The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 14th and runs through Sunday, May 20th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 22 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team Bout of Books is underway! The nice thing is that I stay up pretty late, so starting at midnight I was able to get some reading time in 😉 In my sign-up post, I shared my goals and TBR list. Quick recap: I want to get ahead on my Goodreads goal by the end of the week, read 4-5 books, and to alternate between physical and ebooks to maintain the 1:1 ratio this month. My TBR definitely has an equal mix of my physical TBR and egalleys publishing throughout the month. Tracking Monday May 14th Currently reading: Herons Landing Tuesday May 15th Currently reading: Herons Landing Wednesday May 16th Finished reading: Herons Landing Started and finished reading: Home to Honeymoon Harbor Started reading: Shuffle, Repeat Thursday May 17th Friday May 18th Saturday May 19th Sunday May 20th Books read so far: 2 0 owned physical copies | 1 egalleys | 1 non-TBR books Challenges Daily challenges that I want to participate in will be below!

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 14th and runs through Sunday, May 20th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 22 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team I’m here for what feels like my millionth round of Bout of Books! I feel like I say this every time, but I definitely need this week of reading. I wanted to participate in the Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon a couple of weeks ago but ended up having a friend come to visit instead. This round of Bout of Books is going to help me boost up my totals so I can prepare for a busy late June/early July. I have so many things to do, between weddings and moving and traveling across the country, so I’m not sure how much I’ll read. I’m sure I will on those flights to and from California but I didn’t want to bank on it. In any case! I have big goals for this week. Goals The biggest goal that I can’t really put numbers to is to get ahead on my Goodreads goal by at least a few books. I’m hoping for it to say somewhere between 3-5 books ahead […]

Bout of Books (January 8-14) I’m here for another round of Bout of Books. I don’t remember if I participated last time it came around (probably) but I wanted to focus up on reading early in 2018. I set my Goodreads goal a lot lower this year so I’m not pressured to read, but for some reason I feel really invigorated to read ASAP. Here are more details about this challenge… The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 8th and runs through Sunday, January 14th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 21 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team My goal: My reading goal for 2018 is 120 books, which equates to 10 per month. I usually average more than 10 per month but I want to take it easy. I don’t mind blowing my reading out of the water, but I would prefer to not stress about it. ANYWAYS, reading 10 books per month means about 2.5 books per week. Bout of Books is a week long, so I’ll set my goal to 4-5 books during Bout of Books, including two specific books (and one category of book) that I’ll be talking about below in the TBR […]

I’ve been doing these resolutions for the past couple of years and found that it’s a really nice way to keep track of some goals for the upcoming year. I’ll be honest when I say that generally “resolutions” or the “clean slate of a new year” isn’t my shtick, but sometimes the marking of a new year just helps when setting new goals. It’s an easy marker of time and that’s about it. You can find 2015, 2016, and 2017 resolutions as well. Continue to not feel pressured to read and enjoy other hobbies | I feel like a broken record with this one but honestly I have to remind myself every year to KEEP DOING THIS. I used to get so bogged down in meeting my goal or challenges that I would focus exclusively on reading every second I could. I would have the audiobooks going during my morning routine in commute, plus another book to read from the second I sat on the couch after dinner until bedtime. It’s nice to read all time because DUH I love reading, but I really want to feel like I can veg out for a week straight with my favorite show instead. Read 50% or less contemporary novels | Last year I didn’t have a specific target in line for this goal, so it didn’t really work out. I finished with about 60% contemporary, which isn’t bad, but not what I was hoping for. It’d be really nice to expand my writing yet again […]

As you saw in my recent “get your shit together by the end of the year” post, I have completed all of my year-long reading challenges except for Flights of Fantasy. I’ve participated in this challenge each year because I do love fantasy books, but legitimately need a kick in the pants to read them sometimes. I could read contemporary romance (mixed in with a couple of mysteries maybe) allllll year and not know the difference. I struggle with fantasy a lot of the time because I get sidetracked and have a short attention span. It took me over a month to read THE CRUEL PRINCE, even though I was obsessed with it, just because I couldn’t SIT and READ it (I mean, until the night I sat and read over half of it in one sitting). But that’s just how I am with fantasy! The first half is struggle-city as I get used to the world-building or pacing, and then the action picks up in the second half and I fly through. I love the actual content within fantasy books and think they’re fascinating, but I don’t feel compelled to read them as often as I should. That being said, I now have only five books to go to complete the 2017 FoF Challenge. I decided to choose a goal of 30 books this year because I knew it would involve some effort to get that done. I’ve done 20-25 in the past and it was mostly a breeze. Below you’ll […]

The reading quest is hosted by Read at Midnight (information here!) and runs from August 13th through September 10th. My sign-up is here. I’ll be doing weekly tracking and wrap-up posts each Friday or Saturday throughout the readathon so you can see my progress and goals as they develop. This Week’s Thoughts I started THE KNOWING and ALWAYS when we went away for the weekend and there was some decent progress! I ended up just binge-finishing ALWAYS when we got home because it was too short to let hang around. Since I like having an ebook around while reading a physical copy, I decided to also work on TEN for the movie adaptation square in my Knight’s path. The adaptation is coming on Lifetime later this month so this was the perfect motivation to read it too. It took me a little longer to finish THE KNOWING because it’s a non-contemporary, which always takes me a while. I’m going to take this weekend to catch up on THE A-LIST and finish it for my reread, so no new reads for the Quest until maybe Monday/Tuesday. I won’t have another post about this until the wrap-up — eek! Week 3 Progress & Tracking The dates you see below are the dates I start and finish books, so you won’t see every date there. It’ll be running totals and information about each book and how it applies to the quest itself. Social media: Twitter poll for next read, Instagram post (2 HP […]

The reading quest is hosted by Read at Midnight (information here!) and runs from August 13th through September 10th. My sign-up is here. I’ll be doing weekly tracking and wrap-up posts each Friday or Saturday throughout the readathon so you can see my progress and goals as they develop. This Week’s Thoughts I finished The Dazzling Heights a day or two later than projected because it dragged a little bit, TBH. I decided to jump into Love & Gelato for the Respawn box (giving another chance to a book you previously DNFed). I have kind of put that one on pause yet again because for some reason I just don’t have much desire to read it. I am determined to finish it by the end of this quest! I read Gilded Ashes to get one of the quick/novella boxes done, and I really enjoyed it. I’ve moved my TBR around a little bit by starting The Knowing to work further on my Knight’s quest – a book with a verb in its title. I also have an ebook expiring from the library (Always) that I think I’ll start tomorrow for the Open World freebie box. My quest board is looking pretty good! (Cristina and I pushed our A-List reread out another week, so I have more flexibility to read other things first.) Week 2 Progress & Tracking The dates you see below are the dates I start and finish books, so you won’t see every date there. It’ll be running totals and information about […]

The reading quest is hosted by Read at Midnight (information here!) and runs from August 13th through September 10th. My sign-up is here. I’ll be doing weekly tracking and wrap-up posts each Friday or Saturday throughout the readathon so you can see my progress and goals as they develop. This Week’s Thoughts Weee, it’s here! I decided to start with The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service audiobook since I was commuting into the office for a few days during the early part of the week. I also got the physical copy out from the library before I went back to Maine because I knew it’d be faster to finish that copy when I returned. I changed my TBR option for the Time Warp category because I was shockingly approved for The Dazzling Heights on Edelweiss and had to read ASAP! I expect to have that one done this weekend at some point. I’m leaning toward starting Love & Gelato next because I already got through some via audio last month. It should be a quick summery read. Week 1 Progress & Tracking The dates you see below are the dates I start and finish books, so you won’t see every date there. It’ll be running totals and information about each book and how it applies to the quest itself. August 14th – 17th Book: The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service by Beth Kendrick Source/format: Audiobook and physical copy mix, both from library Quest board: Animal Companion (side quest) Points: 10 EXP and 32 HP August 17th – Present Book: The […]

Hosted by Read at Midnight | August 13th through September 10th | Info I kept seeing the adorable graphics being teased for this readathon and had to sign up. Not gonna lie, I’m really not a gamer or anything. I just think these cute people are worth having on my blog and it seems like a really fun one. I had the hardest time deciding between the Knight and the Mage tracks on the board, based on my TBR I was thinking of for August. Anyways, here are some more details and some of my plans for it! Some Rules to Track Experience Points Pick a path and stay on it; complete the side quests in the middle for more EXP Each character starts with +10EXP from the beginning Books give you +10EXP, graphic novels give +5EXP, marginalized authors give +20EXP Completing the quest before the challenge is over gives you +50EXP; complete another character’s quest on the board and get +30EXP Characters level up with every +50EXP they earn Health Points Each character starts with +10HP from the beginning Every 10 pages read give +1HP (graphic novels give +1HP for 20 pages) Tweeting with #TheReadingQuest gives +1HP (maximum of +20HP allowed from social media) Photos of books from the quest give +1HP (still max of +20HP for social media) Probable TBR I decided to (tentatively?) go with the Knight character for this quest. I think that path best describes what I might be reading in the next few months. If […]