In Which I Love Readathons
This month I took part in two, both Instagram based. And damn, did they work for me. August was the month when… wait for it… I read TWENTY ONE books.
This is kind of a big deal for me. I’ve mentioned a few times on here that I’d lost a lot of my reading habit since having children. I’m back, people! So you can see why I’ve had to split this month’s wrap-up into two parts. This post, I’ll talk about the readathons, and next time I’ll be back for the rest.
TBRKnockdown24
The clue’s in the name – this was the 24 hour readathon. I hit a glitch with time zones, never my strong point, when 8pm on a Saturday evening in Australia (a perfectly reasonable time to sit and read like a maniac) became 11am in the morning here in the UK. Still perfectly reasonable – unless you happen to be a responsible adult with three small children rampaging around the house. Just as well we don’t know anyone matching that description.
I fit in two whole books and two half books around the children and with the help of a rather late night. Not bad for 24 hours!

The highlight was The Upside Of Unrequited was a bright, cute and adorable contemporary, set above the rest of the genre by the fantastic MC, Molly. She was relatably insecure and awkward but trying not to be, her relationships with her friends and family were complex and shifting but you could always tell she was good-hearted beneath it all, and hooray for real, meaningful diversity of all types and a heroine – a romantic heroine, no less – who (mostly) unflinchingly describes herself as fat but isn’t looking for weight loss to solve her problems. Four stars, and (controversial!) I actually preferred this to Becky Albertalli’s first book, Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda.
I also enjoyed Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, which I felt was aimed at the younger end of the YA market but still had an interesting concept and decent worldbuilding. It had a few pacing problems, mainly where exposition had to take place, and occasionally the action felt a little disengaged or irrelevant, but other than that it was an enjoyable ride of an adventure with interesting and not always likeable characters and a sense of mystery, and the inclusion of the vintage photos throughout the book really added to the atmosphere. 3.5 stars.
There are books which are average, or disappointing, or just not for me, but very few I actually hate. The Graces was one of them. I feel bad saying it about a writer’s work, but I found this book plain unreadable. Not a single character was likeable, the MC suffered from the worst case of Not Like Other Girls I’ve ever seen (she said so outright. Many times.) and it was trying so hard to be dark and dangerous but just… wasn’t. Obsession masqueraded as love, which might have been the point, but the lesson was never learned. I skipped the whole middle section and read the end without feeling I’d really missed anything. 1 star, DNF.
Beat The Heat Summer Readathon
Another week-long readathon, but unlike last month’s BookTubeAThon, it had no theme or specific challenges other than to make a big ole dent in your TBR.
Eleven books, people. Eleven books in one week. Allow me a moment of smugness, if you will.
The highlights
After enjoying The Raven Boys last month, I binge-read the remaining three books in the Raven Cycle. The story meanders and takes unexpected about-turns, and as the series progresses there’s more and more a sense of real menace and of things falling apart. And it’s still all about the characters, with every member of the expanding cast as complex and interesting as the main five. The character development – both good and bad – is amazing, the writing is beautiful and evocative, and the books never cease to surprise. Dream Thieves was my least favourite of the three; it felt like a diversion from the main story thread, though the amount of time spent with Ronan was a saving grace and it was still a solid 3 stars. Blue Lily, Lily Blue went back up to 4, and The Raven King was a satisfying conclusion to the series with enough pain and sacrifice to make the payoff worth waiting for, and a full 5 stars. My favourite Raven Boy? Maybe a slightly unpopular opinion, but Adam Parrish.
I was warned to have tissues on hand for History Is All You Left Me. It didn’t quite drive me to tears (what can I say, I’m a hard-hearted soul) but there were definitely a lot of feelings. Having the storyline unfold in past and present was meant we watch poor Griffin’s life collapse around him in both directions. It’s also own voices for OCD, and really shone a light on a condition that’s too often reduced to comic effect. All the characters were so likeable and real, their rough edges and nasty moments not glossed over. I was surprised by a few turns the story took, and the ending was spot on. Enough resolution, but not too perfect. 4 stars and Adam Silvera goes on the autobuy list.
I’ll Give You The Sun was almost unbelievably vivid. Told in first person from each of a pair of twins, it was never confusing which was which. The imagery of art and luck and life running through it was gorgeously done, lyrical and gripping and un-put-downable. I wanted to cheer for Jude’s rediscovery of herself and weep for all Noah’s broken dreams. At its heart, it deals with grief and guilt and lost confidence, and yes it might get a bit heavy on the romance (and one love interest is a bit of a cliche) but the way it’s written that draws you into the twins’ worlds and makes it so much more than the sum of those parts – 4 stars.
The Time Machine is a classic for a reason; the power of imagination evident in the story is incredible, and it’s easy to see why H G Wells is regarded as one of the founding fathers of science fiction. His ideas of how the human race might have evolved, split into two races as a long-term result of industrialisation and the class divide, is as thought-provokingly creepy now as it must have been at the time of publication, and the attention to detail in both the people and the world around them is a lesson in world-building that current day genre writers should learn from. Definitely still worth the read today – 4 stars.
The rest
Enchanted Glass had Diana Wynne Jones’ typically whimsical sense of humour and writing style, and a fantastic magic system which I wish we’d seen more of, but the plot was lacking, and there were large sections of the book where not a lot seemed to be happening, or worse, whenever a problem did occur the protagonists took a break to go home and sleep/eat/think. One protagonist seemed a very odd choice for a YA book – a thirty-something absent-minded professor – but the other was more engaging. The antagonists were fantastically creepy but spent too little time in direct conflict, and the resolution (the tying up of loose ends rather than the showdown itself) was a letdown. Not her best – 2.5 stars.
The entire book of The 100: Day 21 felt like a cheat. There was far too much focus on unbelievable and un-engaging romance rather than, you know, survival. The Angst was back in full swing, and character development was horribly inconsistent. Half the conflict which did occur could have been avoided if the characters hadn’t been needlessly keeping things from each other, half petered out on its own and the rest (yes, I know that doesn’t add up) was left hanging and unresolved – presumably to the next book, but I won’t be bothering to read it to find out. I’m bored with this whole series now. 2 stars.
Wait For Me was a new genre for me – when I do occasionally read historical novels they tend to be adult lit, but this was YA, and also set during WWII, a period I don’t normally gravitate to. It deals more with the impact of a distant, impersonal war on everyday life than with it’s specifics, and the romance at its heart was sweet and engaging, as was the MC with her struggle to find her place in the world and navigate friends, enemies, dreams and disappointments. I enjoyed the story’s details and simple but elegant writing style, which were grounded firmly in its setting, but it lacked a certain spark to elevate it beyond pleasant. If you’re a bigger fan of the genre or of romance book in general, you’d probably really enjoy this. For me it was 3 stars.
Cruel Crown is the bind-up of two short stories written as prequels to the Red Queen series, which is one of my favourites. The first was from Coriane’s (Cal’s mother) point of view, but her character had so little drive or agency it left me frustrated, and also a little confused, with the diary entry format having too many gaps and too much distance, although I did enjoy seeing the petty nastiness and ambition of a younger Elara. The second, from Captain Farley, was much more interesting and the backstory it reveals added to the complexity of her character and actions, already a favourite of mine from the main series. Overall, 3 stars.
I’d been looking forward to Wayfarer since January but it fell short of my (admittedly high) expectations and didn’t live up to Passenger. I spent the first third unbearably confused, and after a fast-paced and action-packed start the pace dropped frustratingly. The parts of the book with Nicholas and Etta separated didn’t work as well for me, and the various conflicting timelines and double-triple-crossing characters made it hard to follow the overall plot. The middle picked up, making more sense and seeming to lead to a satisfying conclusion, only then to be thrown around into something completely different and equally confusing at the end. There were good points – the Belladonna had potential as a villain, even if it was eventually squandered, the action scenes were gripping, and some of the betrayals had me gasping and cursing. Sophia’s character development was outstanding and definitely elevated parts of the book. But there were so many twists that some of them weren’t followed through. I left, ultimately, feeling unsatisfied to the tune of 3 stars.
Stay tuned…
… for part 2, the other ten books I read outside readathons. I’ll have it up as soon as I can! In the meantime, let’s chat about the books in this half and since I’m always up for recommendations, throw me some contemporaries in the vein of this month’s successes. Or answer August’s real burning question – your favourite Raven Boy.