Readathons

Trope-ical Readathon (March 2022) Wrap Up

Jenny (jenjenreviews)3 Comments

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!

Trope-ical Readathon (August 2021) TBR

Jenny (jenjenreviews)Leave a comment

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!

Trope-ical Readathon (March 2021) Wrap Up

Jenny (jenjenreviews)2 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

#Blogmas Day 4: Readathin (November 2020) Wrap Up

Jenny (jenjenreviews)3 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

#ReadathinNov20 TBR Announcement

Jenny (jenjenreviews)4 Comments

Hi Everyone!

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!

Trope-ical Readathon (August 2020) Wrap Up

Jenny (jenjenreviews)9 Comments

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!

Trope-ical Readathon (August 2020) TBR!

Jenny (jenjenreviews)Leave a comment

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!

Trope-ical Readathon Wrap-Up

Jenny (jenjenreviews)3 Comments

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 2019 TBR Announcement

Jenny (jenjenreviews)1 Comment

This month I am participating in the Grinchathon!

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:

  1. Green and Black
  2. Diverse
  3. Warm
  4. Pictures
  5. Short
  6. Dying To Read
  7. 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!

Witchathon 2019 TBR Announcement

Jenny (jenjenreviews)3 Comments

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)
  • The Whisper Man by Alex North (dark and twisted)
  • Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (heritage)

If you’re interested in participating in Witchaton, you can find more info here: https://twitter.com/WitchAThon