VICTOBER 2021 WRAP UP | a new favourite book, some wonderful (and some less wonderful) short stories & MORE!

 Hi Everyone! 

During the month of October, I took part in a readathon called Victober. The aim of this readathon is to read Victorian books throughout the month. There are a series of prompts to complete too and in this post I will be rounding up what I read and which prompts I completed. If you want to see my other Victober posts, please click here, but you will need to scroll past this one first! 

In total, I read 2 and a half books which was not really what I was aiming for! I am, however, very pleased with how the month went and with what I read- it was definitely quality and not quantity! Again, it was an incredible opportunity and it's become a real highlight of my reading year! I think it's also influenced my reading so much because it motivated me so much to read Victorian literature last year and now reading classics is something I do a lot!

At the start of the month I had many expectations, however that I would find a new favourite book of all time was not one of them! I don't think this has quite beaten Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice but it's VERY close! If you saw my first week in books post for Victober then you can probably guess that I am talking about A Welsh Witch by Allen Raine. This just blew my mind, I can't even describe how amazingly incredible this book is. WOW! I already wrote about it in that week in books post so I'll quote that because I just don't know what else to write or what more I can say! 

"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!"

The characters I just can't help but think about and I miss being with them! I will definitely be taking you all along with me in my Allen Raine journey so I hope I can convince you to read A Welsh Witch because if you haven't already gathered: I LOVE IT.

It was recommended by Kate Howe, one of the Victober hosts, for the sensation novel prompt but I don't really know if it fits in that category as it's not a typical sensation novel but I'm counting it for that prompt anyway! It was also published in 1902, one year after Queen  Victoria's death so it isn't technically Victorian but as it was recommended by Kate Howe, I thought it was and only realised it wasn't when I checked the publication date inside! I am counting it though because it was probably written in the Victorian era and Allen Raine is considered a Victorian author.

The group readalong was Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell which is where the half comes from! Some of the stories in this were great but others not so great and in the end I ran out of motivation but I am still hoping to finish it before the end of the year if I can. I found this slow and just didn't want to pick it up so I thought I wouldn't force myself and read it at my own pace, regardless of the readathon. I enjoyed stories such as The Poor Clare but I found others way too confusing and meaningless. 

My pick for both the book set in countryside and/or city and the book with a female main character was Mary Barton also by Elizabeth Gaskell. This was much more of a typically Victorian novel than the other two books and I loved the social and political commentary, the setting of the factory workers' houses and the portrayal of both Manchester and Liverpool at this time. The characters I warmed to, although not nearly so much as in A Welsh Witch! I found the plot slightly slow at times, and it was very well-written as usual with Elizabeth Gaskell, however in North And South I felt a lot more that she knew what she was doing all along as Mary Barton felt a little under planned in some places for some reason!

If you don't know, this is about Mary Barton who rejects her working class lover, hoping to marry the rich mill-owner's son. But in a sinister turn of events, she finds herself caught up between the two. She is also the daughter of trade-unionist John Barton, who will go at all costs to fight for what he believes in, a friend of the kind-hearted Job Legh and Margaret and the niece of her mysterious Aunt Esther.

I also found that so many people got the fever, which was probably realistic for Victorian England but it did make it very repetitive and a lot of people died (which is probably also realistic for Victorian England). 

I'm glad I read this and I will definitely continue reading more Gaskell. I recommend this but maybe not as a starting point for her work because I think North and South is a lot better plotted and written. 

There was the bonus challenge of reading a popular Victorian book, which you could interpret in two ways: either read a book that was popular in the Victorian era or read a book that is popular now. I chose the former and A Welsh Witch covers this as Allen Raine sold over 1 million copies of her books and now barely anyone has read anything by her.

There was also the challenge to read aloud or listen to an audiobook. I didn't complete this because I'm not a huge fan of audiobooks and I didn't get the chance to read aloud which is a shame!

Overall, I didn't read as much as I was hoping to, I only finished one book during the month as I finished Mary Barton in November (though I'm counting it anyway) and I didn't finish the group read Gothic Tales. However, I am so happy I read A Welsh Witch and I think it doesn't really matter that I didn't read much else because I didn't want to rush it of course! 

Last year I read more, but they were shorter books, so it's probably not too far off equal. How many books I read doesn't really matter but I can't help but feel disappointed that I only read 2 books for this readathon that I'd been looking forward to all year! I am pleased I took part though and it's always so fun and such an amazing thing to do.

If you took part in Victober then I would love to hear from you about what you read and what you thought, so please comment or leave me a message in the contact form (please note you won't be able to use these if you are reading this from email subscription). Thank you so much for reading this and I'll be back very soon! 

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