TBR Takedown 2.0 wrap-up

Hello :) The TBR Takedown happened last week and I had loads of plans to read a ton of different books but I wasn't in the mood. So instead I focused on reading what I wanted instead of the number of books. Having said that throughout I finished 2 books and read half of another 1.

On Saturday I finished What She Left by T.R.Richmond and I was pleasantly surprised. I've done a review so check that out if you want to know more.

Then on Thursday or maybe Wednesday (I can't quite remember) I finished A Slip under the Microscope by H.G.Wells which is a short story about a science student, I was starting to get into it and then it ended.

During the rest of the week I decided to pick up North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell which is over 500pgs so not exactly what you would typically read for a readathon but I've been wanting to give this a re-read for so long now I just decided to go with and I'm really glad I did because it is so good!

How did you do?
Speak soon,
Jade xx

Booktubeathon TBR

The Booktubeathon is back! WOO! You know I love readathons and I know this is a book blog but who cares. First of all here are all the links to the booktubeathon: Youtube, Twitter & Instagram. It takes place from the 3rd-9th August and there are 7 challenges that I will try to complete but I'm not going to go mad about it :)

Challenges & my TBR:
1. Read a book with blue on the cover. This will either be Goblet of Fire or Order of the Phoenix by J.K.Rowling. It depends on when I get them form the library and which one I am on :)
2. Read a book by an author who shares the same first letter of your last name. Literally the only "H" I have is Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd. So even though I wouldn't normally read a big classic in a readathon it may be doable.
3. Read someone else's favourite book. My friend Jenny has been wanting me to read If I Stay by Gayle Forman for a while now and since its pretty short I thought I'd give it a go.
4. Read the last book you acquired. The last book I brought that I have yet to read is The Isle of the Lost by Melissa De La Cruz.
5. Finish a book without letting go of it.- A Slip under the Microscope by H.G.Wells this is super tiny and I can finish it in 1 sitting so it is perfect.
6. Read a book you really want to read. - I am going to wait and just pick what I'm in the mood for at the time.
7. Read seven books. - This one I'm not to sure or bothered about but we'll see.

Let me know if you are taking part and what your plans are!
Speak soon,
Jade xx

Week of Wisdom wrap up

Hello! So another readathon has come to a close and I read but once I got to Tuesday I realise I wasn't really in the mood but I enjoyed what I did read and I'm in the mood now so hopefully the TBR Takedown will be more "successful".

On Monday I finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K.Rowling, I think it was like the last quarter of it. Then for the rest of the week I listened to Prisoner of Azkaban which I finished Friday and read What She Left by T.R.Richmond which I finished Saturday. The total page count was 780pgs which I'm happy with. My favourite of the week would be Prisoner of Azkaban I am really enjoying marathoning that series right now!

What did you read this week?
Speak soon,
Jade xx

Week of Wisdom TBR

Today marks the start of yet another readathon! The Week of Wisdom is running 20th-26th July and be sure to check out the Goodreads group. But basically it challenges you to read a book a day- each from a different genre:

• Mature Monday- Read Nonfiction/Classics/Adult Fiction
• Timeless Tuesday- Read Historical Fiction/Classics/Timetravel Fiction
  
• Whimsical Wednesday- SciFi/Fantasy
  
• Thrilling Thursday- Horror/Thriller/Mystery/Action
  
• Friday Feels- Contemporary/Romance
  
• Series Saturday- Catch up on a series
  
• Sunday Funday- Read a random book

The books that I will be trying to get through are:

• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
• The Murders of the Rue Morgue and Other Tales, Edgar Allan Poe
• War of the Worlds, H.G.Wells
• What She Left, T.R.Richmond
• To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Jenny Han
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K.Rowling
• The Isle of the Lost, Melissa De La Cruz

I didn't read any last really so as long as this gets me reading I'm happy :) 

Speak soon,

Jade xx

24in48 Wrap-up

Last weekend was the 24in48 readathon where over a 48 hour period you try and read a total of 24 hours. I read for around 12.5 hours which I'm happy with. I finished 2 books:

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K.Rowling (audiobook)
• Sylvia Plath Selected Poems
• I also read A Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells and started A Slip under the Microscope. 
• I Started Chamber of Secrets also.

I could have read more but toward the end of Sunday I was feeling a bit off and didn't feel like reading so I didn't force it.  But I enjoyed most of the books I read (I'm not a massive fan of poetry I'll be honest) and read a total of 410 pages :)

Did you take part? If so how did you do?
Speak soon,
Jade xx

24in48 Readathon TBR

I'm sorry if you're getting overloaded a little by readathons on this blog at the mo but apparently summer is readathon season and I find them very difficult to pass up :) 

11th-12th July is the 24in48 Readathon. The idea is that you read for 24hrs during a 48hr period- you know allowing sleeping and eating :) Go to 24in48.com to find out everything you need to know and to sign up. It is a pretty relaxed readathon starting Saturday morning and ending Sunday night so I've got 2 books I would like to read. 

1. A Slip under the Microscope by H.G.Wells. This is only 55 pages so I figured it was perfect. I've been meaning to read H.G.Wells for so long too!
2. Dream a Little Dream by Giovanna Fletcher this is a bit longer than the other but I'm super excited about it so I'm sure I can get it finished.

If you are going to take part make sure you sign up via the 24in48 HQ and let me know what you plan on reading!

speak soon,

Jade xx 

Read-O-Rama TBR

Hello :) Yes I have just done a readathon but I want to take part in this one too.

This is the 2nd round of Read-O-Rama but my 1st time taking part, it is hosted by a number of people all of which you will find on the twitter- @readorama. It starts on 28th June and finishes on 4th July and there are 6 challenges which I will aim to complete:

• Read 7 books
• Read a fantasy book
• Read a book with blue on the cover
• Read a middle grade book 
• Read an ebook/audiobook
• Read a book that you can make RAMA out of its title and/or author

And the books I'm planning to read are: 

• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
• The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan (yet to buy)
• The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
• The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot (audiobook)
• If I Stay by Gayle Forman 
• The Ring and the Crown by Melissa De La Cruz
• The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E Smith

It will be a push to finish all of these but I want to at least finish all the challenges apart from the 1st one, let me know your goals!

Speak soon,

Jade xx

#Rainbowthon Wrap-up

Hello lovely readers! Today I am wrapping-up the #Rainbowthon which took place last week and was hosted by the Carpe Librum girls. The aim was to read a rainbow and I very nearly got there, I read every colour apart from red, I read a total of 862 pages and finished 4 books:

• The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide. I gave this 2 stars, I could tell it was well written but I found it boring, an entire chapter on a skimmer is not really my cup of tea. This was my green book.
• Tape by Steven Camden. I gave this 4 stars, it follows a girl in 2013 and a boy in 1993 who are connected by a cassette tape. I love the way these stories were woven together. This was my yellow spine.
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. This was my blue and orange spine and I gave it 3 stars. I enjoyed it and found it very gripping at points, it also has a short story- The Bottle Imp- at the back which I loved.
• Finally I finished The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J Maas. This is the prequel to the Throne of Glass series and I did enjoy it but nowhere near as much as the 1st book. Also I knew what was coming a the end of this so I did find it difficult to get through. 3 stars. Assassin's Blade was my purple book.

I'm really proud of how much I read even if I didn't stick to my TBR entirely ;) What did you reaad during this last week?

Speak soon, 

Jade xx

#Rainbowthon Update

Hello lovelies! It is now day 5 of the Rainbowthon so I thought I'd update you on what I've read these past 4 days :)

On Monday I read The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide and also the start of Tape by Steven Camden. The Guest wasn't really my cup of tea unfortunately and overall I read a total of  176pgs and finished 1 book.

Tuesday was another good day I finished Tape which I enjoyed very much, bringing up my total page count to 469 and 2 books finished.

Wednesday I picked up Assassin's Blade by Sarah J Maas and read 1 of the short stories in it- The Assassin and the Desert. And a tiny bit of Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. My total after that day was 575pgs

Then Yesterday I read another short story from Assassin's Blade and read around half of The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson. Meaning my total right now is at 707pgs.

My plans for today are to finish The Bottle Imp and from there read either Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Assassin's Blade or Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Hope you are enjoying the Rainbowthon!

Speak soon,
Jade xx

Reading Rainbow Readathon TBR

Hello :) So it's readathon time again! I flippin' love readathons and since the last batch I've been in a bit of a slump so this one came at a great time.

The Reading Rainbow Readathon is hosted by the lovely ladies of Carpe Librum (@carpethislibrum) and runs from 15th-22nd June. The idea is to read a rainbow. You can either read a stack of books each spine being a different colour of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple), if you do this you can have 2 colours in one spine twice so you only have to read 4 books instead of 6. The other way you could pick your TBR is to have a stack of 6 books of all the same colour, a stack of blue, a stack of yellow you get the picture. It sounds super fun and super pretty :) I am going for the 1st TBR and my stack is:

• Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda, Becky Albertalli (red)
• Lola and the Boy Next Door, Stephanie Perkins (orange)
• Tape, Steven Camden (yellow & blue)
• The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide (green)
• The Assassins' Blade, Sarah J Maas (purple)

I will try my hardest to read all this but obviously I'm just going to have fun and not put too much pressure on myself. Look out for an update somewhere in the middle on here and I 'll also posted on twitter & instagram. What is your TBR? 

Speak soon,

Jade xx

Bout of Books 12 Challenges: Day 2

So today's challenge is from Trees of Reverie and it is you Top 10 Recommendations. With that in mind I have picked 10 of my favourite books that are a bit of a spread when it comes to genres and things like that. Actually now I look at them I think these sum up my reading tastes pretty well. :)

1. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen. This is 1 of my favourite books because it just warms my heart and I love the characters, writing style... I could go on and on about this book and I think anyone who is slightly interested in this should pick it up!
2. North & South, Elizabeth Gaskell. This book is about a young lady who moves from the quiet country to the middle of the industrial revolution. I comments on social classes and prejudices of the time. Also a little something I like about this is that we get a lot more of the man's perspective and not just Margaret's. 
3. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. I think the thing that grabbed me with this book was the setting. You have the gloomy, mysterious halls of Thornfield to match it's brooding master. Then the windy, wild moors, it is all very romantic in the Victorian sense of the word.
4. A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett. This is aimed at younger readers but anyone could read it. Sara is treated like a princess in every way until she loses every penny. She is forced to be a servant at her own school but she still manages to be a princess.
5. The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton. Set in Amsterdam 1686, Nella comes to her new home expecting to be a wife but then her wedding gift- a dollhouse- begins to mimic the real house. Plot twist after plot twist unravels each characters layer by layer. This books is just so intriguing!
6. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs. This book using old, creepy photographs to build characters and from them a story. The concept works brilliantly and the story is so fun and not what I was expecting at all.
7. Cinder, Marissa Meyer. This sc-fi, fairytale retelling just has everything! An amazing world, complex characters and a little romantic tension, a good story. 
8. Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell. I could really relate to the main character in this book, Cath is an introvert who feels very alone and she is very nerdy also. This is a coming-of-age book if anything else as Cath moves to collage and deals with everything that comes with it. 
9. Landline, Rainbow Rowell. This is an adult book where a marriage is on the rocks and the wife calls her husband on her old landline, he picks up but from before they were married! This is a very interesting dynamic as Georgie questions pretty much everything she knows.
10. The Secret Countess, Eva Ibbotson. I have read this book over and over. Anna is a Russian refugee in 1919 London. Penniless she goes to work as a maid for an Earl and tries to keep her secret identity of Countess secret. This is such a romantic, heartwarming story and I adore it. 

Bout of Books 12 Day 1

Hello, hope you are well. Today is only a short update because I ended up being 50 times busier than I thought I was going to be but I still got a little reading done. I read 49pgs of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This book is for school so I need to read and so it seems good but to be honest I don't really know yet. I also did the 2 challenges yesterday so check that out if you want.

Speak soon,
Jade xx

Bout of Books 12 Challenges: Day 1

Bout of Books is here! Yay! I love the January 1 because it gives the year a good start :) The 2 challenges today are hosted by Caught Read Handed and The Book That... so thanks to them for hosting these, I love the challenges for Bout of Books because they aren't pressuring just fun :)

Bookshelf Scavenger Hunt. For this there are 7 things plus a bonus thing to find!

1. Find an author with the same initials as you
2. Find a book with the color yellow on it
3. Find an author’s name with the letter “S” in it
4. Find a book with a female protagonist
5. Find the longest book you own
6. Find a book with a map in it or on it
7. Find a book with a face on it (photograph or illustrated)
Bonus: Find something on your shelf that isn't a book.

Here's me treasure! ;)

1. Jenny Han.
2. Tape, Steven Camden (very yellow!)
3. Jessie Burton
4. Laurel from Love Letters to the Dead (most of the characters are female in this book actually)
5.War and Peace clocking in at 994pgs!
6. Inkspell by Cornelia Funke has a map of the Inkworld
7. Emma, Jane Austen
Bonus: This crystal with a dragon on it :)

New Year's Resolution Challenge This is where you match books to your resolutions.

1. 50 books challenge: Women in White, Wilkie Collins. This book is a pretty big and I would like to get to this year too.
2. Review more books: Cinder, Marissa Meyer. This is 1 book I have actually reviewed.
3. Buy less books: All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr. This is the last book I brought a few weeks ago.

So I'm off to do more reading!
Speak soon,
Jade xx

Bout of Books 12 Goals.

Today I am going to share with you my goals for Bout of Books. I know there isn't linky for them this year but I want to have some direction with my reading. I haven't gone overly ambitious like normal because it is my 1st week back at school so I have all of Monday to read but after that it will be whenever I can :)

So my plan for this week is to make headway with the books that I have started, it has got a little out of hand and I currently have 10 books that I picked up sometime last year (mainly last month) and never finished them so I want to sort that by the end of February. Some of these are:

• Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
• My True Love Gave To Me edited by Stephanie Perkins
• Shadow Kiss, Richelle Mead
• S by JJ Abrams & Doug Dorst
• Emma, Jane Austen
• Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
  

And that's that! Good luck to anyone taking part, I hope you have fun!

Speak soon,

Jade xx

Bout of Books 12!

It is that time again! I will be taking part in Bout of Books 12 which is from 5th-11th January. This will be my 3rd Bout of Books and I 'm really looking forward to it! In case you don't know what this readathon is here is the blurb thingy:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 5th and runs through Sunday, January 11th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 12 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I will be posting daily updates and doing some of the challenges, but keep an eye on my twitter and instagram (@jadeling97) as I will probably be posting there too :) I will let you know my goals soon!

Speak soon,
Jade xx

Dewey's Readathon Wrap-up

So the readathon has come to an end. :-(  I will admit I probably only read for around 6 hours but I read more than I would have. When it first started I still needed to do some jobs and because of that I listen to a few chapters of pride and prejudice so that I was still kind of reading at the start. After I read a section of Of Mice and Men and read nearly all of Frostbite. (Which was awesome!)

But yeah, I didn't go all out on this, you know I didn't stay up late or anything I just made sure I made a little time for reading instead of the internet or something. I really just used it as a break from revision but it also gave me motivation to read again as I haven't been reading a lot lately.

Hope any of you who took part had fun and read some good books.

Speak soon,
Jade xx

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

Hello :) Just a super quick post to tell you that I am going to take part in Dewey's Readathon. I haven't officially signed up or anything, I'm doing it so I can get some reading done. So for me in the UK, it is starting at 1pm; which is a nice time I think as it gives me a chance to do some jobs before hand.

The books that I would like to read are:

• Frostbite (and maybe finish it)
• The Book Thief (I won't finish it but would like to get a way through it).

However! I may have to compromise because I need to do revision so I think I may first read Of Mice and Men (a book I loathe but alas must study) and then carry on with Frostbite or The Book Thief it will give me motivation to read it I suppose. 

I will post my progress on either my twitter (@JellyBabyJade97) or more likely on Instagram (@Jadeling97). Let me know where you'll be updating so I can see how you're doing!

Speak soon,

Jade xx