DA Readathon Wrap-Up: Or, how I quit the DA Readathon

So remember that time when I was all excited for doing a big readathon to start 2017? Wasn’t that such a lovely time? I was so young, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, dreaming big dreams of reading lots of books.

I read 2.

 

As many of you may know, the Dumbledore’s Army ReadAThon was a 2-week-long readathon with challenges to read 7 books from diverse authors, focusing specifically on #OwnVoices works. I was very excited to get started, I had my TBR all ready to go, and then I read 2 books and called it good.

Why? Well, a few reasons.

1. I had just finished the Holiday BookTubeAThon literally the day before the start of the DA ReadAThon. I thought this wouldn’t matter since the former was only 3 days long and could be treated as a fun warm-up. Nope. It was fun, but not a warm-up.
2. I just don’t do well with bigger TBRs. I’ve blogged several times about how I never have a set TBR at any time, and that’s the way I like it. I am too much of a whim reader. I got through 2 of my DA ReadAThon books… and then decided I wanted to re-read A Series of Unfortunate Events. When a whim like that strikes, I listen to it. Otherwise, I feel like I’m forcing myself to read something I don’t want to, and where’s the fun in that? This is why I never plan what I read even 1 book in advance. I’m too unpredictable.
3. There wasn’t enough guidance forcing me to participate. The reason I was able to succeed at the summer BookTubeAThon 2 years ago, which is also 7 books, is because it is run on one Twitter account with all the interactions in one place. All I had to do was turn on notifications for that account, and I would know when reading sprints were happening and be able to interact with others participating in the readathon. The centralized organization of the BookTubeAThon is what makes it so successful. No one was rooting for me and/or yelling at me to keep reading this time.
4. Most importantly, the semester is about to start, and honestly, doing a readathon right beforehand was just too stressful. I’m on break! And I need to use this end-of-break time to get prepared for the term. It was too much.

So, those are my excuses. Yes, I suck.

But hows about I talk about the books I did manage to read?

El Deafo by Cece Bell – this was for the “Expecto Patronum” challenge, which was a book that has an issue of personal significance to you or a loved one. I chose this because one of my best friends teaches deaf kids, and this book made a huge difference to her students (despite the fact that several of her co-workers were against her reading it with them! UGH!). It was delightful! I gave it 4/5 stars. It makes a powerful statement that deafness is not an impairment. I only docked a star because I felt a bit weird about the resolution. Highlight for spoiler: the classmates use her deafness to make trouble while the teacher is gone, using her sonic ear as the lookout for when the teacher comes back. This is great – the book framed it as a moment when she felt accepted and celebrated for her deafness. But it kinda made me uncomfortable because it also felt like they were taking advantage of her since she wasn’t immediately ok with the plan. It was kinda weird. But maybe this is just the former teacher in me feeling mortified if this ever happened.

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel – this was for the “Impedimenta” challenge, which was a book left unread on your TBR for too long. Ever since I read Fun Home 2 years ago this had been on my list. I didn’t like it as much as Fun Home, probably because I’m more of a literature nerd than a psychology nerd, and Fun Home is to literature as Are You My Mother is to psychology. I may write a combo review of both of these books at some point. Suffice to say here that Alison Bechdel is an f-ing genius. 4/5 stars.

So here is my feeble point total (sorry, Team Ravenclaw) for the DA ReadAThon: 68.

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