Annual Reading Challenge 2019
- Thread starter Cogswel_Cogs
- Start date
Colleen27
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
More catching up...
#92/130 - Shadow Lover by Anne Stuart
#93 - Prince of Magic by Anne Stuart
Supernatural-ish romance, both enjoyable in the moment but not particularly memorable.
#94 - Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis
I should have known better than to pick up a self-help book by a blogger/Instagram influencer, no matter how much buzz it has generated. This was just... insipid. Lots of rah-rah cliches and faux "fails" that are nevertheless perfectly comical and social-media friendly. I know a lot of women are raving about how inspiring and uplifting this was, and it was very positive and accepting in a sort of upper-middle-class "first world problems" sort of way, but it just came across as very shallow and meaningless to me. If nothing else, it does speak to the power of "recommended titles" - when it came up across all three ebook apps I use, I relented and borrowed it even though I knew full well that it was a genre I have almost no use for!
#95 - Shortest Way Home by Pete Buttigieg
I'd almost forgotten I requested this from the library by the time I got to the top of the list, but I'm glad I did. Part autobiography, part campaign message, it was a really interesting look at one of the newcomers in the chase for the Democratic presidential nomination. Buttigieg does a good job of framing his political views in his personal experiences and midwestern upbringing, and he's clearly a very smart man with a real passion for what he does - he managed to make South Bend, Indiana sound like a place I'd like to visit, even though I've been there twice and didn't much care for it either time!
#96 & 97 - Hard Pack and Hard Flip by Alison Lindt
More ebook romance, these were enjoyable enough as pure escapist vacation reads but not so compelling that I remembered to pick up the next in the series when my Hoopla borrowing limit reset. Fun, but a little too alpha male/damsel in distress and with some pretty tired contemporary romance tropes like the one night stand/accidental pregnancy nonsense. Not terrible, but not great either.
#98 - The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels
I LOVED this one, so much so that I immediately went out and picked up her other novel as soon as I finished. Set in a part of Michigan where I spent a lot of my youth, the story was told in two timelines - the present, when the main character is scrambling to save her failing bookstore in a small riverfront town, and the past, when she was just a kid tossed into an unfamiliar place with a relative she'd never met after her parents both went to jail. As the story plays out in both past and present, the seemingly closed case of her parents' crimes comes back into question and she is forced to revisit things she thought she knew for sure and grapple with questions of when and how to forgive after a lifetime of anger and resentment.
#99 - We Hope For Better Things by Erin Bartels
Another winner, set in Detroit and in a rural town not far from where I live now, told again in multiple timelines and recounting historical events on a very human level. This one traced one family at three different points in time: a young bride left behind when her husband went to fight the Civil War, another young bride struggling with what it means to be in an interracial marriage during the tension before and during the Detroit riots of 1967, and a mid-career journalist at a crossroads after losing her job in Detroit and coming to live with a distant relative in rural Michigan. It was a really beautifully researched story that managed to bring each time to life through the eyes of the female main characters, and the three timelines come together to tell a story of racial prejudice, personal choices and social forces in a very relateable way. And it earned bonus points because the opening scene was set in one of my most favorite and uniquely Detroit restaurants.
#92/130 - Shadow Lover by Anne Stuart
#93 - Prince of Magic by Anne Stuart
Supernatural-ish romance, both enjoyable in the moment but not particularly memorable.
#94 - Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis
I should have known better than to pick up a self-help book by a blogger/Instagram influencer, no matter how much buzz it has generated. This was just... insipid. Lots of rah-rah cliches and faux "fails" that are nevertheless perfectly comical and social-media friendly. I know a lot of women are raving about how inspiring and uplifting this was, and it was very positive and accepting in a sort of upper-middle-class "first world problems" sort of way, but it just came across as very shallow and meaningless to me. If nothing else, it does speak to the power of "recommended titles" - when it came up across all three ebook apps I use, I relented and borrowed it even though I knew full well that it was a genre I have almost no use for!
#95 - Shortest Way Home by Pete Buttigieg
I'd almost forgotten I requested this from the library by the time I got to the top of the list, but I'm glad I did. Part autobiography, part campaign message, it was a really interesting look at one of the newcomers in the chase for the Democratic presidential nomination. Buttigieg does a good job of framing his political views in his personal experiences and midwestern upbringing, and he's clearly a very smart man with a real passion for what he does - he managed to make South Bend, Indiana sound like a place I'd like to visit, even though I've been there twice and didn't much care for it either time!
#96 & 97 - Hard Pack and Hard Flip by Alison Lindt
More ebook romance, these were enjoyable enough as pure escapist vacation reads but not so compelling that I remembered to pick up the next in the series when my Hoopla borrowing limit reset. Fun, but a little too alpha male/damsel in distress and with some pretty tired contemporary romance tropes like the one night stand/accidental pregnancy nonsense. Not terrible, but not great either.
#98 - The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels
I LOVED this one, so much so that I immediately went out and picked up her other novel as soon as I finished. Set in a part of Michigan where I spent a lot of my youth, the story was told in two timelines - the present, when the main character is scrambling to save her failing bookstore in a small riverfront town, and the past, when she was just a kid tossed into an unfamiliar place with a relative she'd never met after her parents both went to jail. As the story plays out in both past and present, the seemingly closed case of her parents' crimes comes back into question and she is forced to revisit things she thought she knew for sure and grapple with questions of when and how to forgive after a lifetime of anger and resentment.
#99 - We Hope For Better Things by Erin Bartels
Another winner, set in Detroit and in a rural town not far from where I live now, told again in multiple timelines and recounting historical events on a very human level. This one traced one family at three different points in time: a young bride left behind when her husband went to fight the Civil War, another young bride struggling with what it means to be in an interracial marriage during the tension before and during the Detroit riots of 1967, and a mid-career journalist at a crossroads after losing her job in Detroit and coming to live with a distant relative in rural Michigan. It was a really beautifully researched story that managed to bring each time to life through the eyes of the female main characters, and the three timelines come together to tell a story of racial prejudice, personal choices and social forces in a very relateable way. And it earned bonus points because the opening scene was set in one of my most favorite and uniquely Detroit restaurants.
willowsnn3
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2009
50/50 A Steep Price by Robert Dugoni
Made my goal!
This was 6th in the Tracy Crosswhite series. Good as always.
Made my goal!This was 6th in the Tracy Crosswhite series. Good as always.
Congrats! Love that series as well.50/50 A Steep Price by Robert Dugoni
This was 6th in the Tracy Crosswhite series. Good as always.
willowsnn3
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2009
And......this left me with nothing on hand to read, so made a quick stop by the library & picked up 4 books that just jumped off the shelves at me, lol.50/50 A Steep Price by Robert Dugoni
This was 6th in the Tracy Crosswhite series. Good as always.
The Case Manager
The Library of Lost & Found
The Testaments
The Chain
Think I'll start with The Case Manager as it the shortest at 300 pages.
Kirby
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2000
40/50 - One Second After by William R. Forstchen. Genre - Horror
Overnight, the world's trains, planes, cars, trucks, phones, computers, power plants and electrical equipment come to a sudden screeching stop. Nor will they ever start up again. The world is in chaos, and everyone wants to know why. Some evangelicals believe the Rapture is at hand. Other fundamentalists see the Cloven Hoof of Satan in the catastrophe. UFO cultists preach the coming of intergalactic aliens. Secularists envisage a host of earthly enemies - Chinese communists, Islamic fanatics, eco-terrorists, and energy industry magnates. New Agers prophesize the dreaded Mayan apocalypse. Is it aliens from space or is it the apocalypse? Human violence or the wrath of an angry god?
Whatever the cause, the modern age has come to an end. Looting, food riots, and global insurrection are the order of the day, and the New Dark Ages are suddenly upon us.
Can this global anarchy be stopped? Can the End Time be reversed?
A small mountain village in the American South is humankind's last best hope.
I read this book after a recommendation on this thread earlier this year. This book horrifies me and hope I that this really doesn't happen because I truly believe it can.
Overnight, the world's trains, planes, cars, trucks, phones, computers, power plants and electrical equipment come to a sudden screeching stop. Nor will they ever start up again. The world is in chaos, and everyone wants to know why. Some evangelicals believe the Rapture is at hand. Other fundamentalists see the Cloven Hoof of Satan in the catastrophe. UFO cultists preach the coming of intergalactic aliens. Secularists envisage a host of earthly enemies - Chinese communists, Islamic fanatics, eco-terrorists, and energy industry magnates. New Agers prophesize the dreaded Mayan apocalypse. Is it aliens from space or is it the apocalypse? Human violence or the wrath of an angry god?
Whatever the cause, the modern age has come to an end. Looting, food riots, and global insurrection are the order of the day, and the New Dark Ages are suddenly upon us.
Can this global anarchy be stopped? Can the End Time be reversed?
A small mountain village in the American South is humankind's last best hope.
I read this book after a recommendation on this thread earlier this year. This book horrifies me and hope I that this really doesn't happen because I truly believe it can.
willowsnn3
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2009
#51 The Case Manager by Latoya Chandler
"In my family, misery didn't just love company; it wanted hostages!"
All Candice Brown ever wanted was to belong, but when your mom resents you, that's not a reality. Turmoil seems to follow Candice. She dreams of feeling the one thing she lacks in her life--love--but love only leaves Candice alone as a teenage mother.
Being sent away by her mom seems like the escape she needs, but is it? She is placed with a case manager who appears to be a source of solace and acceptance, but who, in reality, could leave Candice more damaged than she already is.
Ok, soooo, sounded good and could have been so much better if the author knew how to write, lol. So disjointed & childish writing style. All over the place, characters all seemed to be strange....
I believe this is supposed to be the first of the Shattered Lives series. I will not be reading any of the sequels & do not recommend this one.
"In my family, misery didn't just love company; it wanted hostages!"
All Candice Brown ever wanted was to belong, but when your mom resents you, that's not a reality. Turmoil seems to follow Candice. She dreams of feeling the one thing she lacks in her life--love--but love only leaves Candice alone as a teenage mother.
Being sent away by her mom seems like the escape she needs, but is it? She is placed with a case manager who appears to be a source of solace and acceptance, but who, in reality, could leave Candice more damaged than she already is.
Ok, soooo, sounded good and could have been so much better if the author knew how to write, lol. So disjointed & childish writing style. All over the place, characters all seemed to be strange....
I believe this is supposed to be the first of the Shattered Lives series. I will not be reading any of the sequels & do not recommend this one.
willowsnn3
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2009
Has anyone on here read Margaret Atwoods 'The Testaments'?
Supposed to be a sequel to 'The Handmaid's Tale' which I read many years ago, saw the movie & love the tv series but most of the reviews on Goodreads are not very promising.
Would like a little input from y'all as I have found a lot of good books thru this thread.
Thanks
Supposed to be a sequel to 'The Handmaid's Tale' which I read many years ago, saw the movie & love the tv series but most of the reviews on Goodreads are not very promising.
Would like a little input from y'all as I have found a lot of good books thru this thread.
Thanks
Colleen27
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
I'm on the waiting list for it at my library and debating whether I'm patient enough to wait or should just buy it instead. I'd love to hear some feedback on it to help me decide!
willowsnn3
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2009
#52 The Chain by Adrian McKinty
You just dropped off your child at the bus stop. A panicked stranger calls your phone. Your child has been kidnapped, and the stranger explains that their child has also been kidnapped, by a completely different stranger. The only way to get your child back is to kidnap another child within 24 hours. Your child will be released only when the next victim's parents kidnap yet another child, and most importantly, the stranger explains, if you don't kidnap a child, or if the next parents don't kidnap a child, your child will be murdered. You are now part of The Chain.
Pretty good. I would recommend.
You just dropped off your child at the bus stop. A panicked stranger calls your phone. Your child has been kidnapped, and the stranger explains that their child has also been kidnapped, by a completely different stranger. The only way to get your child back is to kidnap another child within 24 hours. Your child will be released only when the next victim's parents kidnap yet another child, and most importantly, the stranger explains, if you don't kidnap a child, or if the next parents don't kidnap a child, your child will be murdered. You are now part of The Chain.
Pretty good. I would recommend.
Kirby
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2000
41/50 - Dirty Little Secrets by Liliana Hart. Genre - Mystery
J.J. Graves has seen a lot of dead bodies in her line of work... She's not only in the mortuary business, but she's also the coroner for King George County, Virginia. When a grisly murder is discovered in the small town of Bloody Mary, it's up to J.J. and her best friend, Detective Jack Lawson, to bring the victim justice. The murders are piling up... The residents of Bloody Mary are dropping like flies, and when a popular mystery writer shows up on J.J.'s doorstep with plans of writing his new book about the Bloody Mary Serial Killer, J.J. has to decide if he might be going above and beyond the call of duty to create the spine tinglers he's so well known for. It only clouds the issue and puts her reputation on the line when the attraction between them spirals out of control. And passions are rising... J.J and Jack are in a race against time. They discover each victim had a shocking secret, and the very foundation of J.J.'s life is in danger of crumbling when it turns out she's harboring secrets of her own - secrets that make her the perfect victim in a deadly game.
I forced myself read 140 pages of this book and then skipped to the end to see what happened when I couldn't bring myself to read another word. This was my book club's pick for October and our leader said that it was sooooo good that she continued to read more of the series.
J.J. Graves has seen a lot of dead bodies in her line of work... She's not only in the mortuary business, but she's also the coroner for King George County, Virginia. When a grisly murder is discovered in the small town of Bloody Mary, it's up to J.J. and her best friend, Detective Jack Lawson, to bring the victim justice. The murders are piling up... The residents of Bloody Mary are dropping like flies, and when a popular mystery writer shows up on J.J.'s doorstep with plans of writing his new book about the Bloody Mary Serial Killer, J.J. has to decide if he might be going above and beyond the call of duty to create the spine tinglers he's so well known for. It only clouds the issue and puts her reputation on the line when the attraction between them spirals out of control. And passions are rising... J.J and Jack are in a race against time. They discover each victim had a shocking secret, and the very foundation of J.J.'s life is in danger of crumbling when it turns out she's harboring secrets of her own - secrets that make her the perfect victim in a deadly game.
I forced myself read 140 pages of this book and then skipped to the end to see what happened when I couldn't bring myself to read another word. This was my book club's pick for October and our leader said that it was sooooo good that she continued to read more of the series.
Tiggerish
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 17, 1999
The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder and an Unlikely Investigator by Jookim Palmkuist translated from Swedish by Agnes Broome. A true crime story in rural Sweden. It was interesting how Swedish law and police procedure differed to what I am familiar with in the United States.
A Berry Clever Corpse by AR Winters. Part of a series about a struggling cafe owner who keeps stumbling into solving murder mysteries. It was a very light read.
The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin. Another of his deep thought tales. This time an man who is a gifted doctor and a woman who is an online blogger on her way to her own wedding, charter a small plane to take them home when oncoming weather prevents their regular flight from taking off stranding them in Salt Lake, Utah. The pilot dies of a heart attack in mid-flight but manages to crash land the plane in the mountains. The two passengers live but she has a broken leg and he has broken ribs. He eventually drags her on a sled crafted from airplane parts down the mountain and after almost a month finds a ski camp and they survive.
86, 87 and 88 of 104
A Berry Clever Corpse by AR Winters. Part of a series about a struggling cafe owner who keeps stumbling into solving murder mysteries. It was a very light read.
The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin. Another of his deep thought tales. This time an man who is a gifted doctor and a woman who is an online blogger on her way to her own wedding, charter a small plane to take them home when oncoming weather prevents their regular flight from taking off stranding them in Salt Lake, Utah. The pilot dies of a heart attack in mid-flight but manages to crash land the plane in the mountains. The two passengers live but she has a broken leg and he has broken ribs. He eventually drags her on a sled crafted from airplane parts down the mountain and after almost a month finds a ski camp and they survive.
86, 87 and 88 of 104
Colleen27
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
#100/130 - His Consort by Mary Calmes
This was one from a category of romance I can't say I've ever stumbled into before - LGBT vampire romance - and it was pretty good, if a bit predictable with a main character to spent way too much time in his own head, especially considering the fact that he was dropped into a situation that should have felt entirely impossible.
#101 - Hiroshima by John Hersey
Originally published in the late 40s and updated in the 80s with a "where are they now" chapter, this is a journalistic narrative that tells the stories of six survivors of the Hiroshima bombing from the morning the bomb dropped into their old age (or, in some cases, to their deaths). As you might expect, it was not easy to read - some of the descriptions were very graphic and tragedy wove through the entire saga - but Hersey had a real gift for bringing big, historic events down to human scale and it did offer a powerful and profoundly human look at a historic event that is often reduced to discussions of military strategy or casualty numbers and cancer statistics or other abstractions.
#102 - Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Nancy Campbell Allen
A steampunk take on a classic love story, this was more effective as a mystery than as a romance. The relationship between the two main characters wasn't particularly compelling, nor was the hero especially sympathetic in the way a well-written Beast should be, but the blending of technology and the supernatural was quite enjoyable and the murder-mystery behind the hero's "curse" had a not entirely surprising but still satisfying resolution.
#103 - The Second Mountain by David Brooks
A non-fiction exploration of the things that go into building a "life of meaning" by NY Times columnist David Brooks, this was part inspirational call to live for more than just the materialistic impulses of the moment and part lament for what Brooks characterizes as a society in which individualism has been taken to an unhealthy extreme. And as such, some parts were more convincing and more relateable than others. The introduction, where Brooks analyzes the state of modern American culture, and the final section on community building both felt valuable and worthwhile. The sections on faith and marriage, not so much; they were far less concrete and more abstract, which took them from the realm of the useful and universal to something more personal and less suited to generalization, and for someone who spent most of a book talking about the decline of connection and community, he certainly shied away from talking about how that has manifested in the realm of religion.
This was one from a category of romance I can't say I've ever stumbled into before - LGBT vampire romance - and it was pretty good, if a bit predictable with a main character to spent way too much time in his own head, especially considering the fact that he was dropped into a situation that should have felt entirely impossible.
#101 - Hiroshima by John Hersey
Originally published in the late 40s and updated in the 80s with a "where are they now" chapter, this is a journalistic narrative that tells the stories of six survivors of the Hiroshima bombing from the morning the bomb dropped into their old age (or, in some cases, to their deaths). As you might expect, it was not easy to read - some of the descriptions were very graphic and tragedy wove through the entire saga - but Hersey had a real gift for bringing big, historic events down to human scale and it did offer a powerful and profoundly human look at a historic event that is often reduced to discussions of military strategy or casualty numbers and cancer statistics or other abstractions.
#102 - Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Nancy Campbell Allen
A steampunk take on a classic love story, this was more effective as a mystery than as a romance. The relationship between the two main characters wasn't particularly compelling, nor was the hero especially sympathetic in the way a well-written Beast should be, but the blending of technology and the supernatural was quite enjoyable and the murder-mystery behind the hero's "curse" had a not entirely surprising but still satisfying resolution.
#103 - The Second Mountain by David Brooks
A non-fiction exploration of the things that go into building a "life of meaning" by NY Times columnist David Brooks, this was part inspirational call to live for more than just the materialistic impulses of the moment and part lament for what Brooks characterizes as a society in which individualism has been taken to an unhealthy extreme. And as such, some parts were more convincing and more relateable than others. The introduction, where Brooks analyzes the state of modern American culture, and the final section on community building both felt valuable and worthwhile. The sections on faith and marriage, not so much; they were far less concrete and more abstract, which took them from the realm of the useful and universal to something more personal and less suited to generalization, and for someone who spent most of a book talking about the decline of connection and community, he certainly shied away from talking about how that has manifested in the realm of religion.
Disney_Alli
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2010
I very much enjoyed the movie based on this book staring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba - I didn't realize it was based on a book, I'll have to look for it now!
bobbiwoz
I'm happy to dance with you!
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2003
65/75 A Woman’s Words by Mary Travers with Mike Renshaw
It‘s insight into the life of Mary Travers. Much is in her own words in essays, opinion columns, speech’s, stage monologues and poetry.
The forward is by Peter Yarrow.
As I was reading it on the plane this, a passenger asked if she was still alive. Sadly, no.
It‘s insight into the life of Mary Travers. Much is in her own words in essays, opinion columns, speech’s, stage monologues and poetry.
The forward is by Peter Yarrow.
As I was reading it on the plane this, a passenger asked if she was still alive. Sadly, no.
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