Bout of Books Wrap up post

I can’t believe its Monday already and the Bout of Books read-athon has come to an end. I remember like it was yesterday I was compiling my goal posts. This being my first Bout of Books read-athon it was quite a successful one. I decided to keep my reading goal quite low, as it was going to be my first week back at work and I didn’t think I would get a lot of reading done. But I actually read more than my reading goal and had so much fun along the way.

My goals:

To read at least three books from this stack

To take part in at least three challenges

To take part in one twitter chat

By the end I had accomplished the following:

Total number of pages read: 1551

Total number of books I've read: 4

Books: Fever Moon by Karen Marie Moning, The Gathering Dark by Leigh Bardugo, Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill and Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black

Challenges completed: 6

Twitter chats taken part in: 1

I was able to knock two books off my tbr pile and already find a favourite for this year in The Gathering Dark, meet some great new bloggers and complete some awesome challenges along the way. My favourite being;

The 48 page challenge hosted by Booking in Heels.

Challenge:   

• Turn to page 48 of your current book, or 48% if you're using an e-reader. 
• Take the first complete sentence on that page and copy it. 
• Now you're going to continue the story! Ignoring the real plot or anything else you know about that book, add four new sentences of your very own. You can morph the plot completely, kill everybody off or go off on a huge tangent - anything goes!   

My current read is Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill. (page 48)

Poor kid can’t catch a break, but I suspect he’s so drunk he’s not feeling much of anything at this point...  He swaggers slight to the left and then lands with a loud thump on the clutter of mess on the bed. I take that as my sign to quickly hightail it out of there, I don’t want to be there when he wakes up with a big bump on his head and so many questions that I can’t answer. I run out of the room and weave through the crowded mass of bodies swaying to the bass pumping through the speakers, by the time I make it out of the house I’m completely breathless and I can feel sweat beads forming at the side of  my head. My phone suddenly lets out a cheery tune from the bottom of my bag, but I ignore it, I quickly run off into the night, without a backward glance.

Book Spine Poetry challenge hosted by Escape through the Pages

Challenge:

The concept is simple – using books you have on hand, create a poem out of their titles. There is no theme and no set number of books to use, just whatever poem pops into your head and however many books you need to create it.

Can You Keep a Secret? because

I'll Be There so

Send Me a Sign were

Meant to Be my

Starcrossed lover.

Name your Book Crack challenge hosted by Bookgoonie

So I want you to reflect and identify your deepest, darkest addictions. What is your Book Crack? What can you NOT SAY NO to? What bookish things make you blissful?

My Book Crack is buying books on their release date, despite having a ton of books in my tbr pile at home already. It’s like I get an odd feeling in my stomach if I don’t by the book on that date, I think I’m most likely scared that all the copies will run out and there will be no more left for me. So it’s kind of satisfying when I buy a copy on the release date, so that I can then take it home and know it will be sitting safely on my bookshelf. The bad thing is sometimes it takes me ages to get to the book, for example I brought Divergent by Veronica Roth on its release date, but didn’t get around to reading it until nearly a year after its release date. Other books which I still have to pick up and brought straight away include I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Die for Me by Amy Plum.

My favourite section in my bookstore. How can a girl resist?

The Bout of Books read-athon was a perfect way to start the New Year. I will definitely be signing up to more Bout of Books read–athons in the future.