Today starts the Pondathon 2022. An 11 month long readathon in the theme of creating a beautiful garden. This readathon was also organized somewhere in 2020, but that readathon was only a month long and I didn’t participate. I only found out about this readathon somewhere in December last year, and immediately I was intrigued. I mean, that banner above this text looks amazing, right. CW, a blogger for www.thequietpond.com, is also an artist and for this readathon she created all these cute pictures. That drew me in, but the premise of this readathon kept me there. Because in this readathon you get to create your own little pond. Every time you read a book, or you reach a goal you get an item you can fill your garden with. Sounds amazing, right?

So what is this all? The Pondathon is a story-driven, plant-based readathon. It starts today, on the 10th and it ends far away on December 11th. Sign ups are open, so you can also sign up and join me if you want! You can create your own character, just as I did! (You can find it below. He is so cute). There are 16 rounds and there are new rewards for your own little garden every round. There are quarters and there is a cute story behind it. I think everything I have seen already is so cute and it makes me really want to continue.

So this is Miru. My own pronouns are she/her, but apparently this little fellow is a he/him, which makes me already very excited about him. He is a lover for books. He is a little librarian. Therefore, he is also a little bit sad that he needs to help to tame the garden, instead of reading his books in a little cozy corner. But he is very excited about helping everyone, even though he is a bit clumsy at it.

So which books do I want to read for this readathon. Of course I am going to read a lot of books this year (hahaha…), but it is not a bad idea to name a few books I plan to read, so here we go.

XOXO – Axie Oh

I have seen this book a lot on social media and in the book blogger, bookstagram, book twitter and booktube community. K-pop (Korean pop music) is becoming even more popular in the western world and this also leads to more books about this hard world. In this book the main character gets to go to an elite arts academy in South Korea. There she meets a boy for the second time, without knowing before that he was a member of a very popular K-pop band. There is a rule within the K-pop world that the singers can’t have romantic relationships, and that is very much a problem for the two. I’m very interested to get to know the K-pop world a bit better and this book sounds like a enjoyable way to jump into this.

Onverbeterlijk – Lisette Jonkman

One of my goals of 2022 is to read more books by Dutch authors. I read a lot of English books, mainly YA, so I thought it would be good to read some more in Dutch. This one has been on my list for a year, I think. It is a book about lockdown and the quarantine in Corona times! In this book, the main character goes to an author as a journalist to interview him. It is in the countryside and the interview was horrible, but when she is about to get back to her parents they message her that they have the virus and that she shouldn’t go home. Instead she should stay with the horrible person she just met, to stay save. Terrible, right? Or will it get better?

These Witches Don’t Burn – Isabel Sterling

I’m in a very witchy mood lately and therefore I want to read all the witchy books I can find my hands on. This one seems very interesting. I like the tone of the summary and the premise intrigues me. The main character, Hannah, is a witch who lives in Salem. She is an elementalist. When there is a bad blood-ritual at the end-of-year bonfire she needs to team up with the last person she wanted to see: her ex-girlfriend Veronica. The last resort, because she couldn’t convince her coven that there was a real problem. This sounds very good and I am really excited to start reading this.

The Tyrant’s Tomb – Rick Riordan (The Trials of Apollo #4)

At the moment I am reading The Burning Maze, the third book of this series and I am really enjoying it! It’s a great series and Rick Riordan is a great author. I love his books with the humor and the characters, so I can’t wait to also start reading this book. The Trials of Apollo is about Apollo who is made human by Zeus to learn about what he did. While he goes on a long quest to save the oracles and to fight the old emperors, he also learns about friendship. He gets a lot of friends and he even learns something about being mortal. He learns more than he had ever expected. Again, a great series and I am very excited.

Zomerburen – Rianne Robben

The first reason I want to read this book, is that I really need to read a book written by someone with the same first name as me, right? Only good books come from that. But another reason is that this book is about a place in my country where I basically grew half up in. As a child I didn’t live in the same province, but very close to where this book mostly takes place. Thirdly, the idea sounds very interesting. The main character, Olivia, wants to go to university and she wants to live with her boyfriend, until he moved to Australia without real warning. Olivia moves to her grandparents for the summer and she does a lot with the girl next door. That warms her up slowly, and also she warms up to her… Very exciting!

These are a few of the books I want to read relatively soon. Now, you can of course also join the Pondathon! You can find more information here and you can sign up on this page.

Will I see you there?