BookTubeathon Day 3 and 4

Shew! I am clearly still an overachiever.

Day 3
Read 379 pages.
Almost finished Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
Started reading The Book Thief by Marcus Zusac

Day 4
Read so far: 266 pages
Finished Monsters of Men (IT WAS AMAZING!)
Still on The Book Thief - but it is going quickly. (Already wondering if I want to see the film adaptation. I love the characters in my head and I don't want them to change!)

Total Stats:
Books read 5
Pages read 1460
Number of pages to go 640
Average number of pages per day 365

Challenges:
1 Read a book with pictures  - DONE
2 Start and finish a series - DONE (YAY! IT WAS AWESOME)
3 Red on the cover - DONE
4 A book selected by someone else
5 A book from the genre read the least this year - DONE although if I have the time, I might read a different book for this one
6 A book to movie/tv adaptation - WORKING ON IT
7 7 books and/or an average of 300 pages per day - ON TRACK!

BookTube-a-thon Day 2

Although I have not yet officially decided to do it, I am still accidentally doing it.

So here goes with the stats so far:
Day 1
Pages read: 444
Books completed:2.5

Day 2
Pages read: 371
Books completed: 1.3

Challenges

Read a book with pictures - DONE (Master of Dreams: Sleep of the Just (Sandman, #1) by Neil Gaiman)

Start and finish a series - ALMOST DONE (Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness)

Red on the cover - DONE ('The Knife of Never Letting Go' by Patrick Ness)

A book selected by someone else

A book from the genre read the least this year - DONE ((Master of Dreams: Sleep of the Just (Sandman, #1) by Neil Gaiman), although if I have the time, I might read a different book for this one)

A book to movie/tv adaptation

7 books and/or an average of 300 pages per day - STILL ON TRACK.

In case you have not heard of the BookTube-a-thon, here is the link to the youtube page. 

Oh well, I had better head off and carry on reading!

Booktube-readathon

Still not sure about doing the readathon. Spent the day reading, just in case I decide to definitely do it tomorrow. :)
Today's progress:
Read a book with red on the cover - The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, #1) by Patrick Ness
Read a book with pictures - Master of Dreams: Sleep of the Just (Sandman, #1) by Neil Gaiman
Start and finish a series - (halfway) The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, #2) by Patrick Ness
Read 7 books - 2.5 done
Read 300 pages a day - 357 down and 1.5 hours to go.
Looks like I might end up doing it anyway! :D

A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin

When I was many years younger, 'The Neverending Story' came out. I thought this was a marvellous idea - a story that never came to an end, where you could always return. How naive I was! I have now read the neverending story, otherwise known as 'A Dance with Dragons', and I can tell you that the novelty wore off very quickly.

It was not the length of the book that bugged me. It was simply that in 1000 pages, very little happened. I am really hoping that this is going to be a bridging book and that the next one will return to the pace of the first three books; that this was just showing us how the characters are learning the skills that they are going to need, and moving them closer to where they need to be. I feel a lot could have been chopped from this book without harming the story line (although as I am not GRRM, I suppose I am not an expert on that idea), and I feel that many chapters could have been summed up in a line or two from another character's perspective (really! do we need to meet even more people at this point in time!).

I was also starting to find the repetition in the book annoying. If I hear about breastplates with nipples again, or the line 'words are wind' I might actually throw a book. And what is it with all the food! Really! Meal after meal is described in infinite detail. Just got on with the bloody story! For Merlin's sake!

Overall, it was a very unsatisfying read. There were chapters that I enjoyed (the grand total of TWO that I got of Arya, and the chapters on Jon), but for the most of it, it was painful to have to pick this up every day. I am glad it is over.

I will be reading book 6 because I want to know how the story is going to end. But if it goes the way of this book, I will be watching the HBO version for the conclusion. I will be needing the HBO version to refresh my memory on who is who in this zoo before reading book 6 - whenever that comes out.

The Seven Realms Series by Cinda Williams Chima

Wow! Just, wow! I have to confess that I really enjoyed this series. It was a combo of good world-building, great characters, a pretty cool plot and, dare I add it, a fair amount of romance.

The first of the four books starts with sixteen-year-old Han 'Cuffs' Alister, former leader of a street gang, taking a magical amulet away from the high wizard's son, Micah Bayar, to stop him from causing more trouble. The problem is that this is no ordinary amulet, it belonged to the Demon King, a man who almost destroyed the world a thousand years ago, and the high wizard will go to any lengths to get it back.
Raisa is the princess-heir, who does not want to rule the queendom in the way her mother is - leaving it up to others, particularly the high wizard, to make decisions and being oblivious to what is going on in the rest of the realm. She wants to make a difference and be like the great queen Hanalea, the warrior queen who defeated the Demon King a thousand years ago.

I really enjoyed the different characters in this. Raisa is headstrong and a player - which you can't really blame her for, as she is going to have to end up marrying for politics and not for love - so why not share around the kisses? She was also a very different princess to the norm, and was not afraid to get her hands dirty. I love strong female characters, so Raisa, combined with the idea of a queendom as opposed to the usual kingdom (a father never REALLY knows who his children are) really appealed to me. Han, who I absolutely loved, was a character that had a flaw. He was far too nice for me to really buy that he was a gang leader who had ordered deaths and did other nasty things. But then, did I mention he was nice? So I will forgive that. I really enjoyed watching his character grow and change. Micah Bayar was an awesome character. Picture Draco, but a Draco who is even more torn. Ahhh... this is soooo hard to talk about without giving any spoilers!

There were elements to the plot that were unpredictable. I am not going to go into plot here, though, as trying to discuss four books in one, without giving spoilers, is near impossible. (If someone out there has figured out how to do that, please let me know your secret!)

There have been complaints that the first book, particularly, is slow. Personally, I didn't have a problem with that at all. I have a job that consumes almost all my life, and the last thing I can afford is to have a book that I cannot put down because OMG!!! THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END AND... AND... just one more chapter. Reading 'The Demon King' was more like a pleasant escape from everything that gives me stress, without adding to it. It was magnificent. I could get into bed, read a bit, relax completely, and enter a marvellous world. Granted, that worked out great for the first 1,6 books, and then the pace picked up and I was glad to have a long weekend to sacrifice instead of sleep.

The covers are gorgeous, although the US covers once again outdo the UK covers. I wish I could have got all in hard cover, but alas, as I have been waiting for a month for the third book (I borrowed a copy - SERIOUSLY! I COULD NOT LEAVE IT THERE!) I am destined to take what I can get, and be thankful that I have books - even if they don't match.

Other stuff:
Genre: YA Fantasy
Link to the first book on Goodreads: here

A quote from the author, as on Goodreads, dated 24 April 2014: "There's a good chance there will be more in the Seven Realms."

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!