Saturday 27 February 2016

Review Star Jar - Progress

When I started this blog, I started keeping track of my reviews using origami wishing stars. I appreciate this isn't a hugely novel idea, and I borrowed it from Anna over at Enchanted by YA, but I loved it so much I was inspired to start my own (and they say imitation is the greatest form of flattery).
I'm a bit of a crafter among my many sidelines, so I have a ton of wishing stars. Aside from that, I'm a total fidget and usually find myself with piles of wishing stars or origami cranes while I'm proofreading or watching tv. My - somewhat optimistic - aim is to fill the light jar on the right, with the stars on the left, colour coded with the review of each book I've read; gold for five*, blue for four*, yellow for three*, green for two* and red for one*, with the bonus map star for any with a world map.
And I love world maps!
So, how am I doing? Well, after failing to reach my 2015 reading goal - but being a whole three books ahead on my 2016 goal at the moment - I've racked up 50 review stars and six map stars.

As for the quality of reads, double thumbs up! Of the 50 books I've read and rated - a strangely high amount starting with the letter S - I've only had a single book that I hated enough to give one* (Allegiant by Veronica Roth in case you were wondering), with four two*, 15 three*, 12 four* and a whopping 13 five*.

World maps have come courtesy of Queen Of The Tearling, Invasion Of The Tearling, Snow Like Ashes, Storm Siren, Six Of Crows and Starborn.

I've strangely enjoyed keeping my review jar. There's something quite satisfying about dropping a new star in when I finish a book! And after a few years in the reading wilderness before I started blogging, I'm so happy that I'm enjoying so many of the books I am reading. Does anybody else keep a star jar? What's your method of keeping track of your reads?

7 comments:

  1. This is so wonderful, it looks like you've read many awesome books! (Excluding that one which I really can't blame you for disliking since I felt the same XD). I've been lax in keeping up with my own star jar and have taken to catching up once a month. If I ever get around to doing wrap ups on my blog it will come in handy ahah. Anyway, lovely post! <3
    Enchanted by YA

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    1. I've just been dropping stars in absentmindedly for months. I'm not sure what prompted me to fish all of them out of the light jar and count them up, but it was nice to see not just that I've got back in to reading again, but I'm enjoying it. Before I started my blog I had a bit of a weird year or so working things out and changing a lot of things in my life and hadn't enjoyed a book in what felt like forever so I'm glad I'm starting to feel more like me again!

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  2. How awesome, Mikayla! I need to learn how to make origami stars. :)

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    1. They're pretty easy once you get the hang of it. I barely pay attention when I make them now. There are a couple of tutorials on Youtube, that's how I figured out how to do them.

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  3. Wow, I really like that idea! I have seen a star jar to track the genre read but not the rating. I would really like to learn to make those stars and try something like this myself. I really like the map stars the best. So glad you are having a good reading year so far!

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    1. The map ones are so cute aren't they? Although I think it should be compulsory for all fantasy books to have a map!

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  4. That sounds like a great idea! But I would totally fail at actually making the stars...
    A.S. Damea @ A Reviewing Dreamer

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