BOUT OF BOOKS 12.0 | wrap-up

I am proud to say that I succeeded my expectations for this read-a-thon. I thought I would give up in the middle of the week, claiming to be too busy to participate, but I actually managed to read a few books and a whole lot of pages. Click here if you want to check out my daily progress. I also interacted with a few participants on Twitter. Overall, I had a wonderful time.

Now, here are the results:

BOOKS FINISHED: 4

GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn 

Pages: 422 pages

Thoughts: 

• Gone Girl was definitely an addictive read and a great choice for the read-a-thon. I went in with pretty high expectations and I think the book delivered, although I was kind of disappointed with the big twist. 
• At first, I honestly thought I would be one of the few people that did not enjoy this book. Even though it took me a while to get fully immersed in the story, it was definitely worth putting up with the first fifty pages. 
• The characters in this book are amazing, complex and frustrating in the best way possible. Flynn proves that having conventionally likeable characters as the protagonists is not the only route an author can take in order to write a successful book. 
• I just want to point out the entire chapter that talked about "cool girls" and what girls do for men - it was incredible. 

RATING

SECONDS by Brian Lee O'Malley 

Pages: 336 pages

Thoughts: 

• It's been a long time since I read a graphic novel and after many wonderful reviews for this one, I had to pick it up. 
• The art in this is awesome! It's exactly the style I enjoy. I found myself wishing I could stare at the pages for hours. I even re-read the first 50 pages before I continued with the rest of the book. 
• Seconds had a promising beginning and middle, but I wished the ending could have been a little bit longer. I felt it was kind of rushed or maybe I read it too fast, it just didn't work for me. Still, that's just the last part of the book and I completely adored the rest. 
• Many, many people have enjoyed this so I would definitely recommend it. 

RATING

STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel

Pages: 333 pages

Thoughts: 

• I feel like I'm one of the few that did not love this book. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but I found myself more interested in certain parts of the story than the book as a whole. 
• For some reason, I could not care about Kristen. It's not that she was a terrible character, but I liked reading about the rest of the characters a bit more. 
• Although the book is marketed as a post-apocalyptic novel, I thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment business aspect of the story. I adore reading about famous fictional people. 
• I don't think I will be picking up books about viruses/pandemics for a while. They're just not for me. 

RATING

WINGER by Andrew Smith

Pages: 439 pages

Thoughts: 

• Oh, Winger... It is an easy read, but the topics are not definitely not light. This is not a terrible book, seeing as I read it in a day, but entertaining is usually not enough for me. I can ignore a few, tiny details that bother me but I couldn't with this one. 
• I'm not entirely sure I liked Ryan Dean. I just couldn't picture him as a real person - maybe if he was a bit older... I can't pinpoint what I didn't like about him. I feel like his problems were solved too easily. 
• I hated the constant 'I'm not gay or anything' reassurance Ryan Dean had to give himself whenever he talked to Joey. It got kind of annoying after a while. 
• That ending? It broke me. It pains me to think that things like that happen. 

RATING

BOOKS NOT FINISHED: 1 

CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein 

Pages read: 238 pages

Thoughts so far: 

• I had a bit of trouble getting into the story and connecting with Maddie. 
• I'm finding myself bored at times. It's not a bad story, but maybe it's just not for me. 

TOTAL PAGES READ: 1768 pages

I'm so glad I decided to participate in this read-a-thon, it really pushed me to read a bit more than I usually do in a week. To those who participated, how many pages or books did you manage to read?

-- Loony