Attempting to read 14 books in 14 days.

I have gone through the reading slump of my life last month-- as in I didn't pick up a single book for the entire month of june. Because of that slump, it felt weird to write about what I'd read when I wasn't actively reading anything. Since the end of June, I've gotten a bit out of my reading slump, but I still don't feel my usual constant desire for people to leave me alone so that I can get back to my books. 

I also, finally have a couple months off of school. So, in the time I'm not working, I'm pretty much not doing anything right now. You may see where this is going. 

I will now attempt to vanquish-- once and for all-- my reading slump by finding a new favourite novel. In order to achieve this goal I will be reading 14 books over 14 days. Or trying to, at least. I have already made my list of what I'd like to read, but I am open to making all the changes my little mood-reader-heart desires over the course of the next two weeks. 

Going into it, I am a little intimidated by some of the books I've chosen, mostly due to their length. I am not the kind of reader where I can have several books on the go, so I'm going to try to start and finish at least one book each day, and potentially use my weekends to make up for any days I didn't do that. 

Day 1- July 19: King of Battle and Blood - Scarlett St. Clair

I low key hate Scarlett St. Clair after reading this book. I loved the "Hades x Persephone" trilogy that she wrote (which I read last year), I think, at least. I remember loving the series and giving it 5 stars on GoodReads, but all that i can remember about it now is that it's a Hades and Persephone retelling, and I keep getting it confused with Neon Gods by Katee Roberts. 

This book had nothing unique to add, and once I figured out how it was going to end (which I did with 150 pages of the 384-page novel left) I wanted to scream-- and not in the good way. The only saving grace for this one is ms. St Clair kills it when she writes our hero's dialogue. Truly, that was the only thing I loved about this book and half of the reason I didn't DNF this; the other half of the reasoning being that I had already read over 200 pages. 

[SPOILERS]:

This novel did nothing new and I kept having super weird senses of deja vu whilst I was reading.  The characters reminded me of a mix of all the worst parts of From Blood and Ash by JLA and Levenseller's The Shadows Between Us; our heroines dialogue, while his was excellent, hers was often clunky and felt awkward; and again, [SPOILERS] the alleged "plot twist" was that they were in love in her previous life, where she was a witch. Like seriously, you can't write anything better than he "begged" (the books words, not mine) for her? Get you a man that does more than beg and tell you nothing about him because she'll magically just remember everything about him and that she was already in love with him and that she will be again. Also, her oh-so-dearly-beloved father trying to kill her? Who could've seen that coming, certainly not be *noted sarcasm*

1/5. Only giving the one star for the love interest (whose name I already forget) and his swoon-worthy occasional lines. Will not be reading the next book, nor will I be recommending this to anyone I actually like. 

Day 2- July 20: Everything I Never Told You and friends

Day 2 brought my first hurdle. I had planned to read Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You, which I got barely 50 pages into then wanted to DNF. So, I decided after wasting my time on the first 50 pages to give up, rather than try and keep reading another 200+ pages. So I decided to switch to one of my other picks, preferably, I'd use some of the credits I'd neglected for the past couple of months, and find a good quick romance to listen to on a dog walk this evening. 

Scrolling through my audible catalogue, I stumbled across a romance I'd been meaning to read for ever-- Sierra Simone's Priest. So I downloaded that and went to go on a walk and listen to my book. 

I hated most things about this book. Actually 99% of it. I mostly only continued it because I was so close to finishing it. I didn't like either love interest, there was no plot and most of the sex scenes annoyed me. Someone needs to explain to Simone that saying a character is super smart, doesn't make it true. Also, the like 2 chapters from her POV felt weird and almost an interruption. I love (most of the time) reading the hero's POV. However, in Priest it feels so clear that this point of view is just the case to 1) avoid developing her character and 2) make what he's doing seem okay. However, since we're in his POV we know that despite him repeatedly saying that he loves her after a month, there's nothing for him to love about her other than their weird sex. 

I also don't care for his weird moral discussions about this alleged "love"; I think, ironically, he says it best when he briefly says that their relationship is a "sin" but asking who its hurting. It not only highlights the hypocrisy of the church this character is trying so hard to protect, but also shows how little ability he (although she's not better) has to think critically or independently. Also he says that he's "cheating on her with the church" which makes me physically nauseous. 

Although I listened to the audiobook, GoodReads says that it is also a 354 page book, AKA far too long. This as a novella would've been fine, but as a novel is far too long. Also Sterling Haverford the Third can fuck off and all. 

As for the sex, my man's straight up put his penis in her and left it there. Didn't move, nothing. Just inserted, like a tampon. He also genuinely penetrated her when she was asleep. Like what? It wasn't attractive or intriguing. 

Also, why can't they have an actual conversation instead of having sex? This book would be 20 pages if they could. 

I got through like 90% of the book on my walk this day, and had about an hour left in the book for the next day. 

Day 3- July 21: 

Today, I finished the last part of Priest, I ended up rating it a 1 out of 5 stars. I truly think this should've been a purely erotica novella and I still propably wouldn't have liked it, but it would've been better. 

Although I didn't enjoy Simone's novel, I did really enjoy the audiobook experience, which I usually don't. Something about physically reading right now is just not clicking with my brain and it's making me feel so exhausted. But audiobook-ing is really helping that, so I decided to try another audiobook.

The other audiobook I bought with my audible credits was Mariana Zapata's Under Locke, so I started that today. I didn't get very far in, since I started it at work, but I'll continue working my way through the novel, especially because I know how much of a trek Zapata's books can be. 

So, I decided to try another physical book. Namely, I thought some YA that I used to love would be very helpful, so I grabbed my old copy of good ol' Cassie Clare's City of Bones. 

Day 4- July 22: 

So I didn't finish City of Bones, but I did listen to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Although I am loving audiobooks right now (something I never would've guessed) listening to Shakespeare as opposed to reading it is kind of a weird experience; one that I'm not entirely sure I enjoy. I do love watching Shakespeare plays, but just listening feels like it's missing something. It also may just be something about this specific play or performance. Although, it was kind of nice to be able to finish an entire play over the span of a couple hours.

Day 5- July 23: NA

Day 6- July 24: NA

Day 7- July 25: 

Over the weekend I read 1 book, Cassie Clare's City of Bones, which still slaps as much as I remember, although it did have a couple of weird bits. Still got a 4 star rating from me though. 

 I was pretty busy this weekend and honestly, was starting to feel a bit of burn out-- especially after having read no really good books after getting so far into this challenge.  

After I finished this one, I started Of Mice and Men in an attempt to catch up to the 3 books I'm behind in. I read the first half, which I'm hoping to finish tomorrow, along with a book I recently picked up from the library, This Woven Kingdom. 

Day 8- July 26: 

Today, I finished Of Mice and Men. It was okay, it kind of feels like I've started a trend of reading sexist classics this week, between this and The Taming of the Shrew. It was fine, it has a lot of stuff that To Kill a Mockingbird has (namely, the racial aspects), but just in a worse structure with a worse plot. And no character development. I originally gave it a three stars on GR, but looking back I may bring it down to two stars. 

Day 9- July 27:

Today I read Love Her Wild, a poetry collection by Atticus, then I started Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado. I really liked this poetry collection, which I rarely say, but I think it might be because it feels so much like Instagram poetry, as Atticus is an Instagram poet. But I don't think of that as a bad thing, especially considering how much I liked this one. 

As for Her Body and Other Parties, I got about half way through before I had to stop. I really liked the first couple of short stories in this collection, but there were a couple I really didn't like, namely the SVU one. 

Day 10- July 28: 

I finally read Sally Rooney today-- and I get the hype. I really wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did, and while I dont think I'd consider it a new favourite, I did enjoy it. I listened to the audiobook as I layed out in the sun, snacking on pineapples, and getting way more burned than I thought I was. 

I think Rooney did a really good job of writing the characters and their relationships in this novel. I never found the characters to be annoying or acting stupidly, which I feel like I very easily could've had their characters been a little different, but I actually found them really compelling. I frequently felt like screaming "oh my god you're in love with each other just be together, you idiots", which is a good thing-- for a book to get that much of a response from me, that is, not that the characters were idiots. 

Overall, I gave it a 4/5 stars on GoodReads. But my day wasn't done there because I read three books this day. 

First, Beautiful World, Where Are You. Then, I was inspired by the previous days foray into poetry that I decided to read Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey, which I also thoroughly enjoyed and ended up taking several notes on. I also rated it a 4/5 stars. 

Lastly, I decided to try a more "traditional" authors poetry and I read Margaret Atwood's Dearly. Now, I know as a female, Canadian book-nerd, I should be obsessed with Atwood; but I'm just not. I think she's fine, and I have read Handmaid's Tale, which I thought was interesting, but had nothing about it that I really loved. And I feel similarly about her poetry. 

I liked that the first one was about a cat, but I'm usually down for cats. Other than that I struggle to find anything I really liked about this one. This was my lowest rated of the day. 2/5 stars. 

Day 11-July 29:

Today I read 2 more poetry collections-- The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems and Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass by Lana Del Rey. Of the two, I thought I'd prefer Del Rey's collection, since I like her music, but I ended up preferring Neruda's collection. Although I listened to both as audiobooks and didn't find either particularly notable, so much so I had to go back into my GoodReads to figure out what I read this day because I completely forgot about both of these. Both got a 3-star rating from me at the time, but I might go back and lower Del Rey's rating to a two-stars. 

However, by the end of this day I had officially caught up to how many books I'd wanted to read up to that point. 

Which I quickly ruined again.

Day 12- July 30: NA

Day 13- July 31: NA

Day 14- August 1: NA

I ended up reading 11 of the 14 books I set out to in the course of my two weeks. I think what I found was that I end up not reading as much on weekends as I do during the week, and getting into poetry and audiobooks really saved me in these trying times. 

In terms of my goal of finding a new favourite book, I didn't especially adore any of these, but I did really like Rupi Kaur's collection Milk and Honey and Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where are you. Both of these authors I'll be reading again.