Kaseadillla’s Comments (group member since May 04, 2016)

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

NancyJ wrote: "The Magdalen Girls
I can't tell if this is fictionalized or non-fiction. I don't recall the real names of the girls/women I saw interviewed. The documentary film was fascinating ..."

Goodreads classifies The Magdalen Girls as Fiction so not eligible for this month, but keep it in mind for next month!

second Ready Player One

Welcome, Rachel!

can't believe we're already over 100k pages - took us 3 months last time!
Thanks, Nancy, for keeping us on track =)

standings updated!

Neva wrote: "Can we still join in?"

Join at any time!!

Rachelnyc wrote: "If I could live anywhere it would be Paris so I am Team France..."

New posts for this challenge, thanks!

Tara wrote: "Do you prefer that athletes edit their original post with new books, or add new posts at the end of the feed?"

Please add new posts to the feed, thanks!

Welcome, Jody! Good friends of mine just moved to Duluth... I get nothing but picture of the temperature outside. Stay warm!

Welcome, Satoko! You are not alone, many of our group members are not native English speakers.

Welcome, Shanna and Desislava! I'm in the same boat, so behind on classics.

Rachelnyc wrote: "Quick question:
What about books that begin with a number? Would it be the first letter of the word if it was written out or would it go under the first actual letter (if there is one)?
Example:..."

GREAT question. I think books that start with a number can be like a wild card, or like a blank piece in scrabble - feel free to use for any letter you choose!
Will add to the general rules, thanks for the question!

Isabel wrote: "I'm currently reading two books. One is an audio (Fahrenheit 451) that I listen to in my morning commute to work. The other is my hard book (Handmaid's Tale) that I read mostly in the evening for 1..."

Isabel - love it, both are book club books!!

Isabel wrote: "I'd like to nominate The Catcher in the Rye."

Hi Isabel - we actually have not read The Catcher in the Rye so it is not eligible for this category. Normally I would send you over to the Classics BOTM thread, but we're currently taking nominations for Nonfiction books only. If you don't mind holding on to this nomination until the end of the month, you can suggest for Classics, thanks!

I just finished and I am so torn. The message at the end was expected given all of the bread crumbs throughout the story, but still... horrifying, on purpose.
At times this was a little slow for me and felt like I was slogging through, but I keep coming back to a few things and can't seem to get them out of my mind, making me think this book is better than I initially thought because I can't seem to stop thinking about it:

- Miss Emily's explanation and her whole "I only have 5 minutes to deliver you the death-blow of your life but that's enough because you don't really matter and I have a cabinet to move" attitude at the end. How she justified herself by saying "we did all we could for you and suffered for it, you have no idea" in a nutshell while Kathy and Tommy listen to her and realize that there is no way to put off what is essentially a death sentence. "You had it better than anyone else, so be grateful to us." I'm still thinking about it, it's so twisted.

- The writing style made Kathy and Tom and Ruth and their relationship with each other, as well as others, and even how Kathy's voice painted the relationships between side characters in the book... I know others mentioned above that they felt he characters and relationships were shallow. I can't help but agree, and also can't help but think that maybe this was intentional? Were we supposed to get the feeling that the "donors" were shallow, as if they weren't really human? That they were different from us so that even though we felt pity, we didn't necessarily feel guilt? I'm so torn with this that I keep thinking about it.

- One of the books Kathy read's to Tom while he's a donor is "One Thousand and One Nights" and I looked it up. It's a collection of short stories from the Middle East that the wife of a sultan supposedly told her husband to prevent him from killing her. They were so vivid that legend says the sultan put off her death. Amazingly clever to include this in the book, how story telling avoids or prevents or puts off death.

- I keep wondering why the donors didn't just rebel. Why didn't Tommy and Kathy run away when they didn't get the answers they wanted from Miss Emily in the end? They were conditioned, they had no perspective, it was collective action under authority and to break away was harder than to accept a harsh reality of dying... all seems plausible but I still feel like something's gotta give. The power of the culture here, that the donors had no idea that their lives could have worth if they only believed it, that they had no idea they had the right. I can't stop thinking about it.

January 12
288 pages

Total Group Pages = 79,323

I'm going to defect from the USA and go with heritage as well...

Kaseadillla
DEUTSCHLAND
Never Let Me Go
12 Jan 2018
288 pages

Welcome, Dasia!
You are not along - lots of people in this group do not purchase books and use the library instead, or have apps with free book downloads (this is mainly for classics) or free audiobooks (again, mostly classics). Feel free to ask for advice from other members. We also try to choose books well in advance so people can to get books on time. Glad to have you join us!

Joanna wrote: "No Place to Hide..."

I'm reading it now and think it's wicked good.

Joanna wrote: "Markie wrote: "I have a question. I've seen similar challenges & they stay that for X,Y, & Z you can use the author's name or if the title includes those letters anywhere, not only the first letter..."
Love the shelf idea, Joanna!

Markie wrote: "I have a question. I've seen similar challenges & they stay that for X,Y, & Z you can use the author's name or if the title includes those letters anywhere, not only the first letter. Is this the s..."
Hi Markie - thanks for the question!
For this year, the title of the book (with the exceptions of the words "the" and "a") must start with the letters X, Y, and Z. Not author names.
If a lot of people have trouble or there is a lot of common feedback, we may switch up the rules a bit for next year, but for now operate under the assumption that the letter applies to the book title.
Thanks!

Allegra wrote: "This looks great! I always love the Olympics.
Just to clarify, I get that I don't have to play for U.S. (where I live). But can I pick any other "real" country--Italy (my heritage and a Winter Olym..."
You can choose any country you want! I expect we'll get a concentration in certain countries and in others we may only have 1-2 "athletes"... not unlike the real Olympic Games. Completely at your discretion.
That is why some of the events are based on individual statistics, some on country-wide statistics, and some on country/athlete statistics combined.

Marcos wrote: "I'm afraid people will tend to choose their own country. If that happens, US team will be unbeatable.
..."

Hi Marcos,
So check out the events and let me know what you think - I think that the # of members will only affect Events 1, 4, and 7 where the total book count or total page counts for all athletes total is the competition.
The rest are by athlete (so advantage of "larger" countries is more competitors, but in the end the best competitor wins) and/or total books/page count divided by the number of athletes (so more athletes may actually hurt a country's performance if many only read 1-2 books during the challenge). Does that make sense?
Tried to get a variety with the events so there would be different winners in each category, but not unlike the real life Olympic Games, sometimes countries with more competitors end up winning more events.
For future challenges, will find a way to make even teams, but for his challenge, since it's focused around the Olympics, I don't want to tell members which country they must represent.