Lea’s Comments (group member since Jan 04, 2017)

Lea’s comments from the 2022 ONTD Reading Challenge group.

Alright everyone, we've updated this month's guidelines (I edited the first post).

Keri, heads up, the two true crime books you mentioned do not fit this month's criteria.

lanie, Heads in Beds does not fit this month's criteria. (But if you're looking for a lighter read that does fit, I can look something up for you)

K., this one definitely fits the category. But just to be clear, it's not any non-fiction. It's supposed to be non-fiction you can learn something from, whether it's about a social issue, politics, history, a science, a different country, etc.

Rachel and I are still defining the finer points of this category (for example, does true crime count? does ANY memoir count?), and we'll get back to everyone on that soon. Keep the questions coming!

Sraxe, that looks amazing, and yes it fits the category since it is, really, gender studies. great pick

Just some points about the book, before I forget them, so we can discuss when more people have read the book:

(view spoiler)[Did anyone guess any of the revelations? I was sure Jane's pregnancy was a product of rape right from the start, I don't even think that was much of a guess, but I figured out that Perry was the rapist really early on in the book. Moriarty threw us that curveball by having Madeline google Saxon Banks and someone else's face turn up (I still thought it would be Perry's face and Saxon Banks would have been, like, the name of his company or something). That he would still be the guy, though, THAT I didn't guess. And Bonnie being the one to kill him. It was glorious.

Who did you think the victim was going to be? I really thought it would be Madeline, and I was really sad because she was my favourite.

Also do you think Max is a psychopath? Is he like Perry, or was his bullying the effect of living in a violent home? I thought it was really creepy how he was such a successful secret bully, always managed to do it away from any witnesses, found the most vulnerable girls and knew how to manipulate them with threats. (hide spoiler)]

Me neither, K. And apparently it's revealed in the next book that the Biologist was Asian (I don't think we got a description of her, or her name in Annihilation), so it's a miscast in more ways than one.

Will you be reading the sequel?

Any celebrity, although it is more fun if you can find something your fave has read and liked. We've had some posts about celebrities' favourite books (here and here), Emma Watson and Florence Welch both have book clubs, Sarah Jessica Parker recommends a bunch of books here,Mindy Kaling has recs here, Reese Witherspoon has recs here and here, and you can check out the several celebrity recs at One Grand, or google other lists.

ETA: 20 book recs from celebs on Instagram

**Category guidelines**

Who counts as a celebrity? Let's stick to people the general public will have heard of.

NO politicians, NO internet celebrities.

Authors are tricky - only a select few would count, like JK Rowling, Stephen King or GRRM. These are people that the general public recognizes, who are well-known to more than book-reading people. (This same guideline applies to sports people, models, etc)

I just finished it! It is UNBELIEVABLY good.

Has anyone ever read It Ends With Us, by Colleen Hoover? Celeste's storyline is sort of similar to what happens in that book. Except that one is really bad.

(view spoiler)[Liane Moriarty wrote it an unflinching, honest, HELPFUL way, even. She didn't lie about Celeste's feelings. But through Susi, she added a very important perspective on the events. I think it is very clear that Perry would have killed Celeste on trivia night, had nothing else gone down at the event. It was excellent of the author to show the damage that was being done to the children and had been done to Bonnie, even if they weren't being beaten themselves.

I can't help but to contrast that with IEWU, where the message of the book (there's an author's note about it, ffs) is that even if your partner hits you, you should keep it to yourself. Leave him, whatever, but don't stop him from being a part of your children's lives. Because there are lots of people out there who only hit their wives, never the children! And as long as they aren't being hit, they should be fine. (hide spoiler)]

Courtney wrote: "Would The Hate Race meet the requirements? I've been meaning to read it for awhile but IDK if memoir is non-fiction or not."

Yep, memoir is non-fiction. That book would fit the criteria (looks really interesting, btw)

Keri, maybe save Leah Remini's book for the category of celebrity-authored books? Unless you have another one in mind for that month ;)

Nicole, I've read them both, and (if you're interested in my opinion) to me there is no contest between those two.

There's nothing in Quiet that you can't get from the author's TED Talk, but the Gift of Fear is one of the only books I've read in my life that I can honestly call empowering. There are SO many practical, potentially life-saving safety lessons in that book. It is a VERY important read for women.

ETA: Oprah is a big fan of this book. Here are a couple of segments from her show where the author speaks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2XFY...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBPro...

Just started today! I wasn't expecting the humour, am really enjoying it. It's going to make for a great TV show.

Kelly, so nice that you decided to join us!

So sraxe today told me that we could make custom reading challenges for groups, and it's actually pretty nifty. You just go here:

https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

then add the number of books in the challenge (12) and name a shelf for the challenge. And then it looks all nice and organized!

- Each month, there will be a topic where we can all discuss what book we'll be picking

- Once you have picked a book, you can create a discussion topic inside that month's folder, so other people who have made the same choice can talk about the book with you

- At the end of each month there will be a wrap-up, where we can all discuss whether we liked the book we picked or not, etc

- To easily keep track of your challenge, go here:

https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

Use this post to discuss American Gods by Neil Gaiman!

A master of inventive fiction, Neil Gaiman delves into the murky depths where reality and imagination meet. Now in American Gods, he works his literary magic to extraordinary results.

Shadow dreamed of nothing but leaving prison and starting a new life. But the day before his release, his wife and best friend are killed in an accident. On the plane home to the funeral, he meets Mr. Wednesday—a beguiling stranger who seems to know everything about him. A trickster and rogue, Mr. Wednesday offers Shadow a job as his bodyguard. With nowhere left to go, Shadow accepts, and soon learns that his role in Mr. Wednesday's schemes will be far more dangerous and dark than he could have ever imagined. For beneath the placid surface of everyday life a war is being fought—and the prize is the very soul of America.

Rozalina, those books about post-communist eastern europe sound amazing!! thank you so much for the rec!

Hey everyone,

thank you for suggesting individual discussion threads. I already opened a couple in January, but if you're reading a book that doesn't already have a discussion thread, you can open one yourself. At the end of the month we'll have a January Wrap-Up and we can all exchange recs and talk about how our challenge went this month, whether we liked the books we picked, etc.

If anyone has more suggestions for the group, let us know!

Posting this early for the people who need to get library reservations in place, etc.

Please remember that the books above are JUST suggestions!

USE THIS POST TO DISCUSS WHICH BOOK YOU'LL PICK THIS MONTH, ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CATEGORY, ETC


I’m glad we are having this conversation. It’s time (to read some non-fiction!). This month, pick up a non-fiction book that you can learn something from.


**Category guidelines**
It's not any non-fiction. It's supposed to be non-fiction you can learn something from, whether it's about a social issue, politics, history, a science, a different country, the environment, art, etc. It has to be educational.

So, for example, a book of humourous essays by David Sedaris wouldn't count, even if it is non-fiction.

Some memoirs/autobiographies count, such as Malala Yousafzai's, Yeonmi Park's, Loung Ung's, because they are about historically significant events and human rights issues. But, for example, Amy Schumer's autobiography (or any other "funny" memoir) does NOT count. Neither does something like Eat Pray Love.

True crime also does not fit this month's category as a rule, unless a SIGNIFICANT part of the book is dedicated to history (like the Devil in the White City), or forensic science, or law. If you REALLY want to read a true crime book this month, you must make a strong case for it being educational.

Here is the ONTD post with suggestions for this month!

Some more examples:

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America - Erik Larson
King Leopold's Ghost - Adam Hochschild
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus - Richard Preston
Citizen: An American Lyric - Claudia Rankine
In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom- Yeonmi Park
Cosmos - Carl Sagan
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer- Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Universe in a Nutshell- Stephen Hawking
Racism: A Short History- George Fredrickson
We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Night - Elie Wiesel
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement - Angela Y. Davis
Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight - Timothy Pachirat
Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America - John Chasteen
Dogland: A Journey to the Heart of America's Dog Problem- Jacki Skole
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence- Gavin de Becker

A lot of people have picked Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty as their January book. This is a place to discuss it with other readers!


Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?).

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.

New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.

A lot of people have picked Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly as their January book. This is a place to discuss it with other readers!


Set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow South and the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program—and whose contributions have been unheralded, until now.

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as “Human Computers,” calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts by Jim Crow laws, these “colored computers,” as they were known, used slide rules, adding machines, and pencil and paper to support America’s fledgling aeronautics industry, and helped write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Drawing on the oral histories of scores of these “computers,” personal recollections, interviews with NASA executives and engineers, archival documents, correspondence, and reporting from the era, Hidden Figures recalls America’s greatest adventure and NASA’s groundbreaking successes through the experiences of five spunky, courageous, intelligent, determined, and patriotic women: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, and Gloria Champine.

Moving from World War II through NASA’s golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the women’s rights movement, Hidden Figures interweaves a rich history of scientific achievement and technological innovation with the intimate stories of five women whose work forever changed the world—and whose lives show how out of one of America’s most painful histories came one of its proudest moments.

yes it will, Tejaswini!