On Saturday, October 20th, I participated in Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon. (There were nineteen challenge-related posts!) But I wanted to take a few minutes and summarize my experience. I was awake for nineteen and a half hours, about fourteen or fifteen hours were spent reading books or reviewing books. (The challenge began, for me, at 8 AM Central.) Another hour was spent doing mini-challenges and such. I ended up falling asleep around 2:30 in the morning. (About two or three hours past my normal bedtime.) I woke up around 6:30 and stayed awake reading, blogging, commenting, etc. until the 8 o'clock finish. I didn't go back to bed. This is the shocking part for me. I didn't necessarily feel tired or droopy or disjointed or whatever. That came much, much later. As I spent my afternoon hours on the computer I realized how lonely I suddenly felt. Saturday was about the community. There was always something going on. There were new posts popping up all over the place. And it felt exciting to be a part of something this big, this exciting. But Sunday, it seems I was all by my lonesome. I did end up napping from 6PM to 8PM--waking up in time for Desperate Housewives surprisingly enough. But I didn't really begin to feel exhausted until this morning. I realized waking up at 9:30 that I could stay in bed for a really, really long time. I suppose I'll be trying to catch up on those missing hours for a few days at least.
What did I love about the Readathon? Well, I loved the community aspects of it. The hourly posts updates, the mini-challenges, the cheerleaders and fellow readers being supportive enough to leave comments on posts, and, of course, the reading. I read eight books for the challenge, and reviewed nine. (The ninth being the book I had finished the night before.) Many of these books were ones I'd rate as 'great' or 'outstanding.' The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker was so hilarious, so perfect. An Unlikely Friendship by Ann Rinaldi, I loved how Rinaldi was able to tell the stories of two completely different women so believably. You felt for each heroine in many ways. And her style, beautiful. A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban is such a great book. She makes being eleven sound like the best thing ever. It's just so fun, so joyful, so funny. Almost Forever by Maria Testa, for such a small book this one packs a lot of powerful emotions. It is just really incredible how she does this. Really, I enjoyed all of the books I was able to read for this challenge.
But my favorite part of the Read-a-thon? Writing letters to Lisa Wheeler and Natasha Wing. I heard back from them on Sunday! I love hearing back from an author!!!
So thank you, Dewey, for a wonderful day!
3 comments:
I really enjoyed the readathon; even if I could only do 11 hours it was a ton of fun. I do hope Dewey does it again next year! :D
It truly was an amazing experience, wasn't it? Like you said, it was about more than the reading. And I was like you...although I napped for just one hour (from 3:30 to 4:30 in the morning), once I got up, I was up for good. I assumed that I would nap during the day after it was over, but I didn't. I stayed up, and then went to bed a bit early Sunday night, but it wasn't until yesterday that it really seemed to hit me. Anyway, I'm glad you had so much fun Becky! I hope it becomes a yearly event!
"Saturday was about the community."
I tried to stress that in the interview for Estella's Revenge, because that's exactly what I meant it to be: a community-building experience. So I'm thrilled that it felt that way to you.
I went to bed at 7 and woke up at noon! It was weird because I was expecting to sleep straight through til work on Monday!
I definitely want to do it next year.
Post a Comment