Will I ever be good at ReadAThons?

BingoAThon is over and I may have read some books on my tbr, and I may have read books that weren’t… we all know I totally read books not on my tbr!

So let’s get started with this wrap up!!

Here is the empty board with all of the prompts (the middle square is the group book):

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This is what I was meant to read:

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And here is my read board:

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WRAP UP:

Diverse Rep and Favourite Genre:

Six of Crows; Leigh Bardugo ⭐⭐⭐⭐

“A gambler, a convict, a wayward son, a lost Grisha, a Suli girl who had become a killer, a boy from the Barrel who had become something worse.”

This was so good! I was a little wary of how much hype surrounds this duology, but after reading I can see why the hype is there. The brutality of the characters and the world is an interesting side to be on. I love morally grey characters, and Kaz Brekker is my new definition for that phrase! This boy is ruthless!

The heist is full of twists and turns and I enjoyed that we learnt about our characters in several flashbacks. Sometimes that can seen a little jarring or lazy writing, but it was great, especially for Kaz’s character. I do wish that some of the characters were a little more fleshed out, or at least given better dialogue – *cough* Inej *cough* but I love her so much, so don’t get too worked up haha~

The diverse rep is seen in Kaz’s leg injury and his use of a cane (which I believe is written from Bardugo’s own chronic pain illness – correct me if my wording is wrong), LGBTQIA+ characters and people of colour (Jesper is black and Inej is brown-skinned – again let me know if this is okay terminology – I tried to look it up but I wasn’t sure…)

I’m definitely excited to see what chaos this crew causes in Crooked Kingdom.

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Cover Buy

The Essex Serpent; Sarah Perry ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I went into this not knowing what to expect and not thinking that I would love it as much as I did. At times I was confused as to whether this was heading in a magical realism direction, but this story isn’t just about an unknown monster. It traverses through grief, abuse, religion, science, socialism and most importantly friendship.

The characters are far from perfect and that’s what makes them so compelling.

If you like historical fiction and all the complexities of humanity, then I would highly recommend this book!

And I swear the cover is far more beautiful in real life – the gold is shiny and the colours are prettier!

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New To Me Author

Orange, Complete Collection 1; Takano Ichigo ⭐⭐⭐⭐

t/w: suicide

Despite the heavy topic that is always intertwined with the story, this was so wholesome! A high school student gets a letter from her future self and must work out how to save her new schoolmate. While doing this it brings her friendship group closer, as well as helps a grieving and confused boy.

And the art style is so pretty ♡ I’m excited to get my hands on the second book.

(However, I might have slight second lead syndrome… Suwa is just so precious!)

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Very New/Old on TBR

The Rising; Kelley Armstrong ⭐⭐⭐.5

This book came out in 2013 and has been on my tbr since then… so this is an old one in my book haha ^^”

I went into this thinking I would hate it. I thought this book would be boring and pointless and I would continue to not care about most of the characters. And I was worried that it would take me several months to read like book 2 (this is the final book in the Darkness Rising Trilogy).

And then I read it in 2 days… So much happens in this book which makes it so fast paced and easy to digest. I found I preferred Maya’s voice in this, but I will say I only cared – by the end of the book – about four members of the Phoenix lot; Maya, Ash, Corey and obvs Daniel (who is so pure and must be protected at all costs) and of course I will always love the Genesis lot (from the preceding Darkest Powers trilogy)! I’ve seen reviews that say they act out of character in this book and I understand that, but most of the characters don’t feel fleshed out, so I think it’s just this trilogy… It’s sub-par to the original trilogy.

And the ending was kind of meh… It felt like a cop out and made the books seem even more pointless than they already were. I’m assuming there will be more books about these characters – or that’s what it hints at – and I honestly don’t know if I would even bother continuing if that happened…

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And then there were some books that I either finished or started during this ReadAThon week:

Playing with Fire; Gena Showalter

I gave this 2.75⭐ and read the remaining 168 pages. If you want to see my thoughts on this, go check out my goodread :p or wait a while and check out my full blown wrap of the month on June 1st.

I’ll just say I was disappointed and there was so much unnecessary talk about nipples!

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Once & Future; Amy Rose Capetta and Cory McCarthy

This is the group book for this ReadAThon and I am currently 111 pages in. It’s a sapphic genderbent retelling of Arthur in space! It has a really cool premise, although I’m a little iffy on the execution at the moment.

However, I read the bio’s of the authors and it’s great to see a LGBTQIA+ couple writing books representing themselves. Amy Rose Capetta (she/her) identifies as a queer demigirl, while Cory McCarthy (they/them) identifies as an Irish-Arab American and a pan demi enby.

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The Chemist; Stephanie Meyer

I’m going to say, I really enjoy Meyer’s writing and even though all the science is going over my head (I’m dumb), I’m actually enjoying this at the moment.

We are following a woman who used to work for the government (the super secret side) and is now on the run from said government. However, they don’t want to kill her now as there is a threat of biological terrorism and she is the only one skilled enough to fight against it.

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Quick Stats Wrap-Up:

Pages Read: 2,044 pages

Books Completed: 2 (and a bit if you count Playing with Fire)

Challenges Completed: 6

I may not have finished all challenges, but I got BINGO!! Twice~

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How did your BingoAThon go? Did you read all the things? Did you have fun?

Thank you for reading! I hope you are having a lovely day~