Good morning and welcome to day one of The Reading Quest! This is my first vlog
for this reading challenge and I am so excited to get this challenge started.
When I saw this I knew I had to sign up for it and attempt it and I am so
excited to get started. I've been planning my TBR for a couple weeks now
and I am just like so thrilled to finally get to it. So I'm going to be
vlogging every week. This vlog is going to be days one through six. So Sunday to
Friday and then by the time this goes up you'll know what's happening but
Saturday is my Booktube Birthday and I will be doing a 24 hour read-a-thon so
I'm going to be doing a separate vlog for that portion of this reading
challenge and then I'll go back to weekly vlogs. So that being said, I have
three books that I'm trying to get done this week
and I'm going to show you those now. So the first book that I'm going to try and
get done is Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.
Michael and I are buddy reading this one so this will fulfill the Multiplayer
challenge. I'm also planning to get to Barefoot Gen vol 2. This will probably
get done today. This is by Keiji Nakazawa.
I read Volume one last Sunday and really enjoyed it and this will complete the
Mini Game challenge. I then have the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.
This is my diverse pick for the month and this will fulfill the Time Warp
challenge and I'm hoping to get this done over the course of like two days or
something. Today I am going to be focusing on these two. I'm going to read
a hundred pages of this today for our buddy read and then I'm going to focus
on finishing this. I also have a few other books that I'll be
working on throughout the week that don't have to do with The Reading Quest.
In an effort to keep these vlogs as clear as possible, I'm not going to
discuss those books in these vlogs because they're not going to count towards The
Reading Quest. So why bring them up? But make sure you watch my August wrap-up to
see what books that I've read in this month. And yeah, I'm just really excited to get
to this Reading Quest. It's going to be really great. I think I'm going to kick
off my Reading Quest by starting Six of Crows because I have been anxiously
awaiting starting this book for a very long time
and now Michael and I are finally going to start buddy reading. I think he
already started the section or maybe he's already finished it because he is
14 hours ahead of me. So it's likely that he has already completed the first
section but I'm looking forward to reading this and that's what I'm going
to be spending this morning doing so I will check back in with you guys once
I'm done with the section. Other than that, I don't really plan to do much today. It's
a really nice day outside so maybe I'll go read outside somewhere and we have
Game of Thrones on later today so I'll be doing that, but other than that I have
the whole day to myself to just read and relax and I am looking forward to it.
Hello! So it is 12:00 exactly. Hold on. Brett's calling me. [answering phone] Hello?
So Brett just called and invited me up to lunch up at the campus that we live near
and I am going to do that. I was actually just about to make myself lunch so I'm
going to head up to the campus and get some food in me. But I wanted to update
you and let you know that I finished the section of Six of Crows that Michael and
I were working on so we're about 100 pages in and really liking it so far and
I'm about to pack up a bunch of books into my book of the month tote and then
I figured I could read outside a little bit because it's super nice out and I
really want to soak up some Sun. So that's probably what I'm going to end up
doing but I'm going to take you guys along with me and I will check back in
with you guys after lunch. Alright so I just ate lunch and I found a nice shady
spot under this amazing tree and I am going to be reading Barefoot Gen volume 2. I'm
going to try to finish this. Start and finish it. It's a graphic novel so I should be able
to get through it in a couple of hours or so. We'll see how I'm feeling after
that. So it's about 1:50 p.m. and I just finished
Barefoot Gen volume 2. This graphic novel series it is an extremely
difficult read in terms of content. It is very heavy. It is about the atomic
bombs dropping on Hiroshima during World War II.
This one Chronicles like, the immediate aftermath. So talks a lot about like,
radiation sickness and how people survived after their entire city was destroyed. So obviously it is
an extremely difficult read but it is so fascinating and like I so appreciate the
story that's being told with this graphic novel series. So I gave this one five
out of five stars. I give the first volume five out of five stars as well
and highly recommend it. It is very graphic and a very hard story to read
but it's very important I think. So that completes my Mini Game side quest which
is exciting. So I already have a quest completed. It's almost 2 p.m. now. I might
head back home. I have a couple options for my reading. I could get started on
the Underground Railroad but I might wait until a little bit later to get
started on it because I have a couple other books that I want to tackle that aren't part
of The Reading Quest so I might do that first and then get started on The
Underground Railroad a little bit later. Hey everybody! Welcome to day 2. I am
actually home today because I am fighting off a migraine. It might not
seem like it because I'm up and like taking on the day but painkillers have
kicked in so I don't have to worry about pain at the moment even though I'm still
experiencing other symptoms. So I'm taking advantage of my pain free head
even though I am pretty dizzy and I feel really dumb. When I take my medicine like
my brain turns to mush but I did want to check in with you guys and let you know I got
some book mail and I know exactly what this is but I want to unbox it for you
guys on this vlog because that's fun. I had a book haul go up. It's going up
tomorrow for me, but earlier in the week for you, but this book didn't make it in
because I had filmed it like a week or two ago but I wanted to show you my book. This
will end up in my fall book haul even though I received it in the middle of
August. I feel like a lot of people have been hauling this book lately and
reading this book lately because the remake the movie is coming out but I
want to show it to you guys anyway. What could it be?
I've never seen a paperback come protected by a cardboard component in
the package but because it's such a large paperback... I wonder if you are being able
to figure this out. I know two people who watch my videos already know what this is because I'm
reading it with them. But we'll open it up together. Ready? Can you tell from the
back? It is It by Stephen King. This is my first Stephen King novel. I've never read
a Stephen King novel even though I love horror. I just have never picked up a
Stephen King novel and here - it is large. Everybody knows how large it is but I am
buddy reading this with Becky and Michael which I will leave their links
down below but we are going to start buddy reading this. Becky is planning to
see it at its midnight release in September so our hope is to get through
all of this before the midnight release and I think we're gonna be able to do it.
I think we're shooting for two chapters a day up until the midnight release. I
think we're going to be able to finish it probably some time before then but
looking forward to this. It's gonna be scary.
I'm a big fan of horror. We'll see how I feel about this. Hopefully this is a
good introduction to Stephen King because he has written - me and Michael
looked into it - he's written like 60 to 70 books or something like that. Like, 50
novels, like, a handful of non-fiction, handful of short story collections. Like...
Dude writes a lot. So hopefully I enjoy this and hopefully I'll want to continue on
because there's a couple of his titles that I'm really interested in. Going to take
on It like everybody else in the world. I guess I'll talk about my plans for
reading today. I'm going to read a hundred more pages of
crows later on today and then I think I'm going to switch gears and read
hopefully like, at least a hundred pages of The Underground Railroad. I would like
to get like halfway done. This book is only about 300 pages. it's pretty short
but we'll see how my head feels. If I feel better or worse. Main priority is
like staying up-to-date on my buddy read with Michael on Six of Crows and if I'm
still feeling like I can read I'll read some of the Underground Railroad and get
this started but of course I'll keep you guys updated
on how I do and I'll check back in with you guys probably after I'm done working
for the day. Hey everybody. So it's about 6 p.m. now and I haven't read a single
page today but I have a couple more hours before Brett gets home. I had a
really productive day working which was great. After I started feeling better I
started being really productive which is wonderful and I made myself some dinner
so I'm all fed but I'm going to now get into Six of Crows. Like I said, I have
about two hours before Brett comes home so I might as well take advantage of the
quietness while I can. Two hours - maybe I'll get through the hundred pages. We'll
see and I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to start The Underground Railroad
today. It might have to be tomorrow, but we'll see. I'll keep you updated. Hello!
Good morning! It's Tuesday and clearly I feel a lot better than I did yesterday. I
spent most of the evening reading after I last checked in with you and I caught
up to Six of Crows. For whatever reason that book is taking me like, a lot longer
to get through. I think it's because that it's fantasy it takes me a little
bit longer to like, actually wrap my brain around the story because it's set in
a different world so it's like, unfamiliar. So it's taking me a lot longer. It
took me about like, three or so total hours to get through the hundred pages
whereas like a contemporary would only take me like, maybe an hour after and a half to get
through 100 pages. So it's taking me
a little bit longer but it's really enjoyable which I like. So I'm on page
202 of Six of Crows which is awesome and then I also was able to start some
of The Underground Railroad yesterday and I brought it with me because I want
to read it on my lunch break. I'm going to the gym after work to do some biking
and I want to read it there on the bike as well. So slowly, slowly making my way
through both of my current reads for the Reading Quest. I'm only on page 22 of The
Underground Railroad and I already can tell it's going to be a really difficult read
content-wise. That's what I've heard from everybody who I've seen read it on booktube
but I'm interested to make my way through that as well.
Goal is to get through both of those books by Friday and it's Tuesday so I think
it can happen. I know for a fact that Six of Crows will happening. Underground
Railroad - if it doesn't get done by Friday it will likely get done on
Saturday for the 24 hour readathon. My TBR might be changing a little bit
from that I can already tell but I'm going to try to stick to that TBR as much as possible. We have
like, five days before our students leaders come back to campus for training. We have
about two weeks before our first-year students come back and we have about two
and a half weeks before we have our returning students come back. So I
have a lot of stuff that needs to get done done before all those things happen.
[car passes illegally]
This person is in a hurry. That was not a passing lane.
Everything will work out
and hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in all the reading that I want to
accomplish before the school year starts becaus there's a lot to be read. Hey guys! So I just got
home and I did a little bit of reading of The Underground Railroad at the gym
and I'm really enjoying this book and honestly reading this book at this time
in our country right now is pretty crazy. If you haven't been paying attention to
what's happening in the US - which I don't know how you could avoid, but I guess in
other countries I don't know how well the media coverage is of the United
States right now - but it's like insane and UGH. It's been so hard to concentrate
on anything ever since like, waking up Saturday morning, seeing the images from
the University of Virginia, and then everything that happened in
Charlottesville, and now everything that the person who's in charge of the
country is saying about white nationalism and like UGH... There's just like
too much happening. So reading this has been a really interesting experience. Of
course this has to do with slavery. It has to do - it's like an alternative
history where the Underground Railroad is an actual Underground Railroad. So we
follow this one slave who is trying to escape to the north to freedom. Me
reading this at this time in our country has been wild and I'm only 50 pages in.
I'm really, really enjoying it. I really like it so far but it's just crazy
timing for me to pick this up this week and everything happening. [sighs]
I was off social media all day today because I'm really busy at work at the
moment and I came home and I went on Voxer to tell Michael that I was about to
start picking up Six of Crows again because he and I are buddy reading this
and he messaged me - he had messaged me asking what the hell is happening in the
United States. He's from Australia so he's just like, "what's happening in your
country?!" and I was like "oh, I don't know. What - what happened today? Because I've
been off social media all day." And just logging on to see all the remarks that
Donald Trump has made about everything that has happened over the weekend in terms of
racism, terrorism, white nationalism... like, it's messed up. I can't believe I'm
living in a time where somebody can be in the highest position in a country and
be saying these things and believing these things and defending these actions
and it's tough and I don't even know if right now.
I don't even know. I can't even put like, rational thoughts into words right now.
It's all emotion at this moment. So maybe in a while I'll be able to figure out
something that is logical and eloquent to say but for now I'm going to continue
reading my books. I'm really liking both of the books that I'm reading for The
Reading Quest right now. These two books right here are really great and I feel like I
really need to get lost in a book right now. So I'm going to do that. My goal is
to get to page 301 but like I was saying this morning I'm reading this a lot
slower than what I had anticipated so we'll see how far I get. Hello! It is day
four. It's Wednesday and last night I said I was going to settle in and read to
try to like, get away from everything that is happening but I found that the world is
too distracting for me to concentrate. So I only read like 50 total pages
yesterday. But that's okay because I caught up to where I want to be in Six of Crows
this morning and I want to read a hundred more pages today but I'm unsure
if that's going to happen. I don't know guys. It's been a rough couple days. Like to
- like nothing has been easy. Like it hasn't been easy to concentrate. I'm going to
try. I'm going to try to catch up to the buddy read of Six of Crows and then I
also have to catch up on another buddy read. So what I'm going to do now - I'm
working from home today and I've had a really productive day which is great, but
what I'm going to do now is I think I'm going to go for a run for like 30 minutes and
then I have been craving a salad from Panera all day. So I think I want to go
and grab a Panera salad. I'll bring my book with me or I'll bring one of my
books with me and maybe I'll read while I'm eating my salad and then I'll come back
home and keep reading. Morning! It's day five. It's Thursday and I am on my way
to work. I did not read any more of my Reading Quest books yesterday after I
checked in with you. Like I've been saying, I'm in the middle of another buddy
read and that took up of all my time yesterday
trying to get to where we said we wanted to be and so I only read 77
pages yesterday of Six of Crows and that was all I read. My original goal was to
finish Six of Crows by today. So I have about 165 or so pages left of Six of
Crows. So my main goal for today is to finish that book. I really want to have
another book finished for The Reading Quest and I think I'm just going to kind
of ignore all of my other like, reading responsibilities for the day and just
focus on Six of Crows and try to get that finished. I brought it with
me. It's in my bag and I am going to read it on my lunch break today and I don't have
anything I need to do after work today. I don't have a workout or anything like that
that I need to go and do. So I'm going to probably find a spot
somewhere and just like, read as much as possible, and then hopefully by the end
of the night I will have it done. If I do accomplish that, I'm going to aim to get
a very large chunk of the Underground Railroad done tomorrow so I can potentially
get it finished on Saturday and those to will be all the books that I was really aiming to get done. I wanted
to have the Underground Railroad done by Friday but I don't know if that's going
to happen. Like I said Saturday's my 24 hour
readathon and I have a set TBR for that already
but I'll adjust. Hey guys. So I just made it back from work and I am sitting outside
with Six of Crows and I'm just enjoying the weather while we still have
warm weather and I have my snack. I got some Sun Chips and my soda and I'm just
going to try to read as much as possible of Six of Crows out on the patio before
it gets dark or before I start getting eaten by mosquitoes - whichever comes
first and then I'm going to continue reading and hopefully finish this book tonight.
I am on page 323 and so it's like, about 140 pages left to go which I think I can
do but we'll figure it out. Hello! It is much later. It's like 11:40 p.m.
but about an hour ago I finished Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
and I wanted to give you my thoughts. I gave this 4 stars and I gave it four
stars because: I really loved the world-building.
Leigh Bardugo can really create a universe which is amazing. There's
interesting magic systems. There's interesting like, cultural norms that are
outlined in this. I really want to go back to the Grishaverse after reading
this. I definitely do want to read the Grisha trilogy. I wouldn't say that you
need to read the Grisha trilogy to read this book and understand what's going on.
There might be some things that are a little confusing but I think if you are
able to read critically and can like, pick up on some context clues, then
you can pretty much figure out everything. However, I'm sure that the
Grisha trilogy does go into depth a little bit more. I didn't read the Grisha
trilogy before Six of Crows, so I was able to understand things still, but I do want
to go back and read and to get more of an education on this universe. I also
really love the characters in this book. I think a lot of people talk about this
when they talk about Six of Crows - this duology - that they really love the
characters and I have to agree. Leigh Bardugo did a really good job of
creating really unique characters that have really distinct personalities. Their
relationships with each other seemed to be pretty realistic. I think if this was
more of an adult fantasy I think the characters would be a little bit more
wary of each other than they were in this. It seemed like although like, not
all of them knew each other, it seemed like there was lots of like insta
friendship but I feel like in a YA, the friendships were pretty realistic. I
am going to continue on to Crooked Kingdom. I think Michael is also going to
continue on with Crooked Kingdom so I think we are going to be buddy reading
that again. But yeah I really enjoyed Six of Crows. Would definitely recommend. I'm
excited to read Crooked Kingdom and I'm excited to read the Grisha trilogy
because I feel like this universe is really, really interesting and I want to
know more. So yeah, four stars and this completes the Multiplayer side
quest which is to buddy read a book. So that's another side quest down. Really
excited about that. Anyway, I'm off to bed and I'll check in with you guys tomorrow.
Good morning! It is day six and it is Friday and I wanted to tell you guys
what I'm going to be reading today. This is going to be the last day of this vlog
and the only book that I wanted to finish this week that I haven't finished
yet is the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. I am 50 pages into this
and really, really enjoying it. I've just been really distracted by other buddy
reads. This I'm reading independently. Yeah, I am planning to read this today. I
would like to get a hundred more pages read but
I don't think I'm going to be able to get there until later tonight and I have
a full day of work. We're moving back to our office building. So our office building,
which is the campus center of our campus, has been under renovation all summer and
we've been relocated to a different building on campus. So today we're going
back into our original building. I'm moving into a new office which is
exciting and so I'm going to be super busy all day. I don't know if I'm going
to be able to step away for lunch or not but I mean I'll bring this with me and I
do have one more buddy read that I'm trying to finish today. So then I'll only
have one buddy read happening. So... I... I love buddy reads. I think they're so much
fun, but there's also like a lot of pressure associated with them and I have
participated in four planned buddy reads this month and then one that was really
impromptu. You saw my unboxing of It earlier this week. That's what me, Becky,
and Michael are all working on for the next couple of weeks. So it'll be nice to
just have one buddy read to focus on, and then be able to read the books that I've
been meaning to get to literally all month independently finally. So yeah it's
going to be a busy day. I'm going to hit the gym after work to do a little
running workout and then I need to head to the grocery store to pick up some
food for my 24 hour read-a-thon that's happening tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'll
be checking in anymore I might just end the vlog here so I can, you know, edit and
upload it so you guys can see it. But I am going to try and get to at least page
150 of this tonight and I'm going to aim to shoot for more if I'm feeling up for
it. So realistic goal is get to 150 so I'm like halfway done. Optimistic goal is
to get to page like 200 of this tonight so I'll only have 100 pages left and I
could probably finish it tomorrow. Like I said I'm really enjoying it. I really
love the writing. The content is really difficult to read, like I anticipated
going into this. Everybody has said that and I can definitely agree with that, but
I - it's - the writing is really lovely and I am excited to hop back into this
book and get closer to finishing it. Anyway, I had a very successful first six
days of The Reading Quest and I am having such a great time. Hope you guys
enjoyed this vlog. I will be doing a vlog for my 24 hour read-a-thon
so you'll see days 7 and 8 of The Reading Quest in 1 vlog and then I'll be
vlogging weekly after that. So be on the lookout for more vlogging fun from The
Reading Quest and hopefully I can continue to be successful. Anyway thank
you so much for watching this vlog. If you enjoyed it, please leave a big thumbs
up. Subscribe if you haven't already. I do try to make a new video each and every
week and I will see you guys again very soon. Bye!
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