My Week In Books 📚 // Victober diaries: an underrated Victorian novel, Elizabeth Gaskell and homeschooling📜

 Hi Everyone, 

I was maybe wanting to write one of these per week, but soon realised that was unrealistic because with school, I don't read as much and so it would be pretty boring! On a usual school day I read somewhere in the region of 20-40 pages, over the weekend I read much more! What I didn't expect, however, was being back in home learning and therefore having a lot more time on my hands! Having said that, I am still working so I'm not sure how much content there will be other than reading updates, but I hope that's interesting! I'm not sure how long this will go on for, or if there will be another one but I will be updating this hopefully every day!

This is very much inspired by my summer diaries posts so make sure to check them out by clicking here!

Monday 11th October 

As of this morning, I am 366 pages through A Welsh Witch and 49 pages through Gothic Tales, which are the two books I am currently reading. As I mention in my Victober update and catch up post, I am absolutely loving A Welsh Witch, but liking Gothic Tales much less! I am excited to carry on with them (well, A Welsh Witch) and hopefully I can make some progress and finish them soon. 

I managed to complete my school work for today, and got a few blog posts done too! I do seem to have rather a lot scheduled for the next few weeks though so I'm not sure when this will fit in! I've been loving writing though and although I haven't actually finished a book in October yet, I am adoring what I'm reading so that's okay, and I'm trying not to put pressure on myself!

Tuesday 12th October

Today I managed to finish my home learning pretty early so that's good and I'm now spending some time writing on here and doing a few things that I need to get done! 

I didn't read anything last night because we went out and came back very late but I did read this morning as usual and got to page 379. I don't know what to say that I haven't already said! I can't believe Allen Raine is so forgotten! I heard about her on BookTube where I get most of my book recommendations. You can see my recommendations for channels here. I really want to read more of her novels soon, but in the meantime I'm going to be screaming at you all to read A Welsh Witch because I LOVE IT.

Thursday 14th October

I didn't update you yesterday because I was just feeling so unmotivated with schoolwork and stuff but I did read a fair amount so I'm now on page 430, which is 5 pages from the end! I know...I just wanted to save it for this morning! But I woke up, turned my alarm off and fell asleep again so I was really annoyed I didn't get to do that! It's now half 12 and I've finished my schoolwork so I can take my time and finish it this afternoon! I'm so excited! Last night, I was reading it and just grinning away, the ending means so much to me because I've grown to have such a connection with these characters. It reminds me of my favourite books such as Jane Eyre, The Paper and Hearts Society, Heartstopper and Pride and Prejudice in the sense that you feel so deeply connected with these fictional people and it's something I really value in a book! I just love it so much and I really don't know what else I can say!

I'm also hoping to read some of Gothic Tales today but we'll see how it goes! I want to catch up with my Victober reading because I've been loving A Welsh Witch so much that I haven't read anything else!

It's now a bit later and I FINISHED IT. What can I even say? I literally just finished it and turned my laptop on to start writing about it and updating you all so...here goes!

When I started this book, I was expecting to find it challenging to read (but hoping it wouldn't be) and thinking that I would like it. How very wrong I was! 

This book just surpassed all my expectations. It's  everything I love in a Victorian book: it's got great social commentary on different communities and lifestyles, it's got a wonderful love story, beautiful descriptions, memorable characters, high emotions and the list just goes on! What a novel! It didn't feel long at all, even if I read it for nearly two weeks and it lasted 435 pages! It just was AMAZING and what I've got out of it is priceless. I could apply some of the situations the characters get into to my own problems and that is another thing I love in a good classic: being able to relate to it, even if it was written over 100 years ago! 

I also now NEED more Allen Raine! I know she has one other book from the Welsh Women's Classics series so that's probably the easiest to get hold of, because otherwise I'm going to have to scour online websites to get some second hand! 

I'm pretty sure this is the start of a long friendship between me and Allen Raine and I CAN'T WAIT. If you take one thing away from this post, or even from Victober, it's to PLEASE read Allen Raine because she deserves so much more recognition! 

After finishing this and loving it so much, I'm a little worried about reading either Gothic Tales or Mary Barton because I just don't think they will be as good! To be honest, I don't want them to, BUT I do want to enjoy them still so we'll have to see.

Wow that was a LONG update! I now have my weekly flute lesson which should be good, and I also just read the Preface to Mary Barton, but I'll make more progress later this evening!

Friday 15th October

I didn't end up reading any of Mary Barton last night because I decided to give Gothic Tales another chance. I'm now reading 'The Poor Clare' and I'm on page 70 of the whole collection. I am actually really liking this one, especially compared to the others! I'm glad I gave it a second chance and I'm going to continue making my way through the short stories this weekend. 

I will start Mary Barton soon, because otherwise I don't think I'll have time to finish it before the end of Victober, but for now I'm going to carry on with Gothic Tales.

Saturday 16th October

I'm just popping in quickly to say that I finished The Poor Clare this morning and WOW I am so glad I gave Gothic Tales another chance because this was much better! It was engaging and fun, creepy and very interesting historically too. I'm not sure what I'll carry on with now, I really need to start Mary Barton if I want to finish it before the end of the month but I also want to finish Gothic Tales...we'll have to see!

I'm not sure if they'll be another one of these, I don't think so but there might be, we'll see how I feel next week! 

Happy Victober 🍂

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