End of Year 2019 Reading Resolutions Wrap-Up

At the beginning of the year, I shared with you all some reading goals that I wanted to tackle this year. Some were the same as previous years, and others were added on for this year. I completed 2  out of 6 challenges.

1. Meet My Goodreads Reading Challenge Goal

The goal this year was to read 50 books, which was less than my last year's goal. This is because I have been finding myself reading more adult books this year, and wanted to accommodate for that and not feel pressured to picking up more YA books. I read a total of 56 books.

2. Listen to 10 Audiobooks

3. Read 10 Contemporary Novels

As you can see, I failed this challenge.

4. Read a book in all of the following genres:

Dystopian/Apocalyptic: NONE

Historical Fiction: Lovely War by Julie Berry

Fantasy: In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

Fairytale Retelling: NONE

Mystery: Lonely Dead by April Henry

Thriller/Suspense: NONE

Horror: MARY: Unleashed by Hillary Monahan

Graphic Novel/Manga: Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag

Poetry/Verse: Blood Water Paint by Joy McCuttough

Anthology: NONE

Sci-Fi: NONE

Middle Grade: Girl in the Locked Room by Mary Downing Hahn
Steampunk: NONE



5. Read 10 books that are longer than 500 pages



6. Finish the Series of Unfortunate Events

I did not finish this series.

Hocus Pocus Read-a-thon Wrap-Up

This is the first year that I have heard about the Hocus Pocus Read-a-thon. Basically, there are three teams with different reading challenges they must complete between the 1st of October to the 13th of October. You can read more in the original post on twitter here. You can find this post on my Adult Blog here.

I am on the Team Sanderson Sisters. And my challenges are below:

Read a Book with a Witchy Main Character

I read Bone Witch because Tea is a Bone Witch, and it was thoroughly disappointing. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it, and the reason I was disappointed were because my expectations were really high for this book. Sadly, it didn't live up to those expectations. You can find my review by clicking here.

Read a Book with a Female Protagonist

For this challenge, I picked Lonely Dead because it's a mystery with a paranormal twist, perfect for this challenge. I really enjoyed this book, giving it 4 stars, but I've always enjoyed April Henry's novels. You can read my review by clicking here.

Read a Book that is Spellbindingly Atmospheric

I read Witchtown because what is more spellbindingly atmospheric than a book set in a town full of witches. This was a decent read, and I really enjoyed it. I ended up giving it 3 stars, and you can find my review by clicking here.

Read a Book that Frightens You

So initially I was planning to read a True Crime novel for this challenge, but then I stumbled upon this book, and I figured outside of True Crime, what is the thing that scares me: deadly diseases. I found this book to be very informative and interesting, with historical information about the history of rabies. I ended up giving this book 4 stars, and although I am not planning to write a formal review for this book, I highly recommend this if you are interested in this type of nonfiction books.

Read a Book with a Powerful Villain

For this challenge, I read Renegades picked out because it involves heroes and villains. I thought it was a really good book, and I ended up giving it 4 Stars. You can find my review by clicking here.

Read the Group Book

So I ended up reading Serpent & Dove for this challenge. And I am so glad - this book was so amazing, and I absolutely loved reading it. This is definitely one of my favorite reads this year, and you can find out ore about how I felt by clicking on this.

Watch Hocus Pocus

I ended up watching Hocus Pocus before starting my reading, rather than after I had completed my reading because I had to return it to the library.

Review: Witchtown by Cory Putman Oakes

Witchtown by Cory Putman Oakes

When sixteen-year-old Macie O’Sullivan and her masterfully manipulative mother Aubra arrive at the gates of Witchtown—the most famous and mysterious witch-only haven in the world—they have one goal in mind: to rob it for all it’s worth.

But that plan derails when Macie and Aubra start to dig deeper into Witchtown’s history and uncover that there is more to the quirky haven than meets the eye.

Exploring the haven by herself, Macie finds that secrets are worth more than money in Witchtown.

Secrets have their own power.

Pages: 320

Format: E-Book

Published By: HMH Books for Young Readers

Genre: YA - Fantasy

Rating:

✮✮✮

Review:

Witchtown is a spellbindingly fantastic story about a young girl, Macie O'Sullivan, who with her very manipulative mother travel from town to town, finally landing in Witchtown with a single goal in mind every time - which is to rob the towns of all their money. But there's something different about Witchtown, and Macie digs deeper to find out what it is.

I really enjoyed this novel - it wasn't my favorite by any means, but for someone (Me) who doesn't like reading books that are witch-centric because witches aren't my favorite literary character, I was pleasantly suprised by how much I did like it.

The thing I enjoyed most about this novel is how it drew me in, and how quickly I was able to fly through the story. I also really enjoyed Macie, and her two friends, Kellen and Talya. I thought they had all very distinct personalities, but I felt like their relationships weren't as developed as they could have been. A big thing I didn't like in the story was Rafe. I thought the parts involving him were unnecessary and didn't add anything to the story. They could have been removed and more focus could have been on the rest of the story and adding more detail to that. I also really hated her mother - which was to be expected, but rather than her be a strong villain, I just found her to be overly annoying as a character.

There were three major plot reveals. Two of which didn't get a lot of focus from the main character throughout the novel, just a couple of quick mentions so when they were revealed, I hadn't figured it out, but they weren't a huge focal point. The other plot reveal which was the largest and most important, I had figured out halfway through the book.

All in all, I did enjoy the book, and if you are into witchy novels, this might be a novel to pick up.

July, August, and September Wrap-Up and October TBR

So it's been a few months since I did my last wrap-up, but I've had a busy summer with work and life that my reading and blogging have been relegated to the backburner in my life. I am trying my hardest as I have said previously to jump back in but it's hasn't been as I have planned.

Anyway over the course of July and August, I only read 3 books (and three other books that I will be mentioning on my Adult Blog). Two of which were children's books and the other a YA novel. The two children's books were Creepy Carrots! and Show Way. The YA novel was In Another Life.

But I stepped up my game some during the month of September. I read 13 books (not including the six adult books I read). I read four children's books, three middle grade books, and six YA books: Lovely War, Dream a Little Dream, Charlie the Choo-Choo, Dream for Three, Challenges, When the Glitter Fades Away, Shark Lady, Raven, Tea Dragon Festival, Uni the Unicorn, In An Absent Dream, We Told Six Lies and Oracle Queen.

So for the month of October, I am actually planning on participating in two different read-a-thons. You can find more about them here and here. So I have some planned books for them, but the rest of the month if I have time to read any more, is just to read thrillers, mysteries, or horror novels. Two of the seven I probably won't read because they are just extra options for two of the categories.

Here are planned books for the read-a-thons:


Here are some other books I would love to get to this month (and if not this month, next month):