Fortnight Frights Wrap Up
I’m finally wrapping up the Fortnight Frights readathon put on by the lovely Artisan Geek I participated in the last two weeks of October. It didn’t go as well as hoped, but I did get to a good amount of books, and I’m not going to stress over things I didn’t get to and plans changing. The election being now wasn’t a good mental health addition, and I'm trying to be gentle with myself.
If you don’t know anything about the readathon, here’s the introduction video about it:
There weren’t many prompts for the challenge, there was a bingo card and a couple of group reads that were optional…and that’s about it which made the readathon a perfect win for me to pick up. I had a personal goal to fill out the entire card, a goal that I did not accomplish. I was going to fill out some of my spots with movies for the books I physically didn’t have, but in the end I just didn’t get around to it (and I kind of just started watching movies I was feeling that day as opposed to it being specific prompt). One of the things I did get to was making a thread on my Twitter where I posted a song that felt went with the book that I accomplished, and eventually I added movie recommendations:
Here’s the official list of books that I finished with the prompts they go with:
Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson. Prompts: undead character, latinx author
Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia. Prompts: green on the cover
The Girl From the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún (vol. 1) by Nagabe. Prompts: Written by an author from Asia + a translated piece + a horror comic
R. L. Stine Presents Scream and Scream Again by various authors. Prompt: A short story
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson. Prompts: A gothic novel by a poc + piece of dark fantasy + written by black author + group read
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger. Prompt: written by an Indigenous author
His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler. Prompts: short story, written before 1960, a poem
I did read some great books, so all was not lost with the challenge not going the way that I had originally wanted it to. To be fair to myself, I actually only had one more book that I wanted to get to - Ruth Ware’s Death of Mrs Westway. The standouts include Undead Girl Gang and Elatsoe. Both were five-star reads, and Elatsoe had everything I wanted and more. I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did, and for it to have some things that I absolutely love but it was there and wonderful. Undead Girl Gang was just a fun read. The Year of the Witching was a great debut by Alexis Henderson and am here for everything she writes in the future. I was also able to catch the live show discussion with her and loved it.
Here’s my card filled out with everything that I read. I did read two anthologies and didn’t specifically go through each author so there might be an author in one of those that fills in one of my empty spots or even one of the authors already mentioned fit and I just didn’t pick up on it.
Really can’t be mad at my accomplishments once it’s in the bingo card. This is a lesson to all us in looking at the bigger picture. I filled it up pretty nicely, added 8 books to my read total of the year, and read some books that I’ll be thinking about for a while. If you haven’t seen any of the Artisan Geek’s videos, please check them out. She’s adorable and her videos are great.
+++