Welcome to Day 24 of the Advent Readathon and Christmas Eve. I hope you have enjoyed your time in the Advent Readathon and this festive season. The time has gone so fast. Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The Challenge for today is:
Wrap Up your experience though the Advent Readathon.
Keep Calm and Read On,
Kati
We’re almost to Christmas and this holiday season has been so busy. The end of the year is a time to reflect on the year past – the ups and the downs.
Today’s challenge is to discuss your favourite and most disappointing read of 2018 so far.
Keep Calm and Read On,
Kati
It is one week until Christmas and today’s challenge is to discuss your favourite part of Christmas Day. Is it unwrapping the presents, the food, the family, or curling up with your brand new book?
Keep Calm and Read On,
Kati
It’s day 15 of the Advent Readathon and I hope everyone is getting some great reading in before the end of the year.
Today’s challenge is to do with book formats. There seems to be so many different ways to read a book these days; physical, audiobook, e-book.
I am a fan of all three and generally have at least one of each going at a time. The challenge today is to answer a question:
If you had to choose a single book format to read for the rest of your life which would it be and why?
Keep Calm and Read On,
Kati
We are now half way through the Advent Readathon and I hope everyone who is participating is having an amazing time and really enjoying all the books they are reading.
The challenge for today is Six Degrees of Separation with a twist. The idea is to link two completely different books through six degrees of separation.
BLURB:
Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
BLURB:
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
CONNECTION:
Both The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian and The Hate U Give feature protagonist who are going to mainstream school where they are a cultural minority.
BLURB:
When Marvin Johnson’s twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid.
The next day, Tyler has gone missing, and it’s up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels and mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean.
CONNECTION:
Both The Hate U Give and Tyler Johnson Was Here feature the aftermath of a fatal police shooting and police brutality.
BLURB:
Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
CONNECTION:
Both The Hate U Give and Tyler Johnson Was Here discuss race and the impact of cultural differences on a society.
BLURB:
In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad’s dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph’s reign of terror once and for all.
Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she’d imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It’s an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid’s life as retribution for the many lives he’s stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?
CONNECTION:
Both The Help and The Wrath and the Dawn feature strong female protagonists not afraid to stand up for their beliefs.
BLURB:
At sixteen, Mina’s mother is dead, her magician father is vicious, and her silent heart has never beat with love for anyone—has never beat at all, in fact, but she’d always thought that fact normal. She never guessed that her father cut out her heart and replaced it with one of glass. When she moves to Whitespring Castle and sees its king for the first time, Mina forms a plan: win the king’s heart with her beauty, become queen, and finally know love. The only catch is that she’ll have to become a stepmother.
Fifteen-year-old Lynet looks just like her late mother, and one day she discovers why: a magician created her out of snow in the dead queen’s image, at her father’s order. But despite being the dead queen made flesh, Lynet would rather be like her fierce and regal stepmother, Mina. She gets her wish when her father makes Lynet queen of the southern territories, displacing Mina. Now Mina is starting to look at Lynet with something like hatred, and Lynet must decide what to do—and who to be—to win back the only mother she’s ever known…or else defeat her once and for all.
CONNECTION:
Both The Wrath and the Dawn and Girls Made of Snow and Glass are retellings with strong female characters.
There you go… I’ve tried to create a connection between these books while selecting a broad range of diverse books.
Keep Calm and Read On,
Kati
Today is Day 9 of the Advent Readathon and I am having so much fun and hope you are too. Today’s challenge is a blog one and is inspired by Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy. I have recently finished the book and watched the Netflix movie today. I cannot recommend this enough – both the book and the movie. I adored them both.
The challenge for today is to recommend a book that you feel would be amazing as a Netflix movie.
Fangirl is a book with so many elements that I feel would play well into the visual format. We have the complexities of starting college and the bonds of sisterhood which are stretched within this novel. There is a beautiful and nerdy – sweet romance that seriously melts the heart. To top it off the fanfic of Carry On would be amazing to see on screen.
Honestly, I would love to see Cath and Levi on the screen soon and think a lot of people would as well.
Keep Calm and Read On,
Kati
It is Day 6 of the Advent Readathon and I hope you are having a tonne of fun. Today’s challenge is a Blog Challenge. The challenge is to present a short fan fiction story with a holiday theme featuring characters from multiple books.
The party was in full swing and everyone was having so much fun. The moon was full and the warlocks at the party were keeping the air abuzz with just enough magic that everyone was just slightly tipsy.
Magnus shared a grin with a fellow warlock as one particularly tipsy fairy went spinning past, her clothes slightly askew with a mad grin on her face. Another girl walked a short distance behind her keeping the girl in her line of sight, designated driver?
Suddenly, there was a large crash coming from the refreshments table. Magnus spun around in time to see Jace Wayland throwing a vampire across the room. Jace sprung again with his seraph in hand.
“Uh, uh…” with a wave of his hand Magnus stopped Jace in midair and sent him stumbling backwards.
“What the heck Magnus” Jace was now focused solely on Magnus and advancing fast. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“The High Warlock of Brooklyn, and you would be wise to remember whose house you are in Shadowhunter.” Magnus flicked his hair out of his face and sent a glare in Jace’s direction.
Right then the vampire jumped up. Only it wasn’t a vampire… though the pale tone of the girls skin meant she was sure masquerading as one.
“You interrupted my mark you imbecile.” She advanced on Jace with a knife she had drawn from her boot.
Magnus rolled his eyes and held out a hand, “woman, would you put down the knife?”
“The name is Mia.” The girl growled. Magnus saw a shadow in the corner of his eye. A cat was skulking around Mia’s legs. Now Magnus had seen everything.
“Alright now. We can settle this without getting blood all over my rug, it is a bitch to clean.”
Just then the tipsy fairy girl from earlier stumbled into Mia. She spilled her drink over Mia and knocked both of them to the ground.
“Geez Fayre… I take my eyes off you for one second”. The other girl appeared and helped Feyre off the ground.
“It isn’t my fault” Fayre slurred “this damn warlock magic is going to my head. Can we just get out of here Jude?”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I just had to see Oak but he is fine. I need to get back and make sure Cardan hasn’t set anything on fire.”
Jace snorted a laugh and all the attention shifted back to him.
“What” Jude snarled. “I know all about you, don’t think you could be left alone for one minute without something going awry Mr. Perfect Shadowhunter”.
“Hold up”. Magnus groaned. “I will not have violence at any of my super amazing parties. You’ll all need to take it outside.”
“I was just leaving,” Mia had gotten herself off of the floor. “But watch out Shadowhunter, you’ve made it onto my list.” As quick as that she was gone.
“What the…” Jude said. “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.” Jace said pocketing his seraph. “But I can’t say I’m sad to see her go.”
The two girl in the background slipped away quietly.
“Well,” Jace said “You never throw a boring party Magnus.”
“Merry freaking Christmas!” Magnus just smiled as he looked out at the party still raging around him.
*This story has nothing at all to do with any of the original texts, except the basic character concepts I played off of.*
CHARACTER BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Feyre – A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Jace Wayland – City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Jude – The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Magnus Bane – City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Mia Corvere – Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
Keep Calm and Read On,
Kati
Hello everyone, I hope you’re having a great December and if you’re joining in on the Advent Readathon I hope you’re having a great time. I am on my second book for this readathon and so far it has been great. Today is day 3 and the challenge for today is a Blog Challenge.
The challenge is Holiday Recommendation. The idea is that you have to recommend a non holiday themed book as a holiday book. Get as creative as you want.
Here is my example:
A tale of trials and tribulations as one girl must survive in a court of cruelty to find her love and protect her family. A book that is sure to warm your heart and spark your emotions this holiday season.
Now, I know some people don’t have blogs and that is fine. If you still want to enter this (it is all for fun guys) you could do a Twitter post or an Instagram photo if you like. Just remember to use the hashtag for the readathon #adventreadathon and leave your post in the comments of this post.
Keep Calm and Read On,
Kati
To Be Read 