BookTubeAThon 2014: Wrap Up

I am an avid reader, but I never was a fan of read-a-thons, because I like to enjoy reading a book at a pace that I choose. But looking at the booktube community I wanted to try it out for once and see what I think about it.

So, I did the booktubeathon, which was organized by Ariel Bissett. This read-a-thon is at it's second edition and came with an official YouTube channel: BookTubeAThon.

The challenges were:

The Reading Challenges:

• A book with pictures.
• Start and finish a series.
• A book with red on the cover.
• A book someone else picks out for you.
• A book from the genre you've read the least this year.
• A book to movie adaptation
• Read seven books.

The Video Challenges:

• Day One: Show your top 3 book you read because of booktube.
• Day Two: Find the items on three covers.
• Day Three: Draw a better cover for any book.
• Day Four: Write a story using all the words from three titles.
• Day Five: Make a rainbow of you favourite books.
• Day Six: Find 5 things from one of the books you've read this week.
• Day Seven: Show us where you've read during the booktubeathon!

Because of these challenges and of the reading sprints, reading became a collective action and not a solitary activity, which I loved!

Now I didn't respect the challenges, because during that week I had other activities that were a priority and I didn't get to read every day, but I was pretty satisfied with what I managed to read. So here is my wrap up for my very first read-a-thon:

Day 1:

I managed to read 80 pages of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, getting me from page 100 (which I've read the week before) to page 180.

Total page count: 80

Day 2:

I continued reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, from page 180 to page 300, which means that I've read 120 pages.

Total page count: 200 

Day 3:

I have started and finished Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. This book has 187 pages.

Total page count: 387

Days 4 & 5:

I did not read.

Total page count: 387

Day 6: 

I have read Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling (109 pages) and Quidditch through the Ages by JK Rowling (105 pages).

Total page count: 601 

Day 7:

I've read Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them by JK Rowling (88 pages) and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (155 pages).

Final page count: 844 pages!!!

Pro tip: for a read-a-thon pick action packed books, thinner books and generally any book that you love and has a fast pace, to make you feel that you are devouring them!

I absolutely enjoyed reading some JK Rowling books and I even managed to complete a few challenges:

• A book with pictures (Tales of Beedle the Bard)
• Start and finish a series (Hogwarts Library)
• A book with red on the cover (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
• A book to movie adaptation (of mice and men)

This being said, I would very much like to participate in other read a thons in the future!

The Genre Swap Project

In my last post I mentioned The Genre Swap Project. This was started by 2 booktubers: Jesse from jessethereader and Andrew from HeavyShelves. Basically they partner 2 readers: one that reads mainly YA and one that reads mainly classics. The one that reads YA will send the one that reads classics a YA book and vice versa. This project is destined to help you expand your literature taste, getting to experiment with uncharted genres. Here are their viodeos:

I was partnered with Little Book Owl, an Australian booktuber. She sent me a YA novel: The Archived by Victoria Schwab, and I sent her a classic novel: Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy (as you can see in the picture above).
Here is her video, opening the mail:

I also did a video opening the envelope and a book review one. You can see them here and here.

A tiny review of The Archived:
The Archived is basically a library filled with the histories of the dead. Sometimes the histories escape and the Keepers have to return them. They follow the histories through the Narrows. The older the History the more violent they are. The older ones are called Keeper Killers. Our protagonist is Mackenzie Bishop, who was thought everything by her grandfather, Da, and became a keeper at an early age. After her brothers death, her family moves into an hotel turned into an apartment building, The Colorado, where a mysterious murder happens - but the traces (the memories) are erased. And she is left to solve this case with a help of her new friend. Even though it is a part of a series, this could very well be a standalone book. If you see it in the bookstore please give it a chance, because it is a great story!