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| Image by Annie Spratt |
I recently did a 24-hour readathon. It got me thinking about how much I read in an average week. I have no readathon to motivate me. I just want to read every day. My ultimate goal is to get a baseline of what I read in a week so I can embark on reading challenges I have planned in the future. Anyway, here's how my week of reading went with some mini-reviews.
BOOK #1: The Lost Ticket BY Freya Sampson
When Libby Nicholls arrives in London, brokenhearted and with her life in tatters, the first person she meets on the bus is elderly Frank. He tells her about the time in 1962 that he met a girl on the number 88 bus with beautiful red hair just like hers. They made plans for a date at the National Gallery art museum, but Frank lost the bus ticket with her number on it. For the past sixty years, he’s ridden the same bus trying to find her, but with no luck.Libby is inspired to action and, with the help of an unlikely companion, she papers the bus route with posters advertising their search. Libby begins to open her guarded heart to new friendships and a budding romance, as her tightly controlled world expands. But with Frank’s dementia progressing quickly, their chance of finding the girl on the 88 bus is slipping away.More than anything, Libby wants Frank to see his lost love one more time. But their quest also shows Libby just how important it is to embrace her own chances for happiness—before it’s too late—in a beautifully uplifting novel about how a shared common experience among strangers can transform lives in the most marvelous ways.
DAY 1
I don't know if I mentioned this but I have started another book club with my mom after a couple of years and my tia joined the group. We switch off picking a book each month. The person picks three and then there is a vote to see which one wins. My tia cheated a little and added two books by the author we read from last time. Good thing though because I loved The Lost Ticket. I read the last chapters on the first day of this reading experiment. I was getting a little frustrated with Libby's decisions but it all worked out in the end. I was mostly drawn into Libby and Dylan's romance but also enjoyed the main plot. I wish I would have read more this first day but I was actually making something to drop off for the book club members so I was kind of busy.
Mini Review: Loved this even more than Nosy Neighbors. When Libby meets punk rock mohawk-wearing Dylan I knew I was going to love their love story. I knew Dylan was going to be a teddy bear underneath his tough exterior. Libby and Dylan's slow romance made this story. I also enjoyed the main plot where Frank is looking for this girl he met on the 88 Bus who he wanted to thank for changing his life. There were a lot of parallels you can easily draw from the girl on the 88 Bus and Libby which I liked discovering. I appreciated that Libby stood up for herself when it came to Simon (her no-good ex-boyfriend). I was annoyed at the end because she was screwing everything up and going against what I had seen her do in the past. I wish there were some moments in the story I was expecting to see that weren't even there. There were a couple of loose ends but nothing maddening. The Lost Ticket was a perfect read for my IRL book club.
BOOK #2: THE Witchwood Knot BY Olivia Atwater
The faeries of Witchwood Manor have stolen its young lord. His governess intends to steal him back.Victorian governess Winifred Hall knows a con when she sees one. When her bratty young charge transforms overnight into a perfectly behaved block of wood, she soon realises that the real boy has been abducted by the Fair Folk. Unfortunately, the lord of Witchwood Manor is the only man in England who doesn’t believe in faeries—which leaves Winnie in the unenviable position of rescuing the young lord-to-be all by herself.Witchwood Manor is bigger than its inhabitants realise, however, and full of otherworldly dangers. As Winnie delves deeper into the other side of the house, she enlists the aid of its dark and dubious faerie butler, Mr Quincy, who hides several awful secrets behind his charming smile. Winnie hopes to make her way to the centre of the Witchwood Knot through wit and cleverness… but when all of her usual tricks fail, who will she dare to trust?
DAY 2
I started this a couple of days before this reading experiment. I needed an audiobook and I had been eyeing this one on Hoopla. I loved Half a Soul and I wanted to give another one of Atwater's books a try. So far I am really intrigued with the portal world and characters within the story. There's a good blend of mystery and fantasy. Winnie has a complicated past and I'm curious to see what happened in her childhood. Her cartomancy powers are so cool! I wish I saw cartomancy in more books.
DAY 3
DAY 4
BOOK #3: THE Beast and the Bethany BY Jack Meggitt-Phillips
Beauty comes at a price. And no one knows that better than Ebenezer Tweezer, who has stayed beautiful for 511 years. How, you may wonder? Ebenezer simply has to feed the beast in the attic of his mansion. In return for meals of performing monkeys, statues of Winston Churchill, and the occasional cactus, Ebenezer gets potions that keep him young and beautiful, as well as other presents.But the beast grows ever greedier with each meal, and one day he announces that he'd like to eat a nice, juicy child next. Ebenezer has never done anything quite this terrible to hold onto his wonderful life. Still, he finds the absolutely snottiest, naughtiest, and most frankly unpleasant child he can and prepares to feed her to the beast.The child, Bethany, may just be more than Ebenezer bargained for. She's certainly a really rather rude houseguest, but Ebenezer still finds himself wishing she didn't have to be gobbled up after all. Could it be Bethany is less meal-worthy and more...friend-worthy?
DAY 5
Book: The Beast and the BethanyTime Read: 1 hr. 18 min.Pages Read: 105 pages
Okay, so it got a little better. Bethany actually has morals and learns a lot through Ebenezer. Basically, she doesn't want to be him so she apologizes to a boy she's wronged. She also changes Ebenezer's heart around and he starts feeling guilty that he's been feeding poor creatures to the Beast. Bethany still has attitude but you learn she's just a little girl who wants the parents she never knew.
DAY 6
Book: The Beast and the BethanyTime Read: 50 min.Pages Read: 82 pages
This was okay. It took a while for me to care for the characters but it got there. I can see how third graders might enjoy this book. It has a good moral and humor kids would enjoy. I am slightly interested in the sequel but I'll see if I can read spoilers rather than read the book.
BOOK #4: THE Secret Dead Club BY Karen Strong
Wednesday Thomas sees ghosts. But that doesn’t mean she has to talk to them.After a terrifying experience in an Arizona state park with a wicked ghost, Wednesday and her mother Olivia sell their RV and move back south to the family home in Alton, Georgia. Wednesday’s determined not to use her gift anymore—until she meets a group of girls who also know about the spirit realm.There’s free-spirited Miki Okada and Southern belle Danni-Lynn Porter who seem to know about the ghosts who roam the school’s hallways, popular girl Alexa Scott who tells Wednesday to stay away from Miki and Danni-Lynn and not draw attention to herself, and mysterious neighbor Violet Delgado who died last year but still haunts the house across the street. Wednesday feels these girls have some kind of shared history, but it isn’t until Miki gives her an official invitation to the Dead Club that she starts to understand there’s a lot more going on with the ghosts in Alton and the girls who can see them.And when another malevolent ghost threatens to harm Wednesday, it will take the help of new friends both living and dead to save her and banish the evil being to the spirit realm where it belongs.
DAY 7
Book: The Secret Dead ClubTime Read: 1 hr.Pages Read: 68% - 88 pages
I started reading The Secret Dead Club when I did my last 24-hour readathon. I had to stop because I was dead tired and it was like 3 a.m. Unfortunately, when I read some more it hadn't grabbed me so I decided not to order it for my library. The kids that are interested in haunted houses/horror books like fast-paced reads and this was not it. I'm almost done
FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHALLENGE
I read a total of 678 pages in 9 hrs. and 39 min. I'm not the best at math but I figure I read 71 pages per hour. Don't quote me on that. For the 24-hour readathon, I read 964 pages in 11 hours and 3 minutes which I think means I read 87 pages per hour. I don't know what that means but there you have it. I know I am only able to achieve those page counts because I read a lot of middle-grade books.
I am impressed I read or listened to books for 9 hrs. and 39 min. I don't know what I expected but that's why this was a good baseline. I fully read 2 books, finished 1, and almost finished another. Now on to the next challenge and spoiler alert it's a spinner wheel picks the number of hours I read in a day challenge. I've done it and it was brutal. That post will be up soon. I'll probably wait to do another challenge until I feel inspired again but this was fun!
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