Fantasy AdventureAThon Day 4 Progress

6:00 AM:  I just woke up after staying up late reading Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, which I am about fifty pages into now.  From what I have read, it’s really interesting, although like most long fantasy series, I haven’t seen a lot except for world-building, so it’s hard to know how I will feel upon seeing more of the plot and characters.  Still, I have heard pretty divisive things about this series, which made me a little hesitant to pick it up, but I’m definitely on the side of liking it so far.

My plan for today is to read volume eight of Saga, which is my book to read with a drink.  This will be my fourth book for today, which will allow me to make some progress in all three of my remaining books today and set myself up nicely to finish them over the rest of the week.  I’m hoping to make some good progress, but I also don’t want to start hating reading, so I’m probably going to take a long video game break during the day and give my brain a bit of a break.

8:30 AM:  I just finished volume eight of Saga over a cup of tea and it was good, but not flawless.  Overall, I’d say that I liked the first four or five volumes a lot, but my interest in continuing on has gone down with each entry after that point.  In particular, this overarching theme of everything having to always go wrong is interesting at first, but it’s beginning to get absurd at this point that this crew can’t take five steps without someone dying.  This is probably about a three-star read, and since I only have one more volume to read in order to be fully caught up with the series, I’m going to give it a go after this readathon is over.

From here, my plan for the day is to read Give Me Your Hand and Throne of Glass, with the goal being to make enough progress that I can finish both of these books tomorrow, therefore giving me the weekend to finish up my seventh and final book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.  While not every book has become a new favorite of mine, I’d say that my overall experience has been pretty good, as I haven’t hit any dud books yet and even found a new five-star read, which is not a rating I hand out too often.

11:30 AM:  I’m now halfway through Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott and I have mixed feelings on it.  On the one hand, I am interested in seeing how the story plays out and will finish it, but on the other hand, this isn’t actually an overly exciting thriller.  Since this is more of a literary thriller, I did expect it to be a little on the slower side, but I feel like very little has happened and this is the slowest of slow burns.

Part of the issue may be because the chapters are split into “then” and “now” timelines, so every time something is about to happen in present-day timeline, I have to force myself through twenty pages to find out the actual resolution to that event because I get whisked off to find out more about what the main character was up to as a teenager.  This is creating some serious pacing issues and it’s getting really frustrating.  I don’t hate this book, but it’s definitely my least favorite of what I have read from this author to date.

On a positive note, however, there’s a Borderlands reveal this afternoon, so we may finally get the Borderlands 3 announcement we have all been waiting for!  I’m going to take an afternoon reading break, continue my first playthrough as the soldier for a while, and then watch the show.  Then, this evening, I’ll probably try and make some progress in Throne of Glass.  Ideally, I’d like to end today halfway through both of my current reads so I can wrap them both up tomorrow.

4:00 PM:  I have officially watched the Borderlands 3 press conference and it was everything I ever could have wanted…except a release date!  While I am aware that more information is going to be revealed on April 3, the fact that no release date was given here and now makes me think we’re looking at a 2020 window at best.  I’m still holding out hope that this game will pull a Fallout 4 and release in six months, though, because I seriously cannot wait.

In terms of my Borderlands playthrough, I’m about level fifteen as the soldier class.  The game itself is as amazing as ever, but I’m not a huge fan of the class.  He’s pretty generic and his special ability, placing down a turret to shoot enemies automatically, is fairly one-note and has limited practicality.  I’ll be curious to see how the rest of the game goes with him, but so far, I don’t like this class nearly as much as my siren.

9:00 PM:  I am writing this after finishing a series of reading sprints.  The book I was reading during the sprints is Throne of Glass, and I’m about 100 pages in now.  So far, it’s wonderful.  Celaena has a bit of “generic YA protagonist” syndrome going on and I can’t figure out how on earth this series is stretched into so many books based on the plot so far, but I’m along for the ride and having a lot of fun with it.  If I continue to enjoy this as much as I have so far, I will probably continue on with the series.

After I finish writing this entry, I will be heading to bed early so I can get some uninterrupted reading in and hopefully finish up the first half of Throne of Glass.  How successful I am with this goal will be seen in tomorrow’s post!  I’m over halfway through this readathon and I can’t let up on the reading now!  Let me know in the comments below if you’ve read any of these books!