Reading Challenges 2021

[Paisley]

I've gotten a little sidetracked from the Read Harder Challenge - A friend decided to create a new book group the other day so I said I'd join that.  We read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens for our first book.  I quite liked it up till the last couple of pages now I'm not sure what to think.

 

Spoiler

List of Books Read 2021

1. Tomorrow when the war began by James Marsden

2. The Dead of Night by James Marsden

3. A Killing Frost  by James Marsden

4. The Only Girl in the World by  Maude Julien

5 - 12.The Bridgertons Series   books 1-8 by Julia Quinn  

13. Rumble Fish by  S.E. Hinton

14. That was Then, This is now by  S.E. Hinton

15. Tex by S.E. Hinton 

16. City of Saints and Thieves by Natalie C Anderson

17.Documenting Light by EE Ottoman

18. The Warrior, The Witch and the Wombat by Khloe Wren

19. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

 

[Artemis Prime]

I finished The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luiz Zafon on Friday, and I'm still not sure if I liked it or not. It took me a while to get into it, I wasn't really enjoying the overall tone, I almost gave up on it, but I wanted to know what happened, so I kept going. Then I got caught up and read through the last third or more of the book in one sitting. The ending was satisfying and the book is definitely well-written. I thought about it a lot over the weekend, but I still don't know if I liked it.

[Artemis Prime]

I've been working on a bunch of non-fiction lately, so I decided to read some Richelle Mead urban fantasy to buzz through a few quick ones. It was so bad. I think the Storm Born series was her first one, so I'm willing to make some concessions, but the love triangle between the female MC and her two guys is so bad. I'm going to rant with some spoilers here:

 

Spoiler

All she ever does with Guy #1 is have lots and lots of sex. After about two weeks we're supposed to believe he's the love of her life, but they have no relationship outside of bed. Then when that falls apart she immediately bounces to Guy #2.  They have a pretty dysfunctional relationship, but at least it is a relationship. But then she hooks back up with Guy #1 while still technically with Guy 2, which she justifies by saying that she had already decided to break things off, so she was free to do whatever she wanted. So she's back with Guy 1 and there's this ridiculous line: "Her body and her heart eventually remembered how to be in a relationship." WHAT THE HECK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN? YOU'VE BEEN IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH ONE OF THESE TWO GUYS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE SERIES!! THE MOST YOU'VE BEEN SINGLE IS LIKE ONE WEEK! And then she gets pregnant and Guy 1 hates it, so she goes back to Guy 2. And I quit reading at that point. All three of these people have lots and lots of personal issues to sort through before they attempt to be in a relationship with anyone. Honestly, Guy 2 is the best of the bunch, and I think he's supposed to be the worst, but there at least appears to be a degree of self-awareness there that the other two are completely lacking.

 

And that's not even the worst problem with this series, but I don't feel like getting into the very blase attitude everyone seems to have towards attempted sexual assault.

 

Anyways, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Needless to say, I DO NOT RECOMMEND this series, but if you decide to give it a shot anyway, be aware that it could do with some big fat content warnings for lots of very casual references to sexual assault.

[Scaly Freak]

Yikes. Can you get a refund for those?

[Artemis Prime]

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

Yikes. Can you get a refund for those?

Got them off Overdrive, so no money lost. Now if only I could get a refund on my time...

[Scaly Freak]

32 minutes ago, Artemis Prime said:

Got them off Overdrive, so no money lost. Now if only I could get a refund on my time...

 

I've felt that way about far too many unfinished books. Thankfully we are under no obligation to finish them, at least.

[Artemis Prime]

Question for romance readers: are you fans of the "surprise love" trope?

By that I mean, our two MC's claim to loathe each other, but then something dramatic happens and they realize they're actually in love. I've seen it in enough books now (none of which I would classify as Romance, but they all had a strong romance subplot) that I'm beginning to wonder if I'm missing something. It never rings true to me. It's just too big of a leap to make in one moment. The big dramatic moment could be what makes them realize "I don't hate this person" and then the romance develops from there or, if they've already moved past the "I hate you" stage, the dramatic moment could be what gets them to the final realization of "I love you," but to go from "I hate you, no actually, I love you" in one dramatic shift just tells me that this relationship is very superficial.

Am I wrong? What's your take on this? 

[Scaly Freak]

4 minutes ago, Artemis Prime said:

It never rings true to me. It's just too big of a leap to make in one moment. The big dramatic moment could be what makes them realize "I don't hate this person" and then the romance develops from there or, if they've already moved past the "I hate you" stage, the dramatic moment could be what gets them to the final realization of "I love you," but to go from "I hate you, no actually, I love you" in one dramatic shift just tells me that this relationship is very superficial.

Am I wrong? What's your take on this? 

 

It's a trope that is extremely difficult to get right, for all the reasons you mentioned. Most writers who try anyway, shouldn't have.

[Artemis Prime]

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

It's a trope that is extremely difficult to get right, for all the reasons you mentioned. Most writers who try anyway, shouldn't have.

Is it possible to get it right? I mean, the enemies-to-lovers things can be done well, but is it possible to make the leap in one scene or chapter? It finally hit me what I didn't like about it when I read Naomi Novik's Deadly Education, but the MC and the love interest start off as enemies and throughout the book become friends. It isn't until the end of the book that they start to show more interest in each other, which I'm guessing is going to be more developed in sequels. I'd say you could move faster than that and still do it well, but it can only be compressed so much.

[Scaly Freak]

40 minutes ago, Artemis Prime said:

Is it possible to get it right? I mean, the enemies-to-lovers things can be done well, but is it possible to make the leap in one scene or chapter? 

 

I don't think it's possible to go from one to the other in a single scene, however, it's possible (and common) to set up a single scene as an aha-moment where one or both of them realize that the relationship has changed, they just have to decide if they want to act on it or not. But that works if the author has been building towards it in their interactions leading up to that point, and has built towards it in a way that is visible to the reader, but not to the involved characters. And now we're back to my original point that it's difficult, and few authors who try this are able to pull it off.

 

Shakespeare did a fairly good job of the enemies-to-lovers trope in Much Ado About Nothing, which the movie  with Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh also does a fairly good job of capturing it.

[Artemis Prime]

57 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

But that works if the author has been building towards it in their interactions leading up to that point, and has built towards it in a way that is visible to the reader, but not to the involved characters. And now we're back to my original point that it's difficult, and few authors who try this are able to pull it off.

Hmmm....so now I'm thinking the problem with the books I had in mind is that they're all written in first person. In another view point, you can show the characters' feelings changing without directly addressing it, so the aha moment isn't so much that their feelings have suddenly changed so much as they've suddenly become aware of it because they haven't been giving it a whole lot of attention up until then. I suppose you could do that in first person as well, but in the most egregious examples of this trope gone wrong I've seen, the first person narrator is constantly thinking about how much they dislike the future love interest, so even if the reader sees right through it, they come across as shockingly unaware of their own feelings.

I feel like I maybe did not articulate that well, but it makes more sense to me now, so thanks for helping me sort my thoughts out.

[Scaly Freak]

10 minutes ago, Artemis Prime said:

the most egregious examples of this trope gone wrong I've seen, the first person narrator is constantly thinking about how much they dislike the future love interest, so even if the reader sees right through it, they come across as shockingly unaware of their own feelings.

 

Well, most people are shockingly unaware of their own feelings, while being expert-level skilled at lying to themselves, so I can actually see something like it happen. I still think it's next to impossible to portray realistically while writing in first person though, if nothing else because you can't drop comments from an invisible narrator into the story, along the lines of, "as soon as the danger was over Ditzy tried hard to forget how helpful and supportive Annoyingly Handsome had been, but no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't get over how nice it had felt to have someone strong and reliable by her side during a crisis". Or something like that  

 

 

[juliebarkley]

If anyone doing the BookRiot Challenge wants a really short book for #18 (Read a book by/about a non-Western world leader), What Is at Stake Now: My Appeal for Peace and Freedom by Mikhail Gorbachev fits the bill. It's just over 100 pages long, and goes over what he feels are the major issues the world faces right now. I felt that the strongest chapters were the first and last ones. The first, on nuclear disarmament, because he was personally involved in the negotiation of nuclear arms reduction treaties and knows whereof he speaks. The last, because it is about where Russia is now and where it is headed, from the perspective of a Russian who loves and understands his country, which is an unfortunately rare point of view to hear in English. The middle parts were more generic, but still shot through with a Russian point of view, which gave them a bit of a different take than usual. There was lots that I didn't agree with (Gorbachev has a lot more faith in international institutions than I do), but it was an interesting perspective to read.

[Paisley]

Spoiler

List of Books Read 2021

1. Tomorrow when the war began by James Marsden

2. The Dead of Night by James Marsden

3. A Killing Frost  by James Marsden

4. The Only Girl in the World by  Maude Julien

5 - 12.The Bridgertons Series   books 1-8 by Julia Quinn  

13. Rumble Fish by  S.E. Hinton

14. That was Then, This is now by  S.E. Hinton

15. Tex by S.E. Hinton 

16. City of Saints and Thieves by Natalie C Anderson

17.Documenting Light by EE Ottoman

18. The Warrior, The Witch and the Wombat by Khloe Wren

19. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

20. I was told it would get easier by Abbie Waxman

21. When we were Vikings by Andre David MacDonald

 

I finished another two books. The first "I was told it would get easier" by Abbi Waxman was just a fluffy humorous book that I actually found quite enjoyable about a single mother and her 16yo daughter doing college tours. Was interesting as it was written from the point of view of both. As a mother with a 13yo I found the dynamic between the two interesting.

The second book "When we were vikings" by Andrew David MacDonald I'm still not sure about. I found the book looking in the humor section of the library but whilst there were a few humorous parts the overall tone of the book was way too deep to be humerous, spent most of the book in tears actually. It was thought provoking and kept me engaged, but still not sure if I liked it.

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Oh a reading challenge, yay!

 

I went on a book purchasing spree last year, but did not actually read a lot of the books on my shelf... or in the overflow pile that cannot fit on my bookshelf. 

 

 

So I'd like to actually work through the backlog (then I can declutter and send them onto friends )....

 

Spoiler

Witcher Series by Andrzej Sapkowski:

The Last Wish February 2020

Sword of Destiny

Blood of Elves

Time of Contempt

Baptism of Fire

Tower of Swallows

Lady of the Lake

Season of Storms

 

Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix:

Sabriel March 2021

Lirael March 2021

Abhorsen March 2021

Across the Wall (short stories)

Clariel 03/27/21

Goldenhand

 

Misc. YA Fantasy Novels:

Gilded Wolves

Winterwood 04/10/21

House of Salt & Sorrows

Spin the Dawn

We Hunt the Flame

The Guinevere Deception currently reading

Left-handed Booksellers of London

 

 

[Artemis Prime]

Read Steve Lawhead's Hood over the weekend. He's placing Robin Hood in Wales shortly after the Norman Invasion. I really enjoyed it, probably helped along by the fact that the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Invasion was a strong focus of my undergraduate studies, although I didn't do much with Wales specifically. What I most appreciate about it is that he didn't use "historical realism" as an excuse to make everything as dark as possible. Yeah, he's taken the shine off the Robin Hood mythos, but he didn't go to the opposite extreme that makes me cringe every time a work is lauded as "gritty." Wasn't super happy with his treatment of Maid Marian, but I'm hopeful it gets better in the next two books of the trilogy.

 

Not really sure how I've managed to avoid Lawhead this long, I'll definitely be putting more of his books on my TBR list.

 

[Scaly Freak]

Making nice progress on my reading challenges. Past the 20% mark on the Book Nerd challenge the library is doing, and making slow by steady progress on Book Riot.

 

I had to rush one of the books because apparently the library expects me to return them. Seriously. So rude.

[juliebarkley]

On 3/24/2021 at 12:23 PM, Rebel Pilot Gar said:

or in the overflow pile that cannot fit on my bookshelf. 

Good to know I'm not alone!

 

On 4/9/2021 at 10:49 PM, Scaly Freak said:

I had to rush one of the books because apparently the library expects me to return them. Seriously. So rude.

Does your library catalogue let you place a hold on a book you already have checked out? If the book is not new and popular but thelibrary owns more than one copy, this trick can often let you get around that annoying "have to return the books" thing for as long as you need to.

 

 

How does everyone else keep track of their reading (if you do)? I kept a book diary once upon a time, but switched to LibraryThing ages ago. I don't write reviews for myself any more, but I like that I also can't lose it and it tells me where I got to in a series. Not keeping records of any kind is not an option as I have had a few too many instances of reading a book and then hitting a very familiar turn of phrase halfway through. I have no memory for titles, authors, dates, places, character names... (Makes me a brilliant debater - "I'm very sure of the thing and I totally read it in several places, but I can't remember any of the details. Just trust me okay?" 🙄) GoodReads is more popular, but it feels too much like Facebook for books and I really just want a nice clean place to record things without all the social media stuff.

 

How about everyone else?

[Scaly Freak]

30 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

Does your library catalogue let you place a hold on a book you already have checked out? If the book is not new and popular but the library owns more than one copy, this trick can often let you get around that annoying "have to return the books" thing for as long as you need to.

 

They have a feature they call "renewal" that basically means I can give myself another full check-out period for the book. The number of times I can do this depends on how popular the book is, and I have never seen a book have more than 4 renewals in total. I have a book due soon that started out with no renewals available, and that means there are no other copies either. 

 

I will probably place a hold for the same title again though so I don't have to rush the reading, because it deserves my attention and thoughts.  

[Rhovaniel]

59 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

How does everyone else keep track of their reading (if you do)? I kept a book diary once upon a time, but switched to LibraryThing ages ago. I don't write reviews for myself any more, but I like that I also can't lose it and it tells me where I got to in a series. N

Ooh, I've not heard if LibraryThing. Is it an online tracker/app?

 

I tend to use my BuJo. I am really bad need to work on keeping up to date with the rest of the sections, but somehow, getting to colour in a book on my self-drawn chart is weirdly motivating. The next page over is for very simple 1 to 5 star reviews of books. Though the book I just finished makes me think I should have some way to keep track of which ones give me major emotions. I finished that one both angry and sad. 

[juliebarkley]

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

They have a feature they call "renewal" that basically means I can give myself another full check-out period for the book. The number of times I can do this depends on how popular the book is, and I have never seen a book have more than 4 renewals in total. I have a book due soon that started out with no renewals available, and that means there are no other copies either. 

Yes, renewal is to extend the loan on the copy you have out. A new hold would add you to the waiting list for another copy, so you can move up the queue even while still having a copy out. It either shortens your wait time or, if the book isn't popular, means you can have a replacement copy on the holds shelf for you before the one you have out is due and can no longer be renewed (then you return the old one and check out the new one). I know it is possible in BiblioCommons. It may or may not be possible with other catalogue systems.

 

52 minutes ago, Rhovaniel said:

Ooh, I've not heard if LibraryThing. Is it an online tracker/app?

It's a library-building tool that was originally designed to let users catalogue all of their books, but can be also used to track what you have read. If you have enough records added, it will give you its best guess as to whether or not you will like a particular title, find you other users with similar catalogues so you can follow their libraries, etc. It's most similar to GoodReads, if you know that one, but GoodReads is focused on social media, book-club style, and connecting people with authors. LibraryThing has always been focused on the cataloguing end of things.

 

Your BuJo is really pretty! And rating a book for its emotional impact is a neat idea.

[Rhovaniel]

6 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

It's a library-building tool that was originally designed to let users catalogue all of their books, but can be also used to track what you have read. If you have enough records added, it will give you its best guess as to whether or not you will like a particular title, find you other users with similar catalogues so you can follow their libraries, etc. It's most similar to GoodReads, if you know that one, but GoodReads is focused on social media, book-club style, and connecting people with authors. LibraryThing has always been focused on the cataloguing end of things.

OOh, that sounds really cool. I just finished reorganising my bookshelves with a view to culling the ones I either don't like, will not probably ever read or have no more need of (to charity shops, don't worry. I cannot bring myself to throw any book out). Among my discoveries, I found a) I need more bookshelves and a cataloging system would be really useful and b) I have no fewer than 5 separate copies of Lord of the Rings (the whole things, either in 3 volumes or 1 giant volume) and 4, yes 4, copies of Pride and Prejudice. I have no idea why. I knew I had one duplicate because the cover was really pretty and the pages looked so lovely and creamy I had to buy it, but the others were a surprise. The Lord of the Rings well - one was my very first (now much battered) copy given to me as a kid, one set was my first set I bought myself and have lovely covers, 1 set was because I wanted the movie release covers and the others... I have a problem. Slight book hoarding tendencies  I think I'll check it out, thank you!

 

12 minutes ago, juliebarkley said:

Your BuJo is really pretty! And rating a book for its emotional impact is a neat idea.

Ah thanks! Yeah, I think I'll find a way to incorporate an emotional rating. Some books hit harder than others  

[Scaly Freak]

11 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

Yes, renewal is to extend the loan on the copy you have out. A new hold would add you to the waiting list for another copy, so you can move up the queue even while still having a copy out. It either shortens your wait time or, if the book isn't popular, means you can have a replacement copy on the holds shelf for you before the one you have out is due and can no longer be renewed (then you return the old one and check out the new one). I know it is possible in BiblioCommons. It may or may not be possible with other catalogue systems.

 

i don't know which system my library district uses, but it does allow me to place a request/hold for a book with the same title as then one I need to return soon, that I can't renew. As expected, there are five requests ahead of mine...  

[Jupiter]

13 hours ago, Rhovaniel said:

I tend to use my BuJo.

 

Oooh, that's pretty!

 

14 hours ago, juliebarkley said:

How does everyone else keep track of their reading (if you do)?

 

I use Goodreads. I don't pay much attention to the social media aspect (except to check out other people's reviews), I just use it to record and rate the books I've read. 

[Artemis Prime]

5 hours ago, Jupiter said:

I use Goodreads. I don't pay much attention to the social media aspect (except to check out other people's reviews), I just use it to record and rate the books I've read. 

Ditto. I really like Goodreads for tracking my own reading and pay very little attention to what anyone else is doing.