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Hello Hello! How are you all?
I thought I’d kick off my blog with this post because this readathon is close to my heart! In August of 2019, I came across a lot of tweets on Twitter about hyped books and series and peoples’ responses to whether they had or had not read them yet. I decided I wanted to see for myself where I stood on the “hyped books” wagon, so I requested the list from the lovely Noly.
As you can see from the photo, I didn’t do too well, and both Noly and I soon realised that we were in the same boat, that we had only read 1 or 2 of the books or series on the list. We knew that we wanted to change that though. So, we had the idea of hosting a year-long readathon, in which we were going to try to read all the hyped books we had always wanted to get our hands on but either never got the time or the opportunity to read them.
Five months in, and even though we haven’t read every single book we have set out to each month, we’ve met some wonderful people, have read some awesome books and have had so much fun. Every month, we either post on our Hype-A-Thon Twitter account to ask people if they have any hyped books in mind that they want to read or a theme they want to concentrate on, or Noly and I have a little think, come up with a theme and some book ideas and try to post polls to help people chose what they want to read. Sometimes we get caught up with work and university and forget to post the polls as early in the month as we want, or we forget to pick and then have a last-minute panic about telling people what we have decided on, but all of you are more than welcome to pick whichever books you want, as long as they either tie into the month’s general theme and/or have been or still are hyped.
Also, from right the start of the readathon in September, we have urged people to choose their own books to fit the theme, yes, we want people to join in with us, but if we are reading books that don’t interest people or that they have already read, but they like the theme and want to join in, they can choose any hyped book they want! The point of this readathon is to conquer that hyped books TBR we all have and have fun doing it. We just rely on themes and general ideas to help us tackle the very long list in a bit of an easier way.
At the end of each month, I will be posting a “wrap-up” for that month with a review of the book(s) I read, but if you want to keep up to date on a daily basis, you can find us on Twitter here:
We do not yet have an Instagram dedicated to this readathon because we decided that we wanted to concentrate on Twitter, but if you do not have Twitter and do not wish to have a Twitter account, you can always post pictures of your TBR, wrap-ups or anything else related to this readathon on Instagram, using the hashtags #hypeathonreadathon, the hashtag for that particular month and tagging both Noly on Twitter and/or on Instagram and myself Twitter and/or Instagram because we love interacting with you and seeing what you are reading.
I thought it would be helpful to remind everyone what themes we have already done and what books we have read – we both have really busy work and university schedules so we don’t always read the exact same books each month so I will say who read what.
In September our theme was #StandaloneSeptember and we picked a few standalone novels that have been hyped up since “forever” in the bookish community and we both managed to read Fangirl, Carry On and Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. We really enjoyed all of these books and they made us want to read more of Rainbow’s books because they seriously gave us the feels!
In October, we decided on #Spooktober (this was so fun) and we both read The Diviners by Libba Bray and Noly was able to finish Dracula by Bram Stoker. I think we both enjoyed The Diviners but felt that the story dragged on a bit and only got really interesting towards the end and I think that we do still want to read at least the second book in the series to see if our feelings change or if we are still a bit let down.
In November we were both so happy to be reading books in the theme #RoyalNovember (I think it is also my favourite theme we have picked, but that could change soon, yay!) and we both read The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson (the first book in the series), and I was able to finish Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston and The Selection by Kiera Cass (the first book in the series).
In December, we decided to focus on the Christmassy side of the month and all the feels we get from this beautiful time of the year with the theme #DecadentDecember. I was only able to finish My True Love Gave to Me, a collection of Christmassy short stories edited by Stephanie Perkins and Noly was only able to get halfway through that one and One Day in December by Josie Silver.
In January, we didn’t really have a theme in mind, so instead of worrying for hours how to squeeze the books we had in mind into a theme, in which neither would have fit because of how different they were from one another, we went with #PickandChooseJanuary and I was able to finish Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout (first book in the series) and Noly was only able to read half of it, she was very busy, poor thing ☹.
Finally, for those of you who haven’t yet seen our posts on the Hype-A-Thon Twitter, the theme for this month is #Faebruary and we are both excessively excited about this one. We aim to read at least one book from The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi and The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (first in the series) but you are all more than welcome to pick a hyped book about faeries or featuring faeries and join us!
You can find our reviews or thoughts on the books we have read either on my Instagram or on Noly’s blog. That’s all for now, we are both really looking forward to the next months and meeting more lovely readers trying to conquer the “hyped books you must read before you die” list. I hope you enjoy your time here and join us on our journey. Remember to use the #hypeathonreadathon and the monthly hashtags and tag both of us, either on Twitter and/or Instagram to keep us in the loop for your own personal journey.
Ellie xx