Looking Back at 2014 Challenges

Alright, so it's time to finally see if I managed to do any of the 2014 challenges I set out to complete this year. At the beginning of the year, I was pretty ambitious, signing up for 4 year-long challenges, and 2 mid year reading challenges I'll also talk about. So, let's talk about 2014 challenges, and if you're curious you can check out my summary of my 2014 reading goals and challenges.

Year Long Challenges

Bookish's 2014 TBR Pile Challenge

hosted by Bookish

My intended goal: A First Kiss level (21-20 reviews)

Challenge Completed? 

Yes!

I did a total of 23 reviews on the blog and on Goodreads that met this requirement. I'll be updating the 2014 Challenges tab with the results and linked up reviews shortly.

2014 Debut Author Challenge

hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Challenge Goal: 12 debut novels

Challenge Completed?

No, I read and reviewed 5 debuts

2014 Prequel & Sequel Challenge

hosted by Novel Heartbeat and Writer Grrl Reads

My intended goal: Newbie level (10-25 points)

Challenge Completed?

Yes!

I calculated my points and ended up with 36 points from sequel reviews.

Mid Year Challenges

Fiktshun's 2014 Don't Let It End Reading Challenge

hosted by Fiktshun

No set goal

How many series-ending books did I read and review during this time period?

2

2014 Book Blogger Summer Reading Program

hosted by Katie's Book Blog

My intended goal: Read 12 books during the time period

Challenge Completed?

Yes!

I ended up reading 36 books and 1 novella during the time period, and of those books that I read I ended up writing 17 reviews, although those were not necessarily posted during the time frame.

So, those are my 2014 Challenges. I ended up completing most of them, which I'm happy about. However, going into challenges next year, I saw Cassi mention in her recent Top Ten Tuesday that one of her New Year's Resolutions was to link up to challenges for the updates. And I thought about it... and I never did that this year. Seeing as that's part of the challenge, I'm hoping that when I sign up for 2015 challenges, I can try and keep updated on them as well. I've been updating the 2014 Challenges into a new system of organization and so I've checked back on the challenges and updated the scores here.

I hope 2014 was a good year, and best wishes for 2015! See you next year in the Paper World!

From the paper world,

V

The Five Star Spotlight - Cress by Marissa Meyer

Rapunzel’s tower is a satellite. She can’t let down her hair—or her guard. 

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army. 

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker—unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. 

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

Cress on Goodreads       The Author's Website

*Spoilers for the first two books in the Lunar Chronicles in the following review!*

This is a spotlight on a book that I fell in love with. Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles series, and I just want to show you how my feelings for this series have changed with each installment I've read.

Cinder - hey, this is a unique idea. I like this book.

Scarlet -  wow, this series is pretty interesting, I'm really enjoying myself!

The Little Android (one of the short stories) - this writing is beautiful, I can't wait to read more.

Cress - THIS SERIES IS AMAZING! 

So, this is going to be a very positive review of Cress. Honestly, though, I've loved it. This was a book that I didn't expect to completely fall in love with, but I'm so happy I did. Everything came together in this book. 

I'll start as I normally do, by talking about the characters. As each book comes, I find that each new narrator is better than the last. Cress is really fantastic. She brings a really good balance to the group, and I enjoyed reading from her perspective because everything was new and exciting. Also, we get to read more from Thorne, and he is now definitely one of my book boyfriends. Thorne is sarcastic, charismatic, and wity, but he does have a good heart. The combination of snarkiness but with depth as well is what makes a book boyfriend for me. Thorne and Cress are two characters that have a really great dynamic between the two, and seeing both of them in the group was really great. 

The group was one element that I really appreciated in this book. Scarlet was more of two paralleling story lines, and while that worked for her story, I was glad to see more of a group dynamic in this book. We finally get some of the ensemble, where there are multiple narrators and everything is interesting. In general, I just really loved how all of the characters interacted. Each is unique and memorable, but work so well together that the conversation is always interesting and the story never drags.

Speaking of the plot, this book reads like an epic movie. It's one that I couldn't put down, and I ended up reading this in two days. The story line has two different settings- wonderful moments of the characters interacting and a lot of interest in what's going on with them, and then so much action and plot development that you have to read on. In short, the story never drags. However, the action and intense moments are never confusing- all of the narrators work really well together and as a reader I never felt like I was confused or unaware of what was going on.

The romance in this book is adorable, and I love how all of the characters act in general, but if you're looking for a dramatic love triangle or anything like that, this series is more about the characters and the overarching story line. To me, I liked stories like this, where if there is romance it's more a side story to the main conflict, so I appreciated that about this series. 

This is by far my favorite installment to The Lunar Chronicles. While I had enjoyed the series before, this book solidified its status as a favorite. I am so excited for Winter, and I think that this series has some of the best characters I've read, as well as some epic action and a main conflict that I can't wait to see resolved in the conclusion.

Have you read this series? I'm in love, so feel free to comment down below, or tweet me about it!

From the paper world,

V

The Five Star Spotlight - Unhinged by A.G. Howard

It's always a good post when it's a Five Star Spotlight. After all, these are books that are favorites and wonderful, spectacular reads. This series showcases all of those books, and today we are talking about a series you've probably seen mentioned on this blog once...or twice...or every other post. Well, now I'm going to be adding another book from this series. That is Unhinged by A.G. Howard. Unhinged is the sequel to my favorite book from 2013, Splintered. Splintered is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland, and how generations later, Alice's descendant Alyssa finds herself drawn into Wonderland as she tries to help Wonderland after the destruction left by Alice. Alyssa is joined by her Wonderland guide Morpheus, who is probably smugly seated in the Top 10 or 5 of my favorite characters (let me know if you want a post on my favorite characters, by the way) and Jeb, Alyssa's best friend. If you haven't yet read Splintered, this review does contain spoilers for the first book. So, I'll link you to Splintered on Goodreads and you can start there and read that book. I would definitely recommend this series- it's one of my favorites in YA, and arguably my favorite YA series aside from The Mortal Instruments. So, definitely check out Splintered (it has an amazing cover!).

I'll include Splintered's info here before the rest so that if you haven't read the series, you can view it and add it on Goodreads. And see the pretty cover!

This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

And now, if you've read Splintered, let's talk about Unhinged.

2014 Goals and Challenges - A Summary

If you've been here on the blog a few times, you've probably seen a random post or two about some reading challenges that Paper Worlds and Swirls of Ink are going to be participating in. Also, there are quite a few buttons appearing in the side bar, for readathons, read alongs, challenges, and other events that I'm going to be participating in through the blog. And I'm really excited for them, and I want to spread the word so you can see if it's something you would be interested in participating in. Now, before we start, yes these are a lot of challenges. However, I looked at them all carefully, set myself very realistic goals, and I'm not going to worry about everything excessively. Book blogging is something I do because it's what I love to do, and these challenges are a great way to inspire myself to have more reviews for you guys, and to also be able to see others' reviews, blogs, and thoughts. The challenges are also ones that, with almost any book I read, a review for it will count towards one or more of these challenges. So, I think I'll be able to successfully meet my goals, which are all very reasonable. Without further ado, let's talk about some of the yearly challenges I'm undertaking, and how they coincide with some of my blogging goals.

First, I'd like to talk about the first book blogging challenges I heard about and signed up for. The 2014 TBR Pile Challenge, hosted at Bookish is one that I'm really excited about. This was the first one I'd heard of, and I was so excited because it was a chance to review some books and then be able to see other's book reviews and share some of my own. Plus, the idea of this challenge is to read some books that are already published and that you've wanted to read for awhile. For this year's challenge, the books must be published in 2013 or any year before that. I set myself the goal of reading and reviewing 21-30 books for this challenge, and even with all the other challenges I'm undertaking, I think this is a reasonable goal. I've wanted to have more book reviews on the blog, and this challenge was great motivation for that. A few other bloggers I know, namely Sunny and Kerrie, are doing it as well, and I'm really excited to meet some other bloggers, read some reviews, and write and share some of my own. I'll link the sign up page here, and that gives the challenge details as well.

Sign Up for Bookish's 2014 TBR Pile Challenge!

Another challenge I'm really excited for is the 2014 Debut Author's Challenge. This is hosted at The Story Siren, and the goal of this is to read 12 debut author books for this year. I signed up for this after I saw how many YA 2014 Debuts I was adding to my to-read as I looked on Goodreads under various Listopia. There are plenty of authors that are debuting this year with books that really do sound fantastic. In my sign up post, I linked the books I was considering reading, and so I'll link that here. Since the goal is 12 debuts, and we have the same monthly link-ups as all of these challenges have for reviews, I knew this would be an opprotunity to discover some new authors and series, which perfectly lines up with my 'Start at least 5 new series' book goal, and this would be a lot of new content for reviews for you all. I'm thinking of starting a feature about favorite Debuts of mine, so let me know if you guys are in favor of that idea. I'll leave the sign up for this challenge as well so you can see if it's something you're interested in.

Sign Up for The Story Siren's 2014 Debut Author Challenge!

Next is the 2014 Prequels & Sequels Challenge. This is hosted by both Novel Heartbeat and Writer Grrl Reads. The goal of this challenge is to read and review prequels, sequels, and complete series. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to expand on my Series in Summation feature, and to have more reviews in general. I picked the lowest target for this, which was 10-25 points and so I'll have this challenge completed early into the year.




Sign Up for Novel Heartbeat and Writer Grrl Reads's 2014 Prequels & Sequels Challenge!

I'd like to take this time to announce my participation in yet another 2014 reading challenge. Fiktshun is a blog I've been following for awhile, and so when I saw her post about the 'Don't Let It End Challenge' I was really excited. One of my 2014 goals is to 'Finish 5 series' and the goal of this 6 month challenge (From February 14 to July 14) is to finish series that you have dreaded finishing. I can think of a few that are already out (Sentinel, Champion, Allegiant, Emerald Green, etc.) as well as some coming out I'm dreading seeing the end of the series (City of Heavenly Fire!!). This challenge is great motivation to finish these series. It will also overlap with the Prequels & Sequels Challenge. I know it seems like a lot to add on another challenge, but there is no book number requirement for this. I don't need to set a goal or level to reach. I just read what I can, and link up the reviews. So, I'm very excited, and I'll link the sign ups for you all here.

Sign Up for Fiktshun's 2014 Dont Let It End Reading Challenge!

My Goodreads Reading Challenge is 75 books. Last year I didn't update my reading for six months, so I'm going to keep a closer track of what I read through Goodreads. 

Those are all of the reading challenges I'll be participating in this year. Yes, it's a lot, but I think I can handle my goals. I'll keep you posted in my Monthly Wrap Ups, and update how I'm doing in each challenge. Also, my Goodreads reading challenge is in the sidebar with the other 2014 Reading Challenges, and you'll be able to see how many books I've read there.

What are some reading challenges you'll be participating in? Are you doing any of the same challenges? 

From the paper world,

V

Reading Challenges - 2014 Prequel & Sequel Challenge

Welcome back to another episode of joining a ton of reading challenges for 2014! Looking at the books I want to read this year, all of the challenges I've been signing up for have really been fitting my TBR perfectly. This particular challenge is The 2014 Prequel & Sequel Challenge. This is yet another challenge I heard about through Elizziebooks and although I keep linking her Youtube channel when I mention her, I actually heard about these blog. This challenge is going to complement my participation in the TBR Pile Challenge and some prequel novellas for the 2014 debuts I'm reading for the Debut Author Challenge. (If you're curious about any of those, the buttons are in the sidebar, and clicking on those takes you directly to the sign ups) I'm still a little uncertain about the scoring details, but I've linked the sign ups so you can read them as well. Regardless, this will definitely be the cause of quite a few Series in Summations that will be coming to you guys this year. I'm really excited about that because I like writing those features, but didn't think I'd be able to in light of my other challenges.