The Reading Rush 2020 // Days 6 & 7 Recap + Retiring the Reading Rush

Y'ALL WHY DOES EVERYONE CONTINUE TO BE SO PROBLEMATIC?! 🤦‍♀️

I'm going to take you through my last two days of the Reading Rush, and then address what's going on regarding TRR toward the end. Keep reading for my thoughts on the group book situation and The Reading Rush as a whole.

DAY 6

Matching my outfit to my book for one of the vlog challenges!

I had a feeling that Saturday was going to be one of my worst reading days of the week, and I was v. correct. I had plans to have some friends over and between deep cleaning the house, running, and showering, I was only really able to get in about an hour's worth of reading on this day. I still was able to read about 50 pages of Scythe (and what a truly wild 50 pages it was!), so I'm happy I was able to read *something* before spending time with pals. We ordered sushi and - because the state of Massachusetts just approved it! - TAKE OUT SCORPION BOWLS! The ones we got were actually called Sumo bowls and they were incredible. We had a fantastic picnic in the back yard followed by a night of video games and chatting. Overall Saturday was pretty damn excellent!

DAY 6 STATS

Book(s) read today: 

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

# of pages read: 48 pages

# of books completed: 0

# of challenges completed: 0

INSTAGRAM CHALLENGE

Take a photo of your reading fuel ✔️

I've made it a little bit of a dangerous habit to pick up donuts from our local bakery every Saturday morning, so this challenge honestly fell on the perfect day! This was probably the easiest challenge to complete all week (and the most delicious)! 🍩

DAY 7

Sunday was a lot different than I thought it would be, haha. I woke up absolutely *exhausted* and took a total of zero photos (besides the Instagram challenge) the entire day. Reading while tired has always been a real challenge for me (heavy eyelids + an activity that often requires a lot of eye-power isn't the best recipe for success for me haha), so while I tried my hardest to finish up Scythe by the end of the day on Sunday so I could end the readathon with a nice neat bow of a finished book, I only got to page 318 before giving up and snoozing. If I had an audiobook of Scythe I'm sure I would have been able to finish it, but alas it just didn't happen and I ended the readathon with 4 ¾ books completed for the Reading Rush.

DAY 7 STATS

Book(s) read today: 

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

# of pages read: 125 pages

# of books completed: 0

# of challenges completed: 0

INSTAGRAM CHALLENGE

Use your books to make an artwork ✔️

If you watch my vlogs, you'll know that I bought this edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with the specific intention of decorating and annotating it to create a unique keepsake for myself. (I bought this book BEFORE the JKR disaster of 2020... I will not be spending my money on any new books in the future!) I thought that this challenge was the perfect opportunity to get started. For these books, I want to decorate the covers with things that would specifically apply to the respective book that they're on. For Philospher's Stone, I went with a Hogwarts silhouette on the front (which I guess could pertain to all of the books, but this is Harry's first year there so I think it's most appropriate on book one!), the Sorting Hat's poem on the back, and quotes from Dumbledore and Hermione on the pages. I really love how it turned out and I look forward to continuing to decorate and annotate throughout this edition! Here's a few more shots of the decorations as well as some progress pics:

Before!

I outlined the castle with purple felt tip marker...

...then filled it in with gold Sharpie!

While I ~technically~ didn't finish Scythe during the Reading Rush, I did end up finishing the book this morning so I decided that I'm going to count it because WHY NOT? (P.S. Scythe was incredible and I gave it 5 stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐) I'm actually so happy with how this readathon went for me because I honestly thought that I would maybe be finishing one book, but I ended up finishing five! I also read some truly incredible books this week (2 five star reads and 3 four star reads), which probably helped to keep me motivated throughout the entire week. The only books I didn't get to this week were The After Party and Everything is Illuminated, and the only challenge that I did not complete was the "Read the first book you touch" challenge, so not too shabby overall!

TBR UPDATE

The After Party by Anton DiSclafani (0/384)

Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett (391/391) ✔️

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (248/248) ✔️

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta (416/416) ✔️

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore (356/356) ✔️

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (0/288)

Scythe by Neal Shusterman (435/435) ✔️

CHALLENGE UPDATE

1. Read a book with a cover the same color as your birthstone ✔️

2. Read a book with a title that begins with "the" ✔️

3. Read a book that inspired a movie that you've already seen ✔️

4. Read the first book you touch

5. Read a book completely outside your home ✔️

6. Read a book in a genre you'd like to read more of ✔️

7. Read a book set in a different continent than where you live ✔️✔️✔️

WEEK STAT TOTALS

# of books completed: 5

# of pages read: 1,846

# of challenges complete: 6

Aaaaaand now for the notsofunwhydoeseveryonecontinuetobesoproblematic part. 

It's no secret that the Reading Rush has had some issues and criticisms in the past, specifically surrounding their lack of inclusivity with the reading challenges they choose to have (many of which have been "physical" challenges and thus ableist. They also had a challenge to read outside this year when we are a global pandemic... questionable.) But the thing that has REALLY rubbed me the wrong way and has kind of been the nail in the coffin for me is the fact that they chose Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (a Black author) for their group book for the readathon, *hardly* promoted the book OR the live show discussion, and then during the live show joked around about how THEY DIDN'T READ THE BOOK AT ALL because they were "too busy to get to it", and then proceeded to turn what they advertised as a book discussion into a random Q&A.

Y'ALL.

I don't understand why they didn't see how harmful that is. For the two hosts of the largest readathon in our community (both white women, btw) to display in front of a live show of hundreds that reading this book by a Black women was not a priority for them? That's not really okay in my eyes. They have a lot of influence in our community and they should have used that influence to have a meaningful discussion about this book which delves into topics that our community needs to have conversations about. They had a huge opportunity to show our community that topics of race are important to be discussing and they not only missed the mark, but laughed about it and essentially said it was okay for them to not make this discussion a priority. Big yikes.

That all being said, this round of the Reading Rush will be my last. I really enjoy TRR and have fun participating each year, but honestly this year has made me really uncomfortable associating myself with it. I will still be posting my vlog (with a disclaimer relating to this situation at the beginning!) later this week, but until I see some serious changes made to TRR and the behavior of its hosts, I will no longer be participating in this readathon. Sorry to end on such a sour note, but it had to be said!

Anywho, I hope everyone had a great week last week, regardless of if you participated in TRR or not, and I'll be writing again very soon! 😊