For the month of June I decided to participate in a new readathon based on adventuring. You can check out the announcement video for more details and options HERE. The author of this reading challenge is Kay Beth bookish and you can check out her content and give her some love HERE.
From all available options I decided to go on an adventure as a pirate simply because I am in summer mode already and lately I have been enjoying board games and media with pirate themes quite a bit!
Each adventure comes with some mandatory and some optional reading prompts. As a Pirate my main quest is to “Plunder a Greatship” To do that I will need some tools and some special skills I get to chose among the reading prompts. I will have a reading prompt that will be connected to my my quest and some reading prompts for possible side quests as well. Here is what it all looks like in graphic mode:
First here is my Main Quest and Tools and Skills options:
Tools – Sword – Sword on the Cover
Hours Of The Dragon (The Weird Works Of Robert E. Howard, #8) by Robert E. Howard
Tools – Ship – Ship/Boat on the Cover
Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #1) by Chris Wooding
Skills – Sailing – Set at Sea
All the Tides of Fate ( All the Stars and Teeth #2 ) by Adalyn Grace
Skills – Navigation – Features Travel
Galaxy Trucker: Rocky Road by Jason A. Holt
Skills – Dueling – Has a Tournament or Competition
Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (Millennial Contest #1) by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley
Starting Quest – Book featuring Pirates
Long John Silver, Integral (Long John Silver #1-4) by Xavier Dorison and Mathieu Lauffray
Final Quest – Book about a great Treasure or Fortune
The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings #1) by J.R.R. Tolkien
Second are the Side Quest prompts and options:
Search for Buried Treasure – Book with a Map
A Deal with the Elf King ( Married to Magic #1) by Elise Kova
Spend Time Ashore – Smut
Desperate Measures (Wicked Villains #1) by Katee Robert
Adopt a Parrot – Bird or Feather on the Cover
Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1) by Andrzej Sapkowski
Escape Capture! – Characters on the Run or Fleeing
All the Stars and Teeth (All the Stars and Teeth #1 ) by Adalyn Grace
Count Your Coins! – Flip a Coin and watch some Pirates
I guess I will be watching Our Flag Means Death!
I have made my reading list accordingly. As usual I decided to try and put in a book for each possible prompt and hope for the best! I like that there is an option for a non reading task even though I am not thrilled with the options there. I might indulge in some gameplay of pirate themed board games like Francis Drake, Ahoy!, Forgotten Waters or many more like those from my shelves and video games like Sea of Thieves. When the time comes I will make a separate post on my gaming choices in June. For now here is a picture of a bunch of my board games with piratey/sea theme!
We are entering into a third year of our Buddy reading challenge my friend Vivone and I started at the beginning of 2021. We started by choosing 10 books we would both read trough the year. You can check out my initial post on it and the 2021-2022 overview HERE.
We started with ten books and since some of them were part of the series we liked, we decided to keep some extra. And in the second year our reading challenge grew to thirteen books – 10 new chosen titles and 3 books we decided to continue reading in series!
Here are the 2022 books we have chosen and my rating for them:
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 ★★★★
I managed to read all the books we chosen even though my 2022. reading kinda sucked and I squeezed three last books in December. I was surprised at some of the books in a good way and some were not so great. My worst read book out of all of them was definitely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick. and the best one for me was Holes (Holes #1) by Louis Sachar. I am glad we finished both Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy and Serpent & Dove trilogy. I actually pushed myself to finish the Serpent & Dove trilogy and the third book of it on my one in order to get them out of my collection since I did not enjoyed them as much as I had hoped I would. We are still going with The Witcher series as you will see in the list for 2023.
The total of the pages we read was around 4192 depending on the editions we had at hand. Genres varied and this time we even had some horror which neither of us is a fan of. As opposed to the last time we had much more contemporary themed books and just like last time our love of fantastic literature can be seen in our choices. I had to point out that we went down with science fiction having only Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick to represent the genre and we both agreed we were not too thrilled with it. In 2022 our reading did not diversify much if we looked at the author origins and most of our chosen books were from English speaking authors with notable exemptions of one Croatian author and the Witcher series which is originally published in Polish but we read it in English anyway…
For our 2023 picks we did broaden our language of origin scope by adding some Japanese authors to the mix of still mostly English original works. Again most of the copies we tend to read are in English anyway with some books that have Croatian translation mixed in.
Here are our 2023 picks:
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
Gallant by V. E. Schwab
The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #1) by Chris Wooding
The City & the City by China Miéville
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
The Cat who saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa
Series that we decided to continue
Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6) by Martha Wells
A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers, #2) by Becky Chambers
Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1) by Andrzej Sapkowski
Hours Of The Dragon (The Weird Works Of Robert E. Howard, #8) by Robert E. Howard
Since we ended one books series with Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy there were two book series we decided to continue: The Witcher and Conan’s Adventures in the works of Robert E. Howard. Murderbot Diaries got thrown into the mix because we both read the series before and wanted to catch up on the series together.
Our expectations on the list for 2023. are different for each. By Vivone’s choice we have decided to go low with books that are part of a possible new series and that is the reason most of the books we have are standalone books. From all the standalone books almost all the authors are new and first time reading for both of us. The only two exceptions are Ursula K. Le Guin for Vivone since she read some other books by that author and Philip K. Dick which is in hindsight a strange choice for both of us since the least liked book from 2022. was his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner #1) by Philip K. Dick.
The only book on the list I was very happy to read and will be my first book of the reading challenge to get my hands on is Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6) by Martha Wells. The rest of them I don’t have very high expectations. I hope I get trough the books we picked earlier in the year and not leave as many as three for the last month of the year like I did in 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!
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 🙂
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.
Lucky (Lucky Santangelo #2) by Jackie Collins ★★★★★
Mogla je biti prosta priča by Ajla Terzić ★★★★
The Last Wish (The Witcher #0.5) by Andrzej Sapkowski ★★★★
I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider ★★★★★
Školski knjižničar by Dinka Kovačević, Jasmina Lovrinčević ★★★★★
The Lives of Saints (Grishaverse) by Leigh Bardugo ★★★★
Dark Prince: Author’s Cut (The “Dark” Carpathian book 1) by Christine Feehan ★ DNF
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells ★★★★
Micah (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter #13) by Laurell K. Hamilton ★★★★★
The Dynasty of the Dark Elves ( Elves Vol. 5) by Marc Hadrien, Ma Yi, Olivier Héban ★★★★★
1. How many books have you read last month? Are you happy with the amount you read?
I had plans to read ten books and I read ten books. The amount I am happy with, but these are not all books I planned to read…On the bright side: I made a major break trough with finally finishing one of the books from my long postponed TBR Jar Draw reading project!
2. What was the best of all the books you’ve read in June? Any scenes or characters that made a lasting impression?
I was intimidated by Lucky (Lucky Santangelo #2) by Jackie Collins for around a year or so. It turned out a much better book than I expected and I found myself enjoying it! I expected to love I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider and my expectations were met. I found much enjoyment and inspiration in the book. Micah (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter #13) by Laurell K. Hamilton was a lot better than I remembered, but then I may be a bit biased when it comes to Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books series in general. I ended a month on a high not with The Dynasty of the Dark Elves ( Elves Vol. 5) by Marc Hadrien, Ma Yi, Olivier Héban. I loved coming back to this awesome graphic novel series and loved it so much that I Have already made plans for reading the next one in July.
3. Were there any not so good books for you last month? What made it hard or not enjoyable to read?
The sole and biggest let down for me this month was Dark Prince: Author’s Cut (The “Dark” Carpathian book 1) by Christine Feehan. This book was on my TBR for almost a decade and when the opportunity to get the “Authors Cut” Kindle edition arose I jumped at the chance. The characters were so underdeveloped and the dialogue was so annoying I had to stop torturing myself and DNFed this book at exactly half of it! I tried giving it all the chances but I just realized I was wasting time on the book that is not getting any better for me and wasting time I could be reading a book I actually enjoy. I cant remember the last time I decided to not finish a book like this but in the end I felt relieved since I really tried and I don’t feel guilty about it!
4. How did the books you were reading last month fit in your reading plans if you had any?
In June I made plans to read 5 books for Bookopoly and 10 books for Whatever-You-Want-A-Thon reading challenge. I did NOT have to go with 10 books! Going for 10 books was not a very smart decision! I read some of the books I planned to read and then some things I did not plan on happened and I lost a whole week preparing for a test and reading books for that. I read most of what I have planned on reading: I read 7 books that I planned on reading, 1 book I DNFed and I read another 2 books that I did not plan on reading. 1 book I planned on reading has been left out because I wanted more time to enjoy it and not just read trough it quickly. And 1 book I am currently still reading from that list.
5. Any updates on the series you are reading or are you starting any new series?
I have finally started on The Witcher series and The Murderbot Diaries – both are on my buddy reading project. The Lives of Saints is the last Leigh Bardugo book I had to read connected to the Grishaverse. Dark Prince: Author’s Cut (The “Dark” Carpathian book 1) by Christine Feehan is one book series I will not be reading anymore and since it has a bunch of books I am glad to cross it off my TBR and the lists of books to buy. My second reading of Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series is progressing nicely and I managed to read Micah (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter #13) by Laurell K. Hamilton and enjoy it more than I thought I would.
6. Would you like to recommend any books or authors you’ve been reading this last month?
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells was a nice surprise and the short format make it a fast and enjoyable read. Most of the books in the series have won genre awards and I recommend them for those who love science fiction and those who are like me and are picky about science fiction books they choose to read. Grant Snyder and his book I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf is super fun and intelligent book for book lovers and all who are interested in the book business.
Final thoughts on June 2021 reading
I am not totally happy with my reading in June. I managed to squeeze in all ten books as planned but I was forced to shuffle some and change others so I get the number ten. I had to put in some literature for the exam I was preparing instead of one book and I DNFed a book. One book I was planning to read I am still reading and will finish later in July and instead of that I put in a graphic novel to meet the quota. On week of reading was marred by trying to read a book I ended up not finishing and letting go and one other week I spent reading the stuff I did not plan on. I will elaborate a bit more on the detail in the next Bookopoly and Whatever-You-Want-A-Thon reading challenge review posts.
The Hedge Knight: The Tales of Dunk and Egg by George R.R. Martin I am still reading and A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldwell I was soo looking forward to but it was left untouched and will be postponed for some other more opportune time when I will be able to enjoy it more!
June experience aside I have made plans and new lists of books to read in July. There are even some reading challenges involved so stay tuned and wish me luck!
anastasiaadamov 