It’s that time of year where even the best of us can get into a reading slump. School is starting soon for kids and the end of summer is in sight. What once felt like it would last forever is only weeks from ending.
Even typing this, I’m making a face about it. As I’ve become more aware of how close the summer is to ending, my reading has slowed down. So what’s a great way to kick a reading slump?
Sign up for a reading challenge!
Starting the Trope-ical Readathon
When I saw the announcement for the Trope-ical Readathon, it was hard to resist. I loved the idea of choosing a team and working together to earn points. It was like a bookish… Crap, what do I call Hogwarts Houses now that J.K. Rowling has shown her true colours? It was like a bookish… shallow personality test?
The idea is simple.
- Choose your team.
- Look at the group read for your team.
- Choose books that fit the prompts like you’re filling in a book bingo card.
Just by looking at the books, I was immediately interested in Team Fantasy or Team Horror. I was 10000% going to sign up for one of those two until I got to the actual sign up form.
Choosing Your Readathon House Team
On the sign up form right above choosing the team, there was a plaintive “Teams Nonfiction/Poetry is low on members! Please considered signing up for it!“
How could I say no?
I will admit that I found these prompts significantly harder to find books for than I would have for other genres. The Trope-ical side doesn’t adhere as nicely to nonfiction and poetry.
On top of that, I generally tried to stick with books that I already owned and haven’t read. Just to add that extra layer of challenge.
Here I am, world! Proud member of Team Nonfiction/Poetry.
Figuring Out the Trope-ical Prompts
When it comes to reading challenge, any reading challenge, picking your books is important. It might sound obvious, but pick the wrong ones and you could just make the month a slog for yourself. When I first looked at the prompts, I could see my work was cut out for me.
As you can see, they’re better suited to fictional prompts than nonfiction ones. Still, I’m going to do my best and update my books below.
As you can imagine, I really struggled with this. I even considered giving up my stipulation that I had to have already owned the book.
The only one I ended up doing that for was the Team Read which I’m getting from the library. All the rest were fair game. At first I was really discouraged, but after watching a bit of Drag Race, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
No more whining! No more thinking it’s unfair. Just working.
We were just going to have to get creative and rely heavily on the alternate prompts!
This Trope-ical Readathon wasn’t going to read itself.
The Readathon Progress
Currently, Team Nonfiction/Poetry is top of the leaderboard! Team Romance is killing it. Good on them! Points are tallied based on the team’s average rather than the totals. Good thing, because the teams are pretty uneven.
Based on the stats I saw on Discord, the teams are here as of August 2, 2020:
Romance – 40 Participants
Science Fiction & Fantasy – 93 Participants
Horror/Thriller/Mystery – 52 Participants
Contemporary/Literary/Historical Fiction – 38 Participants
Nonfiction/Poetry – 18 Participants
My Books
- Multiple Authors – Heida: A Shepherd at the Edge of the World
- Pandemic – Get Well Soon
- Survival – The Indifferent Stars Above
- Dystopia – The Octopus Museum
- Audio Book – The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
- Artificial Intelligence – Soft Science
- Genre I don’t Normally Read – Radical Candor
- Blast from the Past – West From Home
- Book I Previously DNFed – Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
- A Book With a TV or Movie Adaptation – Pioneer Girl
- Book starting with the first letter of your name – Land to Light On
- A Book You Forgot About on your TBR – The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
- Forbidden Love – Bone
- A Recommended Book – Stuff Matters
Do you have any suggestions or are there things you think I’ve missed? Leave a comment below. Or if you want more posts like this? Sign up today and never miss a post!
