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In August, I completed 3 books. Not as good as I had hoped. None of them have a review as of this posting.
The Book Breakdown (how the book counted):
- Eye of the Storm (Dee Davis) – Countdown, What’s in a Name 2 (body part)
- Skykeepers (Jessica Andersen) – Chunkster, Pub 2009, Countdown
- The Wallflower (Jan Freed) –2nds
All books count toward the Year of the Reader Challenge
Here’s the status of my backlog. I did better with this:
The backlogged reviews posted:
What’s still pending:
- Eye of the Storm
- Skykeepers
- The Wallflower
- Once Bitten, Twice Shy
I completed one challenge this month, and it wasn’t the one I was expecting. I thought I would finish the New Author challenge first, but Skykeepers came in and I decided to complete the Chunksters challenge instead. I suppose I could have read a new author after I finished it, but I didn’t and I can’t remember why I chose not to read a new author. Once I get the review done, I’ll do a wrap-up post.
Though I officially abandoned the Year of the Category and the Contemporary Romance challenges, I went ahead and counted The Contestant toward both since I posted the review during the regularly scheduled time frame for posting.
I joined one new challenge this month: The Random Reading challenge. The first book I plan to select randomly will be the last book for the Romance Reading challenge. I haven’t had any luck picking a non-category historical romance to fit the last slot.
Which brings me to something I haven’t been mentioning in my monthly updates this year: DNFs. I don’t do reviews, since I usually abandon them somewhere between pages 50 and 100 — unless the book doesn’t click with me sooner. Not only was I not mentioning them, I also wasn’t keeping track of them either. Some were listed in my journal; others, I had to use Paperbackswap to help me out. Listed below, in no special order, are all the books (I think) that were DNF for me as of the end of August:
- The Rome Affair (Caldwell, L.)
- Red Fire (Knight, D.)
- Razor Girl (Mancusi, M.)
- Any Given Doomsday (Handeland, L.)
- The Scent of Shadows (Pettersson, V.)
- Unshapely Things (del Franco, M.)
- Dog Days (Levitt, J.)
- Heat Stroke (Caine, R.)
- Megan’s Mark (Leigh, L.)
- Death at Whitechapel (Paige, R.)
- The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie (Ashley, J.)
- My Lord and Spymaster (Bourne, J.)
Yeah. An even dozen.
I have to finally face reality and accept the fact that I will NOT be able to reach 60 books by the end of the year. Four months left and I started my 30th just days ago. To make up for that depressing piece of reality, I’ve decided to make my new goal 45 books and increase the amount money, per book, that I will donate to First Book. Originally, I stated $2.00 per book, now it will be $3.00. Further incentive to read more: I’ve decided that any book read past #45 (basically, #46 and greater), I will donate $5.00 per book. I may even come up with a way to count DNFs and short stories — if I don’t read the whole anthology at once (the mammoth book of whatever, for example). In fact, I know I will count them, just don’t know details yet. Need to think about it some more.
Challenges Completed this month:
Chunkster: 3/3
Challenges I plan to complete:
Anne Stuart Read-a-Fest: 1/??
A Year of Readers: $58.00 $87.00 (29 books) — NEW AMOUNT $3.00 per book!!
Harlequin/Silhouette Romance: 3/5
Harry Potter: 0/7
New Author Challenge: 11/12
Pub 2009: 6/9
Random Reading: 0/12 — NEW!!
Romance Reading: 4/5
Summer Vacation: 1/6 3 (Switching to Beach Bum)
What’s in a Name 2: 5/6
Challenges I don’t think I will complete, but I’m not officially abandoning. Yet:
1st in Series: 5/12
2nds Challenge: 7/12
A-Z Challenge (Authors): 14/26
Countdown: 27/45
Officially Abandoned:
Contemporary Romance: 3/12
Read and Review
Series Challenge Season 3: 0/??
Third Times A Charm: 0/3
Year of the Category: 5/12
~~ & ~~
Perpetual Challenges
Georgette Heyer: 1
Total (Month): 3
Grand Total (Year): 29