In today’s blog post I’m going to share with you my first quarterly recap for my ‘2021 Reading Challenge’, with the first three months of the year over I thought I would give you a little update on how its going, as well as share links to any book reviews I have shared.
Reading Challenge Recap #1
The start of the year didn’t start of to well, I think I was just feeling burn out from my huge reading challenge in 2020, so at the end of last year and into the start of January I wasn’t really feeling in the mood to read. I was in one of those moods where I wanted to read but also didn’t at the same time, ohh the struggle lol. I started off the year reading ‘Ink heart’ by Cornelia Funke, because I was dying to re-read her whole Ink heart trilogy but for some reason I was just struggling to get into it so I decided to put it down to pick up later on.
The ‘Jane Doe Chronicles’ by Jeremy Lachlan | Review
I ended up renewing my Library card around the same time just for something different and borrowed The ‘Jane Doe Chronicles’ by Jeremy Lachlan, which had been on my list of Australian Authors work to check out and I feel like that was what I needed to help break me out of my reading slump. I thoroughly enjoyed this series, it had some great characters and the world was so vast that you couldn’t possibly know what was going to come next. Its a great series and I can’t wait to see if Jeremy Lachlan brings out a third one because I’m so here for it.
Prompts I Ticked of For this Book:
| A book written by an Australian or local author. Jeremy Lachlan is from Sydney, New South Wales, he grew up in Griffith which is in Country, New South Wales. | √ |
| Something borrowed (it could be from a friend or a library.) I borrowed the ‘Jane Doe’ Chronicles from my local Library. | √ |
| Something fantasy. The ‘Jane Doe’ Chronicles are categorized as being in the Fantasy genre so I felt that it was appropriate to tick this category off as well. | √ |
‘Inkheart’ by Cornelia Funke
I did end up finishing ‘Inkheart’ after that but I didn’t end up continuing the series because while I love this series and definitely have a sentimental spot for it in my heart, I just struggled to get through it. I had still intended to do a review on it but I ended up deciding not to because I honestly didn’t know where to start and even though I don’t always want to just write more positive reviews, I felt that I just had to many mixed feeling that I didn’t know how to flesh that out for a review based on how I felt. I think that it had just been such a long time since I had read it and you know there are some books you can go back to time and time again and love them and then there are some that you love but maybe just don’t feel the same connection to after having not read them for years. I hope I’m making sense.
Anyway maybe it could also have been that I was dying to read some of the newer books in my collection, like ‘Help Self’ by Tanya Hennessy or ‘The Lunar Chronicles’ by Marissa Meyer.
Prompts I Ticked of For this Book:
| A Re-Read I first read this in Highschool I think. | √ |
| A Children’s Novel This book comes under Children’s Literature | √ |
| A Book That has been turned into a movie or tv series. Inkheart was turned it a movie in 2008 | √ |
| Something Fantasy Pretty self explanatory, its a book about characters coming out of books what’s more fantasy than that. | √ |
| A book written by a Female Author | √ |
‘Help Self’ by Tanya Hennessy | Review
After finishing ‘Inkheart’ I decided to pick up something that was a little bit easier to get through and that was ‘Help Self’ by Tanya Hennessy , I got this as a gift for Christmas (I will also be including it in my next book haul which is hopefully coming soon) and I really enjoyed reading it. It wasn’t a long book which I think was what I needed at that time, I loved the funny bits and the more personal bits. I thought it was just a great read.
Prompts I Ticked of For this Book:
| Something Non-Fiction | √ |
| A book written by an Australian or local author. Tanya Lives in New South Wales. | √ |
| A book that was gifted to you. I was given this book as a Christmas Gift. | √ |
| A book written by a female author. Tanya is an Australian Female Author and Content Creator. | √ |
| A book released in 2020. ‘Help Self’ was released in November, 2020. | √ |
| A new release or recent release (i.e., in the last 6-12 months.) ‘Help Self’ was released in November, 2020 and this post is going up in February 2021. | √ |
‘The Lunar Chronicles’ by Marissa Meyer | Review
After that I choose to get into ‘The Lunar Chronicles’ by Marissa Meyer, this had only been on my wish list for a few months and I managed to pick it up in the after Christmas sales, and I’m so glad I did because I was invested right from the first couple of chapters. This series was captivating, the ways she took inspiration for classic fairytales like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, etc and weaved it into a futuristic Sci-Fi retelling was just incredible, I genuinely loved it and can see myself rereading this series in the future. I think it has become one of my favourite series of all time, I loved it that much.
Prompts I Ticked of For this Book:
| A retelling (inspired by another story.) The Lunar Chronicles is inspired by four classic Fairytales Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White | √ |
| Something new to your collection. I purchased this in late December 2020 | √ |
| A Book told from more than one characters perspectives. The Lunar Chronicles tells the story from several character perspectives, including Cinder, Prince Kai, Scarlett, Thorn, Wolf, Cress, Winter,etc. | √ |
| A story set in another time (it could be either the future or the past.) The Lunar Chronicles is set in a far distant future. | √ |
| A bestseller. This series is a New York Times Bestseller | √ |
| A book written by a female author. | √ |
| Something Science fiction. This series comes under the Science Fiction genre. | √ |
| A book series. This series includes four books, Cinder, Scarlett, Cress and Winter. | √ |
Over-All Prompt Update:
Number of Prompts ticked off: 18
So far I have ticked off at least 18 Prompts with 5 or 6 being ticked of more than once. My goal was to tick off as many as possible by the end of the year and I allowed for each book or book series that I read to tick off multiple prompts, because this is supposed to be fun and if I had to choose a book for each prompt I feel like it might get a little to strict and I might get to a point where it may end up not being fun anymore . And no-one wants that. I’m also okay with ticking an already ticked on prompt more than once, if a book fits something that I have already ticked of that’s totally okay.
Currently I have just finished ‘Ready Player One’ by Ernest Cline ‘, which spoiler I loved but I will be sharing a full review soon and I’ll recap that one in the next quarterly recap. But until then I hope you enjoyed this recap blog post, let me know if you have read any of these books and what you thought of them? did you love them, not love them, let me know in the comments.
For the duration of my reading challenge their may be books that I read that I decide to just include in my recaps and not do a full review, I’ll just see how I go.
But Until next time, I hope you all have a lovely day.
Erin.
Disclaimer – This post is not sponsored and doesn’t contain any affiliate links, links included are for reference only in case your interest in checking out anything mentioned in this post. Read full Disclaimer here.
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