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

Sheri’s comments from the EPBOT Readers group.

Hi Stephanie,

I have a September birthday too! September 18th :D

Congrats on almost finishing the main challenge!

I did vaguely hear there's a movie being made, don't know anything about it. Initially I picked it for my book written between 1900-1950 or something like that, but it had such a long wait list I ended up reading Anne of Green Gables instead. but I felt like it was weird that I'm such an avid reader and have never read any Agatha Christie. So seemed like I should fix that. Also, now that I'm about half through it, i can clearly see a lot of pop culture references it. I totally remember an Animaniacs episode that is clearly a play off it. I think Yako even called himself the Great Yackot. Also I think it was referenced in Diamond Age briefly, as an old period piece murder mystery an actress was acting in. I'm enjoying it so far, it's a nice brisk read. I don't know that I'll go out and read all her books, but I'm still enjoying it.

Oh cool! :D I went to London last year and did the Warner Bros Studio Tour, it was really awesome.

Annemieke,

Not sure where you're at, which Harry Potter exhibition? sounds fun!

Hi everyone!

Is this the longest week in the world for anyone else? It's a holiday weekend in the US, so I suppose that's part of it. So at least Monday is off!

This was kind of a break week for me. I finished The Fifth Season which was good, but a bit of a long read for me. I ended up also reading Dealing with Dragons as just a bit of a breath of fresh air before finishing up.

I decided since I was in a lull between library books, that it was a good time to catch up on my comics. I won't bother listing them all since it wasn't reading trades, it was reading individual issues across a bunch of series. Probably read 50 some over the last few days. (i didn't actually count).

But now I have a pile of library books that just came up, so back to the grind! haha.

Next up is probably Murder on the Orient Express since that one came up first.

How's everyone else doing?

Hi Sara, I liked Fahrenheit 451, but i know about what you mean, it feeling too plausible. Felt the same way about handmaiden's tale.

Hope you like the Narnia books! I loved them growing up.

Haha, hi Mjolnir! I had a sprawling mox taking up the entirety of my legs this morning :D it was pretty great.

Also I love my digital library, my regular library is a pain to get to. Hate having to make a trip, unless i absolutely can't get a book digitally!

Catherine, the first thousand kingdom book is the other one I read by her, it was pretty good. I like her writing but it's pretty intense. Need to space them out a bit, for me.

I know the feeling! I pushed through the challenge as fast as I could specifically so I could go back to reading whatever. I'm still poking at read harder, but my efforts at googling a local micro press failed me. I don't want to buy a random book and I am not sure if my library has any. Might have to go over and actually TALK to someone there and find out. (My library had self check out, usually in in and out with zero interaction). So I'm not really stressing about the challenge when I know I might be skipping a prompt anyhow.

Stephanie, you could always go through your TBR pile and see if you can fill the advanced prompts within it. If the answer is yes, might as well since they were in your list anyhow. If not, them you could come back later when things settle down :)

Hi Stephanie!

I kind of feel you on fight club. Chuck Palanuck is difficult. I like Diary better if you really want to give him another try, but that one was a real head-messer of a book.

I'm liking Fifth Season so far, although it's kind of a weird writing style. When it follows a particular character, the narration slips into second person, which is a strange choice. But it does make her passages stand out, so maybe she's the one the reader is supposed to identify with, hence the "you do this, you do that". It's an interesting take on having magic/psychic type powers. In most fantasy, that'd be something that makes people special, admired, etc. In this world, it makes them hated, feared. When kids go off to magic school, it's usually seen as a way to nurture and enhance kids with abilities. Here, it's a way to control them into being useful tools, and enable them to be 'taken care of' if they are uncontrollable. Gives it a much different feel.

Hi everyone!

I've been picking up a lot of long books lately, it feels like. So only 2 books finished this week.

Leviathan Wakes - Was reading this last week, finished it up over the weekend. It was good, now I want to re-watch season 1 of the show to remember how it all went.

A Gathering of Shadows - This was also good. Book 2 of the series, it ramped things up much more. Ended on a cliffhanger so now i'm impatiently waiting for it to be ready from the library.

Currently I'm reading The Fifth Season I just started it so I don't really have an opinion yet. But I've read one of her other books and it was pretty good, she does really rich world building. So I think it'll be good once it gets going.

How's everyone else doing?

My library is only 3 weeks too, but the last batch I got out was 5 books, and i think that was too many for 3 of them being kinda hefty subject matters. I was stressing towards the end trying to finish them. There is online renewal, but i didn't like the idea renewing all of them. Part of it is that my library is a good 15 minute drive out in a direction I don't really go often. So there's no "oh I'll just drop these finished ones off on my way to..." I have to make a special trip every time. So it's partly the timeline, partly trying to minimize trips.
Plus digital library books dropping in the middle of them and just after.

I know what you mean about the challenge, that's partly why I cruised through so fast, haha. I wanted to be able to check it off and be able to read what I wanted without feeling guilty. Which obviously makes no sense since a) I was clearly really far ahead and b) no one actually cares if I finished or not

Humble Bundle is an online store that started for games, but have branched out into books/comics. Basically you get a group of games or books, usually loosely themed, and you decide what you pay for the bundle. But there's tiers of gifting, so to get 100% of something you usually have to give a minimum of $15. Some of the money goes to charity, some goes back to the creators and publishers and such. I usually pay what i'm willing to pay for the titles I'm interested in, and consider the rest of the stuff "freebies" since I wouldn't have bought them outside the bundle. (usually around $25 or so, I don't bite on a bundle if there's not at least a handful of stuff I'm interested in) https://www.humblebundle.com/

Nothing I'm super interested in right now, but I've bought several Image comic bundles (where I got Saga), a unicorn themed bundle, ladies of sci-fi, a few other sci-fi or fantasy themed bundles. (also I totally call them Bumbles)

Hi Stephanie,

Glad to see you again, thanks for virtual hugs :)

Looks like my library has both of the next two Mad Addam books, both currently available for check out. But I think i'm going to wait until I get through the ones I have checked out now. This Expanse book is taking me a while. The other one I have checked out is also 500+ pages long, so that one will probably also take a little while.

Does anyone else get kind of stressed out if the library books pile up too much? Like a clock is ticking. I know sometimes you can renew, or turn off wifi to extend, but it still adds an extra element of pressure to reading. I prefer it when I can string my books out a bit more, but library holds never seem to cooperate.

Also, read Saga too! I'd started it a while ago, but got interrupted and it took a while to pick it back up. I really enjoyed it. I just need to find vol 2 somewhere, I think I have the rest of the series digitally from various humble bundles. (I...might have a humble bundle problem. )

Hi everyone!

Had a kind of long, slow week. News has been hard this week.

Haven't read a whole lot, my current library check out doesn't really suit my mood, but it's something I want to read so plugging away.

Finished:

The Beauty Myth - FINALLY finished. Sent it back to the library immediately. It wasn't that it was bad, so much as frustrating. There's still a lot of things that ring true, but the tone was unappealing. There was pretty much no acknowledgement of intersectionality. There also felt like she had an air of inevitability, that things HAD to be this way because they were always this way and the economy would collapse if they weren't ect, with no real call to action. I think i'd rather read something along the same lines, but updated for a modern viewpoint/era.

Home from the Sea - I needed a break so did a re-read. I really like her Elemental Masters series.

Currently reading:

Leviathan Wakes this is a bit heavier than i'm really in the mood for, but i like it anyhow. I watched the first two seasons of the show, but I had trouble keeping track of everything. It's nice filling in the gaps with the book.

How's everyone else doing?

Stephanie,

We travel like that too! Always doing stuff. Not much of a "sit at the beach" sort of couple.

I'll check out the rest of the series, I just need to get this stupid book finished and back to the library, and then knock off the other digital book that just came up. And then probably read a few light books just to give myself a break. Then I'll look into them. :)

I haven't read Killer Angels, hadn't even heard of it. Not sure it'd be my thing, I'm dubious about war books in general. If I must read them, not sure I want to hear a bunch of justifying accounts of why it was a good thing.

Hi Sara, which challenge are you reading for? Is it a previous popsugar? I feel like i remember the color prompt from 2015.

I felt the same for Farenheit 451, also for Handmaiden's Tale. Kind of distressing!

Hi Catherine, welcome to the group! It's totally cool to just chat about what you're reading here, challenge or not :)

I read The Paper Magician a while back, I think i also got it free or else really cheap. I liked it pretty well, but I never continued on the series. I read reviews that said it got very love-story focused, and that the main girl got annoying. I have no idea how valid that is, but I wasn't in the mood for it at the time so never picked them back up. If you do read more, let me know if they turn out ok!

Hi Everyone!

This week I finished:

Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age - This is for Read Harder's nonfiction book about technology. I wish i'd used this for my career advice prompt, it is much better and more relevant than the one I read! I enjoyed it a lot more than expected. Perhaps because Doctrow is a fiction writer and a blogger, so tone-wise it just read better. I'd recommend it to anyone, really. It deals with a lot of sticky areas in terms of digital copyrights and how they are often only protecting the middle men, not the consumers OR the creators. It gets increasingly important as more and more of our technology is computer based.

Silence Fallen this was just for fun. I love Mercy Thompson and this was a good one. I enjoyed the shifting perspectives.

Currently reading:
The Beauty Myth Ugh. I started reading this and then ended up having to put it down and read silence fallen just to get a breath of fresh air. Trying to finish this before tomorrow so I can take it back without renewing. It's for Emma Watson's feminist book club. It was written in the early 90s, and it is pretty outdated. I'm not saying there's nothing valid in it, a lot of the concerns are absolutely still real. However a lot of the situation is changed due to the internet, and people's perspectives of feminism. There's pretty much zero intersection in her views of women's rights. There's a lot of other stuff I have a problem with too, but I don't want to get ranty, or start political discussions. Anyhow, i'm planning on just plowing through as fast as I can and moving on to something pleasant.

How's everyone else doing? Reading anything great?

Annemeike, I listened to the audiobook of Dante and Aristotle for the audio prompt, it was really cute! One of the better ones for the challenge.

I recommend Dresden files. I think I actually like it better as it goes on, rather than starting strong and puttering out.

Kristi, I love Dresden Files! That one in particular is pretty cool. Also Dresden Files (specifically I think the book after that one) is the reason I yell "PARKOUR!" Any time I leap over something.

Stephanie, Have fun on vacation! hope you have lots of read time! I might check out that second oryx and crake one, I was hesitating because the first was kinda be of grim and didn't know if I was in the mood.

Susan, I liked Quiet, although it was a little slow. Made me feel less weird though!