My 24 Hour Read-a-thon

aaAAAAHhhhH!

For the first time this year, I’ve fallen behind on my Goodreads Reading Challenge—and not just by one book, but by two whole books *faints*.

All drama aside though, I need to get back to where I was two months ago when I was three books ahead of my goal. I don’t like playing catch up, especially because I’m already such a slow reader. It’s been a while since I posted, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by //live// blogging my attempt to make some type of progress in my life reading goal. I’m aiming to finally finish The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey and knock out some other book I’ll choose later (spoiler alert: it’s Warcross by Marie Lu) in 24 hours.

(//it technically won’t be live by the time I publish this post, but who’s paying attention?)

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THE TBR

1. The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey – This book is a prequel to The Girl With All the Gifts. It follows a team of scientists and soldiers who travel across a post-apocalyptic Britain in the search for any breakthroughs that can save the crumbling human civilization from the hungry (aka zombie) pandemic. 
2. Warcross by Marie Lu –This book is about teenage hacker, Emika Chen, who is hired by famed video game creator and businessman, Hideo Tanaka, to track down a criminal who poses a threat to his world-renowned virtual reality game, Warcross.

And with that, Let’s begin! 

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MAY 14, 2018

6:00 PM

I just started five minutes ago, but I had to take a bagel break. I need sustenance. Resume mission.

6:22 PM

I’ve been reading this book for almost a month, I’m halfway through it, and I still can’t keep track of all the secondary characters.

7:00 PM

The Boy on the Bridge is divided into three parts. I just finished the second part and gahhh. Usually by this point in a book, I can tell how the story is going to end, but in this case, it seems like anything can go. I have an inkling of how some things are going to play out since I read The Girl With All the Gifts, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

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(ー_ー﹡; ) sleep is good for you.

(ー_ー﹡; ) try to get 7-9 hrs of sleep every night.

(ー_ー﹡; ) this is my bedtime cutscene.

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MAY 15, 2018

7:38 AM

After I spent three hours going on a jog and having dinner with my family (stop trying to sound like an upstanding person, Belle. you and I both know you fell down the Youtube rabbit hole again), I stayed up reading The Boy on the Bridge last night and finally, FINALLY finished it this morning!

I thought the book was solid overall. I’m trying hard not to compare it to The Girl With All the Gifts (but if I waaas comparing them, I’d say The Girl With All the Gifts was better). If you’re a fan of The Girl With All the Gifts, the epilogue of The Boy on the Bridge will make it worth the read. I’ll have a full review up ~eventually~, but for now I’ll be continuing with the task at hand.

I’ll be reading Warcross by Marie Lu next. It’s been hyped since late 2017, and I’m honestly surprised it’s taken me this long to read it. The book ticks all the criteria I look for/appreciate in a good book: virtual reality, Asian protagonists, 🎶rooomance🎶, and e s p i o n a g e. I hope it doesn’t disappoint 🤞 🤞 !

11:18 AM

Finally started Warcross after taking care of some morning tasks. I’m loving that there’s an Asian protagonist, but I’m not sure how I feel about the first person point of view. It sort of sounds like the drawn out narration in the beginning of a high school comedy in my head, but it may just be because I haven’t read this type of POV in a while.

1:34 PM

I think I can predict how this book is going to play out and end already, and I’m seriously hoping that there’s going to be some major plot twists.

1:41 PM

I don’t think this is a spoiler.

In this book, people use a Google glasses type of device to augment their reality to play Warcross, but its use has also extended to modify the surroundings and activities of everyday life. It reminds of the Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” where performing certain actions will give you points so that you can level up, making you more admirable to people. The technology is cool, but also ᶜᴿᴱᴱᴾᵞ.

5:57 PM

The gamer banter is so amusing 😂. I know gaming can be intense and is actually considered a sport (e.g. eSports), but I just can’t take the trash-talk seriously.

I’m almost halfway through Warcross. I would’ve been further along if I didn’t have to run some errands earlier, but what can you do 🤷. I’ll continue reading it tonight and probably won’t finish it until tomorrow. For now,

we have reached the end of the read-a-thon.

One and half books in 24 hours isn’t too bad for me considering how slow I read, but I know I can do better. It was still great to finally sit my butt down and read.

In my last—and—first read-a-thon, I set my goal based on how many pages I wanted to read (500), and I think I’ll follow that plan again next time. I also enumerated some parameters for future read-a-thons which I totally forgot about until I checked the post now 🤦. ᴼᴴ ᵂᴱᴸᴸ °°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕕𝕠 ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°°. Until next time?

Thanks for reading! Have you participated in a read-a-thon or read any of these books before? Let me know 😀.