Read-EH-thon Wrap-up and Stats

I participated in the Canadian read-EH-thon over my holiday and this is how I did.

I very much enjoyed this read-EH-thon. Being on holiday at the same time gave me good time to read and I don’t think I could have done as much as I did whilst working.

The entire July will be readathons for me and they all have separate TBRs and Wrapup.

The TBR for this read-eh-thon along with the synopsis of each book can be found on my TBR post.

---

Facts

DATES: 1st July to 8th July (it starts on Canada Day 🇨🇦)

GOAL: Read Canadian books/authors

READING CHALLENGES: 5 in total ( see the end of this post for the result of these)

---

Books Read, Ratings and Mini-reviews

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Thoughts: Full review to come, but this book was not like anything I was expecting. It was amazing! ❤️ I highly recommend this book if you like YA dystopian novels in the near future, and/or if you are interested in indigenous culture and language.

Briefly, it’s set in the near future where humans have lost the ability to dream – except the indigenous people of the world. They are hunted down and harvested for their bone marrow. The book follows French, a first nationer, and his story of losing his family and going on the run, his survival and meeting others like him on the way and finding a way out. It’s about a love of the culture and heritage, about the love of each other, betrayal and loss, some romance and a little bit about magic.

I’m totally gonna re-read this very soon ❤️❤️

---

Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson

Thoughts: I really enjoyed this collection of weird short stories. Individual ratings below.  I loved the author’s imagination and writing style. I loved that a lot of these stories was LGBT+ and m/m relationships.

The Eastbound – 4⭐️

Soul Case – 4⭐️

Message in a Bottle – 4⭐️

The Smile in the Face – 5⭐️ – favourite story of them all

Left Foot, Right – 5⭐️ – made me cry…

Old Habits – 3⭐️

Emily Breakfast – 4.5⭐️ – fire-breathing badass chicken!

Herbal – 3⭐️

A Young Candy Daugther – 3.5⭐️

A Raggy Dog, a Shaggy Dog – 3.5⭐️

Shift – 3⭐️

Delicious Monster – 4⭐️

Snow Day – 4⭐️

Flying Lessons – 3⭐️

Whose Upward Flight in Love – 4.5⭐️

Border Lands – 4⭐️

Ours is the Prettiest – 3.5⭐️

Men Don’t Sell Such In Any Town – 3.5⭐️

---

Etta and Otto and Russel and James by Emma Hooper

Thoughts: This was a nice read. A journey through the lives of three elderly people and their struggles in life. It has a bit of magical realism or weirdness in it which I quite enjoyed. Loved James. But all in all, it was only that – enjoyable.

I listen to this on the plane home for the holiday, but the narrator was too slow for me so I had to listen to it on 1.5x speed 🤷‍♀️

---

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Thoughts: This was so good and a great read. I loved the dystopian world in the far future. You don’t really get a backstory to way is all collapsed but it’s not really needed. What I really loved about this story is the female MC. She is pretty much the ultimate female hero in my mind. She has a purpose to find her twin brother no matter what the cost. She doesn’t bend nor break against the opposition. She doesn’t become sweet or pretty.  She doesn’t give a single shit about her looks. She doesn’t dumb herself down or become needy in the presence of the love interest. She is what she is, and she has a goal.

The only thing I didn’t like was the language in which it’s written. It was difficult for me to read, I kept reading it in Scottish even tho its set in Canada-ish. They kept referring to “yer” instead of yours etc. It was all Scottish to me. This also meant I couldn’t just pick it up for a page or two, I had to dedicate time to read it and to focus on the reading. I will continue with this series cause it’s amazing, but I think the next two books will be on audiobook. Which btw is narrated by the author herself!

---

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

I’m 90 pages short of completing this book so I won’t rate it but I did read all of it during the read-EH-thon so it’s included partly here.

---

Reading Stats and Progress Report

Day 1

74 pages of The Marrow Thieves

Day 2

157 pages of The Marrow Thieves – Book completed!

Day 3

98 pages of Falling in Love with Hominids

Day 4

87 pages of Falling in Love with Hominids

Day 5

37 pages of Falling in Love with Hominids – Book Completed!

74 pages of Blood Red Road

Day 6

Started and finished Etta and Otto and Russel and James – 8h audio or 277 pages – Book Completed!

198 pages of Blood Red Road

you can tell this was my travel day – lots of waiting and flying, lots of time reading and listening to audiobooks.

Day 7

145 pages of Blood Red Road – Book Completed!

47 pages of Station Eleven.

Day 8

195 pages of Station Eleven

• 90 pages short of finishing the last book… gutted

Summary

Total pages read in 8 days: 1112 pages (1389 pages including the audiobook)

😱😏😁🤓

Most active day: day 6 – total 475 pages read

Least active day: day 1 – total 74 pages read

Recorded “EH”s in the text I’ve read: 3 – all in The Marrow Thieves dialogue.

---

Challenges Completed

Read a book with red on the cover ✅

Read a book by a Canadian woman ✅

• Blood Red Road – Moira Young
• Falling in Love with Hominids – Nalo Hopkinson
• The Marrow Thieves – Cherie Dimaline
• Etta and Otto and Russel and James – Emma Hooper

Read a book with “E” and “H” in the title ✅

• Falling in Love with Hominids
• The Marrow Thieves

Read a book by an indigenous author ✅

• The Marrow Thieves – Cherie Dimaline

Read a book set in a province you have never visited ✅

• Etta and Otto and Russel and James (starts in Saskatchewan – a place I’ve never been to)

Seriously, if The Marrow Thieves had red on the cover it would be the only book needed for all these challenges (they travel quite far north but never really state where exactly they are, but I’m guessing they were in a province I’ve never been to).

---

So that’s it. I think I did quite well on this one, but I was on holiday so I actually had the time to read as well. Got a new favourite book too and a new favourite series!

Success!😁

Anyone else joining the read-EH-thon?