Wendy’s Comments (group member since Dec 28, 2018)

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

Use this topic to discuss whether you enjoyed your January picks, and whether you'd recommend it to your fellow readers! Did you find it easy/difficult to complete this task?

Please tag all spoilers in this post!

JAN – South Korea
The Interpreter - Suki Kim ★★★★✰

FEB – Argentina

MAR – Norway

APR – Zimbabwe

MAY – Ireland

JUN – Iran

JUL – Poland

AUG – Egypt

SEP – Jamaica

OCT – India
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri

NOV – Australia

DEC – Philippines

Use this post to discuss what will be your January picks!

For this year's challenge, we'll be reading books written by authors born in the country of the month, but the language it was written in doesn't matter. The genre of the book also doesn't matter.

January's month is SOUTH KOREA.

ONTD Announcement post with a plethora of suggestions: https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com...

Some other website recs:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/th...
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/book...
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/20...

I read Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan (the third Crazy Rich Asians book), which had several flashbacks to WWII and the grandmother's actions during that time.

If you liked the other CRA books, you'll like this one. Kevin Kwan knows how to create some fun, dynamic characters. Also, I still need to eat ALL THE FOOD in this series.

I had basically a nervous breakdown the last two months, which is why it took me this long to finish a book that is like, 56 pages. Anyway, I listened to A Christmas Carol (Jim Dale did the audiobook) and I can see myself listening to it every Christmas.

Also I cannot picture anyone but Michael Caine as Scrooge, so thanks Muppets.

I'm reading The Christmas Carol. I've never actually read it, and my opinion on Dickens is split.

I'm re-reading the Queen of Babble series by Meg Cabot this month.

Finished "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn and I may have issues sleeping tonight. What an amalgamation of a bunch of fucked-up people.

I need to go read something frothy now.

BTW if you are more of an audiobook-podcast listener, Phoebe Judge (the host of the brilliant Criminal) has a new podcast where she's reading different mysteries. She's done a few Agatha Christie novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Moonstone, etc.

It's called "Phoebe Reads a Mystery" and is on Spotify and Stitcher (and probably other podcast apps).

It's hard to Google "books with plot twists" without having said twist spoiled. But I've had "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn on my shelf for awhile and I've been reliably informed that it has a twist (and I've already read Gone Girl, so I know what she's about) so I'm going to read that.

1984 is much more terrifying to read now than as a naive high school senior who thought, "totalitarian regimes are scary but that could NEVER HAPPEN."

I'm going to read 1984 because I have it on my shelf, it seems pretty relevant right now, and I haven't read it since high school.

I read The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lillian Jackson Braun. It was a very quick, easy mystery, very Agatha Christie. I did knock off a star for the abrupt ending and the fact that they did not tell us if the journalist gets to keep the cat.

I got gifted one of Lillian Jackson Braun's cat mysteries, so going to read that!

On the 87th time of reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, it's still awesome and I'm still not a witch.

Since I'm lazy and pulling from my home library, I'm just going to re-read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the 67th time.

Forever by Judy Blume was probably more widely challenged.

Finished To Kill a Mockingbird and it is still such a great book.

Is anyone watching the Little Fires Everywhere mini-series on Hulu? It premiered last week. This was the book I read for January, but I didn't feel like there was as much black-vs-white racial tension in it between the families? (I know there was because of Brian, but I'm talking the Mia-Pearl-Elena dynamic.) Did I completely misread or was that written in because of the casting?

I'm listening to the audiobook of To Kill a Mockingbird on my commute. The audiobook reader is really great and engaging and the story still holds up from what I remember from high school.