Thursday 21 May 2020

OWLS Readathon 2020- How did I do?



So last month I decided to take part in this years OWLS readathon! If you didn’t see my post announcing my TBR then check that out first, as this post will be about how many OWLs I completed and if I finished my TBR.

I initially set myself a goal of three books as I wanted to do the Seer career, but I also added an extra three just to be over-ambitious. Being an animagus obviously isn’t essential to be a Seer, but it would be pretty cool. Honestly I don’t think I’d go through with it in real life as it just seems to be so much work, so props to every animagus out there for the dedication!

So starting with my Seer OWLS… I managed to both complete the three OWLs needed for this career and actually stick to my TBR! Honestly I’m terrible at sticking to a TBR so I’m actually quite shocked I didn’t switch the books round last minute. I’m going to review each book I read during the readathon individually so I’m not going to talk too much about my thoughts on each book, but I loved that I’d chosen a good variety to keep things interesting. I particularly loved reading Run, Rebel, as it was the first time I’d ever read a book in verse before and I found it really interesting. I also loved Heartstream and practically flew through it. It usually takes me about a week to read a book but I finished this one in just two days as I just couldn’t put it down! The biggest challenge for me was Astronomy, as even though I did enjoy the book it was a 600 page high fantasy that seemed to take forever to read. I chose Astronomy first and this was probably a bad idea, as I saw everyone being on their fourth book while I was still on my first. When I take the NEWT’s, I think I’ll start out with shorter books so that I’m not worrying and feeling like I’m falling behind.



I sadly didn’t manage to read all the books needed to complete the OWLs to be an animagus, so I’m just going to have to stay a boring human. I did however complete my potions OWL, but I ended up diverting from my original TBR for this, as I ended up downloading The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky from borrowbox and reading that instead. This was a short story following Monty and Percy from The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, and I loved getting to read a sweet and funny story about these two characters who I love. Honestly I adore Monty and Percy and this book took less than an hour to read so I’m actually ok with deciding to change books last minute.

So how did I find my first OWLs? Honestly I think I could have joined in more. There were plenty of reading sprints and quizzes to take part in, and even Quidditch matches (I was glad to see that Slytherin came out victorious) I’ve never actually taken part in a readathon this huge before, so I did feel like my messages were getting lost in the crowd and I wasn’t really getting many interactions from other people. I was hoping to find some new interesting people to follow but I think I actually only ended up following a handful of new people. Part of this is my fault as I really didn’t do everything I could have such as joining the discord, but I do feel like I prefer smaller readathons overall as I enjoy feeling like I’m part of a community. I’m definitely planning on doing the NEWT’s, and only having four OWL’s might actually turn out in my favour. I definitely want to participate in OWLs again in the future, and I’m looking forward to the NEWTs!