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

Sheri’s comments from the EPBOT Readers group.

Hi Everyone!

Hope everyone had a good reading week!

This week I finished:

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race which I'm counting for popsugar's problem facing society, and for ATY's book with an all-text cover. It was really good, and I think an important read. While the history focuses on England, the discussion about race relations applies well to America as well. It was well written, and gave me a lot to think about.

Blackout finished up the Newslfesh series, I really liked it. Counting it for my next book in a series for Popsugar, and a book about science or science fiction for ATY.

No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters - I'd seen this at the library last time I was there, and had skipped it because I already had 3 books and don't like to check out TOO many at the same time for the sake of keeping track of them and such. After her passing last week, I took the opportunity to grab it. It's always bittersweet reading personal writing of someone after they recently pass. She was such a wonderful writer. Doesn't count for anything for pop sugar or ATY, but I'm going to count it as an anthology of essays for Read Harder. She does refer to her blog as a series of essays, so I'm going with it.

Currently I'm reading The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter. I got this for my bookflood, and I'm really enjoying it! I don't think I'd have picked it out for myself, but I'm glad my flooder did :) I'm counting it as my book given to me as a gift.

Continuing on the reviews question from last week, how do reviews affect your reading? Do you check reviews before picking a book up? If you really wanted to read something, would bad reviews change your mind?

For me, it depends on the situation. For an author I know, I'll read a book and not bother to check reviews until later, if at all. For a new book I am not sure if I want to read, I'll skim some reviews, both high and low. Also reviews from people I know are worth more than ones from random strangers. Sometimes if a book is reviews high, but I'm having trouble liking it or getting into it, I'll check the low reviews specifically to see if other people are seeing what I'm seeing.

For example, Beartown has really high reviews. Over in Popsugar people keep raving about it. But I had to DNF it because I really was not enjoying it and I didn't like where it was heading. Prior to for sure DNFing, I checked the low reviews. They were bothered by the same things I was, and checking some of the spoiler tags, I didn't feel like the story went in a direction that would reconcile my feelings about it.

Haha! I agree, that's always nice. Sure some people might complain about books like that becoming formulaic and such. And there is something to be said about that. But if you enjoy the formula, it's nice having a fresh infusion every year or so without having to agonizingly wait. :) Definitely room for both approaches though!

I think it also depends on the medium for me. For example, comics are so expansive, there's constantly different authors, artists. There's movies, there's cartoons. At this point the originals are already so dispersed from the original, there's no sense even getting mad about it. I feel like Star Wars also falls into that, with the books, the movies, the tv shows, etc. It's just too big to really belong to one author any more.

But yeah, I've read the two newer Millenium books by the new author. They're ok, but I think they could just as well have been written about a different investigative journalist and a different computer hacker, without trying to specifically ride on the coattails of the original trilogy.

I have a kindle Voyager. I like it because it has haptic buttons instead of just touch screen, but part of me wishes I'd have just splurged and gone Oasis (which has real buttons, among other features). But that one's stupid expensive. It kind of depends on what you want. I don't have any experience with other brands, so I don't know how they compare directly. I loved my older model kindles that had real buttons, I'm not crazy about the paperwhite because it replaced the page turn buttons with touch screen. As is i'm kinda tempted to see if I can turn off page-turn touch on my Voyager, because I never purposefully use it.

Stephanie has a Kobo, so might be able to answer questions on that one?

I know it's another device, but I'm personally willing to go with it since it means I carry a tablet + kindle, not tablet + 15 books when i go on vacation. So I figure it's still saving me packing room!

I still read comics on my tablet, because the kindle can't do color, and it's smaller.

I don't know if that was actually helpful or not!

Sara,

Is your e-reader e-ink or a tablet? I find the e-ink doesn't bother my eyes any more than a paperback. If anything, it's a little easier since i don't have awkward lighting with trying to balance my cell phone light when reading in the dark or in the evening. But I don't really like reading on my tablet or phone, due to the screen.

Cara,

I was really surprised by how much I liked Murder on the Orient Express too! I still haven't read more by her, but I wouldn't be opposed.

Stephanie, Glad you liked Binti since most my recommendations don't work for you haha

I want to get her Akata Witch series now, I think it'd be good.

Hi everyone!

Had a pretty good reading week this week.

I finished:

Deadline which I'm counting for popsugar's book about death or grief. The main character was dealing with some pretty major losses. There was also a big conspiracy and lots of zombies, so more people also die. Also counted it for ATY's book written in first person.

I tried to read Middlemarch but it took me 3 days to get through 75 pages. I decided to put it down for a while. It was supposed to be my female using a male pseudonym prompt. We'll see if I come back or find something new!

Black - I read this partially to feel like i was accomplishing anything while spinning my wheels on Middlemarch. It'll count for book riot's comic written or illustrated by a person of color. I kickstarted it a while ago and just recently got the printed trade of it. It was pretty good. Wished it was in color, I had a little trouble following all the action in greyscale.

Artemis - counting this as my popsugar book about a villain or antihero. Jazz is a smuggler and moves to greater criminal acts in order to get rich quick, which I figure makes her an antihero.

Sleeping Giants - this came up on my library digital holds unexpectedly. Apparently i recommended it long enough ago that I forgot that i did, or why i put it there. It was really good though! It was done in a sort of World War Z style, being told through interviews and journal entries and such, but followed specific characters so it had a more narrative arc. It didn't work for anything in popsugar, but I'm counting it for ATY's earth prompt. All the big hunks of robot were buried deep within the earth.

I'm currently kind of in reading limbo. My library book on physical hold is marked as "in transit" and I need to take my other books back by tomorrow. I have books I really want to start, but I don't want to feel rushed to get through them. I know I can probably easily finish them long before the library due dates become an issue, but I don't like them hanging over my head haha. But seeing as it's almost lunch and I still haven't got the hold notice, I'll probably start The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter at lunch. I got it and another book for my FoE book flood and I just am so excited to start one :)

How do you space out what types of books you read? Do you like to dive into a genre or series and really get into it a while? Or do you prefer to read one book, and then make sure your next is something completely different? Do you base it on tone of book, page length, ease of reading?

Personally, I like to try to make sure I'm breaking up what I read. I can easily slide into a sci-fi fantasy groove and just read nothing but that. That's partially why I was hoping my library book would come up by lunch, it's Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race. I've read sci-fi for my last three books, and while I certainly don't mind that, I really feel like I should break it up with something more serious. (not really counting Middlemarh in there since I barely made it 10% into the book) Also I don't want to bunch up my serious stuff too much or I get bummed out, so the book flood books would be a good mental break after something that made me do a lot of self-introspection.

Welcome Cara! Glad to see you like the group!

I really liked Murder on the Orient Express when I read it last year! I was surprised I'd never managed to read any Agatha Christie before that.

Well, I eye people with suspicious who don't love Gaiman in some form ;)

It's ok Meg! I'm glad you checked in anyhow, I like seeing people posting :)

Stephanie, you're putting my reading to shame this week haha.

Sorry you're still not loving The Night Circus. I'm a terrible book recommender for you, clearly!

Ok, I finished the book! It was a nice quick read, I read it in about a day. I admit to being at a loss as to how to start a discussion on it, since it's such a focused memoir. I couldn't really find any study questions or guides on it, probably because of this.

So I'll start out saying that I did really enjoy reading it. I love The Princess Bride, and it was great finding more about the making of it and what it was like on set. I liked all the anecdotes about cast interactions and things like that. It really made me want to go back and watch the movie again.

That being said, I'm not really sure what else to talk about. It does make me want to look into more about Andre the Giant. He was described as being so kind, even in the face of people being afraid of him. I did a quick google, I don't think he every really wrote anything about his experience before he passed. It made me wonder if he was really so calm and accepting of people's reactions to him, or he just learned he had to be, because at his size getting angry about it would just make things worse? Or was it really just such a part of his life it no longer bothered him?

What did anyone else think?

Hi everyone!

Another cold week in Michigan, good for reading and not much else.

This week I finished The Power which counts for my celebrity book club pick (Emma Watson's book club). It's also counting for ATY, woman's fiction award winner. I really loved it, but it gave me a lot of anxiety to read. All the reviews kept mentioning how dark and intense it was so I kept just waiting for the shoe to drop. But I'm glad I kept through it, it was really excellent.

The Bear and the Nightingale - my book with an animal in the title. I really, really loved this. It was a lovely blend of folklore and a great character. It was everything I had wanted Snow Child to be, so kind of makes up for my disappointment in that one. I'm also counting it for the ATY debut novel.

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride read this for the book club. It was a nice fast, light read. If you love Princess Bride and want to know some of the behind the scenes stuff, it's a great choice. I'm counting it for ATY's book with punctuation in the title, and for Read Harder's celebrity memoir.

I'm currently reading Deadline which is excellent so far. It's the second in the series. I have to say I enjoy reading this series WAY more than listening. I have trouble listening to accounts of violence or people dying, it's way easier to get through them reading where I can skim if I need to. I really like the take on the zombie notion. There's a lot of science put into how they happened, why they're still happening. And it's really interesting how she's showing all the worldbuilding of what happened post-zombies and the way society changed. It can be a hard to read series, but the world is fascinating to me.

How's everyone's reading going?

How do you all rate your books? I find I'm an emotional rater. If I enjoyed a book, I'll mark it really high even if it's not great literature, or terribly well written. If I didn't enjoy it, I'll mark it low even if it's supposedly well written or a classic. I gave As You Wish 5 stars, even though I'm sure it's not really a book full of fantastic literary merit just because I really liked reading about all the actors and the anecdotes, and it really made me want to dig out my copy of Princess Bride and watch it again.

Also for a few more days Good Omens radio drama is up on bbc :D http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04knthd 9 days left!

Hi Daniele, welcome! I hope you like The Night Circus, that's one of my favorite books! I love how dreamy and rich it feels.

Hi everyone, As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride was selected as this quarter's book.

For kindle readers in America, it's $2 on Amazon right now, for those interested.

Here's the topic for the discussion, when people are ready!

I love 500 kingdoms :D I’ve not read her newest elemental masters, not found them on sale or in library. Eventually! I have steadfast and Home from the sea and blood red I think it was?

Haha, Meg I think you read even faster than me :) I don't have the memory you do though. I'll re-read books and certain scenes will stick out like "oh yes, I did read this" but still have no recall how the book actually ended.

Hi everyone!

Another Thursday, another check In!

This week I finished Ancillary Sword which was pretty good. I'm liking the series more as it goes on. It's counting as my popsugar book set on another planet (mostly on a space station, but whatever. they do go on a planet for a bit.) and my ATY prompt for book a friend rated 5 stars. I don't think I love the series as much as a lot of people do, but it is pretty good.

I also finished Last Rituals which I really, really tried to give the benefit of the doubt. I tried to say maybe it was just my mood, or the fact that I was tired and couldn't concentrate while reading. But on talking to Stephanie, who's also reading it, I am just coming to the conclusion that it's just not a very good book. It's not very well written or thought out, and the characters are pretty flat and uninteresting. It counted as my Nordic Noir, and also for ATY book set in a country I want to visit, but haven't (Iceland).

Currently I am reading The Power, but I took a bit of a break to read Reserved for the Cat. I initially thought The Power was going to be empowering and awesome, but as I was reading reviews they kept mentioning how dark and intense it was, although still really good. So I felt like I needed a mental break before really delving down into that. So I'm kind of bracing myself for it to go super dark and dystopian, once I get back into it, probably tomorrow.

So what's everyone reading?

Are people happy with their early starts? Cursing their book choices? Already finding something amazing?

Welcome Laura!

I tried doing the popsugar 2015 challenge, but didn't realize that it was popsugar, or that it had a goodreads group. A few friends started doing it to but they all fizzled out. I think I almost finished it but the last few prompts that i found difficult i just never really got to because who cared? I found commenting on what i read, and what it filled and seeing what other people were reading kept me interested until it was done. :)