BookTube Birthday Bash! 24 Hour Readathon & #BoutofBooks 20 TBR!

Today is my BookTube Birthday! :D
*see my note on this TBR at the bottom of this post*

Today marks one year since I uploaded my very first book haul to YouTube, what I consider to be my first BookTube video! I've been on YouTube for nearly 10 years (!!!), but I feel like I really found my YouTube home when I entered into the BookTube community. I am so thankful I have found my way into this community. I have met so many great people, have participated in so many great events, and just all around have had the most fun I've had within an internet community as a part of BookTube. So in order to celebrate one full year on this wonderful slice of the internet, I am going to throw myself a BookTube Birthday Bash!

As this blog post & video publish, I am taking part in my very own 24 hour readathon. I had such a fun time during the Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon and I've seen a lot of BookTubers do 24 hour readathons on their own so I thought, WHY THE HELL NOT TAKE ON MY OWN, TOO?! So I'll be spending my ~actual~ BookTube Birthday (August 19th!) reading for 24 hours starting at 8AM! I will also be taking place in Bout of Books Round 20 from August 21 to August 27. Bout of Books 17, which took place last August, was the first readathon I ever participated in so it only felt right to jump into their August round again this year!

I am so thrilled to be celebrating one year on BookTube and I am looking forward to another fun year filled with friends, videos, and, of course, lots and lots of books! :D Keep reading to see what I'll be reading during these two readathons, and watch the video above to hear a bit more about each one! <3

24 Hour Readathon TBR

Stitches by David Small

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Maus I: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Bout of Books 20 TBR

Winter by Marissa Meyer

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

***NOTE: This TBR was decided and video was recorded, edited, uploaded, and scheduled roughly three weeks prior to the August 11-12, 2017 events in Charlottesville, VA, and published one week after. The recently renewed uprising in white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and other fascist groups' rallies, demonstrations, and violence in the United States in the wake of the election of Donald Trump has made a few of the items on my TBR coincidentally (and unfortunately) very timely and more important to read than ever. Fighting hate with education is so important, and delving deeper into the horrific subject matter of WWII & the Holocaust (among many other subjects) will help me (and everyone) in that pursuit. Fuck Nazis. Fuck White Supremacy. Fight the hate and bigotry that is rearing its ugly head in our country any way you can. We cannot let history repeat itself.***

Vlog: Bout of Books #18!

I participated in my first readathon of 2017 last week - Bout of Books #18! If you didn't catch my TBR list for this readathon you can find it here. I really love Bout of Books - the community of readers that comes together for this readathon is just so much fun and I absolutely love talking to everyone throughout the week. I didn't get as much reading done as I wanted to due to some technical difficulties as well as getting sick on the very last day, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless and that's the whole point of participating! I hope you all enjoy this vlog and if you participated in the readathon I hope you had just as much fun as I did! :)

Bout of Books #18 TBR!

I am kicking off 2017 strong with joining in on Bout of Books #18! For those of you who may not know, Bout of Books #17 was my very first readathon, so I knew I had to hop back in when the next round came about. Knowing my reading habits as of late, I've only picked out three books for this readathon as that's what I've been tending to average for all of the readathons I've participated in over the past few months. That being said, these books are all fairly chunky, but I'm really looking forward to ALL of these titles! Check out my TBR video below to hear my initial thoughts and my maybe-incorrect synopses of each title (correct synopses and reviwws on GoodReads linked below). :D

Bout of Books Blog

Bout of Books Twitter

BOOKS MENTIONED

You

Ready Player One

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Vlog: Bout of Books #17!

Happy Friday, everyone!
Today on my channel I am sharing my vlog from the Bout of Books #17 readathon that I participated in last week! I honestly had such a wonderful time getting back into the groove of making time for reading and I loved it so much that I'm currently participating in another readathon! I'm reading so much more lately than I have over the course of this year and honestly it's been just what I've needed to make me feel like myself again. Basically, I'm really enjoying myself and I hope to continue to read regularly through the busy season at work. I hope you all enjoy this video and have a wonderful weekend!

Bout of Books #17 Daily Progress Updates

Hello lovely friends! If you don't know by now, you probably don't follow me on any social media platforms because I haven't shut up about it over the last 36 hours, but I am participating in round #17 of the Bout of Books readathon! To prevent from sharing a billion update posts of my daily progress throughout the readathon, I thought I could just write one post and edit it throughout the week. I will pin this post to the top of my Twitter page for the time being, so if you're interested in coming back to check my progress you can find the post easily. Without further adieu, here is my progress!

DAY 1 - Monday, August 22nd

Books read today: Cinder by Marissa Meyer (334 pages)

Pages read today: 334

Books completed today: None

Daily challenge: Favorite & Least Favorite Book-to-Movie Adaptation

DAY 2 - Tuesday, August 23rd

 

Books read today: Cinder by Marissa Meyer (55 pages), Summer Days & Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins (59 pages), and Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin (180 pages)
Pages read today: 294 pages
Books completed today: 1 - Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Daily challenge: Mix n' Match Challenge (Choose 10 books, flip open to a random page in each book and write down the first word you see, then craft a sentence using those 10 words!)

DAY 3 - Wednesday, August 24th

Books read today: Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin (199 pages), This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki (320 pages), Summer Days & Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins (23 pages)
Pages read today: 542
Books completed today: 2 - Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin & This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki
Daily challenge: #Shelfie4BoutofBooks Challenge

DAY 4 - Thursday, August 25th

Books read today: Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut (324 pages) & Summer Days & Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins
Pages read today: 339
Books completed today:  1 - Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Daily challenge: Titles in the Tabloids Challenge (Create a tabloid-like headline that describes the book you are currently reading in the readathon)

DAY 5 - Friday, August 26th

Books read today: Summer Days & Summer Nights (80 pages) edited by Stephanie Perkins & George by Alex Gino (143 pages)
Pages read today: 223
Books completed today: None - slow reading day!
Daily challenge: Book in a Song Challenge (Pick a book that you've read during the week and relate it to a song)

DAY 6 - Saturday, August 27th

Books read today: George by Alex Gino (52 pages), The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane (17 pages), & Summer Days & Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins (74 pages)
Pages read today: 143
Books completed today: 1 - George by Alex Gino
Daily challenge: No challenge today!

DAY 7 - Sunday, August 28th

Books read today: Summer Days & Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins (132 pages) & The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane (44 pages)
Pages read today: 176
Books completed today: 1 - Summer Days & Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins
Daily challenge: No challenge today!

Total pages read: 2,051
Total books completed: 6

I am vlogging my experience and my reactions to the books that I am reading throughout the week which you will see pop up on my channel and this lovely blog sometime next week so keep an eye out for that! I am also giving periodic updates over on Twitter so if you're really curious on how things are going you can follow me over there! I hope everyone has a fabulous week and if you're participating in the readathon that you're having fun and crushing those books! <3

Bout of Books #17 TBR!

Hello everyone! I am here with a very exciting announcement - starting this evening (tomorrow morning?) at 12:00AM and ending next Sunday evening at 11:59PM I will be participating in the 17th Bout of Books readathon! This is my very first readathon but I've recently picked up a whole slew of awesome books that I am super excited to read and it just so happens that this readathon falls on the week of my vacation where I will be spending most of my time alone/hanging out with my pups so LOTS of time to read!

If you're not sure what a readathon is, it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like - you read as much as you can within a set period of time. There are often challenges that take place throughout the readathon (reading prompts, Instagram challenges, creative challenges, etc.), sometime there are themes that you have to adhere to throughout the readathon (genre themes, length themes, etc.), and sometimes there's a set number of books you must hit. This readathon is pretty laid back with it's main objective to read more within the seven days than you do in your normal day-to-day life and while there are challenges and chats you can participate in, they're all completely optional (though I'm pretty sure I'll be participating in it all because... why the hell not?).

My TBR (to-be-read) pile for this readathon is fairly.... ambitious? I created this list going in with the impression that I don't really have plans during my vacation. I'm house/dog sitting for my parents and will be on my own for the entirety of this week so I will have SO MUCH TIME on my hands so I'm thinking I can get through most of these. The majority of these books are in the 300 range, but I do have a middle-grade novel, a book of short stories, and a graphic novel in the pile so I'm thinking that's going to make things a bit easier! Anyway, without further adieu, here is my TBR pile for Bout of Books #17!

George by Alex Gino

195 Pages

This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki

320 Pages

Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut

324 Pages

Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

379 Pages

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

389 Pages

Summer Days & Summer Nights Edited by Stephanie Perkins

384 Pages

TOTAL BOOK COUNT: 6

TOTAL PAGE COUNT: 1,995

If you'd like to see me attempt to sum up these videos in 5 words each, check out my Bout of Books #17 TBR announcement video below! I've also included links to each one of the books' Goodreads pages above, so if you're curious to see reviews and ratings, just click on the titles to get a better sense of what people think of each book. If you would also like to follow me on Goodreads and track my progress throughout the week, check out my page! I'll tweeting along throughout the week, and also vlogging my readathon experience so you'll get to see it all. I strongly encourage you all to get involved and read as much as you can this week! Now to patiently await midnight to get some pages in....

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 22nd and runs through Sunday, August 28th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 17 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team