A Quick Update

Since it's Wednesday, I just wanted to update you guys quickly and say that I won't be doing Waiting on Wednesday posts anymore.

The thing is, sometimes I don't look into new releases for awhile. Sometimes I am not excited enough about any releases I know about, to feature them on the blog. And this leads to me feeling like I have to post about an upcoming release every single week, so I search Goodreads until I find something. At that point, I'm not even excited about the "something" that I find. I'm just glad my search is over and I have a post.

I don't have any plans for Wednesdays yet. Lately it's been difficult finding topics to discuss on Thursdays and Fridays, which are my other "free" blogging days. (AKA days when I'm not posting reviews or weekly memes.)

This kind of brings me to my next discussion: I'm going to attempt to be a more relaxed blogger from now on. The concept still freaks me out a little, like ... what do you mean I don't have to post every week day??

But I don't. I don't have to keep weekly posts like this around just to fill up space. Nothing on this blog should be here for that purpose. It should be here because it's something I am honestly excited about and want to share with you guys.

I might take the blogging down to say, three or four posts a week -- which is still great. It's still consistent and it still takes effort on my part, just hopefully not stress.

So, yeah, I'm still going to blog about upcoming releases I'm excited about. It'll just be in more of a discussion post format, and it will be less often. I'll also still blog consistently. I just won't pressure myself so much to get a post up every single day.

I'm going to cut this off here, because it doesn't look so much like the "quick update" I promised anymore. But let me know what you guys think -- will you miss Waiting on Wednesday posts? Do you even read them? Are they a part of your own blog?

Update: Combining Blogs

As some of you may know, I tried to run two blogs for a period of time - my other is a writing blog called Writing Under Stars. It's a writing blog (which is probably obvious) and while I was super excited about it, the blog did not go far.

I thought it would be best to keep reading and writing separate, but as I look back I have no idea why I thought so. Don't they fit perfectly together? Is there a writer in the world who doesn't read as well?

Kittens and Books can just as easily refer to the books I have read as the ones I am writing. And regardless of my blog name, there is no reason I cannot combine my interests in one place.

This is basically just a quick note to let you know that I will be posting writing-related things here, and that Writing Under Stars is not likely to be a project I continue with. While I'm not yet sure exactly how this blend will happen, I have decided to finally let it happen.

Some posts I have in mind include writing inspiration, advice, and possibly snippets of my own work. For those readers who have absolutely no interest in writing, I hope you can still continue to enjoy my reading posts - they'll be sticking around, and I will try to make it easy as possible to navigate the blog and only see the posts you want.

As always, thank you guys so much for sticking with me while the blog and I grow, and I learn exactly where we're going. I appreciate you readers so, so much.

September Plans

As I'm sure you guys know, I recently moved my blog here from Wordpress. The end of August proved busy as I made that transition, but it's nothing compared to what I'm planning for the future.

I didn't move my blog without reason. I simply felt Blogger was a better platform when it came to expanding Kittens and Books and letting it reach its full potential. That said, I have so many plans for September. Here are a few things you can expect:

An appealing, easy-to-navigate layout. 

This may take more time than one month, but it's definitely a priority. While I don't plan for this to be nearly finished by the end of September, you can expect small improvements throughout the month - new banners, social media buttons (I'm working on these currently), and things of that sort.

New posts.

If I'm honest, I'm bored with some of my weekly posts. In September, I'm discontinuing WWW Wednesday and Friday Finds posts on this blog. If I'm bored writing them, I can only think that my readers will be bored with them as well.

Instead, I am going to stop being so strict about my posting times. I am not going to do so many weekly book memes, because they're beginning to feel limiting. Instead, I'm going to do a mixture of posts, although I will keep Top Ten Tuesdays and stick to my twice a week book reviews.

I will be bringing in some recommendation posts as well. This will be very similar to the Tuesday Tropes post I tried out, where I take different tropes or characteristics and recommend books based on that. These will be a mixture of books I have and have not read, in order to expand the number of books I can recommend.

I will also continue Travel With Pepper posts. These posts feature different parts of the world (cities, countries, continents, etc.) and books that are set in that place. It's a way to show off some books that might not usually get attention, and I'm hoping it will broaden my reading as well.

Lots of experimenting.

I do ask that you guys stick with me here. I'm really trying to find out where I want this blog to go - I don't want to feel like 'just another book blog.' If I'm going to keep blogging, it needs to be a unique space.

My two main goals are for myself to enjoy blogging, and for my readers to enjoy my posts. It's all I really want from Kittens and Books, and I don't think we're quite there yet.

Readathon Wrap-Up

If you saw my TBR post, you know that I participated in two readathons this past week. One was a small one for a Goodreads group, and another was the booktube-a-thon.

Overall, I read half the books on my TBR (which only had four books) and a total of 5 books (3 of which were graphic novels) and 1,123 pages.

The books I read:

• The Pirates Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke
• Saltwater Witch (Comic #1) by Chris Howard
• Saltwater Witch Graphic Novel: Chapter 2 by Chris Howard
• Nineteen, Twenty-One #1 by Yohan
• Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Booktube-a-thon Challenges Completed:

• Read a book with pictures (graphic novels)
• A book with red on the cover (The Pirate's Wish)
• A book from the genre you've read least this year (graphic novels; I rarely read them.)

That's three out of seven, which I consider a success - especially since I wasn't really focused on the challenges while reading or even forming my TBR.

Goodreads Read-a-long Books:

Very few of these actually counted for my other readalong, since the graphic novels did not count. Still, I read two books and they were both ones I have waited to read for a bit now!

Overall Thoughts:

I did five days of reading for these, even though the booktube-a-thon lasted seven. (The other readalong ended earlier.) This weekend, I just wasn't in the mood to read and didn't want to push myself - after all, I don't need any kind of reading slump!

Anyway, I'm pretty proud of my reading, but I'm planning to slow down after this. I've been forcing myself to read more often since I began blogging, and I'm ready to slow down and take more time with the books I read. I'm still going to try to keep up the same review schedule - at least one a week - but I don't think that will be difficult.

If you guys participated in the booktube-a-thon, or another readathon, or just read this week, let me know what books you got around to! I hope you enjoyed your reading week as much as I did mine.

(Also, please note that graphic novels won't become a 'thing' for me and my blog. It was nice to try some out, and I plan to read them a bit more now, but I prefer words over pictures. Also, I am not comfortable at all writing long reviews for something I read so little of.)

Readathon(s?) TBR

This is a little late, but I am participating in two readathons starting tomorrow. I thought I'd just do a quick post with what I'm hoping to get read this week! The first readathon I planned to participate in was the booktubeathon - even though I am definitely a book blogger, with no plans to make videos, the challenges seemed like fun and I was originally going to post my TBR for this a week ago. This one is from July 14-21. The second is for a Goodreads group I am in, which is a few days shorter: July 14-19. This one doesn't have any challenges; the only requirement is to start and finish the books within the time frame. I am pretty likely to change this up a bit, but here are the books I plan to read:

• The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke: This one covers one of the reading challenges - a book with red on the cover. I also really want to finish this after reading the first book.
• Blood Promise by Richelle Mead: I really want to get back into this series. I've also been wanting to read bigger books lately, so this should give me a start at that.
• The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta: This one has been sitting around awhile, and it also completes one of the challenges - read the genre you've read least this year. I don't read a lot of adult fiction.
• Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell: With the release of Landline, I really want to catch up with these books. I plan to read this one during the week and Landline within the next month or so.

That's about all I'm going to plan. If I finish these, I'll probably read more of the Vampire Academy series or pick something else up. Hopefully that book will complete one of the challenges, since I only have 2/7 on here! Also, one of the challenges is to have someone choose a book for you - so if you guys want, feel free to comment below with a book or two and I'll choose one of those to add to my TBR if I have time!

FinishIt-A-Thon Wrap-Up

I didn't do as well as I hoped during the FinishIt-A-Thon, but I'm not disappointed either. Today was supposed to be another update, however I wanted to read a new book yesterday that doesn't count for this readathon - so I'm counting it as zero pages read.

To start off, here are my update links if you missed them:

• Days 1-2
• Days 3-6

In total, I read 490 pages. It's about what I read in an average week, and I was pretty busy, so I think I did well! I also varied from the readathon a bit and started a couple of other books, which didn't help my page count for this.

If you want, let me know what you've read this week in the comments!

FinishIt-A-Thon Update: Days 3 - 6

Day 3:

• 44 pages of Sinner
• Total: 44 pages

Days 4 & 5:

• No reading! (Which would explain the lack of updates!)

Day 6:

• 223 pages of Sinner
• Total: 223 pages

There will be one last update included in my wrap-up post for this readathon, which will come sometime on Monday.

FinishIt-A-Thon Update (Days 1 & 2)

Day 1:

• 56 pages of The Assassin's Curse


• Total: 56 pages

Day 2:

• 147 pages of The Assassin's Curse


• 20 pages of Sinner


• Total: 167 pages

*Not finished reading for today yet! Plan to continue Sinner.