Hello, lovelies! I am very late on this post. I had every intention of posting this immediately after the Reading Rush ended, but I just crashed. I finished the seventh book, then did absolutely nothing last week. I watched T.V, listened to music, and read Fanfiction. Basically, all the things I had foregone the previous week to listen to audiobooks and read physical books.
This post is going to be a bit different from my last two posts because I didn’t update throughout the day. I would write about everything the day after it happened. All the info is still there. This post is also going to include all my analytics from the past few days and my book reviews. I hope you enjoy!
Previous Blog Posts
//Day 5 – July 24, 2020//
Yesterday, I didn’t blog throughout the day like I have this past week. I woke up kind of tired, so I decided to take a break from everything. I woke up, ate a banana, then worked out downstairs. I actually did a Hamilton dance workout I found on YouTube, which was a lot of fun. After that, my cousin texted me and we ended up talking about the Taylor Swift album. That’s honestly what I did all day. Listened to the Folklore album in various rooms in my house.
I love the entire album. It’s my favorite one she’s put out since Red, which came out in my freshman year of high school. My friend Cindy gave such a beautiful description for it in our group chat: “I love the vibes I’m getting from it. It’s so calm and has this “morning coffee” feel to it. like sitting on the front porch at a patio table with a hot mug and a small paperback.” The music is more alternative than pop, and has such a cozy vibe. I don’t know what my favorite song on it is yet. I’m surprisingly leaning towards Cardigan. Normally, her music video songs aren’t my favorites on the album.
I did read some. I started My Sister’s Keeper on audiobook and got through 14% of it, which is about 60 pages. I finished the fifth section of Organize Yourself! which was all about organizing “main events” like party planning, moving, traveling, job search, etc, which is also 60 pages. I laid in bed at one point, didn’t feel like picking up a physical book, so I started reading Howl’s Moving Castle on my phone. I don’t know how far I got into it, so I can’t give an accurate page count today.
Other than that, it was a chill day. I played Animal Crossing and talked to one of my friends on the phone for four-and-a-half hours. It was very cozy and restful.
Pages Read On Day 5 ~ 140+ pages
//Day 6 – July 25, 2020//
Now, onto today. The entire day honestly just passed me by. I have no idea what happened. I woke up later than usual, which made the day feel shorter. It was cloudy and thundering, but there wasn’t any rain. When it finally started drizzling, I sat outside under the shade on our balcony and listened to it.
I got the majority of my reading done at night. I continued listening to My Sister’s Keeper in the afternoon. I was enjoying it at first, but now I don’t know how I feel about it. The mom’s point of view pisses me off. The book is about a girl named Anna who was a “designer baby.” She was genetically conceived to help save her older sister’s life. Her sister has cancer, so she’s lived her whole life as a donor. Anna’s parents want her to donate her kidney and never ask for her consent. Anna then has to sue her parents for medical emancipation in order to stop them from making her medical decisions.
It’s such and intriguing premise and the movie clips I’ve seen on YouTube before make it look like a really good story. My problem is the mom. As someone who has a special needs sibling, my parents would never treat me or my other brother the way she does. Whenever we get the mom’s point of view, she is completely indifferent towards her other two kids. I won’t give too many spoilers, but a minor example is her five-year-old son crying at the doctor’s office after getting tested as a donor. She had no sympathy for him and didn’t comfort him at all because “Kate stopped crying from tests two days ago.” I let that one slide because I chalked it up to her still being in shock from Kate’s diagnosis, but this continues on for years. I think part of my annoyance is that it hits close to home and that I don’t think this is a realistic portrayal of parenthood at all. If it was completely in the children’s points of view, I’d see it as their interpretation, but we actually see how she views her other kids and what she thinks about them.
Moving away from that tangent, I just hit the 26% mark. I’m not planning on finishing it for the Reading Rush, which is why I’m not in a hurry. I just finished Organize Yourself! My full review will be down below along with all the other books. Now, I’m going to finish The Alchemist so that I can focus on finishing Howl’s Moving Castle tomorrow.
Pages Read On Day 6 – 210 pages
//Day 7 – July 26, 2020//
I am officially done with the Reading Rush! Woo hoo! And with 10-minutes to spare. I had a bit of a late start today, which is why I didn’t finish earlier. I also had a Zoom call with a some of my friends this afternoon, which ate away at my reading time. I read a bit of Howl’s Moving Castle this morning, but I didn’t get much done.
After the Zoom call, I went straight to reading The Alchemist. I didn’t end up finishing it yesterday, so I had to finish that first. I had less than 100 pages left, so I was able to finish it relatively quickly. Especially since I enjoy it so much. I spent the rest of the night finishing Howl’s Moving Castle. The eBook format made me read it a bit slowly, but I was still able to finish it after dinner. I didn’t enjoy the book as much as the movie, but I’m still glad I read it.
I’ll write my final reviews tomorrow. Right now, I’m tired and am going to watch T.V.
Pages Read: ~174 pages
//Completed Challenges
Organize Yourself! by Ronni Eisenberg w/ Kate Kelly
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- Read the first book you touch
- Read a book in a genre you’ve always wanted to read more of – Non-fiction
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The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
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- Read a book with a cover that matches the color of your birth stone – Orange/Yellow
- Read a book that starts with the word “The”
- Read a book that takes place on a different continent – Africa; Europe
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Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
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- Read a book that inspired a movie you’ve already seen – Studio Ghibli: Howl’s Moving Castle
- Read a book that takes place on a different continent – Europe (?)
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//Overall Reflection//
I had a great experience doing the Reading Rush. It was the most I’d read since quarantine started. I realized that even though I love reading, it’s an easy hobby to avoid. If I wait to read until I feel like it, I’m not going to do it every day. Once I sit myself down and actually pick up a book, I have no problems.
Another one of my friends also did the Reading Rush, and she said the same thing. By the end of her work day, all she wants to do is watch T.V. or take a nap. When she forced herself to pick up a book, she was reminded that reading is just as relaxing. I think every person who loves to read goes through this. In my head, I just want to turn my brain off and watch T.V, but I get the same type of relaxation from reading a good book. I think I forget that sometimes.
Overall, reading seven books didn’t consume my days. If you look back through my recaps, I watched T.V, worked out, talked with friends, hung out with family, blogged, listened to Taylor Swift’s new album, etc. I did not wake up early every day either. Even my friend who has a full time job managed to read seven physical books in a week. We just had to make the time for it.
Some other things I noticed were that I used social media significantly less, I didn’t text my friends as frequently, and I wasn’t as up to date on the news. Part of this is that I wasn’t using my phone as often, but I also think I didn’t have the urge to check social media as a distraction. Same with going on YouTube.
The Monday after the Reading Rush was such a lazy day for me. It was wonderful. I pretty much just binge watched Girl Meets World all day. I hadn’t watched it in four years and forgot how good it was. I also finished three long Fanfictions and listened to a lot of music that week. I’m assuming I did this to make up for not reading them/listening to audiobooks all week. I have finished My Sister’s Keeper and am in the middle of reading a Wolverine comic, so I didn’t stopped reading altogether.
Overall, it was a great experience. I don’t know if I’ll do it again, but we’ll see.
//Pages Read
These are the graphs from the Reading Rush website. I updated the page count every day, though most of them are estimates since I listened to audiobooks.
The page count includes My Sister’s Keeper, but I didn’t add the book because I didn’t finish it that week.
//Badges Earned
I was able to complete all seven challenges. Here are the badges I earned.
//Reviews//
The challenges each of these completed are in my Reading Rush TBR post, so I won’t be too repetitive here.
1.//The Adventures of Tin-Tin: Prisoners of the Sun by Hergé
GoodReads Synopsis
After The Seven Crystal Balls set the eerie stage, Tintin and his friends continue their adventures in Peru. There Tintin rescues an orange-seller named Zorrino from being bullied, and the young man becomes their guide in their quest to find the Temple of the Sun. But they find more than they bargained for and end up in a hot spot. The perils of this engaging two-part adventure are especially harrowing in their combination of the supernatural and the real, although the resolution is a little too deus ex machina. Calculus and the Thompsons provide their usual comic relief
My Review
This blog post is already very long, so I’m going to try to keep these reviews relatively short. I love the Tintin cartoons, but this particular comic was 3-stars for me. I liked the plot and the way they solved the mystery at the end, but I’ve read better. I read this on my balcony to complete the “read a book outside” challenge, so it was a pretty quick read. I own five more of these comics, so some of those may end up being better. I like the art style and I enjoyed it enough to read more.
2.//Organize Yourself! by Ronni Eisenberg w/ Kate Kelly
GoodReads Synopsis
The proven way to get organized once and for all. This is the highly anticipated new edition of a very successful organizing book that has sold over half a million copies to date, now updated with the latest on e-mail, PDAs, and other contemporary organizing topics and tools. Organize Yourself! provides readers with essential rules for better time, money, space, and paper management. It also addresses major events, from preparing for a move to planning a party or vacation. It reveals a professional organizer’s proven techniques for streamlining daily life and provides fast, effective relief for common clutter and help with overcoming procrastination and every other organizational ailment.
My Review
This book is incredibly outdated to the point where it was funny. When I told my dad that I was reading it, he laughed, “But it’s so old.”
I replied, “THEN WHY DID YOU GIVE IT TO ME?!” because it was the only reason it was on my bookshelf. (I spun around and pointed at it for the “choose a random book” challenge.)
And my mom joked, “Because he can’t go into Goodwill without buying something.”
Anyway, the book was fine. Even though I felt bored reading it, it gave a lot of useful financial information. I told my dad that even with technology, people are still disorganized, so the book was useful enough. Nowadays, self-help books put in a lot of effort into being entertaining and witty, so it was a nice change of pace to read one that went straight to the point.
3.//The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson
GoodReads Synopsis
This classic tale is a fantastical fable of two dear friends – one of whom goes astray and is literally lost to the north woods, while the other undertakes an epic journey to rescue him. This charming, strange, and wonderful story is a timeless allegory about growing up and the challenges of staying true to one’s self, and it served as the wintry inspiration for the blockbuster hit Frozen.
My Review
This was a short story, so I don’t want to write too much here. Overall, I was intrigued. I didn’t know anything about this short story going into it. Just that Frozen is based on it. It was nothing like the movie. Both are their own unique stories and I liked it a lot.
4.//The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
GoodReads Synopsis
Paulo Coelho’s enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and soul-stirring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles in his path. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.
My Review
This was my only reread that week. The Alchemist is one of my favorite books. Every time I read it, I get inspired. I don’t know why. Parts of it are cliche, but it’s just one of those books that makes me feel better.
5.//Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
GoodReads Synopsis
Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six: The band’s album Aurora came to define the rock ‘n’ roll era of the late seventies, and an entire generation of girls wanted to grow up to be Daisy. But no one knows the reason behind the group’s split on the night of their final concert at Chicago Stadium on July 12, 1979 . . . until now.
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ‘n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.
Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.
My Review
I loved this book. I’m still ruminating on it a week after finishing it. I keep comparing it to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which makes me want to bring the rating down to 4 or 4.5 stars, but it’s definitely a five star book in terms of enjoyment. Reid had a very similar “plot twist” at the end, which I know a lot of people complain about. It personally didn’t ruin the book for me. It actually made a lot of sense.
I listened to this nine hour audiobook in two days without speeding it up, but I still grew so attached to the characters and the story. This author has a way of making her characters feel like real people. When I read Evelyn Hugo last year, I wanted to look up her movies and watch them, even though they don’t exist. She did the same thing with this book, only with music. I wanted to hear what the music sounded like because she described it so vividly that I could almost hear it. Not a lot of authors can describe non-existing entertainment the way that she does.
A show based on this book has already been announced, and I hope that they get actual musicians to sing the songs instead of the actors because that’s a huge part of this novel.
6.//Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
GoodReads Synopsis
Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl’s castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there’s far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.
My Review
This book was okay. I’ve read better middle-grade books. The movie was definitely better, but I’m glad that the movie changed the plot lines. It made the book more interesting since I didn’t already know what was going to happen. It’s very whimsical and charming, but I think I would’ve enjoyed it more in elementary or middle school.
7.//Push by Sapphire
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS
Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible: invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem’s casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and highly radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as Precious learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it her own for the first time.
My Review
This book was heartbreaking. I was sucked into the story from the beginning and became invested in Precious by the second chapter. Its hard to think about how many girls around the world go through what she endured.
The book is five-stars. I don’t want to watch the movie, but I know that it was nominated for an Oscar, so you should check it out if you’re interested. It’s probably less graphic than the book.
Well, that’s it for now. My blog has become a book blog these past few weeks, but I will hopefully get back to my typical content soon. There’s only one more bookish blog post coming next week, but I want to get back to writing other content.
Until next time!
Related – How I Read 100 Books In A Year (As A Busy College Student)
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Did you do the Reading Rush this year? What was your favorite book from the read-a-thon?