Okay, so this was meant to be a video but I quite frankly have not had the time to film it! And now it has been nearly a week since BookTubeAThon ended. If I get the chance tonight I will try and film it, but anyway, here is a blog post in case I don’t get the chance!
So I completed 5 challenges out of 7. I did not complete the ‘Read a book about something you want to do’ or ‘Read a book while wearing the same hat the whole time’. For the something I want to do challenge, I simply couldn’t find a book. For the hat challenge. I started with reading with a hat on and then quite frankly forgot and then stopped caring. I didn’t care about that challenge that much to begin with as it doesn’t actually challenge the type of reading you are doing, so I really didn’t see the point.
Now onto the challenges I did complete.
Let a coin toss choose your first read
Okay, so I did this. I tossed and got The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T Sutherland. I started the book & then decided to DNF as it just felt too childish for me. So then I swapped to the other option I had for the coin toss.
Rating: 4 stars
I wrote a short review for this one on Goodreads which I will link below but a quick overview. This book was a fun and quick read. It involves books that come to life and it is quite amusing.
However, there was a subplot of the Main Characters parents separating that I simply did not like how it was handled. The message it kinda sends to kids is that if you push hard enough then your parents will magically realise they do love each other and get back together. I don’t think that is a good message to send as in most cases that simply does not happen. I was hoping this book would be a good representation of separating parents and possibly help someone who is going through that by seeing how the MC deals with it but that simply was not the case.
Read and watch a book to movie adaptation
Book rating: 5 stars
Movie rating: 4.5 stars
The Movie as a book to movie adaptation: 2 stars
Okay, so I love this book. It was a reread for me. I highly recommend the audiobook, it is narrated by Wil Wheaton and is fabulous.
I did enjoy the movie, HOWEVER, it is very VERY different from the book. The main theme of the book stays the same in the movie. The creator dies and leaves an Easter Egg in the game, to get it you have to acquire 3 different keys throughout the game for a player to discover and whoever does wins his fortune and ownership of the game. There is also a ‘bad guy’ organisation trying to win it that will end up ruining the game if they get ownership. So that is the same. EVERYTHING else is completely different. Everything from how the characters meet, to the things they have to do to get the keys, to the whole feel of the book/movie is different. The book is an ode to vintage video games & 80s Pop Culture. However, the movie is a lot more concentrated on nowadays gaming. There is 1 vintage video/arcade game seen being played in the whole movie & there is only one major mention of something from the 80s and that is the movie The Shining, which I don’t even remember being mentioned in the book. There were a couple other things like King Kong, Godzilla and Back to the Future, but they were more just seen rather than really part of the story. So that was disappointing. I love the 80s feel of the book. I’m not an 80s kid but I still loved the feel of the book. The movie really looses that.
Also, there is one MAJOR plot point that happens in the book, it was devastating and made you angry as hell while reading but it simply didn’t happen in the movie. I kinda like that is doesn’t happen as it is sad but still they just completely changed EVERYTHING.
By itself the movie is great but as an adaptation, nope, not at all.
Read a book with green on the cover
This book has very little green, but hey it counts.
Rating: 4 stars
Okay, so this book is a little all over the place. I can definitely say it is intense and unique. The world and plot were really interesting and there was always something new and unexpected going on. I can’t say it is a new favourite but I definitely had fun reading it and there were a few good quotes I caught. I only wrote one down though as I did listen to the audiobook so it is a bit hard to easily record a quote like you could on a physical or eBook.
I’ll add the full quote as I love Riley’s comment as well as the one from the MC at the end.
“Okay, but you guys were always eating somewhere bizarre. I don’t want to eat food from Thailand or India or wherever. Who even knows what’s in there? Why couldn’t you eat something normal?”
“We can’t all subsist on buttered noodles and self-righteousness,” Riley growls.
“And, for fuck’s sake, stop using normal as code for white,” I snap. “Your life isn’t the ruler that the rest of the world gets measured against.”
Read a book with a beautiful spine
I don’t have a pic of the spine but it’s half blue, half white and has stars on it. I basically just sat on my bed, looked at my TBR shelves and picked the spine that looked the nicest.
Rating: 3.5 stars
As for this book, I can’t say I enjoyed it as much as I did Caraval. I didn’t review this but to give you an overview: I found it predictable and that was one of my main issues. This whole book revolves around discovering who Legend really is and I guessed it like 15% into the book. It’s not that hard to guess. So that took away from the wow/mysterious factor of the book. The romance was just so meh. I think the main issue with the romance was the MC, Tella. She was just predictable and dull, so that affected the romance. She also has 0 willpower. She would keep trying to be strong and saying ‘no I can’t fall for….’ and then turn into a lovesick teenager whenever they entered the room. It was monotonous and irritating. Tella was also just annoying, she was a bit better than Scarlett in Caraval but not much. So yeah I wasn’t impressed with this book.
Read 7 books
So I had to read 3 extra books to make up the 7.
This was the book that was originally meant for the hat challenge but I stopped caring.
Rating: 3.5 stars
This one I did do a full spoiler-free review on which you can find HERE!
Rating: 4.5 stars
At first, I wasn’t enjoying this book. It felt boring and predictable. Then it takes some very dark and messed up twists and turns and I ended up really enjoying it. I feel like this was done on purpose, it drags you into this false sense of security and then BAM murder and shit! The ending was not predictable AT ALL and definitely not dull in the slightest. Very entertaining read! If you are having trouble with it at the beginning, just wait, trust me.
This is a short middle grade fantasy that is pretty fun. It basically starts with at a certain age all kids go through this ceremony type thing to discover whether they will get a spirit animal. It has a similar vibe to Ice Wolves by Amie Kaufman, but in that one, they touch something and possibly turn into an animal whereas this one they drink something and possibility get a spirit animal, not turn into one.
This book is very short (only 224 pages) so it didn’t have a huge plot but it was enough to keep me interested and the world is intriguing, so I will definitely continue on in the series. This series has 7 books all by different authors (Brandon Mull, Maggie Stiefvater, Garth Nix, Shannon Hale, Tui T Sutherland, Eliot Schrefer & Marie Lu) and I think all following different characters maybe? I’m not 100% sure as I’ve only read the 1 and I prefer not to read Synopsis’s but each cover has different animals on it, except the last where they all seem to come together.
Have you read any of these books? Did you participate in BookTubeAThon? Let me know in the comments!
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