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

Sheri’s comments from the EPBOT Readers group.

Darla wrote: " I don't remember which was the last one I commented on, but this week, I finished The Girl with All the Gifts. This was my "author who uses a pseudonym" book."

I loved Girl with All the Gifts! Especially because I hadn't seen any trailers for the movie yet, so was totally thrown with the whole "what's up with these kids" thing.

Darla wrote: "I'm pretty excited to read Unmentionable!"

I just finished it, it's really good!

Hi Everyone! It's sunny and summery in Michigan, but don't believe it. It's a trap. It'll be rainy and cold next week.

I had a better reading week than the last couple. Finished 3:
Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype which is my book written by a person of color. (I moved Americana to book with the main character a different ethnicity than you). I had a hard time getting through this, I ended up skimming a lot just to make it end. the sad thing is, there's a lot of good advice for women, and people in general in it. But it's so wrapped up in psychobabble that it's hard to take seriously. For example: It's great advice to say that women get too wrapped up in being the perfect housekeeper, spouse, mother, etc and fail to make time to create art or do the things that make them passionate. I don't need that advice wrapped up in a narrative about my inner wild woman being smothered by the devil or something.

The Girl in the Steel Corset this was my steampunk novel. I liked it, it was easy fluff after that laborious effort. Plot was a little predictable, but I like it enough I'll probably continue the series eventually.

Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners this is our book club's next read, and I'm counting it for book with a subtitle. I really liked it, but I'll save more than that for when the book club discussion gets going.


Currently I'm reading Labor Day which will be my book about a non-Christmas holiday. I'm already annoyed at the writing style, because the author doesn't use quotes for dialogue, but the book's written in first person. It's hard to tell the difference between what the narrator is speaking to you, the reader, and what someone is saying to the narrator. Not entirely sure where the author was going with that "stylistic" choice.

How about everyone else? How's your reading going?

Thanks Susan! :) hopefully I'm doing ok! I'll try to improve my discussion leading on the next book.

Susan, that's awesome for your son! I know college was probably the time I read least, for fun, due to all the required reading and projects. It's great that he didn't let that break his love of reading!

Hi Stephanie!

For me, not reading is not an option. I NEVER just...have no book going. I don't think I'd know what to do with myself, haha.

If I'm getting reading fatigue from reading too many new books/books I don't like/challenging books, that's when I dip into re-reading my favorites, or I go on a comics binge to catch up on my always-behind comics lists. Mercedes Lackey is my go-to "I need a break" because I love her books, and they're not too long. There's particular ones that I go to over and over because they're not too emotionally charged, they're fun, and I love them. (The Black Swan The Fairy Godmother are two of my tops)

Emma's book club is on Good Reads, it's called Our Shared Shelf . Like I said, they're doing Handmaiden's Tale right now. I think there's a list of all the past books, or you can search through the threads to find them. The selection's been all over the place, some I really liked, others not so much. Usually they correspond to an interview she's going to do during the book's window or just after.

Starting a new thread for Margaret Atwood since she seems to inspire strong opinions.

I've now read three Atwood books. The Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin and Oryx and Crake. It's left me with a very all over the place feeling about her work.

First; Handmaids Tale. I wouldn't necessarily say I LIKED it, so much as I think it's really important to read. Especially right now, it feels like a looming specter, much along the lines of say 1984 or Animal Farm. (Incidentally also books that I don't LIKE but think are important).

Blind Assassin I just didn't like at all. It didn't have anything close to the impact Handmaid's Tale had on me, and I struggled to finish. I guessed the big reveal less than halfway through, so was kind of impatiently waiting for it to confirm I was right. Also I just really didn't relate to the narrator or anyone else mentioned.

Oryx and Crake is much more along the lines of books I would normally read, on my own, for fun. However I was left feeling with a sense of "...but WHY?" at the end. I like dystopias, but usually they either have a really clear reason as to "this is how this happened" or else how it happened was not important to the story so it's glossed over entirely. This one, the whole story lead up to "how did this all happen"...and yet i was still left with no real reason as to WHY it did. Now, it IS the beginning of a trilogy, so I'm willing to accept that the question may be answered in a later book. I'll probably read the rest later, once I'm done with challenges for the year.

I do admit that in spite of my varying enjoyment of her work, I still feel compelled to read others.

How about anyone else? Opinions of Atwood books? Of her as an author? Relevance to society? Anything else?

Hi Everyone,

Had another slow week this week. Had a guest for the second weekend in a row, leaves less reading time.

The only book I finished was Oryx and Crake which doesn't even fit in a challenge, I'd put it on a list because my boss recommended it. I figure I'll make a new Atwood thread, just because she seems to inspire lots of comments. So here I'll just say that I liked this better than the Blind Assassin, but I still had some issues with it.

Currently I'm reading Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype which is for Emma Watson's book club, the previous book. Library's hold system was messed up so I didn't get it on time. But they're reading Handmaiden's Tale now which I read already, so not to worries. I think I'm reordering my list, and going to move Americanah to the book with the main character a different ethnicity than you, and put this book into the book written by a person of color. Not really feeling it so far, so trying to power through.

How about everyone else? What are you reading?

I posted some questions in the ready player one discussion. I just pulled a selection from my googling, but feel free to bring up any others you find, if they seem interesting and you want to talk about them.

Holly, no problem! I'm sure not everyone in epbot readers in general wanted to actually be in the book group, but since they're the same group everyone got the memo. There's no rush, though. Discussion is remaining open for Ready Player One, and the read period for Unmentionable goes until July :)

I wanted my discussion to be separate from the post with the questions.

So I'm going to start with the one I find most interesting, the mash up question. In today's society there's a huge saturation of media. Between endless books, movies, tv, accessible through the internet, it's really difficult to come up with something that is 100% original. If not impossible.

However, I think the true successes come from when you take a piece from this, that and the other, and can blend it into something that feels magical and fresh.

Obviously we can't see Wade's actual mash up of the car, (at least not until the movie is out). Whether or not I'd call his car original would depend on just how literal of a mash up it is. If it were literally the back end/doors of a delorian (silver), mashed on to the front of the knight riders car (black), with the ghost siren plopped on top or the logo slapped on the hood, then no. That's just squishing random things together in a way that doesn't make sense. However if things had been smoothed out where there were form language pulled from the Knight Rider car, combined with the vertical doors from the delorian, but maybe a paint job that was reds, blacks, silvers and white and blended together to form a new-looking car, I'd say yes. There could be some nods to the original such as a little ghost buster logo air freshener, some of the dancing lights in the console like when Kitt talked, and a flux capacitor symbol. It's about being able to combine the old into a pleasing whole that feels new.

So someone mentioned in my general book club thread that they'd like some questions. It's kind of late in the discussion, but here's some of the ones I found most interesting while googling.

How does the construction of an avatar obscure and reveal a player’s character?

Does Aech’s character become deeper or less deep after the reveal?

What parallels can be drawn between the world of Ready Player One and the real world?

Wade's car is a Frankenstein's monster mash of cars from Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, and Knight Rider. Is this an original idea? Can you make something original when you are building things solely from others' creations?

Ready Player One shows a dystopian future. Do you see any parts of the book as coming true?

Wade’s OASIS pass phrase is revealed on page 199, at the end of chapter nineteen:
“No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.” What does this philosophy mean to him at that point in his life?

You don't need to feel like you have to run down the whole list answering questions, it's more to see if any of these prompt further discussion.

So now we've got one book under our belts, I'd like some idea how to go forward.

I kind of unofficially took over because Lyndall's life got crazy busy. I know nothing about book clubs, having never been in one before much less lead one. The closest thing I've been in is Emma Watson's goodreads group, My Shared Shelf. but that group is enormous and has threads upon threads of all sorts of topics and I find it too overwhelming to even attempt to follow anything, I just use the group as a reading list.

So far the discussion on Ready Player One is mostly people expressing their opinions. Are people cool with that? Should I try to come up with discussion topics to lead to more involved conversation? I guess what i'm asking is what do you all want out of the club? Just ideas what to read and a place to express opinions? Multiple threads for more specifics into minutia? Guided questions? Something else I am not thinking of?

Thanks!

I don't understand it! I mean I know I read a lot and I read fast, even for a geeky book nerd. But there's a difference between a slow reader who reads but just takes a long time to get through books and someone who actively avoids reading at all. Or thinks it's somehow admirable. Glad I have places to wallow in books :)

I have to say I'm glad goodreads is a thing. The steampunk bookstore I used to hang out at, that hosted a craft night once a week, closed a year or two ago. That's where I hung out with my geeky folk, and I've yet to find a good replacement. I started doing group fitness classes just to get me out of the house and socializing a couple times a week. (I work from home)

The other night reading came up, and everyone was almost bragging about how little they read. One woman was talking about how she hadn't read a book for fun since college, and another said she maybe read one or two a year, if that. Everyone looked at me and I was like "um...I've read 68 books since January". And they all stared like I was kind of a freak.

So thank you all for being my people <3

Stephanie,
The Fox IS beautiful, love that theatre. We have some nice ones in Detroit!

Yeah, I realize I'm in the minority on Tolkien. I liked him ok in middle school, I read the Hobbit, and then I made the mistake of picking the Fellowship of the Ring for a book report. After having to write a paper on it, it left me no desire to finish the trilogy. I tried to go back and re-read in high school and I couldn't even manage to finish the Hobbit again. I watched the movies when they came out, and it still didn't really make me want to read any more, and I barely managed to sit through them. By the time the Hobbit movies came out and they were turning a fairly small book into another excruciatingly long movie (yes I know they threw some Silmarillion in there) I just threw my hands up and said I'm done. I've tried, and I'm done.

If it makes you feel any better I didn't like the first Shanara book that was a tolkien rip off either.

Even Mercedes Lackey, one of my favorite authors, can't really make the dudes questing with elves that much more appealing. I mean I read her obsidion trilogy and the one after it. but they're among the few of her books that I don't re-read on a regular basis. And hers actually have women in the questing party.

My fantasy interest tends to lie more in fairytales and urban fantasy. I LOVE fairytale retellings. I can the occasional big epic fantasy, but the ones I like most tend to shake things up from the typical fantasy tropes.

Stephanie,

Troy/Bloomington is about a 40-45 min drive. It's not that it's such a far distance, so much as there's no freeway route there, due to all the little lakes in that direction. The only routes are all surface roads at about 35mph. Are you in Michigan, or were you visiting there for Penguicon?

I do love Last Unicorn, I bought the book a couple years at one of my pilgrimages to Powells :) I haven't watched the movie, mainly because I was worried it wouldn't be as good as the book. If you say it follows pretty closely, I'll give it a try! Also no worries here, I am not really a Tolkien fan. Yes, I know, gasp in horror. I think some of it is so many people have used him as a starting point, the whole tolkien-esk genre feels watered down for me. I don't really like the whole "group of dudes traveling on a mighty quest" with dwarves and elves a whole lot.

I was thinking about starting a folder for general book talk, and starting a Margaret Atwood thread. Seems like people have strong opinions about her, would be good conversation fodder.

yay for the advanced challenge :) I like several of the prompts on there, although there are some tricky ones.

Hi everyone!

Rainy week in Michigan, but everything's green again which is nice.

I had a bit of a slow week this week, in that I only finished one book. The Dragon and the Unicorn( book involving a mythological creature) Usually when this happens it's because I really didn't like the book and i was dragging my feet. In this case, I did enjoy it, it was just very complex. There was Norse mythology mixed with Celtic mythology, leading into Arthurian legend, with a dragon as a world-beast and a shining unicorn, combined with demons and angels and the spread of Christianity through the British isles. I couldn't just tear through it like usual, or I'd get totally confused. It was enjoyable though. Not sure I'll continue the series, because I am not that big of a fan of Arthurian legend. This book was more a precursor to the Arthor story, so I'm assuming the next books go into the main narrative. Maybe some day, but probably not right away.

Currently I am reading Oryx and Crake which I just started this morning. Probably when I'm done I'll put up a new folder for general book discussions and we can start an Atwood thread to discuss further, if wanted. So far it's grabbing me much more than Blind Assassin did. That one I found pretty tedious from the start. I don't think it'll end up counting for a challenge prompt, since I'm getting down to some of the harder ones to fill.

This puts me at 37/52.

How's everyone else doing this week?

PS, when I finish pop sugar, I'll probably go back and focus on read harder. And then I'll still be reading, so I'll keep posting threads through the year, even if if I'm done with the actual challenges.

Pam wrote: "I completely missed this thread. Ah well, I'm cool with this book anyhow so it's all good."

I forgot about the "message the whole group" moderator function when i put the thread up originally. For the next book, I'll send a message before selection so people can make sure to chime in. But I figured since this one was tied with Ready Player One, it was a safe enough bet to just push through.

Stephanie, the save the unicorn bundle is still going! https://www.humblebundle.com/books/sa... It has that one, and it's put on by the author of The Last Unicorn. The whole bundle looked pretty solid.

What you say makes sense! Coming as an American (I forget, i think you mentioned being Canadian?) I always feel like creativity both gets discounted, and also assigned to a black or white state. Like you have to pick, are you good at math and science, or the arts. I don't even know how many people who have said "I'm not creative". Humans ARE creative, it's inherent. Just because you're not an artist or a writer doesn't mean you can't create or innovate.

I might take you up on that :) I'm trying to get my first initial people to actually read it, just to get a first impression of "what do you think?". Then I want to poke at it a little more, fill in some gaps. Then Im going to look for additional beta readers/editors etc. (It's a cyberpunk novel, if that makes a difference to your offer)

It was a pretty good reading week for me :) also I didn't have any grand plans over the weekend, so ended up doing a lot of reading.

Also to go back to what you said, Stephanie, I mostly agree with you. I found 50 Shades horrible. I don't disagree though, that at the very least it can open some conversational topics. However I could give some suggestions of better literature involving bdsm and such, that have a healthier relationship dynamic.

I've been trying to write a book in some form or another for most of my life. Currently I managed to finally get one to the point where I'm letting some people read it. So even if a book is terrible, I admire someone for managing to put it on paper. Just I think more people need to understand that the reason editing is a profession is because a lot of people don't have the knowledge/perspective to do it themselves. Once I get some feedback from my readers, I'm going to go back and patch up what I can, and then I intend to turn it over to an editor to be like "help me make this into something people will read".