Hi everyone! If you’ve been following me on here or on Twitter, my partner and I hosted another round of Trope-ical Readathon this past month. Today I’ll finally be going through the books that I read!
Once again, I was on Team Romance and my goal was to complete all 15 challenges and read all Team Books for a total of 20 books. This round, I ended with a total of 40 books!
Since there are a lot of books to cover, I’m just going to break them down by rating. I’m leaving out one book The Invisible Kingdom by Meghan O’Rourke because it was a non-fiction and I typically don’t rate non-fiction books by stars.
All of the titles below are links to purchase the book on Amazon (affiliate links).As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This comes at no additional cost to you.
And that’s a wrap! If you’re interested in participating in our next round of Trope-ical Readathon, follow the readathon Twitter account @tropeicalreads!
If you follow me on Twitter (or if you’ve clicked the Trope-ical Readathon Info tab on my blog) then you know that my partner and I host a month-long readathon in March and August.
The readathon is team-based with six teams:
Team Romance
Team Science Fiction
Team Fantasy
Team Mystery/Horror/Thriller
Team Contemporary/Literary/Historical Fiction
Team Non-Fiction/Poetry
I am part of Team Romance which means the prompts I have to satisfy are the following:
There are two ways to satisfy a Common Challenge: either the book has the given trope OR it satisfies the alternate prompt. To challenge myself as much as possible, my TBR is solely based on tropes and not on any of the alternate prompts.
Without further ado, here is my planned TBR!
Absent/Dead Parents Trope: Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater
Time Loop Trope: The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Found Family Trope: One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Coming of Age Trope The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos
Food Themes Trope Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala
Blast from the Past Trope Peril at the End House by Agatha Christie
Mixed Media Trope Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson
(Post) Apocalyptic Trope The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Historical Figure Trope The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu
All Happens in One Day Trope All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban
Multiple POV Trope Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory
The New Kid in Town Trope: Horrid by Katrina Leno
Retelling Trope: The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
Team Challenge 1: Sports Romance Trope Head Over Heels by Hannah Orenstein
Team Challenge 2: Second Chance Romance Trope These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
Additional Books: In addition to the above books, I also have several books I need to read during the month for reviews/tours. I’m also planning on reading one team book from each team.
Down with the Dance by C.T. Walsh ~ The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson ~ The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara ~ XOXO by Axie Oh ~ What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad ~ Murder on the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon ~ Dear Senthuran by Dear Senthuran ~ She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan ~ The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline ~ A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
If you want to participate, you can find all of the info here! If you share your TBR before registration closes on August 8th, you’ll be entered in a Book Depository giveaway!
Hi everyone! If you’ve been following me on here or on Twitter, my partner and I hosted another round of Trope-ical Readathon this past month. Today I’ll finally be going through the books that I read!
Once again, I was on Team Romance and my goal was to complete all 15 challenges and read all Team Books for a total of 20 books. This round, I ended with a total of 34 books (24 books, 10 manga)
Since there are a lot of books to cover, I’m just going to break them down by rating. I’m leaving out the 10 graphic novels I read but if you’re curious, they were the first 10 volumes of Inuyasha. I’m also leaving out Twilight by Stephenie Meyer because it was a reread and I couldn’t separate my adult feelings from high school nostalgia.
All of the titles below are links to purchase the book on Amazon (affiliate link).As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This comes at no additional cost to you.
And that’s a wrap! If you’re interested in participating in our next round of Trope-ical Readathon, follow the readathon Twitter account @tropeicalreads!
Hi everyone! It’s day 4 of Blogmas and today I’m doing my November Wrap-Up.
During November, Rob and I decided to participate in Readathin. If you missed my TBR announcement earlier this month, you can read it here.
There was one free space and two squares that were non-reading related so to black out the board, I had to read at least 22 books–AND I DID!!!
I’m going to be trying to post reviews for all of the books I read throughout the next two months so I’ll add the review links to this post as I go. Some are already added because I started the month on top of things and then died out.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
This book was AMAZING. I loved the main character and all of the twists and turns. The ending kind of gets more and more predictable as it goes along but that didn’t stop me from loving it. (Click here to read my full review)
Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater (4.5 stars) Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
Ahhhh I love love loved this book. It’s definitely a book where you keep asking yourself “WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED.” The first 20% or so is a bit slow to get started, but it gets much better. (RTC)
Dear Justyce by Nic Stone(4.5 stars) Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Dear Martin, but I absolutely love Nic Stone’s writing and the powerful messages she provides in her novels. I definitely want to read every book she writes. (RTC)
A well-written Mafia romance novel with a love story that would have benefited from less misogyny/creepiness on the love interest’s side. The plot arc revolving around mob life was probably my favorite part. (Click here to read my full review)
Filled with fun and laughs! Warning that basically the entire novel revolves around poor communication and that there’s an overarching theme of fatphobia and bullying people based on their looks. (Click here to read my full review)
I liked this book more than its predecessor. My favorite part about this series is still how raw these characters are. They’re just kids, and the book never fails to remind you that they’re just doing their best. (Click here to read my full review)
The Beautiful and the Cursed by Page Morgan Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
This was a reread and the book was totally different from how I remembered it but still good! Don’t let the cover fool you; this book is more of a fantasy than a paranormal romance. (RTC)
Funny, cute, and entertaining! I just wish the premise was less grounded in the idea that a woman needs a man to be truly happy. (Click here to read my full review)
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
I’m not one to read non-fiction books, but I thought I’d give this a try since it’s marketed as YA. As promised, it was very readable while also delivering strong messages. (RTC)
Not sure what I expected, but this definitely wasn’t it. Ninth House is like a really convoluted (but cool) murder mystery (with ghosts!). A bit wordy at times (like most adult novels) but enjoyable and thrilling. (RTC)
The Scorch Trials by James Dashner (3.5 stars) Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
This was a reread for me and I don’t remember how I liked it the first time. I listened to this on audiobook this time around with Rob and I admit that I zoned out several times during the story. (RTC)
Witchy by Ariel Slamet Ries (3.5 stars) Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
I’m not a huge fan of the art, but I didn’t expect to enjoy this book as much as I did! It has an incredibly interesting plot and beautifully complex characters. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for the next book. (Click here to read my full review)
Cute overall, but not much actually happens. I recommend reading this shorty after reading the other two since there are a lot of references that you might otherwise miss. (Click here to read my full review)
The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
I really wanted to like this book. The premise and plot have a lot of potential, but I didn’t like either of the main characters nor the writing style. (RTC)
Rob wanted me to read this book and watch the movie, but I found this book really weird? I didn’t like the writing and at times I had no idea what was going on or how the logistics could even work. Sorry, Rob! (RTC)
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
This book was…fine? It was totally fine to read. I just don’t really feel any particular way about it–no strong feelings either way. Not sure if I’m going to continue this series. (RTC)
This book was a lot more than I thought it was going to be but that ended up being its downfall. I think there was too much happening and certain decisions/thoughts the main characters had puzzled me often. (RTC)
A Real Royal Christmess by Linda West Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
A fun, lighthearted story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It suffers from the insta-love trope but that’s kind of expected. The writing got a bit choppy at the end, but I think I was reading an ARC. (Click here to read my full review)
Smash It! by Francina Simone (2.5 stars) Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
I really enjoyed the writing of this book but it basically revolved around people being horrible to each other and then scrambling to make it up. There were also many randomly offensive/insensitive comments. (RTC)
The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe (2.5 stars) Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
This book made me laugh out loud several times, but no amount of humor could have made up for how much I hated the protagonist. In fact, most of the characters were unlikable. (RTC)
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (2.5 stars) Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)
I legit hated the first half of this book but then liked the latter half, so I’m very confused about it. I definitely would have DNFed this if it weren’t a book club read. (RTC)
That’s it for November! I’m not sure how my December reading is going to go because I might be burnt out a bit, but we’ll see. If you’ve read any of the above books, or are interested in reading the, let me know in the comments below!
Disclaimer: Most posts made on this blog will include affiliate links, identified by the phrase (affiliate link). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This comes at no additional cost to you.
My partner and I were looking for a readathon to participate in this month and we came across Readathin, a readathon to “thin” out your TBRs.
The basic idea of this readathon is to not buy any new books and instead to focus on the books we already own and want to read. It’s a very chill event so there aren’t any points, strict rules, or prizes involved, but there is a bingo board!
The way that I’ll be using this board is I’m not allowing any myself any doubling up. So if I want to blackout the board–which is my goal–I’ll have to read at least 22 books this month. I planned most of them out but some squares (morning reading and read 4 books) haven’t been decided yet.
Here’s what I have planned. I’ve crossed out the ones that I’ve already finished reading this month since I’m posting this TBR a bit late. If you have any questions about what these prompts mean, you can check out their linktree on the Readathin twitter page!
Preorder: The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon Book starting with “N”: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo Morning reading: TBD Buddy read: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Graphic novel: Witchy by Ariel Slamet Ries 5 star prediction: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson Non-fiction: All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson Gifted book: The Lovely and the Lost by Page Morgan Read 4 books: TBD Fave genre: Sky on Fire by Emmy Laybourne Read while snuggled up: A Favor For a Favor by Nat Chelloni Format mix-up: The Scorch Trials by James Dashner Thin book: Love, Creekwood by Becky Albertalli Mental health rep: The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe Diverse read: Dear Justyce by Nic Stone Read an ebook/audiobook: It’s Raining Men by Rich Amooi Read & watch an adaptation: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk Friend rec: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire Read a whole book in a weekend: Just a Girl by Becky Monson TBR repeater: Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater Own Voices: Smash It by Francina Simone Fall colored cover: Tiger Eye by Marjorie M Liu
I’m also participating in the Readathin Photo Challenge, so if you want to check out my daily bookstagram posts, follow me @jenjenreviews!
Hi everyone! I am FINALLY getting to the blog post that I was supposed to write back in September. For those of you who have been following me for a while (either here or on Twitter/Instagram), you know about a readathon that I hosted with my partner during the month of August called the Trope-ical Readathon.
I was on Team Romance and my goal was to complete all 15 challenges and read all Team Books. This meant that I was hoping to read at least 20 books in the month of August.
In the end…I read 54.
Now before everyone starts expressing complete shock. Here is the breakdown of the book types:
32 books
20 graphic novels
1 poetry collection
1 children’s book
So most of you would probably just say I read 32 books–which is still my highest record of books read in a month so I was very proud of myself.
Since there are a LOT of books to cover, I’m just going to break them down by rating. I’m leaving out the 20 graphic novels I read but if you’re curious, they were the first 20 volumes of Case Closed.
I got too overwhelmed to write reviews for most of them (I’ll link the three I did do reviews for below), so if you want to hear my thoughts about any book listed, just comment below!
Dear Martin by Nic Stone Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron (4.5 stars) Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (4.5 stars) Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (4.5 stars) A Burning by Megha Majumdar I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry & Kali Nicole Gross The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo Obsidio by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon Timothy Mean and the Time Machine 2 by William A.E. Ford The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London (3.5 stars) The Secret Letters by Taryn Leigh Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne Dating Makes Perfect by Pintip Dunn The Shadows by Alex North The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon
I Kissed Alice by Anna Birch & Victoria Ying Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power The Love Study by Kris Ripper Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
And that’s a wrap! If you’re interested in participating in our next round of Trope-ical Readathon, follow the readathon Twitter account @tropeicalreads!
If you follow me on Twitter (or if you’ve clicked the Trope-ical Readathon Info tab on my blog) then you know that my partner and I are hosting a month-long readathon in August!
The readathon is team-based with five teams:
Team Romance
Team Science Fiction/Fantasy
Team Mystery/Horror/Thriller
Team Contemporary/Literary/Historical Fiction
Team Non-Fiction/Poetry
I am part of Team Romance which means the prompts I have to satisfy are the following:
There are two ways to satisfy a Common Challenge: either the book has the given trope OR it satisfies the alternate prompt. To challenge myself as much as possible, my TBR is solely based on tropes and not on any of the alternate prompts.
Without further ado, here is my planned TBR!
If you want to participate, you can find all of the info here! If you share your TBR before registration closes on August 8th, you’ll be entered in a Book Depository giveaway!
My partner and I hosted our first readathon on April 5th! We called it the Trope-ical Readathon and it was a 24 hour readathon where participants could read whatever books they wanted and fill out a bingo board that we made based on things that appear in a lot of books.
Here’s the bingo board we had:
Honestly, it was a LOT of fun. We’re definitely going to be doing another readathon again, so if you’re interested in participating, follow @tropeicalreads on Twitter for updates!
Book #1: Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon (2.5 stars)
This book was such a disappointment and I’m still so sad about it. It was so hyped on Twitter and I really thought I was going to enjoy it.
One of the things that upset me the most about the book was that it’s classified as a Beauty and the Beast retelling but it kind of isn’t? I felt like it would have been fine as an original tale (given a few tweaks) and that the author was beating me over the head with a stick trying to get me to believe that the male MC was the beast. The following quote is completely made up by me and not in the book but this is basically what it felt like I was reading every time he was in a scene:
He ate his spaghetti with such ferocity that it was SO INCREDIBLY BEAST-LIKE. The slurps he made sounded more like THE GROWL OF A GRIZZLY BEAR than that of a human boy. His hunched over frame resembled that of A LARGE ANIMAL ready to pounce on its prey.
Book #2 Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey (4 stars)
This was pretty darn cute of a read! The characters were kind of completely ridiculous but in an adorable rom-com sort of way that I enjoyed. I think what I most appreciated was that the book didn’t shy away from showing how friendship can mean so many different things depending on the people involved.
I don’t remember much about why I took away a star but it was probably because this book includes a trope that I’ve always hated. It’s kind of a spoiler if I say which trope it is but if you’re curious, just ask!
Book #3: Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz (3 stars)
This book started off really well for me. I was laughing a lot and falling in love with both of the MCs fairly quickly. Unfortunately, I got incredibly bored as the book progressed and lost interest in the plot. There is a good chunk of around 100 pages in the middle where I felt like almost nothing happened. I kind of wonder if the book started off as a novelette since it’s only around 300 pages total.
Regardless, this book had pretty in-depth character development which is something that I think YA often lacks. I was really happy that I was able to watch the MCs grow as people and learn from their mistakes.
Grinchathon is a readathon, hosted by punkrockgirlpa from December 15-December 21. There are 7 reading challenges and 7 photo challenges. The reading challenges are purposely vague because the goal is to make them count for whatever you want to read.
Here are the 7 reading challenges:
Green and Black
Diverse
Warm
Pictures
Short
Dying To Read
Dark
With that said, here is my TBR for Grinchathon!
Wayward Son
This book will be counting for “Pictures”, “Dying to Read”, and “Dark”. It’s a book that I’ve been wanting to read for a long time and it was a huge hassle to get. My partner preordered the book but after getting the original copy we discovered that Barnes and Noble had an exclusive edition with a better cover. We returned the original and tried to get the B&N version only to find out our local store didn’t have it anymore! On top of that, B&N refused to ship it to Hawaii! We eventually were able to get a family member to mail it to us from the mainland. The sad part was literally right after we received it in the mail, our local store started restocking it…
I’m counting it for “Pictures” because we got a different cover than the original and also because the book is separated into parts with each part being indicated by a drawing. The reason I’m counting it for “Dark” is because the B&N edition features the night sky as it’s cover.
The differences between the two covers
I Hope You Get This Message
I received this book in an Owl Crate box and it sounds really interesting. It’s been on my TBR shelf for a while and I thought that the cover made it a good choice for the “Green and Black” challenge.
Something Like Gravity
This was one of the books that I borrowed from the library when I went on a “I WANT TO ONLY READ CHEESY LOVE STORIES” binge. I chose this book for “Diverse” because one of the MCs is trans and it will be my first book with a trans MC.
Heat Wave
Heat Wave is counting for “Warm” and “Short”. My partner recommended this book to me a while ago and I never got around to reading it. He says it’s a page turner which is why I’m counting it for “Short” and the title is literally Heat Wave so I feel safe counting it for the “Warm” prompt as well.
If you’re interested in checking out my photo challenges for Grinchathon, follow me on instagram!
For those of you who have been following, you might know that I participated in my very first readathons last month when I entered in House Battles and Mythothon.
I admit that I went a little overboard and read like a madwoman because I became obsessed with the idea of reading at least 300 pages per day. Almost any free time I had outside of work was dedicated to trying to read as much as possible. As a result, I read a whopping 26 books and also destroyed basically any reading motivation I had.
I decided that–if I want to stay sane and keep my love of reading–I should probably take a break from readathons, especially the ones that give you points per page. While looking for “low-cost” readathons in October, I found Witchathon and it was basically exactly what I (and my partner) needed. It’s only a week long, has no point system, and has super cool prompts.
Here are the reading prompts for Witchathon:
A book that features your heritage
A book that features communing with the dead
A book that promises to be dark & twisted.
A book that involves a pantheon of deities
A book that has fire on the cover
The group pick: Gideon the Ninth
Ready for my TBR?
A picture of my current TBR for Witchathon
The books I’m reading are:
The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan (fire on the cover/pantheon of deities)
Gideon the Ninth (group book/communing with the dead)
Jenjenreviews 