My MiddleEarthAThon TBR!

The wonderful Lizzie from Lizzieiself is hosting the MiddleEarthAThon from the 26th August until the 2nd September to celebrate the new Lord of the Rings TV show releasing! She asked me to cohost and I’ve been placed as the team leader for the Dwarves 😊⚒

Our others hosts are: The Bookworms Feast for Team Hobbit (who also has a book blog), Imena Ginac for Team Elf, Stuff Celine Does for Team Men, and LadetteM for Team Witch King!

Come and check out the MiddleEarthAThon twitter and instagram too for updates and mini sprints!

I published a recommendations video for the Dwarf prompts a while ago, as well as a video and a blog post for my overall August tbr. But I’ve also done a standalone video for my MiddleEarthAThon tbr so I thought I should do a blog post too!

First up is the prompt: “That still only counts as one” – reading an anthology or a collection of short stories. For this one I’m going with The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle… I know it’s huge but it’s literally the only one I have! This is over 1100 pages and I’m going to be trying to read it, and two 500+ page books, in just a week. Why do I do this to myself?

The second prompt is: “Thranduil” – a book with a shiny cover. Demon Road by Derek Landy is my choice for this one. A YA urban fantasy based in the US by the same author who wrote the Skulduggery Pleasant series. I’ve heard some… not so positive reviews of this one? But I want to try it for myself regardless and I’m hoping that this’ll be a quick read like the Skulduggery books are for me.

The final dwarfish prompt is: “Durin’s sons” – the book that has been on your tbr the longest. For me this is pretty hard to judge, so I just went with one I know is pretty old (since 2016) and that’s All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, a historical fiction based in WWII. I’ve not been having much luck with historical fictions lately, but it’s been a while since I’ve read one based during WWII (which used to be my favourite period) so I’m holding out hope.

Now whilst that’s all the prompts, the Dwarves do also get one special power and that is to swap out any book for a shorter one if needed. And oh boy do I intend to use this if I need it!

For the anthology prompt I have two different options. One is to just read one of the bindups that lives within the Sherlock book itself. The full book of The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. This is a lot more manageable so I’m going to start the readalong with this and then see if I can manage more. Another possibility was given to me by the wonderful Hannah from Ladette M, who reminded me my Waypoint Books order would be coming through soon with my copy of Armageddon Outta Here by Derek Landy the revised edition. This is a collection of Skulduggery short stories and would be a much easier read 😂

For the shiny book prompt I’ve given myself the backup book of The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa which is a translated Japanese cat book. I whip through these super quick (I actually force myself to spread them over a few days) and so if Demon Road doesn’t work out I can squeeze this in at the end.

And for the oldest on my tbr prompt, I realised that I actually have a book I know has been on my tbr longer! And that’s The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown. This is a historical fiction which only clocks 300 pages rather than the 600 for All The Light and could save my guts by the end of the month 😅

I will say I’m slightly worried that I might end up trying to read all of these books… in a week… so someone needs to stop me from doing that please and thank you.

Are you taking part in the MiddleEarthAThon? If you’ve not signed up yet I’ve linked the Spreadsheet, Google Form to submit the books you’ve read for your team, and the form to tell us the team you’ve picked so you can sign up and have some fun with us! Having read/watched Lord of the Rings not required (I only just read the first LotR book last month and I’ve still not watched them!)

If you are taking part tell me which team you’re joining and make sure to follow all of the other lovely hosts!!

Armageddon Outta Here, a review

Yes, yes, another Skulduggery book. This is a collection of short stories and I was reading them chronologically as I did my reread of the whole series. So this is just where my reread finished 😂

This is such a fun selection of stories. We get some of Skulduggery and Gordon’s interactions before he passed away (Gordon, not Skulduggery 😂), as well as some of the stories of the Dead Men that we’ve heard about in passing. And then of course we get more stories of Skulduggery and Valkyrie together through the years.

On CAWPILE I gave this collection: Characters: 10, Atmosphere: 9, Writing: 9, Plot: 9, Intrigue: 8, Logic: 9, and Enjoyment: 9 which gives a score of 9 and a 5 star rating!

I can’t speak about all the stories, because they’re so short that I would just be ruining them for you. But if you enjoy the Skulduggery Pleasant books then I highly recommend this collection. It’s so much fun and adds so much to the world!

June 2021 Reading Wrap Up

Things worked out pretty well for me this month! I managed to read every book that was on my tbr, as well as one extra book and I had 2 days to spare! I could’ve added another book at the end of the month but I thought I would give myself a bit of a break for a couple days.

Let’s get into the mini wrap ups!

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn coming in at 421 pages was my first read of the month. And wow. What a shite way to start the month! I was tempted to DNF this after 50 pages, and for some reason I pushed myself through the entirety of this despite wanting to DNF it (Did Not Finish) and I ended up giving it 2*s. What a waste of my time (and a realisation that I’m not very good at DNFing books)

Something a little more positive was 175 pages of Armadeddon Outta Here by Derek Landy which I just read certain short stories of. I read up to the point before Mortal Coil to bring myself up to date with the plotline so far and I’m excited to read more of these when I carry on with the series!

Another great read was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen which was 329 pages of amazingness! I gave this 5*s and I really didn’t expect that! I was expecting this to be just fine, one that I was just gunna read through because it’s a classic and it’s interesting. But I ended up adoring this book so much, it gave me such a cosy vibe and I was just so happy reading it!

The wonderful Olivia Savanah from Olivia’s Catastrophe gifted by Pet by Akwaeke Emezi and I’m so glad that I read it this month because it was AMAZING!! This was 205 pages of wonder and I of course gave it 5*s. I adore Emezi’s writing, they’re just fantastic and I’m so excited to read more from them in the future. This is a YA book I’ll be recommending to absolutely everyone. Honestly I need to just sit down with my thoughts because it’s just a massive jumble of wonderment!

Touch by Claire North is one that I should probably not have read with the world situation right now. I did still enjoy this 426 page book, and although I’ve not ran it through CAWPILE yet I’m anticipating it being a 4* read, but there was one major downfall. I don’t want to go into the specifics cause spoilers, but I’m sure you can guess. A book based on touch isn’t the best one to read and empathise with in a world where we don’t touch anyone. I’ll need to re-read this in the future where the hustle and bustle of a commute doesn’t feel so alien.

Mortal Coil by Derek Landy was my Skulduggery re-read for the month so of course I loved it. Coming in at 572 pages it’s my biggest read of the month and so much happens in this one! So much that I don’t like! But we’re making so much progress and it was so fun to discuss this with Bekka as we read it.

I finally read a thriller I didn’t hate this month with Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan. 344 pages long, this is definitely an interesting one. There are some controversial sections that I need to think more about, but from a pure enjoyment level this was one that I was engaged ith, actively reacting to, and I’m glad I finally picked it up!

The last book on my actual tbr for the month was Apocalypse Kings by Derek Landy, a short story released for World Book Day this year. I only read it the first time a few months ago but I wanted to re-read it in the chronological spot. I only read 80 pages rather than the full 100ish because those last 20 are the first chapters of book 1 and I’ve read that twice this year already!

And last but no where near least for books I finished… The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris which was 393 pages of intrigue and I really enjoyed it! This took a twist that was so much fun to read and I loved reading from a grey character. I was discussing this with Kashay from Shay with the Hobbies on YouTube as I went through so that was a lot of fun being able to voice message her blow by blow through the book! I’m not sure of my rating yet as I like to give books a bit of time before I run them through CAWPILE, but I’m guessing probably 4*s.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is still going strong, and me and Olivia Savannah are around 70% of the way through this tome and we’re loving it! Of course I still can’t talk about the content cause spoilers, but ooooh I’m really enjoying this reading experience still!

And those are the books I read in June! For my page count it totalled at 2943, so just under 3000. Not the best reading month that I’ve had but I’m not mad! I’ve read some books that I absolutely adored and I’m so glad that I was able to finally cross them off of my list! Definitely keep a look out for full reviews of all of these coming out in the coming months!

What’s the best book (or three) that you read last month? Have you read any of these? Let me know!