female main character jumping from one male character to the next without actually having any real sex at all. From any point of view I tried to look at it this story failed to deliver.

4. How did the books you were reading last month fit in your reading plans if you had any?

I was very aware that my reading plans by the end of the year left too many books for December. I ended up prioritizing for the two reading challenges and reading less books for the third one. I think I did good managing and finished two out of three reading challenges!

5. Any updates on the series you are reading or are you starting any new series?

I did good on continuing some series and even finishing some! I finished with The Trials of Apollo book series by Rick Riordan and brought an end to more than a few book series from the Percy Jackson universe. I am happy about it and feel ready for the Disney+ TV series next year. I also read all the Saga volumes that are available to me and happily wait for new ones! Four of the books I have read this month were first in a series and from them I plan to continue only one: Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle #1) by Diana Wynne Jones. Shifters series by Rachel Vincent was amazing and I plan to finish the last two books of the series in the first few months of next year. I even managed to squeeze in one book of second reading of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter book series!

6. Would you like to recommend any books or authors you’ve been reading this last month?

There are some books I enjoy as a guilty pleasure and would not recommend them to everyone but I could not recommend Saga graphic novel series enough! The story is amazing and at times endearing and heart breaking. The artwork and design is thought provoking and cuts straight to the things we might overlook otherwise. It sometimes comes out as gritty and harsh on the eyes as well as the heart but it does so well showing what life can be and how we need to cherish it and smile while we still have teeth!

Final thoughts on December 2020 reading

I had a lot of books I set myself to read this December. Sadly I knew that my plans had very little chance to be fully realized. I am happy with the amount of books I managed to read in December. There were some books I choose to let go in favor of finishing some others. I managed to finish two reading challenges out of three and I will post details on those in a day or two. I was not very active in making post since I tried to use as much as possible time for reading. I had run trough some books and had to work for it to finish them. I did make one review this December for:

Naked City by Ellen Datlow (Editor) ★★★★

You can read it HERE.

After quite some time I have accumulated a good number of books I am in progress of reading:

Elminster: The Making of a Mage (Forgotten Realms: Elminster #1) by Ed Greenwood

Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons by Andy Collins, Skip Williams, James Wyatt

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

MOR – Plodovi osvete by Josip Kralik

I will have to slow down from adding new book challenges until I cull the books I am in progress of reading at the moment! I have plans for some other overviews for reading challenges I have done trough the year and finally making some updates to the parts of the site I have been neglecting. I hope my plans become reality soon!