Reading Challenge Has Been Completed

So.
Technically, I have read more than the 25 books I set out to read as my Reading Challenge this year, but I do not count rereads towards my number.
I want to break something down for you (if you care; if not: ignore). I'm writing these in the order that they were read, just so you know. The number count is important. Just an FYI.

The first book that I read this year (that counts to my 25 books) is Ice by Skye Jones and is the first in the Dragon Clan book series. It contained 142 pages, and was a kindle freebie. I read this basically in a day, starting it on January 17th and finishing it the 18th. Unless the succeeding books become freebies, may not read.

Kiss of a Dragon by Alisa Woods and is the first in the Fallen Immortals series was another kindle freebie that I actually managed to finish in less than 24 hours on February 17th. 280 pages. Unless the succeeding books become freebies, may not read.

Written in Blood by Anne Bishop and the first in The Others series. This was a borrow from my local library, and was 433 pages. I honestly don't remember what attracted me to this book, but I read it decently fast, starting on February 21st and finishing on the 22nd. This is the series I mentioned previous that I read but was not on my to read list on GoodReads.

Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop and book 2. Same as predecessor, library borrow of 413 pages. Read from February 24th to the 25th. This series has a very naive main character, which can be a bit of a turn off to the more mature audience, but I stuck with it.

The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas, and is the precursor for the Throne of Glass series. It is broken into 5 separate "baby stories" that are set before the Throne of Glass (title of both first book and series) that give stories behind events that are mentioned throughout the series itself. This was a kindle purchase (because Maas is a literary genius), and a 465 page delight. Started on February 25th and finished February 26th.

Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop and book 3. Same as series predecessors, page count of 493. At this point I started having trouble focusing long enough to read books, so it took a little longer. February 27th to March 1st.

Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop and book 4. Same as series predecessors, page count of 399. Despite a lower page count, took 6 days to read. March 2nd to the 8th.

Etched in Bone by Anne Bishop and book 5. Same as series predecessors, page count of 397. I had made a note in my review when I was done that "that first 40%.....damn. It seemed to crawl slower than a sloth". From March 9th to March 27th I read this book. Obviously I read small chunks at a time, but not even 400 pages and it took me that long? Yeesh. However, there is a 6th book that was released a few months back and while I do plan on reading it, I want to get through some of the books that have been on my to read list longer than a couple of months (considering the 6th isn't even on my list yet).


Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and is book 1 in the series of the same name. I'm pretty sure this was a library borrow, sporting 383 pages. Read from March 28th to April 7th, I noted in my review that to me it seemed to be a cross of Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games series and Pierce Brown's Red Rising series. The former I enjoyed and the latter I did not. This book I placed between the two and (when I finished) removed the second book from my to read list. This book just was not for me, and I actually almost stopped reading it because it seemed to just take too long.

Bound by Blood by Cynthia Eden was a 95 page kindle freebie. It is the first in the series crowned Bound, but unless the succeeding books are freebies as well, I will most likely not read them.  Read in less than a day on May 5th, but it was not even 100 pages so I would have been worried with myself if I hadn't. I did however, read this because I got home from work to a power outage and so I read this by candlelight...

Blades of Magic by Terah Edun and is the first book in the Crown Service series. Also a kindle freebie, a 304 page count. Now I had obtained this book around January 21st, but didn't get very far into actually reading it, like less than 10% done. So I restarted it, but didn't mark that date so it says I was reading this one longer than I actually did. Finished on May 5th. Unless the succeeding books become freebies, may not read.


A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas and is considered book 3.1 of the A Court of Thorns and Roses or ACoTaR (because that is a lot of words and also the title of the first book, which I read last year!) series. This is considered a novella, and that's why it's not book 4 of the series. The hardcover version had 229, the kindle had 272 but either way it took less than a day to read, May 8th being the day this time. The actual fourth book in the series is set to be released in 2020 and does not have a title as of yet.

Blood Song by Anthony Ryan and is book one of the Raven's Shadow. I saw the third book in a store, thought it looked/sounded interesting and thought I'd give it a try. I then forgot about it and was pretty excited when I found out my library had all three books. From May 9th to June 24th I was reading this 575 page book. Which had a strong beginning and a strong end but a terribly slow middle. I noted that I will read the following books, but want to read others first if it took me over a month to finish this one.

A Touch of Midnight by Lara Adrian and is considered book 0.5 of the Midnight Breed series. I read a good chunk of the series between 2012 and 2016 (I'm not sure of exact dates). This book is set before the first in the series, but was published after Edge of Dawn which is book 11, and contains 182 pages. A kindle borrow read in one day, June 24th to be exact. I figured since it took place before the events in the book that was technically next in order, I read this one first. I would also like to note that I re-read some of the previous books so that I could remember basic events of the series (because it's similar to another series that I have been reading too).

A Taste of Midnight by Lara Adrian and is considered book 9.5 of the Midnight Breed series, taking place between Deeper Than Midnight which is where I had left off and Darker After Midnight which was next to read. Also a kindle borrow, this one only 70 pages (geez, what's with the short novellas!) Read in one day, June 26th.


Darker After Midnight by Lara Adrian and is book 10 of the Midnight Breed series. A kindle borrow of 384 pages. This one was read from June 27th to June 29th. This one centered on a character I didn't really like, so I'm claiming that as the reason why I didn't read it lickity-split.


Edge of Dawn by Lara Adrian and is book 11 of the Midnight Breed series. Another kindle borrow of 313 pages, I got this late (if I remember correctly) on June 29th, which is when I started it, and finished on June 30th. I didn't immediately read the next in the series because it was loaned to someone else, but I will eventually get to it. In fact I recently re-ordered my to read list and it is higher up on the chain of order than previously.

Scepters by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. and is book 3 of the Corean Chronicles which I have mentioned in previous posts. I would like to mention that I re-read Legacies and Darknesses which are books 1 and 2 of the series so that I remembered what the series was about because I technically started this book in March of 2013. So because I re-read the previous 2 books, I restarted this one too, and was something like 100 pages into it. So I don't have the actual start date but I finished this on August 27th. Because this is a book I'm borrowing from my brother, it wasn't really pressing to read it in a certain amount of time. It did have 738 pages, but you'll see why that is no excuse in a bit. As I mentioned in a previous post, at this time I have no intention of reading the following books but I may change my mind again later.

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris and is book 13 (and the final) of the Sookie Stackhouse series. A library borrow of 338 pages, I was trying to read Alector's Choice (book 4 of Corean Chronicles) but hardly made a dent so I stopped and picked this one because it was the final book of its series. Now I had watched the show that was a product of this book series first, but I did read the books. The only problem is that I watched/ read the books years ago. Surprisingly, I didn't have trouble following along with everything despite the years long gap and was read in a single day. September 25th. 

The Last Hunt by Bruce Coville and is the 4th and final book of the Unicorn Chronicles series. This series is geared more towards middle school ages, which is when I found this series and I read books 1 and 2. I found out that my local library had both 3 and 4 (and 1 and 2, but I didn't really need those...) so when I did the 2015 reading challenge, I read book 3. I basically came to the same decision as with Dead Ever After, that it was the last in the series so it made sense to just get it over and done with. This was a 605 page endeavor, and I really have no excuse as to why it took as long as it did to read, from September 27th to October 9th, other than it kept switching perspective which I'm usually not a fan of it unless it's done well. Also, Cara was my favorite character (for obvious reasons when when you first read the series and you were about the same age as the protagonist) and there was a lot where she isn't in the scene. 

Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong and is book 3 of the Women of the Otherworld series. Books 1 and 2 (Bitten and Stolen) were read in 2015 after getting into the tv show that held the same name as the first book. Bitten, if I remember correctly was a freebie purchase (oxymoron right there) and I had some cash to spare so I bought Stolen shortly after. Then life happened and I didn't get any of the following books. This was a kindle borrow, as is the following books in the series. 448 pages and despite not following Elena's perspective, but Paige's (who I didn't like in the show) this one took about a week, October 9th to the 15th. Usually when a series deviates from the original perspective I have trouble especially if the original perspective (read: narrator) was one I adored. However, Armstrong did a much better job with Paige's character than the show so it wasn't too bad.

Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong and is book 4 of the Women of the Otherworld series. 560 pages make up this book, still in the perspective of Paige. This took from October 15th to the 20th to read, some of that was because I had spent almost all day on the 20th out with my brother because he was in town because my birthday was the 17th. Again, I enjoyed this book pretty well, Armstrong doing an amazing job with characterization and execution of the story.


Day Shift by Charlaine Harris and is book 2 of the Midnight, Texas series. Again, I found the show first, which airs on the NBC network. I read the preceding book sometime last year and figured that since the library bought the 3rd book (Night Shift) for kindle loan which I had set up to automatically put me on a waiting list for the book that I should read this one before I received notice that the third book was available for borrowing. Now despite the fact that the show airs on NBC and not HBO like True Blood did, the show was racier than the books (that is to say, I'm enjoying the show more). This 308 page book took from October 20th to October 24th. 

Haunted by Kelley Armstrong and is book 6 of the Women of the Otherworld series. This one changes perspective again, shifting to Eve. I'm not going to bore you with how every one is related to everyone, but this 528 page book was done in 4 days. October 24th to the 28th (I had borrowed Day Shift and this one at the same time, it gives you 21 days to read, and since I had both in my borrowed possession before Kingdom of Ash was released, that was my incentive to read them quickly). Which lead me to the big kahuna.

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas and is book 7 of the Throne of Glass series. This is also the final book. I'm not going to give all the details in case anyone reading my posts are reading this series but haven't gotten to this book yet. Technically, I read this 992 page book in 2 days, October 28th to October 30th. But I worked on the 27th, 28th and 29th, so I wasn't pushing myself to read it because I knew that if I really wanted to, I could have read it in one sitting, but that wouldn't be fair on my coworker because I wouldn't have gotten any sleep from the 27th/28th and I was by myself on the 29th so that would have been a bad idea all around. However, once I got home on the 29th, I sat down and read for about 4.5 to 5 hours to finish the book. I finished this book at around 4:40am, and holy shit. If I hadn't previously though Maas was a literary genius, I would have coined her a literary God. I may still do that, because she wrapped up the story so beautifully. It didn't end how I expected based on foreshadowing she had set up in the previous books, and while there was still sad parts, it had an overall happy ending, for everyone you grew to love. (Maas also did promise that Fleetfoot, Aelin's dog, would survive the series, "the only guaranteed survivor" so she also gets points for that). I did however, cry like 10 times (or more).... but there were also moments that made you laugh so there was at least a semblance of balance between the two emotions.
Ok. So if you took the actual amount of time it took me to read this almost 1000 page book, I read it in about 12/13 hours. Of course I'm estimating, and could be off in either direction, but I can guarantee that if I had the day off of work when I first started reading this book, it would have been done in a day. That is why I mentioned above to notice page numbers. I found the Throne of Glass series in 2016, and pretty much read them as quickly as I could. I'm pretty sure I found them because Throne of Glass had been a freebie because Empire of Storms (book 5) had been recently released. Tower of Dawn (book 6) had been released in November of 2016. I was a little hesitant to read book 6 because it changed perspective and you were tortured with the knowledge of how 5 ended, knowing that 6 ran pretty much concurrently to the events of 5 (the beginning of both 5 and 6 start where 4 leaves off, merging at the end of 5 and 6 respectively, and lead into 7). But I read it, and I am hailing this series as the Best Young Adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy series ever. I don't care what others say.

So now, there are 62 days of the year left, and I'm not going to stop. My actual goal was to read as many books off my to read list as possible, but I set a reasonable goal of 25 books as something to shoot for, because often times if I don't have a set goal in mind I fail to follow through on things.
I started reading Broken which is book 7 in the  Women of the Otherworld series this morning (perspective because I haven't gone to bed yet, so October 30th) after I went to bed at like 5am and slept till noon. I am about 54% done and have already borrowed the following book for when I finish this one. At the rate I'm going, I can easily finish this series at least, with six more books in the series (there is a total of 13 books).
I also have, as I mentioned above, Night Shift which is book three of Midnight, Texas series on a wait list (which I'm now #15 of 33 on 4 copies) but I also placed Crave the Night from the Midnight Breed series on hold and I'm #1 of 1 on 2 copies.
I'm not counting my current reading material here, but I have a page count of 9820 for this year, and I'm not even done reading for my "unofficial" official reading challenge. Kingdom of Ash is the biggest book that I've read by far, at least that I remember, beating out Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by 122 pages. I do have some books on my to read list that are longer (books 3, 4, and 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, the series Game of Thrones is based on) but I haven't read them yet (duh) so they don't count (yet). I do have one that is bigger than HP and the OotP: Stone of Tears which is book two of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series at 979 pages but that is only a couple pages shorter than KoA.

LET THE READING GAMES, CONTINUE!!!!!!!!!!