John’s Comments (group member since Jan 23, 2018)

John’s comments from the EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club group.

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "Well. The book is a literary read. It explores a variety of honest, real life-like romances and marriages which later become tired, disillusioned, unworkable or were never based on love as much as ..."

I get that he is artistically retelling a story of love and loss and all the messy parts as a commentary. I was also excited about Colombia as my family has deep roots there and I have spilled blood on Colombian soil. Wonderful place. I wanted to like it.

I felt the writing was a bit all over the place. The storytelling felt really disjointed at times. And all that would have been acceptable except for some glaring elements.

I felt like I poured cold water on this thread. It went quiet compared to the others. I get the "Don Juan" character quality and I know it is a trope that can be used. But for the reasons already stated, yeah I was really thrown off. I mean enough people liked it so much to have a movie made of it.

Is there something additional in the story I am missing?

My favorite part about Emma was that immediately after I listened to The Secret Garden (I was behind) and I loved TSG in comparison to it :)

So..... ugh this was hard for me. Elements of the story were good but damn I have a hard time with a book that glorifies rape and pedophilia. How is this book popular? Is it just me?

..... AND welcome! You made it. You posted and started your life of a GoodReads contributor! Keep going! This is just the start of the journey. Maybe you have been in shadows lurking or maybe you came right out and jumped in with both feet. Both are fabulous. Make friends and above all....


HAPPY READING!

Welcome everyone! This is such a great supportive community with lots of fantastic people. It can be overwhelming at first with all the options and threads so feel free to reach out and ask when you have questions.

Welcome all! The best way to get the most out of here is to jump on in and participate :)

Welcome all new people! This is a great place to talk, discover, enjoy and disagree about books. Jump in.

Betsy wrote: "John, in my opinion, no. Nothing ever happens haha."

I gave up. I hate that I did. Only the second book in over 1000 that I've ever DNF'd. I just found no joy in continuing and still had over 20 chapters left.

Ugh, I am in the minority here but I am about a page away from DNF'n this. I lasted to chapter 21 but just cannot relate to any of these characters. I couldn't care less about them or why they cut their hair or who they go to school with or who cheated at croquette.

Does anything happen soon?

Johanna wrote: "I finished this book today. I had planned reading this quite long time and thanks to this group I finally did it! I can't say that I loved this book, nor hated. There were parts that were really ho..."

Yep. This is a haunting story and the content is good for us to wrestle with. But the writing style made it painful and the reader did not help. She read is a low melancholy voice which was probably intended to be dramatic but it made it even more challenges to understand the development of the story. It made me feel like it needed to be read twice to understand the broader story to influence the elements that are happening as read. That is bad. I have no desire to reread this story.

Was I the only one that had to look up the Sparknotes to get a better understanding of the story line?

Kim wrote: "I have been trying to read it, and it uses a lot of imagery that makes it harder to follow. I've been trying the audiobook but I might have to switch to to print so that I can give it the focus it ..."

Same for me!

Congratulations to Gryffindor for 3 outstanding months of books!

My Hufflepuff house was wonderful and I am so proud of the badgers.

Welcome to all our new members! Jump in, ask questions and enjoy your reading!

Wow Team!!!!! Our totals went up every month. Our December total is the second highest overall total by a landslide. Looks like Gryffs stepped it up also but we absolutely crushed it this month!!! I am so proud of all of you. Thank you to our Prefect Bryce!

Go Badgers!!!!

Bryce wrote: "hey guys i think we actually won. if gryffindores scoreboard is to be believed we beat them by.3 points. will need to wait for confirmation in main thread but we did well, you guys were great team ..."

Our team did fabulous!!!

I updated my final reading today post #11 within the deadline.

Finished December at

119

Whew, I didn't start this journey with the hope of getting the highest total points. I think I have a shot. Many of you were very encouraging and helped push me to keep going. I enjoyed some really good stories that would not be in my normal wheelhouse. Lots of short stories and way more literary fiction than I usually go for.

Whatever the final is, you team members are the best and Hufflepuff is amazing

Happy New Year to you all! Always a pleasure to join with my fellow Hufflepuffs. You are the best house!

Happy New Year Potterheads! This has been another great year having fun with all of you!

Hit up the The Transfer Four series of short stories from the Divergent series. Short listens if you want to finish a few points today :)

Updated post #11
111.5 points