Sweet Summer, Crazy for YA Books, and Library Book Readathons: Day 1 Wrap-Up (Monday, June 9)

I am participating in three readathons this week.  I have completed a good amount of reading today.  I was in the mood for some graphic novels, so this consisted of most of my reading.  I earned 8 points for the Crazy for Young Adult Books readathon.  I also completed a challenge (that I hosted) for the Sweet Summer Readathon.  You can find that challenge here.  I did not listen to any of the The Scorch Trial audiobook (for the Sweet Summer Readathon optional challenge) but I hope to listen to some of that tomorrow.  Below are the details of what I read and my thoughts.  To see how what I read applies to each of the readathons, please see my updates post here.

Reading Completed:

Today, I read a total of 411 pages.  I surpassed my goal of 300 pages.  Here is what I read: 

• Read 18 pages of the first volume of Fables by Willingham and DNF due to adult situations and some foul language 
• Started and finished Bone: Out from Boneville (graphic novel, 142 pages) 
• Started and finished Harry Potty and the Deathly Boring (graphic novel,  64 pages)
• Started and finished Black, Graphic Novel version, by Ted Dekker (graphic novel based on a book, 
• Started Once Upon a Curse by E.D. Baker (children's novel, 69 pages read)

Today's Thoughts:

I began reading Fables because I was interested in the premise: characters from the fairy tales that we all know and love reimagined and fighting crime.  Sounds awesome right?  I found that this first volume just was not for me.  I do not like reading books with adult content or even references to it.  I also do not like foul language and so this series was just not for me and I decided to DNF the series.

I next grabbed the first book in the Bone graphic novel series.  I loved this first volume.  The humor that is child friendly was wonderfully placed and made me chuckle.  The story was also very well written.  I gave this graphic novel a 5/5 stars and I will discuss it more in an upcoming review.  I do plan on continuing this series.

I then went to the library to return some books and pick up a few I had on hold.  I decided that I was really in the mood for graphic novels right now.  On an impulse, I picked up Harry Potter and the Deathly Boring, a graphic novel parody of the Harry Potter series.  I loved the Harry Potter series and I was in the mood for some humor.  This story really disappointed me.  The book's language and humor seemed to be written for a younger audience, but the foul language suggested that it was written for a YA audience.  Some of the jokes were funny, but most were dry.  I gave this book a 1.5/5 stars and I will not be writing a review on this graphic novel.

While at the library, I also saw some graphic novels that are based off of books by one of my favorite Christian Fiction authors, Ted Dekker.  I have been wanting to read them for a while, so I picked up the entire Circle graphic novel series (3 books) and the Lost Books graphic novel series (4 books).  They are each around 150 pages or less.  I hope to read most of them this week.  Today, I read the first of the Circle graphic novel series, Black.  I loved this book.  It has great illustrations and the writing sticks to the feel and the storyline of the original novels.  I gave this book a 5/5 stars and will talk about it more in my upcoming review.

Finally, I read some of a middle grade fairy tale story, Once Upon a Curse by E.D. Banks.  So far, I am enjoying this book.  I also got this by impulse at the library without realizing that it is the third in a series.  So far it has been easy to pick up what is happening in the book, so I think I will continue reading it even though I have not read the first two books in the series.