HRCYED 3.0: The August update

Vacation is over. Summer months are done. I’m ready for autumn to begin ( I was also ready by July, but that was just me). I’m still excited to write these HRCYED updates. Slowly but surely, I’m making some progress and having a good time with the books that I’m reading. And with autumn starting, the sweater weather upon us, the rainy afternoons… I can smell the cosiness in the air, and the books are thrilled to be picked up.

New HRCYED month, new book. I started Insurgent by Veronica Roth straight away. If I wanted to keep up with my plan to reread the whole series before the newest member of the Divergent family arrives, I had to read it soon. This also marked the start of my Shiritori, and sadly, the only prompt this book counts for. The last time I read Insurgent was in 2016, and I forgot almost everything. However, I remember not liking Insurgent as much as Divergent or Allegiant. But past me clearly didn’t know better. Or maybe the movies did a phenomenal job making me appreciate the books even more. I’m still going to pretend the last movie doesn’t exist. Hashtag sorry-no-sorry.

To make sure that I wouldn’t break the Shiritori, once I finished Insurgent and put it back on the shelf, I immediately opened Thanks for the Memories by Cecelia Ahern. Why did it take me so long to pick up this book? I like Cecelia’s writing style. It’s as simple as that. I had previously “read” another book by her, The Gift, but the main character and the path the story was taking were something I didn’t want to read, so I DNFed it. But other than that, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed her writing. So I knew that if I didn’t have a problem with the characters in Thanks for the Memories, I would have a good time. And my prediction was right.

I haven’t finished it. It’s a book I’ll carry through next month, and it also bridges to the next book in the Shiritori, Sister of Mine by Laurie Petrou. I was already predicting this, so there’s no rush. My Shiritori prompt continues as planned and with very good results so far. Did I just jinx myself? Let’s hope not.

And finally, I picked up I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. One of the books on my priority list for this year. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it, so I really wanted to read it. I already knew that it probably wouldn’t be an option for HRCYED. However, Goodreads’ seasonal reading challenges change on the 14th of September, and this book is part of one of them. So I took the opportunity. Not satisfied with reading this book and not having it count towards HRCYED, I looked at the challenges again. Then I saw the Titular Counting prompt.

I planned to read a book with a long title for this prompt, and one of the first candidates was The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North. The Portuguese translation actually has one more word than the English version, bringing that number up to 6. But do you know what else has 6 words? I Who Have Never Known Men. I think it’s safe to say it’s the longest book title on my TBR, and so, worthy of fulfilling the Titular Counting prompt.

False starts and the books not read

In the last update, I mentioned some books I was planning on picking up, but that didn’t go very far. I did read a couple of chapters from City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. While I really didn’t care for the fantasy aspect, the story is very readable. It’s so easy to read, and it actually captured my attention. I just kept forgetting to allot time to read it. So that plan went down the drain. Maybe one day I’ll read it now that I know how captivating the writing can be.

Another month went by, and I didn’t pick up Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson once. It’s on my nightstand, serving as a table for any book I’m currently reading in bed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next time I pick it up, it would give me a paper cut out of spite for ignoring it for so long. We are approaching the end of the year, and if I want to finish certain books by the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, I need to crack some spines and finish some books.

By the end of August, this is how the prompts are looking:

Next month’s plans

Straight up, the first book I need to finish is Thanks for the Memories, then start Sister of Mine. This Shiritori is taking me through a lot of different genres, so I’m sure I won’t get bored. Then I have to pick up Allegiant by Veronica Roth and suffer the pain of the ending one more time. Thankfully, Allegiant is when we know where the Divergent series takes place. This dystopian world becomes part of our world, and so I get to count it towards the Road Trip prompt. Also, at the start of October, The Sixth Faction comes out, and I need to be ready for it. The pre-order is done. The only thing left is to finish the series and wait for the postman to bring me my new baby.

I also need to start Un Cuento Perfecto by Elísabet Benavent for my Spanish learning Curriculum if I want to finish this book this year. It will take me a while, so I’d better start working on it. Then I don’t have much else planned for HRCYED. I want to go back to A Song of Ice and Fire, but as I said in the previous update, that won’t count for the challenge. I also need to finish Les Mis. Only 400 pages left, and I keep forgetting to pick it up. It won’t count for HRCYED as well. Not when I’m so far into the book.

I want to keep these updates mostly focused on the books for HRCYED since I already have a place to talk about all the other ones that don’t count, Project TBR Zero. However, I can see how these updates might start to have fewer books because my mood will take me to books that won’t fit, no matter how hard I try. And that’s okay. A shorter post won’t be such a bad thing, considering how long I can write them sometimes.