Heena’s Comments (group member since Oct 13, 2014)

Heena’s comments from the RMFAO (Reading My Frigging A** Off) group.

Hi guys... thankfully this month is coming to an end! Here's the link to the next month's thread - October'18: Horror - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hello everyone,

October is here and so is one of the most awaited genre months of Genre Challenge - Horror. Keeping in step with the month of Halloween, we dedicate this month to horror reads that are creepy, scary and utterly disturbing. Supernatural and paranormal becomes a substantial presence in every reader's days and nights throughout this month and so clearly, this month is not for the faint-hearted! Though, if you're new to the genre or just a casual reader, then do join us on this amazing month-long reading spree because it is wise to read these dark and scary reads in numbers. As usual, you can join anytime during the entire month and read as many books as you can manage, no restrictions whatsoever!

Here is the DEFINITION for this month's genre:

Horror: Horror fiction is fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the audience. Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has often been the intrusion of a supernatural element into the everyday human experience. Since the 1960s, any work of fiction with a morbid, gruesome, surreal, or exceptionally suspenseful or frightening theme has come to be called "horror". Horror fiction often overlaps science fiction or fantasy, all three of which categories are sometimes placed under the umbrella classification speculative fiction.

-->>Please Note: There are absolutely no limits so you can interpret this genre in its broader sense and include other similar genres and/or subgenres that you feel might have a wee bit of similarity with the main genre. You can also include books that are not particularly centred around the main genre but has its components or elements somewhere in the story.

Here's a quick summary of the levels:

Level 1: Casual Reader: 1 book (easy)
Level 2: Frequent Reader: 2 books (moderate)
Level 3: Bookworm: 3 books (mildly strenuous)
Level 4: Bibliophile: 4 books (strenuous)
Level 5: Bookiopath: 5 books or more (challenging)

Please mention what type of books you'd be reading:

PB: Paperbacks
HB: Hardback
EB: E-Books
AB: Audio Books

Please feel free to announce your to-read books along with the level you are targeting for below.

PLEASE READ (for new members):
1. You can read any number of books for the respective genre each month in one particular month.
2. Take your time and go through your entire TBR-list before deciding the books to read.
3. You can join the challenge at any stage (in any month.)
4. You can drop out of the challenge any time you like.
5. You can select different levels every month.
6. Use this discussion board to share your reads with other members of the group.
7. Please be active and don't hesitate to ask questions or recommend books.

Note: The main intent of this challenge is to incorporate different kinds of books and genres in our normal reading routine to make the experience more fun and entertaining. Please do not lose yourself in the technicalities as we all know how literary genres can be confusing.

If you have any doubts or questions, then post them below and we'll be happy to answer/discuss them.
Happy reading!

Starting with The Winner by David Baldacci and really excited as I loved the last book I read by the author.

#9 The Collected Public Domain Works - 4/5

Thanks for the recommendation (and the link), Dagny. It was a great listen - lengthy, but worth it! Found some great stories and some really good ones and a couple not so good too. Overall, it a great collection!

Julie wrote: "Hi there. First post here. I want to say how excited I was to find this thread!! There have often times been that I had some specifics in mind in a book I’d like to read but no one to ask.
At any r..."

Hey, Julie. I'm glad you like this thread.
I'm not a regular romance reader, but I do enjoy some occasionally. I've always been a fan of Nicholas Spark's books and really enjoyed Safe Haven, The Longest Ride, The Lucky One and Nights in Rodanthe along with his more famous works The Notebook, The Choice and A Walk to Remember. I'm not sure if you've already explored his works yet, but he is one of the best romance writers and his books are generally light yet memorable as well as relatable.

It's been a while though that I've read any of Sparks' new works or any other romance, though the last good romance novel I read (which ended up in making me read the entire trilogy) was a couple of years ago - Captivated (but it is from the 1990's so maybe you already know about it.) I'd like to mention here that I'm not a fan of Nora Roberts as I've not read any of her books other than this series. Though based on this series itself, I've added a couple of her book to my to-read list (which I'm yet to read.)

Another one that comes to mind is a contemporary romance I read a couple years ago and seemed to have liked was Southern Solstice. Will share more if I remember more.

Forgot to post this here earlier. I'm done with The Lost Symbol - 3 stars (again)

This was a re-read for me and I felt the same way about the book as I did the first time around - it was a bit slow, too predictable and well, could have done without 100-200 pages of description. I guess so far this is my least favourite in the series :(
Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I'm excited for the next one - Inferno, as this is again going to be a re-read but I loved it last time I read it :)

Lorraine wrote: "Just found this page, quite by accident! So, big catch up needed for the year so far :)
1. Ron Ripley's The Lighthouse
2. Ernest Cline's Ready Player One
3. C J Tudor's The Chalk Man
4. Agatha Chr..."

You have Strange Weather on no.16. We're hosting a buddy read of Strange Weather next month. Do join us! :)

Hello, everyone.
Welcome to the October Buddy Read of one of Joe Hill's latest and exceptionally sensational novels - Strange Weather
The buddy read for this book will officially begin on 1st October and will continue till the end of the month, i.e., till 31st October (as per your time zone) making it easy and feasible for everyone interested to participate. We start the thread early to let everyone know about the planned book in time for them to be able to arrange it, but you can start posting and sharing the excitement before the buddy read kicks in.
Note: This buddy read would be led by Moderator Cheryl.

Following are the guidelines:
- You can join the buddy read any time during the entire month
- We encourage interaction so feel free to share your views, thoughts and experiences related to this book
- You can share extra stuff related to the book - quotes, graphics, news, interviews, links or articles (even your own blog posts)
- Please refrain from sharing spoilers before the 15th of the month as most of the participants might not have finished the book. Though if everyone has finished reading, then you can discuss the spoilers as well.
- Do share about the buddy read on your social media channels to get more people to join the buddy read - the more the merrier.

We picked this book keeping in lieu of the month of Halloween and our Genre Challenge. If you are a horror fan then you're at the right place and if you're new to the genre or a rare reader of it then this would be a great place to explore yet another title in the genre that is better read with buddies.

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead an announce your participation!

Amy wrote: "Hi, My name is Amy Raines. I am new to Goodreads itself.
I am a self published author of the thriller/horror genre.
I am also an avid reader and love getting to know other readers and authors like..."

Hey Amy, welcome to RMFAO. I'm also an author int he same genre and presently working on my 2nd book - a supernatural horror. So good to have you here!
We have a lot of reading challenges (you can check out the list here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...)
Looking forward to seeing you around on the challenge threads :)

#1 You Can Have a Dog When I'm Dead: Essays on Life at an Angle - 5/5

A phenomenal read! If you can get your hands on this one, then do read it. It's an incredibly well-written book and I had a remarkably good time reading it. It is a collection of really short essays by a Canadian journalist, Paul Benedetti, and he talks about his own life in all of them with cracking-my-butt-off humour about little things from his everyday life.

This was my first time reading a book full of essays and I was quite sceptical before starting it, but right after the very first essay, I knew I was hooked for good. I now feel like Paul is an old friend and I know more about his life than my own mother's, so that's something. DO READ IT, it's a classy humour book!

Dagny wrote: "Here's a novella which I'm enjoying so far - The Cave on Thundercloud (1912) by Mary Roberts Rinehart. It's part of her Letitia (Tish) Carberry. A later one, but the first I've read - they seem to ..."

Thanks for these recs, Dagny. I can do with a short story as I have read only one book for this month so far.

Cheryl wrote: "Ok, here is another Genre idea:
World Fiction (here is a link for this Goodreads genre: https://www.goodreads.com/genres/worl... )
We could make it a challenge where you'd pick fiction set i..."

I love the idea of 'World Fiction' as well. I agree with Dagny, it'll be fun to see how many countries we can cover in one month!
Thanks for the idea, I think everyone loves it, so let's have it for next year :)

Dagny wrote: "Heena's always up for changes! The problem is thinking/deciding on replacement - that and remembering when the time comes, lol.
"

Lol, yes to both. Please suggest some new/different genre that we can possibly pair with Humour. I'll try and come up with some and drop you an email by the end of this week and we can discuss further.

Cheryl wrote: "Heena,

Maybe next year you could try a different genre instead of Humor for the Genre Challenge? I'm not sure what you could substitute for it."

I up for having an alternate genre month and having another option with Humour. Replacing Humour month would kind of defeat the purpose of the challenge as it won't be very 'challenging' then. I hope I put it in a sensible way... So anyway, let's have a two genre month for September next year and keep the other genre super interesting and easy.

All the group members - Please feel free to suggest an alternate genre (a genre that we don't already do in the other months.)
We'll decide it in December, so take your time to find some new creative and interesting genres :)

Cheryl wrote: "I am having a hard time finding humorous books for this challenge. Humor differs so much from person to person. Some books I had on my list just didn't appeal to me once I started to read them. I a..."

Even I am finding it difficult to find humour reads for this month. I guess I'm going to go with the only one I have.

Cheryl wrote: "Heena, Here is another Horror theme book you might like that's a bit unusual:
In the Shadow of Blackbirds
This YA novel deals with spirit photography and is set during the Spani..."

Spanish Flu is another very interesting topic and something that I was researching a while ago for a short story, so it should make for a very interesting read. Thanks, Cheryl, appreciate it. Please do suggest more books if they happen to come to your mind.

Cheryl wrote: "You are welcome, Heena. They aren't horrifyingly scary, but I found both the plot and characters in each to be very interesting. "

I see... Now I'm really excited to read these! :)

Cheryl wrote: "Here are two books that are about ghostbusters, so they combine horror and solving a supernatural mystery:
The Devil You Know
The Haunting of Maddy Clare "

They both sound great, Cheryl. I've not yet read any books on ghostbusters and exorcists so these would make for my perfect venture into such kind of horror books. Thanks a ton!

8) Rebecca and Sunny Brook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin and narrated Ann Richardson.
4/5
Beautiful story and excellent narration!

Dagny wrote: "The title of Ouida's book came to me today with no problem - A Dog of Flanders."

A Dog Of Flanders was the one! It was such a haunting story.