Lexi’s Comments (group member since Jul 27, 2016)

Lexi’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

Hat is part of the definition of helmet so works for me

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time. "Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf... you won't regret it." (Arundhati Roy)

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

My (not-so new) nominate until it wins book:

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love in the start of a heartwarming and enchanting new fantasy series.

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party--or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, and the Fair Folk.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones--the most elusive of all faeries--lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all--her own heart.

Attempts to get under 15 by the end of 2024 are not doing great, but I am back down to 25.

October NetGalley Challenge
Beginning of month
Books on shelf: 25
Feedback ratio: 87%

2020:

2021:

2022:

2023:

2024:

2025:

I got us our first Discworld monster with:

Shadowing Lemma
100-175
tagged Science at least 10x
Author's initials in CANNIBALISM
some kind of shadow on cover
MATH(S) OR MATHEMATICS in text

I also cleaned up the count sheet and added the Discworld monsters so it correct now.

Spun us one from Urban Legends to use an older wheel for variety:

El Duende
350 to 450
hat on cover
Set in Latin and South America, The Philippines, or Guam
Cave in text
MC is under 18 (for at least 50% of the book)

Melindam wrote: "I added this to my TBR in 2019 based on Lexie's and Cat's recommendations. Took me a long time to get to it,"

I'm glad you liked the first one. It is very different in tone than the next two, and the third is one of my all time favorite books (Up there with Murderbot).

Adding some:

The 5th Gender - actual tentacle porn (for which I took off one star) but one of the best opening scenes with cat sitting on a space port
The City We Became

Borne - very good and fast read
Where the Drowned Girls Go - #7 in Wayward Children (very short)
Ring Shout - also very short
The Affair of the Mysterious Letter - a very odd, absolute favorite of mine
The Ballad of Black Tom - short
Lovecraft Country
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness - non-fiction

I wrote this prompt and really, the plural is a much better list and has lots of options. You don't have to read tentacle porn, but if you want to, I will not judge.

I finished my last 2018 book, and while it was only 3 stars, it is nice to clear an entire year. I still have 10 from 2019 and 1 from 2016 and that last one is The Brothers Karamazov so I need the motivation to start it.

I noticed we had two that were done so I spun for two new ones

Vegetable Lamb
200 to 299
Author initials in BORAMETZ
Book set in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), Ukraine, Turkey or Russia
436 - two of three numbers in page count
Ruminant on cover (such as cow, sheep, deer, giraffe)

Tomas and Tereza (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
100 to 175
MC owns a dog
character is a waitress
communism important to plot
takes place in the 1960s and/or 1970s

I would like to point out that I think Judith's Bad Romance Wheel is harder than my Overly Specific Literary Monster Wheel

Lexi's BOM Participation Tracking:
September 2024 ~ Adult ~ The Last Murder at the End of the World
Day 1 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Day 3 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Day 5 - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

DQs Day 5: Chapters 69 - end

21. What an ending? Did you like how everything ended up fitting together? Thought’s on Abi’s role and final choice?
I also liked how the book ended. I liked that Abi stepped back and let the villagers live their own life and thought it was clever that throughout she was doing her instructions but did them in a way that Niema would not have planned or potentially approved of. It gave the outcome another level of complexity and explained the inconsistencies.

22. Did you connect with any of the characters or were you mostly reading along to see how the mystery ended? Does Abi “narrating” the book effect how you were able to connect with the characters?
I wrote this question, so I read it more as a puzzle and the reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is that is was hard for me to connect to the characters. I liked Emory but I never had any sympathy for the humans/scientists and I think that would have made the book stronger/more complex. The puzzle part was great though.

23. We never learn where the fog came from. Do you have any guesses, and do you think it matters?
I ‘m not sure it matters, but I wondered if Niema was involved. She seemed to know a lot and had a safe haven ready when no one else appears to have.

24. Reading this I realized that some books really would not work in a visual medium, as the visuals would ruin the surprise on the non-humanity of the villagers fairly quickly. Do you agree and do you have other book examples of ones that a visual media would not allow the same story to be told? (Think comic book as well if not movie for books with heavy internal thoughts that might be more difficult as a movie/tv show).
I have read others where you have a non-human narrator and that is left unknown for much of the book and the reveal is very interesting. Also, there are books that purposely leave the narrator more unknown – nameless, genderless etc. This keeps the reader from jumping to conclusions that would be done with a visual media. I think of Murderbot and a male actor for this as well.

25. Does your copy have the Author’s note about how he writes different book genres/ IF it does, what do you think about this for an author and how does it affect you desire to read other books/new books by this author?
I liked the Author’s note and find it interesting that the author explains this to the reader. I still like his second book best. I would try another book but contemporary thrillers are not my personal favorite genre.

Would you take a carnival with rides as an amusement park ?

DQs Day 5: Chapters 69 - end

21. What an ending? Did you like how everything ended up fitting together? Thought’s on Abi’s role and final choice?

22. Did you connect with any of the characters or were you mostly reading along to see how the mystery ended? Does Abi “narrating” the book effect how you were able to connect with the characters?
23. We never learn where the fog came from. Do you have any guesses, and do you think it matters?

24. Reading this I realized that some books really would not work in a visual medium, as the visuals would ruin the surprise on the non-humanity of the villagers fairly quickly. Do you agree and do you have other book examples of ones that a visual media would not allow the same story to be told? (Think comic book as well if not movie for books with heavy internal thoughts that might be more difficult as a movie/tv show).

25. Does your copy have the Author’s note about how he writes different book genres/ IF it does, what do you think about this for an author and how does it affect you desire to read other books/new books by this author?

DQs Day 3- Chapters 35-51

11. Does anyone else want to slap Emory's father Seth? Any ideas why he is so dismissive of her?
I will join everyone else in not knowing how parents can act that way toward children and the not direct biologic children is not excuse.

12. The way Thea describes the villagers, she hold no regard for them, except as slave labor so to speak. So, was Niema changing them or something, trying to make them more human?
I have finished the book but throughout Niema gives them a chance to be and do more while the others see the only as tools.

13. What do you think about Niema's safeguard so no one in the know would kill her? Do you think that the threat (and now reality) of dropping the shield was Niema or Abi?
I’ve finished reading but was very similar to Angie at this point. Something fishy was going on.

14. If the villagers are basically programmed to not be independent thinkers, why are some of them starting to do that? Or dream? Or are sleep-writing advanced equations?
I like Judith’s answer of Life will find a way and I am currently reading Children of Ruin which has all sorts of non-humanoid species evolving but that is on the surface, a limitation with the lab origin model since they should not evolve since we don’t have reproduction and selection unless something is going on in the lab.

15. For those who are reading along and not ahead, do you believe Adil's statement?
Whether you are reading ahead or just up to the day's pages, are you enjoying the book?
I am done and I enjoyed the book while not my favorite of the author’s, it was a good, fast read and a fun puzzle.

Catherine wrote: "Lexi wrote: "I have a library ebook and no pretty colors"

Lexi can I ask a favor since you have a kindle edition. Can you use the search and see if the word Engineer, engineers, or engineered is i..."

"She hadn't saved engineers, builders" p. 162

DQs Day 1
Prologue to Chapter 14

1.) Did you read 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle or The Devil and the Dark Water or is this your first Turton? Any expectations either way going into this book?
I've read both and really liked The Devil and the Dark Water so I had high expecatations for this one. I finished already despite nominating it since I gave up on it winning so won’t answer any of the questions on guessing. I will say I did enjoy it a lot but The Devil and the Dark Water is still my favorite. I like how each is very different but always some twist or puzzle.

2.) What did you think of humans having a hard stop on their life at their 60th birthday? Did you thoughts change at all when you learned kids don't show up on the island until age 8? How do you think knowing the maximum length of your life would impact your decisions?
I was going with it and figured it was genetically programmed it due to the limited space and resources but did not guess why (and won’t tell you all either for spoilers).

3.) This age math is still a bit confusing to me even after learning people get kids who are 8 and not newborns. Niema and the other scientists are all well over 100. Seth is 49, his father was 60, and Emory is old enough to have a grown daughter. Is everyone else as confused as I am?
It was well set up that the ages are a puzzle and I did not guess the answer.

4.) Who or what do you think Abi is?
Not guessing since I am done.

5.) The concept of memory gems is an interesting one. Would you like access to all the memories of people who have died? Do you think this would be a curse or a blessing?
I think this could be a problem. I don’t want to know thoughts of some people and lets not even add the voyeuristic aspect but this is a very small community so already know a lot about people and very little privacy.

I have a library ebook and no pretty colors

I'm good with mine. Thank you