2013 Challenges and General Wrap-up

Hey guys, I'm sorry I've been MIA the past week! First I had to hand in an essay and another paper by the end of 2013, and then I just felt more like lazing around, reading, and re-watching the entire first season of Vampire Diaries with my sister (whom I got hooked). And I also started playing Alice: Madness Returns again after almost two years... I'm so out of shape, but at least it runs properly on this computer. Currently, the Eyepot is either stabbing me to death or scalding me with hot tea. I wish I could beat it like this person.

Anyway, I'm back now and after this wrap-up I'll tell you about the challenges I plan to enter in 2014, some bloggish resolutions, and I'll also do a swag giveaway soon! So stay posted ;)


Apart from the Goodreads Reading Challenge, which I upgraded from 100 to 120 to 150 books and finally completed with 160 (whoohoo!), I entered three other challenges. I completed them all. BUT, and it's a big but... I may have read those book, but my read to reviewed ratio is abysmal. It's so terrible that I'm not even going to bother check it.


2013 TBR Pile Challenge
This one was all about reading books that had been published in 2012 or earlier. I just had a look at my goodreads shelves again to see if I've got everything properly labeled, and I can now say that I've read 75 books that fit this category.
I kind of stopped upgrading the challenge page of the blog in mid-July and I'm sorry for that :( But at first, I'd planned to read 21-30 books, and in July I upgraded that goal to 50. So either way, I've succeeded my expectations, though I still haven't read some books that were on my original list, like Exiled by M.R. Merrick, Velveteen by Daniel Marks or Hourglass by Myra McEntire. Even though I actually own Exiled and Hourglass. Anyway, I'm updating the challenge list now so you can find an overview of all the books there (see top of the page) if you're interested.
There really were a couple amazing books and series I discovered over the course of this challenge! My top three were actually series I thought I'd never read, but then my bloggish friends kept bugging me until I did anyway:
The Divergent trilogy, the Mara Dyer books, and the Shatter Me trilogy. All of them were fantastic and deserve the hype! I'm now pining for Ignite Me and The Retribution of Mara Dyer.
You can find the official wrap-up of this challenge on Bookish here.

2013 Sequel Challenge
I'd challenged myself to read 20 sequels in this challenge hosted by Auntie Spinelli/Novel Heartbeat and eventually read 43! That's amost every 4th book I read. Some of those were novellas though, but I only counted the sequel ones and not the prequel ones. Anyway, a lot of amazing sequels came out this year so this wasn't very difficult. Again, it would just take way too long to link up all the books here or post the covers, but I'll update the challenge page and you can find the list there.

2013 New Adult Reading Challenge
Sometimes I was a little unclear on the category here. Some books are obviously NA, but I've read others, like the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning, where the heroine is 22 or 23, so NA-range, but the writing is more like a regular adult book. Anyhow, I wanted to read 10 NA books and ended up reading 20. So I should be fine even if some of them don't count. Again, you can find the complete list on the challenge page.
Some of my faves: Easy by Tammara Webber, For Real by Chelsea Cameron, Rule by Jay Crownover, The Sea of Tranquility, by Katja Millay, The Devil's Metal by Karina Halle (cool if you like something set in the 1970s with some horror thrown in), Losing It by Cora Carmack and Just One Day by Gayle Forman.


On the whole, I had a good bookish 2013. I read more books than in 2012 and I discovered many amazing ones. However, personally, it wasn't my year. That's also one reason for the lack of reviews. I lacked motivation, fell back into bad habits, lost interest in many things, lost contact with people, basically stopped being on twitter sometime in April or so, and was generally withdrawn and often unhappy. The first half of 2014 will be tough because I have to write my MA thesis, but the rest has the potential to be amazing and I'm determined to make the best of it!

Armchair BEA: YA Lit and wrap up

I really enjoyed Armchair BEA, but I didn't manage to get a themed post up every day. Sometimes I felt daunted or lazy, but I do feel bad about not posting yesterday so I want to talk about that topic now and then wrap things up.

The first topic of yesterday was 'keeping it real', and to be honest I'm not quite sure what that's supposed to mean. It's about growing an audience and keeping blogging fun.
I'm not sure I'm really doing that much in terms of marketing my blog. I'm doing this for the books and because I enjoy interacting with other bloggers and authors. Of course the ARCs are a plus, but they also put quite a bit of stress on me. The audience growing kind of happened 'naturally' over time, through participating in memes and, I admit, giveaways, though I didn't actually participate in all that many hops. But after my first one I suddenly had over 200 GFC followers, which kind of creeped me out because I felt like I had to step up my game or I'd embarrass myself in front of 200 potential readers.

I feel like content-wise, I'm currently stagnating a bit. I started having discussion posts, which is something I really enjoy, but I really want to get more reviews up and I'm struggling with that. I want to branch out and be more interactive, but it just takes so much time, time that I could spend with friends or writing my own stories or watching movies or reading my huge pile of books. I feel like I'm just sort of stumbling along at the moment and I need to find a way to catch up with things and be more active on twitter again.
So yeah, ramble end. I hope people enjoy what reviews I manage to put up and won't abandon me when my introvert tendencies show ^^'' I promise that for my blogoversary in 2 weeks, I'll put together something cool!


The second topic I wanted to get to was Children's and YA literature. I can't say much about children's lit because I don't read anything below YA at this point, but YA really is close to my heart. I'm a little above the intended age group at 24, but I see no point to be ashamed of reading what I read, and besides, lots of adults do (it's still weird to think of myself as an adult). I hear a lot of people saying they do it because there wasn't much of a YA market back when they were in their teens, but that's not true for me. Maybe it's a German vs. English/American thing, but there were plenty of great books, both fantasy and contemporary, around for me to read when I grew up. I read adult books too though, mostly borrowed from my mum.

I had a phase when I read a lot of adult fantasy /UF/paranormal, but I can't quite pinpoint when I went back into the this 'new' wave of YA fantasy. It had something to do with when I went from reading German books to reading only English ones, but I can't say which book triggered it. I think it was before Twilight. One reason why I enjoy YA so much is that in adult lit, there aren't all that many topics that interest me unless it's a fantasy book. It's all about careers and getting a guy and marrying and babies whatnot, unless it's a crime novel and those bore me. I don't care about the problems of 30-something people. I hope that once I reach that age, I will have different problems, a different life.

YA is just... fresher. It's more familiar. I remember what it was like to be a teen. There are a lot of great voices, and voice is the aspect of a novel I probably enjoy most. It makes the book feel alive. YA is open to so many different issues and genres (I see MG, YA, NA and adult as categories rather than genres). There are books about social problems (poverty, addiction, illness), there is fantasy/paranormal, there is self-discovery, figuring out who you are and what you want, figuring out relationships. Things are moving, happening. I feel like as an adult, I have started to stagnate (one of my biggest fears as a teen) and reading YA makes me want to shake myself up and be more active (Divergent almost made me run out and do something reckless or get another tattoo. I  was so close!).

In this post, we're supposed to list books that we think below on every kid's shelves or otherwise give recommendations, but to be honest I don't feel comfortable telling people what they're supposed to read. That I enjoyed it is no guarantee someone else will. Also, I could list way too many books.
So instead, here's a grid with some of the books I rated 5 stars on goodreads:

Carmen's bookshelf: read

Carmen's favorite books »

So, to wrap things up...
Unfortunately for me, this weeks was so busy that I didn't have as much time to interact with other bloggers as I would have liked, but one of my highlights was meeting another Swiss blogger, Lexxie from (Un)conventional Book Views. I also enjoyed the discussion on Classics, and reading about other bloggers' experiences about blog ethics. Since I was mostly absent from twitter though, I think I missed quite a lot of the action of what was actually going on on the real-life BEA convention, as well as a bunch of awesome giveaways *sigh* Anyhow, I don't regret taking part in Armchair BEA, since it raised a lot of fundamental blogging questions for me that sort of get swept under the carpet in the day-to-day mechanics of keeping up.

Your turn! What do you do to keep blogging real and fun? What's your take on YA literature? Do you have highlights from the week to share, or was there a post of mine that you liked in particular (or one that you thought was a waste of web-paper)?

Reading Challenges Wrap-up for April

So, another month passed! Time really does fly. This is my last month at my own place, after that it's back to my parents from the way it looks because I just can't find a new one. Or well, I find them all right but so do 50+ others and someone else always gets the apartment. Sigh.

Anyhow! Let's go on to the books of April. I read quite a lot to take my mind off things so I made a dent in my reading piles :)

Here's what I read for the challenge until the end of April:

• Girl of Nightmares, by Kendare Blake
• Impossible, by Komal Kant
• One Grave At A Time, by Jeaniene Frost
• Wither, by Lauren DeStefano

That means I'm now at 25 books! My original goal was 21-30, so I've upraded it to the next level which is 31-40 :)

• Girl of Nightmares, by Kendare Blake
• With All My Soul, by Rachel Vincent
• One Grave At A Time, by Jeaniene Frost
• The Eternity Cure, by Julie Kagawa

Yeah, quite a lot of doubles. But hey, at least I actually reviewed 2 of them! I read a lot of newly released/netgalley books this month so the stack isn't that high on both of these challenges.

• Impossible, by Komal Kant
• Darkness of Light, by Stacey Marie Brown

Both sort of straddle mature YA with NA, but they have NA themes and more mature sexual parts going on, so I guess they count? The girls are 18, the guys slighly older. To be honest I was partly annoyed with Impossible and wrote some mini-thoughts on goodreads but eventually ended up not reviewing it for time reasons. My review for Darkness of Light will be up as part of the tour on May 10. I REALLY need to buckle down on this challenge! I have SO many unread NA books!

So that's it for this April... could have gone better, could have gone worse I guess. Are you guys participating in any challenges? How are you holding up?

Belated March challenge wrap-up with a picture of my favorite shelf

Hey guys! I'm a little late because I missed the wrap-up post for my main challenge when it went up... oops. Anyhow, I did fairly well with the reading but not the reviews. Again. I'm in a total review slump and since I'm reading like a madwoman the books I should review keep piling up, which is demotivating. Anyway, here's what I've read for each of my challenges:

• The Iron Knight, by Julie Kagawa Finished March 2.
• If I Stay, by Gayle Forman  Read March 5-6.
• Where She Went, by Gayle Forman Read March 7
• Stray, by Rachel Vincent Finished on March 10.
• Rogue, by Rachel Vincent Read March 10-13. 
• Rapture, by Phillip W. Simpson Finished March 20.

6 books is not too bad I guess. My overall is now at 21, and I pledged to read 21-30. I'll have to upgrade...

This month's wrap-up link & giveaway is at Justin's Book Blog and his  mini-challenge for this month is to take a picture of our favorite book shelf. Not the whole big thing but just one single shelf. It was a tough call but I went with the shelf that holds most of my hardcovers :)

 

Yup you can sort of see the shelf below, but that's not a lot of cheating and I don't want to fuss with the picture right now. I love my Edgar Allan Poe collection and my Laini Taylor books :)

• The Iron Knight, by Julie Kagawa (February 24 - March 2)
• Where She Went, by Gayle Forman (March 7)
• Rogue, by Rachel Vincent (March 10-13)
• The Stone Demon, by Karen Mahoney (March 21-22)
• Clockwork Princess, by Cassandra Clare (March 29-31)

Again, quite a bunch but no review. I only reviewed what I had to, AKA ARCs. I hope I can get up my Stone Demon review on Thursday though. Heads-up: go buy it now, it's fantastic!

• Where She Went, by Gayle Forman (Read March 7)
• Just One Day, by Gayle Forman (Read March 2-4)

Not a lot, but better than last month. And I'm reading another right now. I REALLY wanted to review both books, but life happened. I remember them well though and might post a review later on. Just One Day is by far the best book I've read so far that would fall in the NA category.


Overall I'd say this is as much a post of accomplishment as it is one of shame. I made progress on all my challenges, but posted only one review that qualifies for one. Boo me. How did you guys do in your challenges, if you're participating in any?

February Warp-Up: Reading Challenges (TBR-Pile, Sequels, NA)

Yup, this post is all about the challenges... and while I am overall happy with my reading, I am not as happy with my reviewing. I read tons, but I never get around to writing those darn reviews!!! To my defense, it was a very busy month at university (major deadline on Feb 15) and privately with my writing (TWO deadlines today). I even had to go on hiatus for a week.

Total books read: 9 novels, 1 novella, 2 comic books (Scott Pilgrim, yay!). It would be more but I got nothing done this week >.< Probably gonna finish one tonight and one over the weekend. In the Goodreads challenge, I've read 22 of 100, which means I'm 6 books ahead.

Reviews posted:
Masquerade, by Melissa de la Cruz
The Breakaway & Pieces, by Michelle Davidson Argyle (blog tour)
Dance of Shadows, by Yelena Black




Now on to the challenges...  

This challenge is co-hosted by several bloggers, this month's wrap-up takes place at Rachel from Fiktshun :) Just click the link to head to the post.

What I read this month:
Embrace, by Jessica Shirvington Read January 30-February 1. 
The Pledge, by Kimberly Derting Read February 7-10.
Awake At Dawn, by C.C. Hunter Read February 12-13.
Masquerade, by Melissa de la Cruz Read February 18-20. 
Pretty in Black, by Rae Hachton Finished February 23.
Opal, by Jennifer L. Armentrout Read February 20-23.

That means I have already read 15 of the 20-30 books I aimed for!! I guess I'll have to upgrade ;)
 What I regret is that Masquerade is the only one I managed to review so far :( Click to read it.

The wrap-up for the Sequel Challenge takes place at Auntie Spinelli Reads here.

After only reading one sequel in January, I did much better this month! My goal for the year is 20 books, and I've now read a total of 4. Not bad.

Here they are:
Awake At Dawn, by C.C. Hunter (February 12-13)
The Indigo Spell, by Richelle Mead (February 15-17)
Masquerade, by Melissa de la Cruz (February 18-20)

Again, I only managed to review Masquerade *sigh* You can find the link above. I really have to get better at writing reviews immediately!

 Total fail this month. ZERO. And that even though I own sooooo many on my kindle!!! :( I just never get to them because I use the kindle for my Netgalley books, and I only read one ebook and one print book simultaneously. I plan to read at least 2 or 3 in March though!!


How did you guys fare with your reading / reviewing / challenges this month? And book that I've read you want me to review in particular? Also feel free to link me to your own wrap-up post if you have one :)

2013 TBR Pile Reading Challenge: January wrap-up

Hey guys :)
I challenged myself to read 21-30 books published in 2012 or earlier this year, and so far it's going well! I've read 7 books that fit into that category, though to my shame I've only reviewed 2 of them so far. I can just breeze through a book but it takes me forever to write a review :/ I must get better at reviewing them right away!
Head over to Evie from Bookish for the offical wrap-up post and a giveaway!


What I've read so far:

• Divergent & Insurgent by Veronica Roth. I really want to review them because they are sooooo amazing!
• Falling to Ash, by Karen Mahoney. Also awesome. Must review!
• The Replacement, by Brenna Yovanoff. This one has a firm place among my favorite novels ever now. I put tons of sticky notes into the best parts, and I just can't express how much I loved it.
• Rule, by Jay Crownover. Just finished it today and it was a really pleasant surprise! I want to review that one too.

What I did review:

• Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas
• Indigo Awakening, by Jordan Dane

So yeah basically I can already see that I'll probably read more like 50 books published in 2012 or earlier by the end of the year... but we'll see how it goes, and how I'll be tempted by all those new releases ;)

Are you participating in the challenge? How is it going for you so far?