#24in48 – July 23-24, 2016

Whoop whoop! There’s another 24 in 48 reading challenge happening next weekend! This will be my third go at participating in this challenge and I’m just as excited this time around. Basically the aim of the challenge is to read as much as you can in 24 hours over the course of the 48 hours of the weekend. A lot of snacking also takes place. It’s fun. My final stats in the last one (held in January of this year) were:

• 3 point something books read
  
• A total of 1674 pages
• For an average of 69.75 pages/hour

As with the January challenge (my post is here), I’ll be focusing more on the numbers of pages read rather than the number of books. The first time I participated (all the stats are here), I finished up with 1648 pages read. Last time I wanted to beat that page count and hit 1700 pages, but I fell short. So this time I am 100% going to hit the 1700 page mark and if I don’t then I’ll just try harder next time. This is what I plan on reading:

Since I got The City of Mirrors for my birthday last month I’ve been wanting to reread the first two books in The Passage trilogy as a refresher before reading the final installment – 24 in 48 seems like a good opportunity to do that!

The page count for each is:

• The Passage – 790 pages
• The Twelve – 576 pages
• The City of Mirrors – 598 pages

That’s a total of 1964 pages, which is a pretty big target, but I know that these books are pretty quick reads, so I have loads a slightly high amount of confidence I can at least reach my target of 1700 pages.

I’ll be updating here every few hours so if you’re interested you should check back and see how coherent I still am. I’ll also be tweeting occasionally (@heather_c3), and posting on Instagram and Litsy (I’m @heather_reads on both of those things). You can also follow along on all the social media things with the hashtag #24in48. If you’ve got nothing better to do on this weekend (let’s be honest, what could be better than this?) then why don’t you join in? You can sign up here for a fun weekend of reading and eating all of the snacks.

Updates

Hour 6

Time reached: 4pm Saturday
Currently reading: The Passage
Number of pages read: 212
Reading pace: 35 pages/hour
Thoughts: I kicked things off just before 8am and started pretty well, but I just haven’t been able to get into my reading groove. I’ve been much more successful and snacking and napping so far. I don’t think I’m going to get all three books read. But if I can get The Passage done today, there is still hope for tomorrow.
Re: the book. I’d forgotten how long it actually take for things to get started. It’s super slow at the start and I’m going to blame that on my inability to get into my reading groove. The book is good, but a bit draggy at the moment. But the vampires are doing their thing now, so it’s cool.

Hour 12

Time reached: 8:25am Sunday
Currently reading: Still, The Passage
Number of pages read: 454
Reading pace: 38 pages/hour
Thoughts: I am 100% not going to get the entire series read, but I can live with that. I tried getting to the 12 hour mark last night before I went to bed, but at 42 minutes to go I was starting to spend more time with my eyes closed than open, so I went to bed. But at least my reading pace has picked up a little – this probably has something to do with the fact that the story isn’t dragging as much anymore. I think my new goal is to get The Passage and The Twelve done, and then I can take my time with The City of Mirrors in a non-readathon environment.

Hour 18

Time reached: 4:20pm on Sunday
Currently reading: Finally onto The Twelve
Number of pages read: 797
Reading pace: 44 pages/hour
Thoughts: Wow. The Passage took a hell of a lot longer to read than I anticipated. I probably didn’t enjoy it as much on this second reading. Maybe I’m a bit more critical with my reading now, but there was a load of stuff that could have been cut to make it a quicker read. Anyway. It sells and good on Justin Cronin for that. I’m only a few pages into The Twelve, but I’m interested to see my thoughts on this as I remember not enjoying it quite as much as The Passage. But it’s shorter, so maybe I’ll like it better. Interestingly, my reading pace has picked up the further into the challenge I’ve got – if it picks up a little more I should get The Twelve done by hour 24, but I won’t hold my breath.

Hour 24

Time reached: 11:23pm Sunday
Currently reading: The Twelve
Total number of pages read: 1094
Reading pace: 46 pages/hour
Number of books finished: Just the one – but it was a big one.
Am I still alive? Yes. But I can’t brain.
Final thoughts: I set an ambitious goal and fell well short of it, but it was still a great weekend spent reading. In other news, spending all of my waking hours in the last two days reading about vampires was a really terrible idea. No doubt I’ll have nightmares tonight.