Spring 2015 Read-a-thon!

Despite my lack of blogging, over the weekend I participated in the Read-a-thon!

I’ve done a good number of Dewey’s 24 hour read-a-thons in my time as a blogger and I have recently swung way back towards just focusing on the reading. I did that this time, with some added photos on Twitter and Instagram as well as seeing what other people were doing on there. I actually liked it this way and think I might limit my participation to just that in future, too. I could still get a glimpse of what people were doing while allowing myself to remain immersed in what I was reading. I think I’ll probably just make it a bit more public next time and try to get on Twitter to do a little bit more encouraging and cheering.

I couldn’t participate in the whole day. In the UK, the read-a-thon goes from 1 pm on Saturday to 1 pm on Sunday and I’m physically incapable of not sleeping, plus I’d be a wreck for work on Monday. I tend to allow myself to sleep as normal and just read on either side. I did that this time, although I only started at 5 pm since I also happened to start volunteering on the same Saturday. I’m going to finally get a little bit back into medieval history by volunteering in a couple of museums here in York, which is pretty exciting. So I read from about 5 pm until around 11 the following morning, when we went out for a late breakfast.

I read:

• Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart – this was my current read before I started and I only had around 100 pages to go. I’m not sure how I feel about this book, to be honest. I picked it up quite a while ago and pulled it out to fulfill one of my goals of reading more of my older books. This version of America’s future is truly creepy, but it’s softened by the emotional core of the book, even if it didn’t end in quite the way that I wanted. I’m not sure I got the “hilarious” part, so perhaps not exactly the book for me. It kind of is super sad.
• Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire – I read the last Incryptid book in the read-a-thon a year ago so this was perfect timing. Alex, the star of the last book, Half-off Ragnorak and brother to Verity Price, star of the first two, now finds himself headed to Australia with girlfriend Shelby to cure a werewolf problem. So enjoyable and so perfect for a read-a-thon.
• Ms Marvel, vol 1. – I loved this. Kamala just felt so right to me. I think the second volume is out and I want it NOW.
• Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas – I actually started this right at the end of my read-a-thon time and then finished it over the course of Sunday. I was kind of eh on the first book in this series, Throne of Glass, (love triangles why?) but I have read so many great reviews of the third one that I decided to continue. It was a library book and the first was a quick read, so I thought it would be a good one to finish off the day. This was a better book in every way, fortunately – primarily because Celeana felt more like a real person and not a silly teenage girl that can somehow kill people. It’s true that I guessed the surprise “twist” early on, although maybe everyone does, but I really liked it and had trouble putting it down. I am now glad that I borrowed two and three from the library at the same time. I can catch up easily and get on schedule with everyone else anxiously awaiting the next book.

So that was my read-a-thon! Did you participate this time? How was yours?