Hey! Hello! ¡Hola! Does anyone even remember me here? Yes, yes, I know, it’s been a very long time but I have a reasonable excuse for my abscence – I was studying for my exams, so I had zero time to either read books or write blog posts. But, luckily for you, I’m done with school for the whole month so I’ll be reading and writing (we need to handle our financial situation, are we a nation of states? what’s the state of our nation? sorry, i had too #hamiltrash) and you’ll probably be done with me after some time (hopefully not!).
Anyway, not to dwell too much on the past, let’s move to the reason we’ve all gathered here today.
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that yesterday I challenged myself to read for the 24 hours straight. Alright, I didn’t read for 24 hours, because after I finished my first book around 4am I decided to get some sleep, and slept for around 4 hours. I decided to share some thoughts of this experience and also give a biref review of the books I read!
I read the total of 3 books, which constitute 895 pages, including one audiobook! One thing I learned from this readathon is that I need to work on a fast reading, because I feel like I spent too much time on two books that were only slightly over 200 pages long, so that’s my goal for December – learn to read fast. I finished all the books I had planned to read around 10pm, so I still had two hours to read and decided to start another audiobook. And that’s another thing I learned – I actually enjoy audiobooks and I can still get invested in the plot without having a physical copy of the book. This was the first time I listened to an audiobook as a mature reader, I’d used to listen to Harry Potter audiobooks when I was younger, they’d been this comfort thing I’d used to do when I’d been laying in my bed sick, but since then I hadn’t picked an audiobook until yesterday. Anyway, I really enjoyed the whole experience, it’s really convinient especially when you need to go shopping during your readathon!
Now onto the books I read!
“We were liars” by E. Lockhart – to be honest, I’d never had this book on my TBR (I also didn’t know it was so short), but I’d heard people talking about it and it had good reviews on goodreads, some by my favourite booktubers, so when I saw it in a used bookstore and realised how short it was, I decided to pick it up especially for my readathon. I went into the book knowing absolutely nothing about it and I also didn’t have really high expectations, and I must say I didn’t enjoy it that much. It wasn’t a bad book, I liked the writing and I especially enjoyed some parts where the regular prose turned into something that looked like poems embedded into the narration, but if we’re talking about the plot or the characters, I wasn’t really amazed or involved. I didn’t sympathise with them and the main plot twist, although it was surprising, I must admit that, still left me feeling nothing. I even found the main character, Cadence, somewhat annoying. I gave the book weak 3/5 stars, because it was a fast read, it wasn’t terrible, but it also didn’t speak to me in any way.
“The Outsiders” by S.E Hinton – I must admit, I was really sceptic about this book after I heard about some really unpleasant comments the author posted on her Twitter, but I tried to be objective and focus only on the story. To be honest, I didn’t like it at first, the whole plot just didn’t really seem to be my type, but by the end I realised that there were some aspects of the book I really enjoyed. I kind of started liking the main character, although I wouldn’t say I’m especially connected with him. I also liked the dynamic of a relationship between the brothers. If you don’t know what the book is about, it tells the story of two groups of young people in some city fighting with each other – on one side there are rich kids, on the other kids from the poor neighbourhoods. I gave the book also 3/5 stars, although it was probably more like 2.5/5, because it wasn’t really memorable and I just don’t think it’s the kind of literature I enjoy.
“The Inexplicable Logic of My Life” by Benjamin Alire Saenz – I listened to the audiobook to this one and I must say, I really enjoyed it! I’m not sure whether I liked it more than “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe”, because I feel like they both were very different. Similarly to Ari and Dante, this one didn’t really have a great plot twist, but it wasn’t in any way boring because of that. One thing I loved about both books was how Saenz wrote the relationships between family and friends. The “Inexplicable Logic of My Life” focused on these relationships to a far greater extent and for someone who loves a good romance, but also is kind of done with reading about romantic relationships all the time, it was great to read a good book about some parts of people’s lives that, at least for me, are more important than love interests! I gave this book 4.5/5 stars and I highly recommend this, especially if you liked Ari and Dante!Overall I must say that reading the whole day was a really pleasurable experience! I’m glad I decided to do this, although I feel like if I hadn’t spent the whole day walking around Edinburgh the day before, I would have managed to stay up all night (also if I’d drunk some coffee, but coffee makes me way too anxious than I normally am and I didn’t want to risk that, since I was already under some stress). It definitely helped me overcome the reading slump, or maybe prevent it before it even started, because after all this time I’d spent on studying I could feel it coming. Now the only thing I want to do is read (or listen to the audiobook of “The Gentelman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue”, because I fell in love after two chapters). I’m definitely going to attempt the readathon again, this time well rested and ready to stay up for the whole 24 hours! I might even do an event out this, so look forward to the future announcements, especially on my Instagram!
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