The Book Banner

Saturday, January 5, 2019

2019! New Year, New Goals

WELCOME
It's time to decide and commit to my reading challenges for the year. I ended 2018 in a pretty large reading slump, so I'm not particularly inclined to set too many challenges. I would like to participate in a couple read-a-thons, though I don't which ones right now. And I did really enjoy focusing on the series I need to finish last year, so I'm going to do it again!

2019 Finishing the Series Reading Challenge hosted by Celebrity Readers.

Last year, I attempted and completed being a B-lister, so I'm going to do it again. I didn't choose the B-lister life, the B-lister life chose me. I will be attempting to finish/catch up on 5-8 series this year. I've got some new series in mind but we'll see which ones I actually read. Here's a tentative list:

B-List Finisher

1. Charlotte Holmes Series by Brittany Cavallaro (4 books total) - 3/13/19
2. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (3 books so far)
3. Cormoran Strike by Robert Galbraith (4 books so far) - 1/19/19
4. Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin (2 books total)
5. Renegades by Marissa Meyer (2 books so far)
6. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (8 books total)
7. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (2 books total)
8. Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel (3 books total) - 10/31/19

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2019 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader.

I did this challenge a couple of years ago, but I did not do well. I just didn't choose my books well. Now, I think I'm ready to give it another go. 12 books from my TBR pile and a couple alternates just in case I can't get through some from my original list. They must be published before before 1/1/2018, so I've had them on my pile for at least a year. And I know I have plenty to choose from, so here's the list:

1. The Blackhouse by Peter May (2011)
2. The Raven Boys by Maggie Steifvater (2013) - 10/6/19
3. Brit-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman (2014) - 3/4/19
4. Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas (2014)
5. Red Rising by Pierce Brown (2014)
6. Renegades by Marissa Meyer (2017)
7. Watership Down by Richard Adams (1972)
8. The Fade Out: Act One (2015)
9. Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton (2009)
10. Heartless by Marissa Meyer (2016)
11. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab (2016)
12. Uncaged by John Sandford and Michele Cook (2014)

Alternates:
1. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (2015)
2. How (Not) to Fall in Love by Lisa Brown Roberts (2015)

Friday, January 4, 2019

Notable Quotable: Marie Lu (#217)

"When you refuse to ask for help, it tells others that they also should ask for help from you. That you look down on them for needing your help. That you like feeling superior to them. It's an insult, Emi, to your friends and peers. So don't be like that. Let us in."
--Warcross

Thursday, January 3, 2019

4th Quarter Review 2018!

I saw a quarterly stats review on both Geeky Zoo Girl and Curiosity Killed the Bookworm. I really like this idea so I'm going to do my own version!
It's the end of the year!! (Happy 2019, y'all)

Third Quarter Books(October-December)
Total Books: 12
Paperback/hardcover: 3 (25%)
Audiobooks: 9 (75%)
Total pages: 4,276
Yearly Total Books: 66
┉┉┉
Own: 3 (25%)
Borrowed: 9 (75%)
┉┉┉
Male Authors: 5 (41.6%)
Female Authors: 7 (58.4%)

I was in a serious reading slump this quarter; I started several books some that I liked but had to put down because I had to read others that I didn't really find all that interesting. I was just reading incredible slowly for some reason. The books I did finish, I gave an average star rating of 3.5 stars. I only DNF'd one book, (still working on some of the ones I had to put down.) There was one 5 star book: Wildcard by Marie Lu, but Dumplin' by Julie Murphy got me in the feels. It's a book I wish I had read in high school.

Genre breakdown
This quarter sci-fi and historical fiction were my top read genres. Though many of the historical fiction had elements of fantasy to them, they were manly historical. I even dropped a middle grade book into the mix.

Middle Grade: 1 (6.7%)
YA: 9 (60%)
Adult: 5 (33.3%)
┉┉┉
Contemporary: 2 (16.6%)
Fantasy/Sci-fi: 6 (50%)
Historical: 1 (8.4%)
Mystery: 2 (16.6%)
Literary: 1 (8.4%)

Length
0-150: 0
150-250: 1 (8.4%)
250-350: 3 (25%)
350-500: 7 (58.2%)
>500: 1 (8.4%)

Reading Goals Update!
Goodreads goal: 30/25 books - It's a really good thing that I met my goal last quarter because I only physically read three books. Oh well, I made my goal and I'm super happy about it! (Goodreads counts all the books toward my goal, but I'm only counting books I physically read, which is why this count is different from my official Goodreads count.)

Finish the Series: 8/8 series - Yay! I did it! I am pretty proud of myself to reaching this goal. I read eight series (duologies count), they weren't necessarily the series I originally planned to finish. In fact, there were two that I started and finished this year. I'm really pleased with this challenge.

Read it or Leave it: 3/21 books - Alright, y'all this was a miserable failure for this year. This just wasn't a priority for me as these were already books I wasn't super interested in reading in the first place. I do know that I chose way too many books for this challenge, I think I should have limited it to ten for the year. As promised, I am going to go through this list and get rid of the ones that I really don't want to read. I'm sure there will be some I don't want to get rid of yet.