Orilium Magical Readathon: Spring Equinox 2024 Wrap-Up

Dina

May 11

I had such a great TBR. I had such plans! And then totally unforseen things that nobody could have expected happened. Things like my library holds coming in, or the Hugo Award finalists being announced, or me being in a weird mood. Anyway, despite extensive TBR changes, I managed to pass another successful semester at Orilium Academy and advance my character on her way to becoming a Scribe.

Classes and Reading Prompts

This year's syllabus (linked here on Google Drive) was a great mix! I finished all classes I need to and then a couple of extra ones. For reasons.

Class	Book	Rating (x/5)
Elemental Studies	Kazuo Ishiguro - Klara and the Sun	4
Inscription	Nghi Vo - Mammoths at the Gates	5
Lore	The Legend of Dia	/
Restoration	Lois McMaster Bujold - Cordelia's Honor	4
Spells & Incantations	Walter M. Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz	4
Animal Studies	Tochi Onyebuchi - Goliath	4
Demonology	Jay Kristoff - Empire of the Damned	3
Psionics & Divination	Sarah Gailey - River of Teeth	3.5
Quest	Ali Hazelwood - Check & Mate	5
Quest	Ali Hazelwood - Love, Theoretically	3

Reading a 700+ page chonker during a readathon month, especially one that does not fit my required reading prompts was... not wise. However, the book did come in from the library after a rather long wait, so I didn't want to wait until my turn came up the next time around. The 32 hour audiobook didn't feel quite as long, but I also had to finish the last few chapters in my paper copy as my loan time ran out. Ooopsie.

I then sadly switched out my T. Kingfisher book because - for whatever reason - the audiobook did not come out at the same time as the print version, so I couldn't listen to it on Audible and I really, really want to listen to it, like I did the rest of the series. This wasn't so bad in the end as the Sword & Laser podcast picked Cordelia's Honor as their March book and I had wanted to start that series for decades, certain it would end up as a five-star-read and thus perfect for the required prompt.

Both my Ali Hazelwood audiobooks also came in almost at the same time and neither of them fit a necessary prompt, so I counted them toward my questing. Mwahahaha!

The Books + Stats

So I may have had the best laid plans, but things ended up very, very decent in the end. Not all books were a hit, some were a different type of 4-star-read than the other 4-star-read, but I was overall super happy with my choices this month and how much fun I had with them.

I have stopped tallying my guild points and whatever extra benefits they grant me (such as counting a DNF'ed book, etc.) and I'm also not the best at keeping track of my character's achievements. Sistani's still working hard to become a Master Scribe, which will take a couple more years, and I always go for the year-long readathon extras because they sound cute - like companion animals and stuff like that. But I'm not going to make any tables or graphs anymore. I just enjoy the readathons and the prompts and that's it.

Until next time at Orilium Academy. See you all in August! 🙂