Feature: ARC August Update #4 – Final Wrap-Up

I can’t believe ARC August is basically over and it felt like it went by way too fast! Well I have to say even though we were busy and had lots of other things going on in our lives I am proud of what we accomplished during this monthly feature! Thank you again to Read.Sleep.Repeat for creating such a motivating event! We will be sure to do this again next year!

If you want to catch up on our ARC August updates here are the links to the previous posts:
Intro Post  **  Goal Post  **  Update #1  **  Update #2  **  Update #3

OK, ready for our updates–now if only someone would motivate ‘some of us’ to write reviews!

 

Sara’s Update:

Well, August is just about over — although, as I write this, I technically have 3 days left. Three days in which to finish the last book in my challenge, And, I KNOW I can do it. I’m only 1% into The Aftermath by Jen Alexander, but I’m a quick reader (just ask Kelly), so I have no fear that I’ll be able to wrap up August with a 100 percent completion rate. I finished Sisters of Blood and Spirit by Kady Cross, and immediately researched it to see if there was a sequel in the works. You’ll be able to read more about the book my forthcoming review.

In addition to all the ARCs this month, I also read 11 other books, including 3 beta reads. It’s been an incredibly busy month, but I’ve loved the challenge and hope we do another one soon. Well, not too soon…maybe a “Jump into January” type thing. I need some recovery time.

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Shannon’s Update:

As we come into the home stretch of ARC August, I finally, after what felt like forever, finished a third ARC, Fractured Suns. As much as it pains me as I was a HUGE fan of Broken Skies, I just was not a fan of this sequel. A good part of this month was spent in a good faith effort to finish this one. At the time of this email I am 70% into The Vanishing Season. This has been on our ARC list for about a year. Sad I know. I cannot believe I didn’t give this book a try sooner. Although it’s a slow moving book, it is beautifully written, an eccentric character study and coming of age story, with some mystery elements thrown in. By the time this post goes up tomorrow I will have finished this one bringing my Arc count to 4. I wanted to read 6 Arc’s but it just didn’t happen. I still plan on reading  Five Ways to Fall next so although it won’t be finished in August it’s definitely next on my TBR.

If anything this challenge has reinvigorated me to go back to read books on our ARC list sooner rather than later.

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Kelly’s Update:

Well I finished 5 out of the 6 ARCs on my goal list. I started reading another ARC not one of the goals as I just received it last week and I expect to finish that book this weekend! So, technically, I will have read 6 ARCs in August, as well as the 3 other books I read! (Not nearly as many as SARA, that girl has super powers! I am so jealous!) Unfortunately, I didn’t have a copy of the 6th ARC, and so I went ordered the book, but it hasn’t arrived yet and won’t be an ARC anymore. But I really want to read that book, so owning it is cool too. 🙂

Now that I am almost finished reading…I really need to write the reviews! I wrote 2 out of 5! I am awful. Just pathetic for a blogger! I am really hard on myself when I write reviews. I feel like they all sound the same and I feel like it’s awful and I will offend the authors. I know I am crazy and I know most authors don’t read them, I also barely write a negative review, so who knows what my problems are…but I am super hyper critical of my words. If I wasn’t so opposed to vlogging…it might actually be a better format for me to review books, because I can TALK about books till I am blue in the face but my writing is atrocious. Or I am just crazy, I know–highly likely the right answer.

Well I know we all loved this challenge even though this may not have been the right month for us to do it during, but we will be prepared next year and not take on so many other posts during the month and I can guarantee we will participate again!

I think this challenge did exactly what we needed and kickstarted our desire to unload some of these extremely old ARCs that got overlooked. We made a cool spreadsheet and got ourselves organized. So we will be starting a new semi-frequent feature called Book Rewind where we review books that are older releases! So this has spurred us into getting creative and expanding our blog which is really awesome!

Big thanks to Read.Sleep.Repeat for the feature and motivating us!