The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 21st and runs through Sunday, August 27th 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 20 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

Goals:

1. Read 1000 pages during the course of the week.

2. Participate in one twitter chat (there is only one I can participate in anyway as one is at 2am in my time zone while the other is at 4pm).

3. Participate in three challenges.

I will be updating this post every day.

Day One:

Pages Read: 40

Books Finished: Cruel Crown by Victoria Aveyard

Notes: I could have read a few more pages if I hadn’t forgotten to take my book to work! I’ve been reading Cruel Crown for a few weeks, it’s a duology of short story prequels to the Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard, the stories are interesting enough but being prequels, neither of them follow any of the characters I’m invested in in the actual series, still one book finished and it’s only Monday.

Day Two:

Pages Read Today: 12

Total Pages Read: 52

Books Finished Today: 0

Notes: So despite today being my day off from work, I didn’t end up with much time to read, hence the small amount of pages read today. However, despite being at work for most of the day tomorrow I actually have less to do, so I’m sure I can make up that page count tomorrow!

Day Three:

Pages Read Today: 47

Total Pages Read: 109

Books Finished Today: 0

Challenges: Bookspinerainbow

Notes: I think I missed the deadline for the challenge officially by a few minutes, but I thought I’d put it up anyway as it’s such a pretty picture. Today I plan to finish Scoop by Evelyn Waugh and I still haven’t decided what book I want to read next!

Day Four:

Pages read today: 66

Total pages read: 175

Books finished today: 0

Notes: I spent most of the evening finishing Scoop by Evelyn Waugh, but didn’t manage to quite finish it before midnight.

Day Five:

Pages read today: 152

Total pages read: 327

Books finished today: Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

Notes: Did the Leave a Review challenge and left a review of The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente on Goodreads.

Also managed to finish Scoop by Evelyn Waugh which is a book I have been trying to finish for some time as it doesn’t belong to me and I need to give it back!. The book is a satirical novel about journalism originally printed in the 30’s and while entertaining enough to read it was probably funnier in the 30’s than it is now. I am now reading The Eyre Affair by Japser Fforde.

Day Six:

Pages read today: 106

Total pages read: 433

Books finished today: 0

Notes: Took part in the twitter chat, took part in the character you love to hate challenge (The Sleeping Prince from the Sin Eater’s Daughter trilogy).

Day Seven:

Pages read today: 80

Total pages read: 503

Notes: So I didn’t manage to read a thousand pages but I managed to finish two booms during the week and took part in three challenges!

 

 

“”Don’t nitpick, it’s a very unattractive trait.””

The Boy Who Lost Fairyland is the fourth book in the Fairyland series and is the first one not to follow the character of September. Instead we follow a boy called Hawthorn, at least he’s called Hawthorn at first until he’s called Thomas…the different names are down to the fact that Hawthorn is a changeling, swopped with a human baby to grow up in our world where most of the story takes place.

“Hic Sunt Dracones. For in that same old and fancy way of speaking, those words mean: Here There Be Dragons. And, occasionally, humans.”

September is in the story but not until the very end when the main plot starts happening. Much of the book is taken up with the idea of a changeling from Fairyland being in the human world and this is something I have rarely – if ever – read in a story before. Usually stories about magical lands are so taken up with the humans that find their way there, that they quite forget there’s a fairy – or in this case troll – who’s been swopped before their arrival.

“Looking into Tamburlaine’s wood was like looking at a photograph of your parents when they were young. Who are those strange people? Could they ever have been real?”

As I said much of the story takes place in our world so it isn’t until the last 100 pages or so that Hawthorn makes it to Fairyland and the plot of the book gets underway. Even when it does it seems to come about and be resolved much quicker than the setup would have you think. We are re-introduced to September, the changeling is exchanged and it all seems much too easy for how much of the book led up to it…unless of course the whole book is a setup for the next.

“”Who’s afraid of something that can’t defeat a rinse cycle?””

The book does end on a cliffhanger, one involving the whereabouts of September rather than Hawthorn, which does make it seem as if Hawthorn is merely a side character that needed his own story in order for September’s next story to make sense rather than Hawthorn being a second main character who might get other novels.

“”He poisons my jam in alphabetical order. Arsenic on Monday, belladonna on Tuesday, cyanide on Wednesday…I haven’t had jam in five years.””

As a story within the Fairyland series the book is a good addition and depending on the next book is likely to be a necessary addition too, but anyone who wants to read this book as a standalone without having read September’s stories first will find themselves disappointed.