Bout of Books 22: Wrap Up

Another Bout of Books comes to a close. I'm actually quite pleased with how I did on most accounts and I have managed to almost catch up on my Goodreads Reading challenge for this year. That makes me ridiculously happy.

In the middle of the week, I happened across a post on Facebook that mentioned The Great American Read...a series that is coming out from PBS this week. They'll be looking at the 100-best loved novels in America, explore how they have affected their readers, and then put it up to viewers to vote the best out of the list.

Well...of course this just created a new challenge for me. So I spent a chunk of Saturday's afternoon naptime adding books to my TBR and creating a new challenge page for the books in The Great American Read. I just couldn't help myself.

On Saturday, I also managed to make it for the second Twitter chat. It was a bit bumpy thanks to a super cranky boy and a lagging TweetDeck, but it was still a good time. I'm bummed that I missed out on the challenges for this round of Bout of Books, but I honestly may go check them out for future on my own reading fun. I've found that I'm terrible at short-notice challenges...I need lead time apparently.

Now...let's get to the actual reading.

Currently Reading:

I'm kind of "currently reading" this. I haven't actually started it yet, but it's next on the list. I crashed out last night in the wee hours of the morning after finishing my last read.

Completed Books:

 

I discussed my thoughts on Me and Early and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews in my last post.

Forever in Blue was okay, but was one of those instances where a book was pretty well wrecked by having seen the movie based on the book. Gah, I seriously hate that. The book was still good and was a pretty easy read, but I wish I hadn't had any surprise of the narrative effectively ruined by my having seen the film.

I finished out the week by reading The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Wow. This book was the one I needed all week. Amazing. It was so raw and real. Uncomfortable every once in a while? Yes. But so freaking awesome. I can't recommend this one enough.

Completed Books with Brecken:

Ugh. Okay...I made a valiant effort to read to this kid. Seriously. But he had a few pretty rough days. We read some occasional pages here and there, but never made it through an entire book. Too many toddler meltdowns to even count. If you're wondering if this has continued to today, the answer is yes. I could use a nap...and a stiff drink.

Overall Stats:

I real almost every day. Thursday was just too exhausting. It didn't happen. I goofed around on Facebook for a few minutes at bedtime and then just collapsed. I read quite a few more pages than I realistically expected and I finished 3 books. I'm pretty freaking happy about that.

Overall, a fairly successful Bout of Books. I'm doing pretty well with my reading pace this year, much to my surprise. I'm hoping it continues, because I'm really enjoying the fact that my reading slump has come to an end.

As for Bout of Books...the next one is coming up in a couple of months. Bout of Books 23 will be held from August 20th to August 26th. I'll be participating. I'm hoping to do a little better prep work for that one so that I can enjoy the community factor a bit more, but we'll see since I'll have the boy and his brother by that time. We'll see how good I am at juggling two kids.