The Terror of Knowing

As you may be aware if you saw my TBR post a few weeks ago, the entire month of August for me is taken up by those dreaded Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests aka NEWTs examinations! For the entire month of August, Gintare from the Book Roast is hosting a readathon based around the examinations at Hogwarts. Pretty cool, isn’t it? If you need more info, definitely check out Gintare’s announcement video, or head over to the readathon hashtag on Twitter.

As well as my usual readathon Twitter thread, I thought I would do progress reports every so often throughout the month, mainly to keep myself accountable, but also to take stock every once in a while amidst all the fun of the readathon (*cough* I mean er- amidst all the intense studying *cough*) and to see how I’m doing on my grades for my exams.

For those not familiar with (or who need a little reminder of) the NEWTs examinations, the pass grades are A (Acceptable), E (Exceeds Expectations), and O (Outstanding). I’m an overachiever so obviously I’d love to get Os in all of my exams, but we’ll see if that’s even probable given my progress after one week…

Books/Grades Completed

• Ancient Runes, A – book set in the past
  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay

• Transfiguration, A – book with a grey cover
  The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli
• Transfiguration, E – book from an author you haven’t read anything from before
  Giant Days by Non Pratt

Books/Grades In Progress

• Charms, A – read a book with magic in it
  Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

• Muggles Studies, A – read a book written by one of your favourite authors
  The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman

• Potions, A – name of colour in title
  Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (change to original TBR)

Books/Grades To Complete

• Ancient Runes, E – most ancient book on your TBR shelf
  The Elder Edda
• Ancient Runes, O – book translated from another language
  Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola

• Astronomy, A – stars on cover
  Theatrical by Maggie Harcourt
• Astronomy, E – book that has the word ‘sky’ in the title
  Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray
• Astronomy, O – story set on different planet/world
  A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir

• Charms, E – book with a cover that charmed you (i.e. cover buy)
  The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
• Charms, O – book that you think will leave a mark
  Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

• Muggle Studies, E – a biography
  Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
• Muggle Studies, O – a retelling
  The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (change to original TBR)

• Potions, E – book with a male lead character
  Dating You Hating You by Christina Lauren
• Potions, O – book over 350 pages long
  The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

• Transfiguration, O – book that’s set in a kingdom/has royals
  Onyx and Ivory by Mindee Arnett (change to original TBR)

With some pretty rough maths I’ve worked out that now, as it is about quarter of the way through the NEWTs Readathon, I should be at 4.5 books. As you can see I am… not there. I had a quick start out of the blocks but it severely slowed down towards the end of week 1 when I realise just how far I was behind in other reading commitments. However, I’m hoping that in the next week or so, once I’ve (hopefully!) finished The Count of Monte Cristo readalong, I’ll be able to solely read books for my NEWTs and get cracking on some of these exams! Transfiguration is basically the only subject going ok at the moment and I definitely need to buck up my ideas when it comes to Astronomy. Wish me luck?

Are you taking part in the NEWTs readathon? Which books are you planning to read? Let me know in the comments below and we can cheer each other on!

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