Confessions of a Literary Addict

For once, I nailed this readathon! I read every single book I wanted to, and even found a book for that last challenge! (Thank you Owlcrate for sending a classic with their September box — it worked perfectly! I still typically don’t read classics unless prompted to. Not my favorites.)

Final Page Count:

368 (If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio) + 432 (You by Caroline Kepnes) + 310 (Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw) + 416 (The House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig) + 235 (The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson) = 1,761 pages read. 

Waaaaay better than I was expecting!

Goals Achieved:

1. Read a thriller
2. Read a book with red on the cover
3. Read a book with a spooky word in the title
4. Read a book with a spooky setting
5. Read something you wouldn’t normally read

Done and done and done!

Final Thoughts:

New segment for a readathon wrap-up which may never be featured again!

I don’t need to say anything about If We Were Villains, like. Come on. I’ve sung its praises way too much as it is, and yes Nova we all know you love it. You gave it five stars. Move along!

I enjoyed You quite a bit, but I think I would have liked it more if I didn’t find the other main character (the “you” during the whole book), Beck, so freaking annoying. I don’t even know exactly what it was! I just wanted to roll my eyes each time she spring up, which, yeah, was basically for the whole book since the guy we’re reading through is stalking her and everything. Super creepy, on that note. Great for not only spooky season, but, like, protective measure motivation, too. Three stars.

Wicked Deep, I’m sad to say, did not live up to its RIDICULOUSLY WONDERFUL cover. (Seriously, everything about that cover, I loved.) It had a trope in it that I loathe that was thankfully explained, so that ended up not being my issue, and an ending that just made me feel sad for our main character. I don’t think it was supposed to be sad (because I’m not talking about THAT character, I’m talking about Penny), but I couldn’t help reading it and thinking “she deserved better than that.” Also, I wanted a little more depth to the other MCs we were following around at turns. They felt just a little flat. I gave it three stars.

Second to last, I read The House of Salt and Sorrows and had pretty high expectations for it. It didn’t totally meet them (but might have had the book been longer), but I still really liked the world we were given to tell the story in. It was very rich in detail, and pretty gosh damn creepy on top of that, and, really, the only downfalls for me were the fact it felt rushed, and the fact certain characters were nixed when I would have LOVED to get to know them. Unlike a few others, I actually had no problem with the romance we were given! (That’s rare for me. I’m a cynical aromantic. Romance is very touch-and-go for me.) Not bad, honestly. I hope the author gives us more from the world, or from the other lands. I gave it four stars!

And, finally, there was The Haunting of Hill House, which I probably would have loved had I read it in high school or college. As it was, it wasn’t creepy enough for me, and there wasn’t enough going on with each of the characters for me to be any kinds of attached to them during their journey. In fact, I think my favorite character was the wife, and she was insufferable! Three stars.

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And that was my Spookathon wrap-up! It was a great readathon for me, somehow. Don’t ask me how, because I’ve been writing for a fanfiction daily prompt thing at the same time, pushing around 2k words out a day, and I should be a sobbing mess of stress. But I’m not.

I don’t get it, either.

(NaNoWriMo is going to hand my ass back to me on a rhinestone-studded platter, though, just watch.)

Thanks for reading!