Summer Reading Challenge!

Hey, y'all! So a while back, I told you that I had a pretty cool summer project to announce to you? It's finally time.

I realize that I'm probably over-hyping this. I'm probably more excited than y'all will ever be.

Anyway, my summer project is a reading challenge!!! I have a separate challenge for each month: May, June, and July. I might do something for August, but I haven't decided anything. The majority of the month will still be summer for me, so maybe I'll include it in the challenge, but for now, it's just May-July. Most of these are re-reads, but I think there are 5 books that I'm reading (all in May) which will be first-reads.

One of the exciting things about this challenge is that rather than doing a monthly book update, I'm going to post after every book. Basically, it'll be like all of the single book discussions I have within the series posts, just one by one. Then I'll do an overall series opinion post after all of the individual posts. Within this post, I'll probably say how I felt about these books and rank them from worst to best in the series. I'll probably also rank the covers, just because I love covers so much.

So, this means that I will have several posts about books per month. You may be wondering: but what about all of your other series? No worries, they'll be included in all of this! The current blogging schedule was created to accommodate my class schedule, and it'll be re-designed in the fall to accommodate my new class schedule (heads up- Wednesday posts rather than Tuesday. Maybe. Probably. More details in the fall.). Over the summer, however, the schedule will be just a bit nebulous. You'll still get 2 chapters of the fanfic, 2 CDs on My Shelf, and 2 Tumblr challenges per month... I just don't know when for sure. (Except the next fanfic chapter. That's May 3rd FOR SURE.)

OK, now on to the individual months...

May!

May is Cassandra Clare month! I'm going to start by reading the Infernal Devices trilogy. I haven't read any of these books. Surprising, right? I think I just really liked The Mortal Instruments, and I was worried I wouldn't enjoy the ID as much. But I've heard really great things about the series, and several people have said it's better than TMI.

I've worked out a plan to finish all of the books by the end of the month, and with following this plan, I'll finish the Infernal Devices by/on the 10th of May.

So, you've probably realized that the second series I'll be reading in May is The Mortal Instruments series. I've already read the first four books in this series. I own all 5 of the books that are out, but I haven't read the 5th one. I have this weird relationship with the series where I'll speed through one of the books, loving every second, and if I set the series down for more than a few days, I can't get myself to read the next book. And once I finally pick up the next book, I speed through it and love it and the whole cycle starts all over. Which is what happened when I read the 4th book. The 5th book wasn't out yet, and when it came out, I got it the day it came out... and then never read it.

I plan to have the first 5 books completed before May 27th because May 27th is when this beautiful gem is released:

I've already pre-ordered it on Amazon, and I should get it the day that it comes out. Sometimes, the mailroom at my school makes it take an extra day, but I don't mind so much because it was only $13, which is half of the regular price. I'm hoping it gets here on the 27th though, because this thing looks like it's going to be a MONSTER. 733 pages. That's approximately the same length as Deathly Hallows... which did I read in 24 hours... BUT I also had all day to do it. I don't have that luxury with this book. I was 13 when Deathly Hallows came out, and it was the middle of the summer. Now, I'm almost 20 and I have to work 40 hours a week. Yay adulthood.

June!

June is possibly the most exciting month this summer, because I'm re-reading HARRY POTTER. 

HARRY POTTER.

HARRY POTTER. 

I've read the Harry Potter series many, many times. BUT, I have a confession to make. I don't think I've ever read them straight through from Sorcerer's Stone through Deathly Hallows. When I first read the series, only the 1st-5th books were out. Then the 6th book came out and I read that one, I'm not sure if I ever read the first five through again before the 6th came out. Then, when the 7th came out, I didn't re-read all of the books before it came out, since I really didn't need a refresher. Then, ever since then, I've either just read the 6th & 7th or started reading the series from the beginning, but stopped after the 3rd book. Explanation time. I've always really loved the 6th & 7th books, so sometimes I got lazy and just wanted to read those two. Then, sometimes I would decide to read the whole series, but after the 3rd book, I'd decide I didn't want to read the monstrous 4th and 5th books and go on to books I hadn't already read. I've probably read 1-3 and 6-7 ten times more than 4&5. 

Anyway, my point is that this is probably the first time I'm going to actually read all the books back to back in order! I'm actually really excited to finish this month and to rank the books, because lately I've been questioning my long-standing rankings of the books, and so I want to re-read them and see how I feel afterward.    

But the most important reason for this series being in June is that June is my birthday month, and I want to be reading my favorite series in my favorite month. 

July!

July is the month of PENDRAGON!. I'm not sure how many of y'all have heard of Pendragon. When I was in junior high, it was really big among my friends, but I'm not sure how big it was among the general public. This series is possibly my favorite after Harry Potter. This is another series that I've never read straight through before, because only the first 7 were out when I started reading the series. There are 10 books total, and I honestly can't even remember which books were my favorite. Kinda. I can't remember a lot of the stuff, but I remember how much I really really loved it, and that it's just been too long since I've experienced this exciting world. 

The picture isn't my personal copies of the series, but it's basically what I have. The only differences are that my 1-6 all match in paperback, and 7-10 are in hardback. I want to buy the first 6 in hardback since it's one of my favorite series, but they changed the covers, and they're not cool. At all. Just look.

Their spines look pretty cool, but they just aren't good compared to the original covers with the main character on them. I want them all in hardback, and I want them all to match! Is that too hard to ask for? The weird thing is that I never see it in Barnes and Noble anymore. I'm not sure if it's just not as popular as I thought, but I just don't see it in-store anymore. It's sad, because it's such a great series, whether you read it when you're in the middle-grade age range or even older. I love this series, and I'm so excited to get into it again in July. 

So, that's my summer reading challenge! Are you excited? I'm excited! I'm still trying to decide what to do for August. I have an idea for it, but it's not long enough, and I'm not ready to let y'all know until I have all the details. If/ when I figure it out, I'll let y'all know. 

Also, you may have noticed the slight re-design of the blog. This was to accommodate extra links in the sidebar- namely, my Goodreads! Since I'll be doing this summer reading challenge, I decided to keep my blog up-to-date on what I'm reading, and where I'm at. I have it set to show my "currently reading" shelf, so whatever I'm reading will pop up there and you can see how I'm doing with my reading challenge. 

That's all I have for today! See you Saturday for a new fanfic chapter! Don't forget to check out my reading challenge updates all summer!