Happy Monday, my friends! I’m coming off the #24in48 readathon where I didn’t even come close to 24 hours of reading, haha. In the end, I managed nearly 13 hours (12 hours, 42 minutes), and I’m deeming it a success. I didn’t have any sort of goal for this readathon (ok fine, I secretly hoped I could manage 18 hours). I just wanted to have fun and make this weekend ALLLL about reading.
Even with the readathon, though, I only finished one book. (However, I published last week’s What I’m Reading on a Wednesday, so things are a little skewed.) But it was a five-star read and something I’d wholly recommend.
Act Like It by Lucy Parker (★★★★★)
It’s not often that I give a romance novel five stars. But every now and then, a romance burrows its way into my heart, and I can’t give it anything less than five stars. This novel was engaging from the beginning and had fully formed characters, realistic dialogue, and a sweet natural progression of the relationship. Also, the cheesiness factor was just about nil, which always ups my rating. Act Like It was an enemies-to-lovers/forced proximity romance, and it was everything I wanted it to be. It follows two theater actors in London – Lainie and Richard – who are forced to pretend to be a couple to help Richard’s image. He’s known to be a bit of a troublemaker in the tabloids, and his agents are a little tired of cleaning up his messes. The more time they spend together, the more they realize they have more in common than they think and that this pretend relationship is starting to feel more real every day. I loved everything about Lainie and Richard, especially as they began to let down their walls and fall in love. I’m so glad I’ve discovered Lucy Parker and now I can’t wait to read more from her!
I’m currently reading…
> Without Merit by Colleen Hoover, on audio. I started this novel over the weekend for the readathon, figuring listening to an audiobook while I was driving around or cleaning my apartment would allow me to sneak in some extra hours. I’m nearly done – a little over two hours left – and I’m curious to see how it ends.
> Playing for Keeps by Jill Shalvis. I was so excited to dive into this book, as I had pre-ordered it months ago. I’m already a quarter of the way through it (thanks, readathon!) and loving it so much.
> The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. I’m a little over halfway through this historical fiction novel and it’s so damn good. I was able to read almost 200 pages this weekend thanks to the readathon and I’m excited to finish it sometime this week. It’s such a unique story!
> Healing Spiritual Wounds: Reconnecting with a Loving God After Experiencing a Hurtful Church by Carol Howard Merritt. I’m working my way slowly through this book, as I don’t want to rush through Merritt’s words at all. I’m taking my time to journal through the prompts she gives and write down my own thoughts as I read. It’s been therapeutic, to say the least.
What are you reading?
I did maybe 6 hours? I started out good, reading right when I woke up but then the time just got away from me and I had too much to do, and didn’t feel great either.
Ummm…almost 13 hours of reading is IMPRESSIVE. Like damn, girl, I’m lucky if I get half of that in on a weekend! Way to go.
Curious: do you like Jill Shalvis? I have one of her books out at the library (next in line after I finish my current audiobook) but outside name recognition (and knowing she’s a romance writer), I have no idea what to expect from her. I’m kind of pumped about that – I do like trying new things by different authors.
Right now, I am reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Still. I’m about halfway through (this is my audiobook that I listen to when I go out for a walk). I finished Power Play by Avon Gale last night and it was…alright. Not great but also not terrible. I liked it enough to download another one of her books so…take that for what it is haha.
13 hours is still impressive!! That’s a whole lot of reading! Well done! I finished “The Great Alone” over the weekend. It was good but I didn’t like it nearly as much as “The Nightingale.” But it was interesting to read about life in Alaska. I am definitely not hearty enough to live in those kind of conditions. I really struggled with the domestic abuse aspect of the book. 🙁 But I am glad I read it. Now I’m reading “Just Mercy” which is a non-fiction book about the criminal justice system, specifically about those on dead row. Ufda, it is hard to read. But it’s an important book to read.
I failed miserably at this readathon the one time I tried it years ago. Now I don’t even attempt it because of the kids. I look forward to trying it again someday!
13 hours, wow! I guess I divvy up my time across too many things….
I gotta ask though: do you really read multiple books simultaneously, switching between them?