Today marks the end of the 5books7days readathon hosted by the wonderful Lotte! Thus here is our first reading challenge wrap-up. We had a great time and hope to do another readathon in April. Here is what we managed to read during the readathon since it started on Monday.
Firstly a recap of our original TBR for this challenge:
Sophie: Sky Burial by Xinran, The Last Summer of Us by Maggie Harcourt, A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler, The Revenant by Michael Punke and Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud by Andrew Lane.
Danny: Politics&The English Language by George Orwell, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup and Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
And the results are as follows, Amount of books read:
Sophie: 6
Danny: 3
To conclude, here is what we actually read and what we thought of each book:
S: So I managed to read six books in total although I did not finish one of the novels on my original TBR. During the readathon I received a signed book to review from the author M.Jonathan Lee through Goodreads. This book is called A Tiny Feeling of Fear and is Lee’s third novel. I was so excited to read this novel that I started reading it straight away putting books on my TBR on hold. I also listened to the audiobook of Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling and have previously posted my review. I loved both these novels, gave them both five stars on Goodreads and added A Tiny Feeling of Fear to my all-time favourites list.
Despite straying from my TBR on those two occasions I also managed to finish four out of five of my planned reads. I read The Last Summer of Us first and I believe gave this four out of five stars. This was at first a slow read but I grew to love the three main characters and their relationships. The story deals with identity and loss, in particular it focuses on the three main character’s relationships with their parents. Another cool thing about this novel, other than the characters and random animal appearances, is that it is set in Wales and it may very well be the first book I have read that is set in this country.
I then read Sky Burial by Xinran which was also a four out of five star read for me. Xinran is a successful Chinese journalist who is writing the story of Shu Wen, a Chinese woman who spent over 30 years in Tibet searching for her husband. The romantic pairings in this story were perfect and this was probably due to the fact it is a true story. This is the second ‘Penguin Drop Caps’ novel I have read and I have gave them both four stars therefore I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
My least favourite read of the readathon was definitely The Revenant. I did not hate this book I just found it frustrating due to it primarily being a revenge story. I wrote a short review of this book on my Goodreads page. I read this book because I wanted to see the movie which I will once Danny has read the book. This may very well end up on a Movie Adaptation Monday feature in the future. I gave Punke’s novel a two out of five stars. My final read was a Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel by Anne Tyler titled A Spool of Blue Thread. I enjoyed this novel and thought it was very fast paced. A Spool of Blue Thread is centred around the ordinarily complicated Whitshank family. I did not however enjoy the section about Junior and Linnie May’s life which appeared late in the novel. I felt this unnecessary to the story and would have enjoyed the novel more if it was shorter. I gave Tyler’s novel a three out of five stars. I also started the final book on my TBR which is Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud by Andrew Lane and hope to finish this tomorrow.
D: As he mentioned earlier Danny was ‘made’ to listen to Kaling’s audiobook Why Not Me? It is fair to say he did not enjoy Kaling’s second book as much as I did giving it three and a half stars. He particularly disliked the Sliding Doors style essay although liked the audiobook overall often laughing out loud to Kaling’s quips.
Danny was also able to read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. He found that this was at first a disappointing read, although this quickly changed and was ultimately given four out of five stars. In terms of its Classic Dystopia genre Danny prefers Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984.
His final finished book was Politics & The English Language by George Orwell. Orwell is one of Danny’s favourite authors and this was a re-read. Danny has given this a four out of five stars which is quite impressive due to its size. During the week Danny has also started reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, although he has previously seen the movie adaptation he is still enjoying the book. He is particularly enjoying the unique narrative. In case you do not yet know The Book Thief is narrated by death. This is done well in the movie although obviously the narrator has more content in the novel. At the moment he is surprised by the humour in the novel and is looking forward to finishing the book. I believe Danny would like to watch the movie adaptation again soon, perhaps this will feature in our Movie Adaptation post tomorrow night. Although Danny did not manage to read as much as he wanted to he admirably managed to read three books in one particularly busy week.
Thanks for joining us throughout the week and happy reading!
Sophie
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