On Thursday, I was hit by a sudden blast from the past and had a desire to do a weekend readathon. I talked about what books and why here, and it’s been a really long time since I last did one of these! It would probably have made more sense to do this next weekend when, you know, Memorial Day is here, so I have Monday off from work. But I was going to have big plans going into this weekend no matter what, in terms of reading, so I thought it’d be fun to make a challenge out of it. My goal is to read three books in their entirety, get most of the way through two, and possibly start a sixth? That’s definitely a reach, but we’ll see what happens!

Friday

Originally, I was meant to be climbing Thursday evening, so I was only going to be able to finish up my current read and then head to bed, so there was no way I could have cheated and started one of these a day early. The saddest circumstances meant that I didn’t actually end up climbing–their system accidentally allowed twenty extra people to sign up; I’m so excited that the capacity limits are dropping and we can just climb right after work soon!–but I knew that I needed to rewatch To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before before I started P.S. I Love You, so instead of cracking open ROW like I was considering, I did that after I finished my current read. It was–not great, honestly. I didn’t really love the book, but I had fond memories of the movie until I was watching it again, and then my enjoyment of the book pretty much matched by enjoyment of the movie. I’m still going to continue on with both and finish out the series, but I’m a little wary now that I’m going to like it less and less.

I am not set to start that today, though, as I’ve got volume four of Heartstopper and A Sprinkle of Spirits in my bag. We get lunch out at work every Friday, so I don’t generally read at work, but if I have a spare second, I’ll probably crack open the middle grade. I like to read graphic novels in one sitting, and I’m anticipating at least two hours for volume four, so that’ll probably wait until tonight.

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MY BRAIN

JUST SAID

“YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE FUN?

IF YOU ADDED A SEVENTH BOOK TO YOUR READATHON?”

And now This Winter is hanging out on my bed with the other five books I’ve got left to read, LIKE??? I literally can’t with myself. I should have realized this was going to happen the moment I finished the fourth volume of Heartstopper, WHICH NEARLY MADE ME CRY, BY THE WAY, because I’ve had a stack of Oseman books next to my bed for a few weeks now, and what with reading another volume every few days, they’re just haunting me, and I cannot fathom not continuing on with my Oseman read right now. I’ve never read anything outside of Heartstopper, but I bought everything, and I put them in something of a chronological order, and now I’m just like SHALL WE READ MORE THIS WEEKEND?

Who the heck knows, but! What I do know is that the fourth volume ruined me, and I loved it. I appreciated the way that Oseman told this portion of the story so much, and I just thought it was all handled very well. I also so did not realize volume five was going to be the last one, and I am now heartbroken.

I know that I should start another book right now, too, but I am just so exhausted. I haven’t slept well the past few nights, or a lot, so I’m excited to sleep in, and even though it’s only 11PM, I think I’m going to call it a night.

Saturday

I both got a lot done today and didn’t? My favorite thing in the world is lazy weekend mornings, especially in the summer, because I’ll just curl up outside in our gazebo and drink my tea while I read for an hour, and, honestly, I think if I could do that every day, I’d be the world’s most wholesome and kindest person ever. I did that with Yolk, and pretty much from the start, I could tell this was going to be another Mary HK Choi story that just absolutely decimated me, so I’m definitely not going to finish it this weekend because I need to take my time with it. I read 50 pages in the morning, and then the plan was to pause for yoga before getting back to it, and that–didn’t happen.

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Yoga was amazing, and it was always my plan to do it as a break in between reading, but you know what wasn’t planned? While I was making ramen for lunch, my best friend, Erin, called me, and we ended up talking for a little over an hour, which included me deciding that I needed tea and going out to Jolie. Which was fine! Except then I continued to lounge at home without reading because I am The Worst.

Eventually, I did get back to it, and I read another 50 pages of Yolk before setting it down for the day (and possibly not picking back up until Monday). It’s so, so good, but it’s really heavy, and a lot of it’s hitting close to home, so I need to take my time with it, which I kind of expected anyway. The weather was insanely muggy and hot today, so I was starting to feel ill while I was outside and kept not connecting it to the sudden change in weather until I went inside and sat in the dark for a bit, and lo & behold! Suddenly better.

I read about 150 pages of P.S. I Still Love You, and while I think I’m going to finish it tomorrow, I’m also just so ughhhhhhh about it so far. Literally what is the point of this book? The first movie ends around the middle of the second book, and I just do not understand the point of this book. The movie summarized all of this so well, and I’m really wondering what the hell the second movie is going to be about. It’s so “a day in the life” in the worst sort of way, and this might get less than three stars if it doesn’t improve from here. And the summary makes it sound like McClaren is going to show up way sooner than he does, but he still hasn’t at the halfway mark, soooo?? I don’t know, I’m so over this book.

In other news, I still haven’t started Rule of Wolves? Honestly, I think I’m going to cut the middle grade from this list because it doesn’t seem wise to try to add another book in. I think the best course of action is going to be to finish P.S. tomorrow and read a solid chunk of ROW. Which, like, would be fine if (see above) I wasn’t The Worst.

Who watches The Handmaiden and expects themself not to want to reread The Watchmaker of Filigree Street? NOT I! Like, seriously, what the ever living heck. This is such a stretch, too, because The Handmaiden really just reminds me of the Japanese sections of the second book, but I want to read about Thaniel & Mori falling in love and tea in the dark first, so that’s on my brain right now. Not to mention I also pulled This Winter by Alice Oseman off my shelf. WHY MARY WHY

I’m going to try to stick to my guns. I’m going to shelve A Sprinkle of Spirits for now, work toward finishing P.S. tomorrow, and hopefully read 150-250 pages of ROW? That’s a lot. I really didn’t want to binge this. If I want to have it read by Tuesday with enough time to write my review, and it’s a little under 600 pages long, I need to read about 200 pages a day. Let’s shoot for that. I think that’s manageable. And, when all is said and done, I’ll circle back to Yolk, which I may read a casual 50 pages of each day, and then, and only then, am I allowed to pick up This Winter and Watchmaker.

2021 is apparently the year of the reread for me.

Sunday

Today had a very lowkey start. I woke up kind of early after sleeping good and hard, so I finally started ROW while I was drinking my tea. I read about 100 pages this morning outside until the day was getting a little too hot, and I retreated to my room to lay in bed with Lily. I finished those 100 around 11AM, and wow. I feel like I need to timeline this for it to really set in:

11AM-1PM: Laundry & pick up lunch from Life Alive

1PM-3PM: Rock climb

3PM-5PM: Food shop, get gas, manually wash car

5PM-6PM: Meal prep & start bread

I’m exhausted. Like, damn. I was already tired from climbing, but then I had to do just endless things that required a lot of work, and I’m not even done. My bread is currently proofing for the next hour and a half, and, in that time, I’ve got to shower and scrounge up something for dinner. The bread will require rolling out and a second proof, and then it’s in the oven after 30ish minutes. It’ll stay in for 40 minutes, and then it cools overnight. Hopefully, though, that will all just be a quick break while I’m reading more of ROW. There are two parts, from what I can tell, and the first one ends at 250 pages, so I’ve made that my new goal for today, which means I need to tackle another 150 pages. I’m not honestly sure I’ll get to PS today? We’ll see. I’m so tired, but I’m also vibing some tea later to go with the last of my weekend macarons, and I’m working from home in the morning because I have a dentist appointment, so I can take my time in the morning, so I don’t have to go to bed super early.

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I AM SO STRESSED OUT

HOW AM I NOT MEANT TO KEEP READING THIS?????

I mean, I could, I could read the entire thing right now. Screw sleep, forget work, I’ll just stay up the whole night and read the entire damn thing. I’m not going to, but I want to. I’m so stressed about so many different things. Zoya! Nikolai! David! And that’s not even to mention the things that I was stressed out about previously that have only slightly been alleviated because there are more stressful things happening. My goodness, I don’t even know what to do with myself right now. I’d just gotten to the wedding scene (before the second part) and was thinking that things were starting to look up a bit, but why? I wasn’t even halfway through! And it’s Ravka! Something even more horrible is always around the corner!

There’s no way I’m finishing P.S. I Still Love You tonight. I’m too wound up from ROW. I’m going to have to pace a bit, play my game, and then maybe fall asleep around midnight. It’s about 11:30PM right now, and I can’t believe I managed to earmark my page and close the book.

I AM SO STRESSED OUT

“I’m going to take my time and spread this out over a few days so I can really enjoy it.” HA YEAH RIGHT

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We all deserve this art right now, good grief.

Okay, so! Weekend readathon! I set out to read definitely three books, make headway on two, and maybe tackle a sixth. LOL. I read one? Aw man, is Heartstopper the only one I actually completed? That’s so lame. I’m so bad at these. Okay, well. If ROW hadn’t turned me into such a stress ball (honestly, what was I actually expecting?), I would have finished PS, but it is what it is. I set out to read six books, and I ended up reading a lot this weekend, way more than I normally do, so I’m happy with that. Would this have made more sense to do this upcoming weekend with the extra day off? Definitely. Am I going to try to read a fuckton of books over the long weekend? You betcha, but probably won’t make a thing out of it again. It was fun to revisit doing a readathon, though, and I may bring it back every once in a while.

I do have some plans for the rest of the week, though. As you can see, this post went up Monday morning, so I’ve shuffled things a bit, and the Nikolai duology review got pushed back to Thursday. Odd, I know, but I liked Monday’s #marywrites post and didn’t want to wait a month to release it, so that got moved to Wednesday, and Pride starts next week on the blog (and in general), so I figured I’d just jam pack the last week of May. I’ve got a massive TBR for June, though, and the whole month of posts is mostly written, so here’s the deal for the last week of May:

• Finish ROW by Wednesday. (~350 pages, and easy peasy with these freaking cliffhangers every chapter.)
• Finish P.S. I Still Love You tomorrow. (~170 pages)
• Finish Yolk whenever. (~300 pages)
• Read A Sprinkle of Spirits by Friday. (~325 pages)
• Read This Winter by Friday. (~150 pages)
• Over the long weekend (three days), read Lightbringer and/or A Sky Beyond the Storm and a contemporary of choosing. (~1000 pages, probably.)

I want to finish up some of my outstanding series, clean up my preorders, and get ready for Pride, particularly since I just ordered the first half of my books, and it’s going to be a lot, so I’d like to go in with a much lighter TBR than I’ve got going right now. Fingers crossed!