Sheri’s Comments (group member since Jul 25, 2016)

Sheri’s comments from the EPBOT Readers group.

Danielle, I gave Neverwhere for my book flood too! :D It's such a good book, and I always feel like it's underrated. Usually when people talk Gaiman they talk American Gods, or Sandman or Good Omens if they also love Pratchett. But Neverwhere is so great and slightly creepy. If you can find it somewhere, BBC radio did an audio drama of it that's fantastic. I'd check BBC radio's website this Christmas, they often do a special audio drama presentation, and often have older ones available for free streaming during the holidays. They've done Neverwhere, Good Omens, Anansi Boys, Small Gods, I think a few others.

Hi everyone!

Sorry I'm late again, keep being busy busy busy.

This week I finished:

Slade House - ATY's book that is scary or intimidating. I don't like horror so i went for more creepy. I also didn't feel like tackling some immense tome of book. It was a decent ghost story, interesting style, pretty creepy. Might read the next if I find a deal/at the library.

Ship of Theseus - FINALLYYYYY. It was a really interesting read, and the book itself is gorgeous. But it was not really fast, or an easy read for relaxing. I was a little let down by the ending, but it might be the sort of thing I have to read through again, putting all the notes in chronological order. That' a project for later. This counts as ATY's book with an unusual format.

Monstress, Vol. 3: Haven - Finished up this, it's really good. The art is lovely, and the story is compelling.

Currently reading: Quicksilver - THis is for ATY's book from the first 10 books on your TBR list. I didn't like this prompt, I don't really keep a tbr list, much less one in any sort of order. I went for "book that has been on my shelves for ages unread". I DNFed this years ago, but it's an author I love so decided to get it another try. Not really liking it any better this time around, oh well. Once this is done, I'll be finished with all my challenges, and can read whatever I want!

QOTW:

Related to my earlier comment, do you all keep TBR lists? It seems to be common over at popsugar, people reference it all the time. People saying they don't keep up with new books because their tbr list is too long, or trying to remove books from their tbr list etc.

If I want to read a book, I tend to read it. I mean sometimes it takes a while if I can't find it on a good deal, and my library doesn't have it digitally. My physical library is a bit of a pain to get to, so that's usually a "ok I can't find this anywhere else" last resort to order it through the library loan. So sure there's a bunch of books that are nebulously "books i want to read", but nothing I keep actual records from or hold myself accountable to. Even for challenges, there might be a handful I plan in advance, but that tends to be books I was planning on reading already but they happen to fit a prompt so I save them.

Happy reading everyone!

Danielle, I loved Dante and Aristotle! I did the audio book which was narrated by Lin Manuel Miranda, he did a great job.

Thanks for a question!

I wasn’t feeling the Western prompt either, I admit I cheated on it a little by picking a western urban fantasy. I did enjoy it though. I also was dreading the true crime, did Catch me if You Can. It was an easy read, but I didn’t like Frank nearly as much as I did in the movie/stage adaptions, real Frank was pretty sleazy.

Hi Everyone!

Sorry I'm so late posting, been busy.

I don't have a lot to report this week. I finished Twice Bitten which was a quick fluff to give me a break from my current read. It was just ok, I think the author is getting bored of the series and phoning it in.

Currently reading: S. Ship of Theseus. - Still plugging away at this, over half way. Whew! It's something of a project like I mentioned, not an easy read. I think i like it? I wish I found the actual novel part more interesting. I need to read it to understand all the notes, but it's not anything I'd normally pick to read.

Slade House - my current take-a-break book, it'll work for ATY's book that scares me. it's not that scary, But it's creepy so i'm counting it. iI don't like straight up horror. and I don't feel like diving into a big hefty intimidating classic at this point in the year.

I'm kind of blanking on a question of the week this week. It's been a long week, for all that it's short! If i think of something I'll come back and ask. If anyone else has a question, feel free to join in!

April, good to know the mercy Thompson audios are good, might grab them for rereads. I’m working through Dresden audios, but I’m pretty far back on the holds for the next one

Danielle, World War Z is one of my biggest disappointments for an adaption! They had a generic zombie movie and bought the rights to a popular zombie book and slapped the bane on it. It makes me sad because world War Z would have been cool as a mocumentary sure movie, along the lines of District 9.

Hi everyone!

How's your reading going?

This week I finished:

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Listened to the audiobook. I liked it ok, but i didn't really think it was a spooky/creepy as I'd hoped. I moved it to ATY's gothic prompt, instead of scary/intimidating.

Kushiel's Avatar - ATY's book I have high expectations for. I really have loved everything Jaquline Carey's written, so I expected to love this one as well, and I did. There was a part in the middle that I was really uncomfortable reading, that I felt was maybe overly descriptive. However, I still loved it overall.

Herding Cats - had a few august hoopla checkouts left, so grabbed a few graphic novels. I love Sarah Scribbles. I'd seen most of them following her online, but it's still fun to read them again. She also had a nice chapter on how to be an artist online.

Milk and Honey - Emma Watson book club pick. I am just not a poetry person. It doesn't really move me at all. It felt like the sort of thing I SHOULD be into, because it's feminist and empowering and everything, but I read through the whole thing in less than an hour and moved on. Nothing really grabbed me about it.

iZombie, Vol. 3: Six Feet Under and Rising - another graphic novel from hoopla, I liked it alright.

QOTW:

When you know your'e settling down for a good read (as opposed to just grabbing some pages here or there because you have time), is there anything that is a must-have? Blankets, special chair, mug of tea etc?

I like to settle into my recliner, fully reclined and I usually have a blanket even if it's summer, because blankets entice cats to snuggle. If it's winter, I might make a mug of tea, or have a glass of water in the summer. I'm excited to get a library once our master bedroom addition is complete, because then I can have a quiet room to read in with no tv in it, if my husband is gaming.

April,

So...it appears I bought books 1 & 2 of Alpha and Omega on a kindle deal in December, and then got busy and forgot to read them. XD So I guess I know what I'm reading, when I finish up the last few prompts for ATY!

I generally stick to kindle unless it’s a book I LOVE or find a really special edition of, or I have all the others in print and wish to continue. It’s a space issue, really. I’ve overflowed two 7ft tall bookshelves and it’ll be at least a year before our addition is complete and I can confer our old bedroom into a library haha.

April,

It's on my list to check out, I think my library doesn't have it and I haven't found good deal on it yet. I should check my price alert to see if I have one set up for the first book.

April, I really like the mercy Thompson books! :)

Glad you enjoy the group Stephanie!

Yeah I post over in popsugar, but the number of people and posts, combined with the lack of nested comment threads makes it really hard to follow a conversation. They do happen, but a lot of times I see the conversation but can’t find the post that prompted it.

Hi everyone!

Sorry I'm late again, it's certainly been a week.

This week I finished:

Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake - true crime for both popsugar and Read Harder. I liked this alright, it was a quick and easy read. I'd wanted something non-murdery for the prompt, and waited FOREVER for it. THe movie and musical both made Frank much more likeable. I found him rather smarmy and all too pleased with his own cleverness.

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture - Anthology of essays for Read Harder. This is hard to decide how I feel about it. The essays were all well written, but the subject matter was so hard. it's hard to say I "enjoyed" reading it, or I appreciated it or anything. it was more something I made myself to read, because someone needs to hear people's stories and accept how often these things happen.

Circle of Fire - Around the year book involving fire. This was just a quick paranormal romance, nothing spectacular.

Currently reading:

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - listening to the audio book. It'll either be ATY's book that intimates/scares me or gothic novel. It's alright so far, kind of wish my library had it in print. Having trouble following it in audio.

Kushiel's Avatar - ATY's book you have high hopes/expectations for. I really like this author and series, so I expect it to be as good as the rest I've read.

The Mysteries of Udolpho - ATY's gothic novel. I am really not feeling it, and it's very long. I'm not sure I'll continue. Will give it another week or so.

This puts me at FINISHED with both Read Harder and Popsugar! Just a few more prompts for ATY and then I'm done with challenges for the year! Looking forward to it, I'm itching to read a bunch of stuff that isn't prompt related. But I worry if i go too much on a non-prompt binge I'll just lose track of time and fail to finish at all.

QOTW:

Have your reading habits changed since you joined Fans of Epbot? I know there's lots of book recommendation threads over there, have they encouraged you to try new authors or genres?

To some degree yes, I have read some books by FoE authors, and I read the books I got from book flood which i'd never have picked out on my own. There is a pretty good skew of fantasy/sci fi within the group, which is what I read usually anyhow. But I have still gotten some good recommendations within those genres that I haven't tried before.

Hi everyone!

How is everyone this week?

Sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday, i got really busy!

This week I finished Kushiel's Chosen, which I'm counting for ATY's book involving a deadly sin. The main character is a courtesan, so I'm calling that "lust", plus there was treason based on pride and greed, and the wrath of a goddess so I figure it counts.

iZombie, Vol. 1: Dead to the World and iZombie, Vol. 2: uVampire which I'm read just for fun as a break in between my heavy currently reading load.

Currently reading: The Mysteries of Udolpho - ATY gothic literature, it's long and very wordy. We'll see if I can get through it.

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture - Read Harder essay anthology. This one is hard to get through, only reading a couple stories at a time then I need a break. I feel like it's important to read though so trying to get through it.


We Have Always Lived in the Castle - audio book for ATY book that scares/intimidates you. I don't really like reading straight up horror, and I don't really have the mental bandwidth to tackle another long, dull classic right now. So I'm going for creepy instead of scary.

QOTW:

Has anyone tried a reading service, beyond the library? Such as kindle unlimited, Scribd, those reading serial aps etc. Do you like them?

I haven't tried any yet. I've considered kindle unlimited, it seems like a lot of books I check on end up being part of the program. However with reading challenges, book clubs and the like I end up looking for specific books a lot, and always have books on hold at the library. I'm always uncertain if I'd really use that particular service often enough to justify the cost. Plus I'm prone to buying humble book and comic bundles, so I have a huge pile of owned but unread books, so I feel like I should get through some of those when I have non-challenge reading come up.

Stephanie, are you reading the one i sent you, The Dragon and the Unicorn, or Unicorn and Dragon ?

I feel bad sending it if it's the case, haha. I thought you'd enjoy the Arthurian aspects, since you said you like that sort of thing. I liked it overall, when I finished, I liked the blending of mythologies. But if you're really hating it, no need to push through.

Hi everyone!

Hope everyone's reading is going well!

This week I finished:

The Surgeon - ATY's medical thriller. I liked this alright, it moved pretty swiftly. I think I mentioned some of the issues I had with it last week, but overall it was an entertaining read.

The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins - My husband loves the Adventure Zone podcast, so wanted me to read this since I like comics. I kind of hate the podcast, he thought I might like it in a written form. I think I disappointed him, haha. I thought it was ok, but i didn't love it. It still read like listening to someone else's D& D story, which I generally don't enjoy. I like playing D&D, I don't want to know about someone else's games.

The Staff of Serapis - this is a short story that mashes the Greek storyline with the Egyptians. I liked it, wished it was longer. It'd be cool if there was a whole book with the two sides working together.

The Knife of Never Letting Go - ATY book with a clue weapon in the title/cover. This was a weird one for me. It was a pretty easy read in terms of moving through it quickly, being hard to put down. But I didn't find myself liking the narrator, and I was bothered by the deliberate misspellings. I get that the main character is illiterate, and I could see putting come dialect type speech in the dialogue, but i didn't think it was necessary to do it within the general text, even if it was first person. Also I was peeved by the ending being a cliffhanger. I wasn't super interested in continuing the series, but now I have no closure from this book so I have to decide if I want to read more just to figure out what comes next.

Dark Alchemy - Book riot's western. I might be stretching it a little with this, seeing as it's an urban fantasy western. But I don't really like westerns, and it did come up under the western tag on overdrive. Also there were a LOT of romances set on ranches under the western tag, so whatever. If those count, this does too. I liked it, it was a fun read. Will probably continue the series, eventually.

All Systems Red - Nice short book, ATY's Book you expect to make you laugh. It sounded pretty funny from the description. It didn't actually make me laugh out loud, but I was amused by it so whatever. It was about a Murderbot that just wanted to be left alone to watch a bunch of trashy tv.

Currently reading: Kushiel's Chosen for ATY's book about one of the seven deadly sins. The main character is a courtesan, i figure that covers lust pretty well. There's also a lot of power struggles and politics so I'm sure pride and greed come into play as well.

I was going to read Dark Tales: Collected Gothic Novels and Stories (Illustrated): The House of the Seven Gables, The Minister’s Black Veil, Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, Birthmark, ... of the Three Hills, Rappaccini's Daughter… because I wanted to read Rappaccini's daughter. but they packed in SO MUCH biographical/introductory material I had to put it down. there were two chapters worth at the start of it, and then when I skipped ahead there was another two chapters of it in front of the first story. I threw my hands up in a fit and moved on. I don't need to know the life history of an author before reading their work, I can google later if I care. Or at least put it at the end where it's easier to skip. Maybe I'll look up the specific short story as a solo entry later.

QOTW:

Where did you get your love of reading? Was it in school, at home, a friend who got you into books?

I'd say my mom got me into reading. She reads a lot, and also was an elementary school teacher. I think she partially instilled a love of reading in me, so I'd read quietly and let her read, haha. But I remember her reading picture books with me every night, and as I got older we'd sometimes read chapter books together. In second grade I had a teacher who loved Clifford. She had a contest that anyone who read all of Clifford's books could take the giant stuffed Clifford home for the night. I was the first kid to take him home, my mom sat down and read about 5 Clifford book with s a night until I got through them all. I think I'm glad I got the love of reading early, since once I got to middle school/high school it seemed like the forced reading in school was more designed to make kids not want to read at all. Even I had a hard time getting through some of the books selected.

Susan,

Oh ok, are they not officially Spartan branded? I was looking at the official website, they looked pretty intense and hard core! But maybe I missed the sprints part, or the sprints haven't come to Michigan.

Oh, and no I haven’t done any Spartans! I think those are a little too intense for me, although this year there is one in Michigan. I’ve considered Tough Mudder, but never got around to signing up for one.

Susan,

I think Spartan races are way more intense! Warrior Dash is a mud obstacle run, but it’s only about a 5k and the obstacles are geared more towards being accessible to a wide range of ability. I find it to be a fun challenge, but it’s not something that makes me worried I won’t finish an obstacle. It’s more about having fun and getting filthy, the final obstacle is belly crawling under barbed wire through a mud field the consistency of oatmeal. You come out completely COATED!

Hi everyone!

I had Warrior Dash over the weekend so I did not have that much reading time.

I finished up The Three-Body Problem - This was for Read Harder, a book of genre fiction in translation. I enjoyed it pretty well, interesting premise for some sci fi. It was translated from Chinese, and I appreciated the translators notes for some touchstones of Chinese history, as well as a few technical references that were over my head. Not sure how much i can really explain about it without giving away key plot points, but it was pretty different than most first contact type books that i've read.

Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer - Read Harder's book that you hated or didn't finish in school. Man I hate prompts like this, haha. I get the point is to revisit stuff you hated in the past to see if your tastes have matured...but yeah. It did NOT work. I finished it this time, but I didn't like it any better. It was only 100 or so pages, but they were very painful 100 pages. I also soldiered through the Secret Sharer because it was first, and I figured it was only another 60 some pages..probably should have just skipped it. It was also a pretty pointless read. I just.. really don't like his writing.

Currently reading The Surgeon for ATY's medical thriller. I have mixed feelings so far. The plot's moving along pretty quickly, liking the leads so far. But I can tell it's a bit of an older book, and some of the things mentioned really grate on me. The killer attacks women and surgically removes their uterus while they're alive, before killing them. That's kind of gross enough. But they've already mention several times that he "removed the one thing that makes them a woman" which i just find very problematic. One, it negates trans women entirely. Also, what about women who have to get hysterectomies? they are suddenly not women? I just find that commentary very offputting. Also some of the gendered language is kind of outdated too. Described someone's home as having floral wall paper that "no man would pick out", things like that. However the overall story is interesting enough, and Rizzoli is fighting against the sexism of being the lone woman homicide detective on a team of men, so that's an interesting element.

Question of the week is from Kristy, who wanted to know what book written in 2018 are you most looking forward to reading, whether already released or coming soon.

I was really looking forward to Children of Blood and Bone, but i read that already haha. It was quite good. I'd say Starless, I love jaquline Carey's writing. Also Spinning Silver, I LOVED Uprooted, and this is in the same vein as it.