Attention: Before starting reading this post is advised to grab something to drink or eat – or both -and get back since this is, without a doubt, the BIGGEST post I have ever done! On the end, I have some freshly baked news for you!! So don’t forget to check it out. I’m sorry in advance and hope I don’t bore you to death. Enjoy!

It’s time for another Wrap-up!! The past week was the Spookathon from the 16th to the 22nd of October. I was dying to do another week-long readathon, and the spirits heard my pealing. Get it spirits? Because it’s Halloween?… Moving on, as you might or not know I attempt to participate in the Booktube-A-Thon back in July. But I’m not going to talk about it today, for more details go read this post. Bottom line, I wanted to participate in another one and see if I could accomplish 7 books in seven days. Although, the Spookathon didn’t have a challenge for the amount of book you should read. Instead, the creators decided to go on what really matters this time of the year. Spooky stuff. So every challenge was decided based on it.

The challenges & TBR

Otherwise, the Booktube-a-thon that had 7 challenges – one for each day – the Spookathon only got 5, which made me really happy. If I wanted to prove myself I could succeed on the Booktube-a-thon, this readathon would be a piece of cake. Actually not, but I’ll talk about that later on.

1. Read a Thriller

Either if it’s Halloween or not, a thriller is what you need around the cold months. You get excited and fell all the emotions without leaving the warmth of your blanket. Sipping a hot cup of tea – or cocoa – while cracking cases and chasing ghosts it’s what requires to spend the perfect weekend.

Fun fact, I actually never got around to choose a book to fulfil this challenge. I wasn’t sure what to pick up so decided to go along and choose based on what I was in the mood for in the moment. The 20th arrived, and I realised I never got to pick one up. So instead of having 5 books, one for each challenge, I have 4.

2. Read a book with a spooky word on the title

Well, this one wasn’t too hard. I already knew at least two books I wanted to pick up and one of them had, in fact, a spooky word on the title so win-win! I’m talking about A Monter Calls by Patrick Ness. This book has been on my radar for so long, but I never got around to sit down and read it. Despite not being too spooky it deals with heavy topics. I don’t want to say much more because I’m going to do a review about it, as it was so amazing.

3. Read a book based on a childhood fear

At the start, it wasn’t easy for me to decided in what fear I should go for. I’ve always hated spiders, and probably there are terrifying books about them, but I still have that fear nowadays so I don’t consider it as a childhood fear. Instead, it’s just a normal one. And besides spiders, I don’t have more weak points that I can remember having as a child. Until it hit me: china dolls.

My grandmother had a china doll and I hated it. It was all dressed up, Victorian style, and with beautiful golden curls but I would refuse to play with it, not even look at it. I don’t recall if I ever touched it. I love my barbies, and I have a few of them, but china dolls, I don’t want any near my house. Maybe they always seemed too real for me and I was scared of that. Either way, china dolls are a huge NO, reason why they are perfect for this challenge. Also to make it even better, I never ever ever liked talking dolls, which every hunted doll is. They love to chat and be creepy and stuff. No, please, just go away…

Therefore, to accomplish this challenge, I choose Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell. I first heard of this book in the Zoella Book Club last year but was always to uncertain if I wanted to pick it up or not. I never explored the horror genre, and I was a bit apprehensive if I was going to be able to finish it or if I had to give up. Turns out it was fine. But again I’ll talk more about it in a review.

4. Read a book with orange on the cover

This was the hardest challenge to came up with a book. It’s so random that you can easily slip off the Halloween theme. And although you were allowed too, I wanted to keep at least in the mysteries department. It was hard! I actually don’t own many books with orange on the cover that could fit my requirements. So I cheated! *shocked face*

I choose Twisted by Jeffery DeAver because my edition has some writing in orange. It’s just a couple of lines, and then the whole thing is pretty blue, but I don’t care it’s going to count.

5. Read a book with a spooky setting

After reading A Monter Calls and Frozen Charlotte, any of those books could easily fulfil this challenge, but I ended up choosing The Shinning by Stephen King. I’ve started reading this book at the beginning of the month, like on 1st or something, and I’ve been putting it off and reading just a couple of pages from time to time. And if I could read a 500 book in a week – which isn’t much of a challenge I think – I could do anything.

Note to self: ALWAYS DO THE TBR POST BEFORE! Even if just in the previous day or on the first, it doesn’t matter! The point is, now half of the freaking post is just the TBR. These things are huge, so remember to split it up. Thank God, this readathon didn’t have 7 challenges!

Wrap-up

I almost made it! Almost! Gosh! By the middle of the week, I got a bit distracted. I was thinking this would be a piece of cake and spend time watching Youtube videos instead of reading. Well, there’s nothing I can do now.

By the third day, for 40 minutes, I finished A Monster Calls. It was the first one I grabbed when the readathon started, and since it took me so little to end, I got extra confident that it would be the same with the others. But no sir, it wasn’t. Although I sometimes wish I hadn’t read it so quickly, it was so great that I should have appreciated it. Like an expensive wine, you don’t just drink it you taste it – weird example but it makes my point.

On the 18th, was my birthday and I went to dinner with friends out of my hometown, and only got back on the next day. It was great, I had so much fun but I didn’t get much sleep that night. So in the morning, I was close to becoming a zombie. Just so you can imagine how dead I was, while reading The Shining – around halfway through it – I would blink and take a whole minute – or more – until I realised I was with my eyes closed. I just want to laugh imagining someone walking into my room and see me sit down on my chair, wrapped in a blanket, with the book open in front of me but with my eyes closed. And then, I would open them and carry on reading as if nothing had happened. I wish I had recorded it. There’s no need to tell it was the worst reading day.

To balanced it out, Sunday was the best. Even though, after dinner, I started to give up and losing interest I still manage to have a productive morning and afternoon. I finished the Frozen Charlotte by lunchtime and was going to hit hard on The Shining since it was so big but that little bastard won the battle and it’s still among us to be ended. Probably going to finish it up on Halloween day as I don’t plan on reading any other spooky book until then.

Total of Pages read: 901/1442
Total of Books read: 2/4
Total of Challenges accomplished: 4/5
Total of Teacups drank: 10

Frozen Charlotte was the queen of the challenges! With it, I accomplished reading a book based on a childhood fear, reading a book with a spooky setting, and reading a thriller. On the other hand, A Monster Calls only stick to the challenge I signed it up for, reading a book with a spooky word on the title. I was never afraid of monsters under the bed or anything like that, and despite the graveyard next to the house, the setting of the book is pretty normal and not spooky at all. Unfortunately, none of this books has a teeny-tiny bit of orange on the cover, making it the only challenge I couldn’t accomplish.

My activity on Twitter wasn’t too intense compared with previous readathons. Since it actually wasn’t any reading sprints I never had the instinct to pick up my phone. Although I still managed to find other people who were participating as well and were recording daily their performance. And this is something I want to bring always to these posts. Although, the primary goal is to have fun and read, connecting with other people is also something really great that comes naturally. And probably the first reason why I want to participate in this things. Being able to motivate each other and be together as a huge reading club, while reading what you want and especially what you can afford, it’s magical.

Since you made this far, congratulations! I have news for you! I’ve decided to launch a different Newsletters based on topics. My blog has different subjects from cooking to DYIs, without forgetting books. And maybe you are just coming here for the books but then you only see recipes and DIYs. If you don’t want to miss any of my book-related posts but really don’t care about DIYs or recipes sign up on the form below and I promise to ONLY send you bookish news, exciting new releases and my reviews in first hand. No spams and other topics, JUST BOOKS!