The Sunday Post #80 And #DAReadathon Wrap-Up

The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, and share news. It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Book Date. I get to tell you what I’ve read recently.

On The Blog Last Week

• On Monday I reviewed Astray by Amy Christine Parker.
• On Tuesday I listed some 2016 releases I failed to read.
• On Wednesday I reviewed Children of the New World: Stories by Alexander Weinstein.
• On Thursday we figured out if I actually kept my 2016 resolutions.

On The Blog This Week

• On Monday I review Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist by Dan Barker.
• On Wednesday I review My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by Stephanie Perkins (Editor)
• On Thursday I finally (FINALLY!) have my 2016 reading stats analysis. Get ready for graphs!

In My Reading Life

Last week, I finished Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson. Then I read The Vegetarian by Han Kang and The Unintentional Time Traveler by Everett Maroon. Right now, I’ve gone back to reading The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel and Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville. I had to abandon them briefly for #DAReadathon.

In The Rest Of My Life

Five things that made me happy last week:

1. #DAReadathon. It was great.
2. I restarted Couch to 5K. I’m totally going to finish it this time. No quitting at week 7.
3. Walking my dog. It’s been so cold that we have the whole world to ourselves. No one else is stupid enough to go outside.
4. Getting rid of books to make room for new books.
5. I’m 4 books ahead on my Goodreads goal. We have to celebrate now because that won’t last long.

#DAReadathon Wrap-Up

I participated in my first readathon ever! I’ve never bothered with readathons before because my entire life has been a readathon. But, I decided to give one a try. I liked the social media aspect of it. I’m super nosy about what people read, so it was great to go on Twitter and see people’s updates.

I was terrible at keeping track of points because I don’t do math, people! I also didn’t do very well with writing reviews. The reviews you see on this blog take me hours to write. I’m hoping that the half-baked, two-sentence reviews posted below count as reviews. Regular-sized reviews of these books will be up on the blog in February.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson

Review: I have a mental illness; Jenny has several mental illnesses. We don’t have the same illnesses, but close enough for the prompt, right? Jenny’s other memoir, Furiously Happy, was one of my favorite books last year, so I had massive expectations for this memoir. I didn’t like it as much as Furiously Happy, but it’s still hilarious. Also, the cover is adorable.

Witness by Karen Hesse

Review: My favorite book from the readathon. It’s a children’s novel-in-verse starring an African American character and a Jewish character. The characters have strong voices. I loved them both immediately.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Persepolis review: I learned so much about the history of Iran from this memoir. History is always more interesting when you hear it from the POV of someone who lived through it. I need to find more books like this.

Between the World and Me review: So, I kinda hated this depressing memoir/letter/American history lesson. I felt like it was just angrily telling me things I’ve already heard from other sources. I know everyone loves this book, but it wasn’t for me. *Dives under desk to avoid rotting vegetables and flying hate.*

 The V-Word: True Stories about First-Time Sex by Amber J Keyser (Editor)

Review: An educational book that aims to give teen girls realistic expectations about losing their virginity. It has essays about first-time sex by straight women, trans women, lesbian women, and bisexual women. I would have liked to hear from an asexual woman and a disabled woman. Other than that, it’s a solid educational book.

The Last Summer of Reason by Tahar Djaout

Review: This book had been sitting on my TBR shelf for months. It’s a dystopian love letter to books by an author who was murdered for writing them. The book is unfinished because the author was murdered while writing it, but it’s an unsettling philosophical story about Islamic extremism.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Review: I avoided this book for a long time because of the hype. Then it won the Man Booker International Award, and I was like, fine, I’ll read it. For me, it lived up to the hype. It’s a slow-paced story about a woman’s decline into madness and the men who romanticize her mental illness in creepy ways. Also, it made me crave Korean food.

The Unintentional Time Traveler by Everett Maroon

Review: A teenage boy travels back in time and finds himself trapped inside the body of a teenage girl. This situation makes romantic relationships . . . complicated. The writing and editing aren't great, but the story is unusual.

So, points . . .

(This is me attempting math)

1623 pages read / 10 = 162 points (approximately)

8 books read X 5 = 40 points

8 reviews posted X 5 = 40 points

ID image on Twitter = 1 point

Using Twitter too much = 20 points

Photo of my readathon TBR = 1 point.

I think that’s 264 points for Ravenclaw? (I haven’t done this much math since high school, guys.) I’m exhausted and need a nap.

If you participated in #DAReadathon, how did you do?

Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other! See you around the blogosphere!