Wrap up for April

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

This book was really interesting and I really enjoyed reading about the idea of curing Cameron. However, I really didn’t enjoy Cameron’s personality and found her a little bit irritating. I also really felt like the book didn’t really end there. It either needed to be a little bit longer and wrap up a bit more or a little bit shorter and more concise. In the end I gave this book 3/5.

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

This is a companion novel to the Lunar Chronicles which I recently started reading. This was told from the point of view of the villain in this series, Levana. It was really interesting reading Levana’s back story and learning about how she became so evil. This was a really short quick read and I gave it 4/5.

Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were great and so sassy. I enjoyed the three main characters and how they interacted with each other. There were unexpected twists which I did not see coming and the ending finished it of nicely. I really enjoyed this book and will be checking out more of Kiersten White’s books. I gave it 5/5.

All the Light We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr

All the Light we Cannot See is the Goodreads choice winner for Historical Fiction. I started reading this a while ago but didn’t have time to finish before I had to return it to the library. I put another hold on it and have waited ages for it to become available again. I just finished reading it and really enjoyed it. I found that I like how followed two people from both sides of the war. I also really liked how it connected with The Book Thief as it followed a boy who went to one of the Nazi Schools that Rudy didn’t go to in The Book Thief. The only slight downside was I did find it was a bit hard to get into at the start which is why I ran out of time before it had to be returned to the library. However, I still gave the book 5/5.

The Collectors by Philip Pullman

This is a short story set in the same world as His Dark Materials. His Dark Materials is my favourite series as it was really the books that made me love reading. So it goes without saying that I loved this and it was really creepy. I personally cannot wait for The Book of Dust to come out even though it is ages away. I also gave the collectors 5/5.

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

I read this book as part of Dewey’s 24 hour read-a-thon. It was a really easy and quick read with an easy to follow story line. I really enjoyed the book but found it a little frustrating because the main character seemed to spend more time talking herself up to be awesome instead of being a good fighter. It seemed to be a bit of a tell you how it is not show you book which I didn’t really like. In the end I gave it 4/5 for that reason. I will continue with the series shortly. I have some other books I want to read first though.

So these are all the books I ended up reading this month. I’m currently reading A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab. I will probably finish this in the next day or so. I will post my TBR in the next few days. I also have some other posts that aren’t book related to post as well.

Bout-of-Books 13 sign up post

I decided that I will have time again to participate in this week long read-a-thon. I really enjoyed it last year and got heaps of reading done. I’m hoping to do that again this year. I’ll be posting closer to the date with my official reading list.

Here is some info about the read-a-thon:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 11th and runs through Sunday, May 17th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 13 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

If you have ever wanted to try one this is the best one as it is super low key and you set yourself personal reading goals. It is a great read-a-thon to start with and probably my personal favorite.

Dewey’s Read-a-thon Wrap up

For me the read-a-thon started at 9:30 pm on Saturday. Unfortunately, this was also when Michael’s Mum and Brother arrived back for Tasmania so we had to pick them up from the airport. This of course meant that I didn’t get much reading done before I went to bed. I only read about 10% of Throne of Glass.

I was also reasonably busy on Sunday as I had general chores to do as well as a party to go to. It was a going away party for one of my close friends so really unavoidable. I did as much reading as possible though and ended up getting as far as 50% read. I think I might finish the book today if I have time.

I have really enjoyed reading the book though and it was a very good book for a read-a-thon. I don’t know if I will take part in a 24 hour read-a-thon again as I found it difficult to get the reading done but it could just be poor timing. I might do it more casually next time as it did get me reading more than I normally would and it was enjoyable. I will certainly be taking part in the week long read-a-thons again as I really enjoyed the other one of them I did.

Dewey’s Read-a-Thon

I’ve decided to participate in Dewey’s 24 hour read-a-thon this year. I have not taken part before as I normally don’t have very much time but this year I do. I’m very excited to take part and have been spending ages planning my books.
I think I will be able to get a maximum of two books read in this time.

I’m thinking I might read

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

I also have the sequels of these two so if I like them a lot I might just read that instead. I also have a lot of other books to read so might read something completely different.

I will do a wrap up of what I read after the read-a-thon and will try to do updates on instagram and on my blog as well.

Easter Long Weekend Holiday

For the Easter long weekend Michael and I headed to Goolwa as his parents have a Farr 7.50 there which we can use. This is the second year we have done this and it is always lovely and relaxing. After heading out at about 11 on Friday we stopped at Currency Creek for a walk. The last time we were at Currency Creek was the day Michael and I got engaged and it was not as enjoyable as we didn’t have proper walking shoes.

 This is the train line which runs over Currency Creek. You walk right under the bridge on this walk. Last time we were here a train went by which was really cool to see. It was also scary though as one of the works on the train was just hanging off the edge of the train. I really couldn’t have done that without freaking out.

After walking along the path further the reeds clear up and you can see the creek. It was a lovely day and it was nice walking along the path listening to the water running down the creek.

There is also this cave here but both times we didn’t have a torch with us to light it up. It looks interesting and I have no idea how far the cave goes.

There was also this really cool burnt tree. It is almost completely burnt out down the bottom but the tree is still alive and growing up the top. The gum trees in Australia have adapted to survive after fires and it is really amazing that they can do this.

After walking along the trail for 20 minutes  it opened up to this view of a waterfall. You can walk all the way down and sit right on top of the waterfall it’s lovely. It would be so nice to spend the day there with a good book.

After the waterfall the creek becomes smaller but is still very pretty. You can walk for ages it seem but we decided to head back as we wanted to eat our lunch.

We arrived at Goolwa a little after 1pm and started to unpack the car. It was a lovely day and this is the view from Dyarchy in the marina. There wasn’t much wind and Michael had some Uni work to do so we set up for staying overnight in the marina.

After we had finsihed setting up and Michael had done some Uni work we headed to the beach for another walk. It was a bit cold but it was a lovely day otherwise. The beach was reasonably busy for Goolwa with lots of cars and people about.

We took a selfie of us at the beach. It was a lovely walk and the beach holds lovely memories for us as this is where we got engaged.

Saturday morning we had some motor troubles and waited for Michael’s parents to help us. It seemed to be fixed after talking to Clive and we decided to go somewhere. It was another lovely day and there was a nice amount of wind so we could sail. I’ve been trying to improve my confidence with steering and ended up doing it a lot of the time.

Here is another picture of us sailing up the river.

In the end we were still having motor troubles and we weren’t sure if it was going to start in the morning so we anchored in Duck Hospital just of Goose Island (near Clayton). Here is the sunset from where we were. It was lovely and so peaceful.

Here is a picture of Goose Island. After the wind stopped it was blissfully quiet and if you weren’t talking you couldn’t hear anything. That is the best part of sailing on the lake although spending a night on Earrame on the sea is also nice listening to the ocean all night.

The next morning we woke up and slowly got ready to leave. There was no wind so we weren’t in a rush to leave as we didn’t have far to go.  We were still having motor troubles but managed to get out and sail home. It was fun trying to get back into the marina with no motor or lots of motor but we got back in safely without any damage to us or the boat.

We decided to head back on the Sunday as Monday was meant to be very windy and also wet. At about 1 in the morning the rain and wind started and did not let up all morning. We decided to leave pretty early as we were stuck on the cramped boat and couldn’t go for walks. We got home about midday and unpacked and enjoyed a relaxing evening at home.

That was the end of our weekend away. I’m going to try post more of these as we want to document our lives a bit more. I also want to post short book reviews and other book related posts. We will see what happens.