Hello Readers! For the first time ever, I managed to check-off ALL the prompts in my Trope-ical Readathon! I’m in shock. Which means I’ve also probably read the most books ever in a month—at least since I started blogging. August was blissfully long, and for the first time in a long time, the month didn’t fly by. It may have had something to do with the fact that I had Covid the last week of the month, but a win’s a win, right?! Thankfully, it was mild and I still felt like reading.😅

I did end up having to move a few books around, and changed my mind about a few books, as well. You can check out My Trope-ical Readathon TBR, if you’re curious about what I changed. If my calculations are correct—and they probably aren’t—I contributed 5,926 points to my team!

Let’s see what I read!

All the rules and information for this challenge can be found @ JenJenReviews. There are a lot of details but they also have an announcement YouTube video that explains how each challenge works. Basically, you choose your team and each team gets points for challenges completed. But you don’t have to stick to the challenges, you can also get points just for pages read on any book you choose.

Point System

• Common Challenges: 50 POINTS EACH
• Team Challenges: 100 POINTS EACH
• Team Books: 150 POINTS EACH
• Pages Read: 1 POINT PER PAGE

Common Challenges

There are two options for the Common Challenges: read a book with the given trope OR one that satisfies the alternate prompt. For my challenges, I used a few ARCs, a mix of books from my #20BooksOfSummer23 Challenge, backlist books from My Project Backlist Challenge, books from My Popsugar Challenge, and a few I just pulled off my shelf!

• ✅ Absent or Dead Parent – Whalefall by Daniel Kraus (336 pages)
  My Review
• ✅ Hand-Picked Crew – The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (336 pages – I didn’t get to count all the pages because I started it before the challenge began.)
• ✅ A Genre You Don’t Usually Read – You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron (230 pages)

• ✅ A Book You Previously DNFed – Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton (321 pages)
• ✅ Love Triangle – Pretty in Pink by H.B. Gilmour (165 pages)
• ✅ A Recent (2023) Release – Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings (320 pages)
  My Review
• ✅ An Audiobook or Ebook – My Billionaire Grump by Camilla Isley (115 pages)
• ✅ A Comfort Read – Friends Don’t Fall in Love by Erin Hahn (326 pages)
  My Review

• ✅ A Book in a Series – Beautiful Bastard (Beautiful Bastard, #1) by Christina Lauren (318 pages)
• ✅ Devour a Book in 24 Hours – Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez (120 pages)
• ✅ A Banned Book – Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi (294 pages)
• ✅ Bookish Themes – Love or Hate by Camilla Isley (100 pages)
• ✅ A Book with a TV or Movie Adaptation – The Lost Husband by Katherine Center (304 pages)

Team Challenge

✅ I chose Team Contemporary/Literary/Historical Fiction simply because it was the only team that had a book I hadn’t read AND one that I already own, which was Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy. (400 pages)

Team Challenges

1. ✅ Read a Book with the “Heroes with Titles” Trope – Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev (499 pages)
2. ✅ Read a Book with the “Reunion” Trope – The Reunion by Kit Frick (352 pages)
   Review to come!

Extra Book

I remembered that I still needed to read Heartstopper Vol. 3 by Alice Oseman (which I already owned) before I watched the newest season of the adaptation, and I thought it’d be an easy book to fulfill a prompt. Only I’d forgotten graphic novels CAN NOT be counted toward challenge prompts, just for pages read. Oops. This is one of the books that forced me to shift things around. BTW, I adored the book and adaptation! (380 pages)

I had a blast spending August reading for the challenge! Did you participate in the Trope-ical Readathon? Let me know in the comments!

Happy Wandering!