Here are my official totals for this year's challenge:
Time spent reading: 23 hours
Time spent blogging and social networking: 5.75 hours
Total time spent on the challenge: 28.75 hours
Number of pages read: 2182
Books read: 10.5
882 1/2 Amazing Answers to Your Questions About the Titanic by Hugh Brewer and Laurie Coulter
The Bat Scientists by Mary Kay Carson (I wrote a review that will be posted on an upcoming Monday)
The Cruisers by Walter Dean Myers
If Stones Could Speak by Marc Aronson
Low Read Moon by Ivy Devlin
Matched by Ally Condie
Poop Happened! by Sarah Albee
Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
Scumble by Ingrid Law
Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord
And I'm halfway through The Sweetness of Salt by Cecilia Galante.
I had such a good time this year and I really made an effort to check out other people's blogs and leave encouraging comments and tweets. The social networking aspect of the challenge was really helpful whenever I needed a little break from reading or needed some encouragement!
The easiest time during the challenge was probably Saturday morning when I woke up raring to get back to reading! The hardest time for me was this afternoon around 2:00 after I'd taken a break for lunch and I started to get really sleepy. I rallied, though, and ended up finishing two more books.
I read from many different genres including realistic fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, and non-fiction and that helped mix things up a little bit and keep me interested in my books. Having some nonfiction really helped as those were shorter books and they gave me a sense of accomplishment for getting more books read. For the novels, I had a mix of short books and long books. I tried to read books that I was really excited about and, while I loved some of them more than others, I didn't really hit on any duds this time around. I was hoping to read 10 books and I made that goal!
I nearly made my "secret" goal of 30 challenge hours, but 28.75 is really close, so I'm not complaining. Maybe I'll get to 30 hours next year. :)
I have to send a HUGE THANK YOU to Pam of MotherReader for organizing this fantastic event. It's truly an event I look forward to each year. I love the sense of community it brings as well as the excuse to do nothing but clear a whole bunch of books off my to-be-read pile! Plus, I don't mean to be that girl thinking about her page stats, but yesterday I had over twice as many visitors as I've ever had on one day before. So thank you to anyone who visited my blog and especially thank you to those who left encouraging comments, tweets, etc. Those kind words made it so much easier to complete the challenge!!
If you're still going, keep up the good work! Read, read, read! Blog, blog, blog!
As for me, I think I might go watch a movie. :)