Alysa’s Comments (group member since Jun 27, 2015)

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

Not sure if I'll read it for this round, but can another librarian please add a page count to the following book? I generally don't edit my own books during group challenges, due to potential conflict of interest :D

An Unintended Voyage

Amazon says 394 pages:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09...

It looks like Ann may have finished her last two books and just never updated the spreadsheet...
Eta: they are not on her Wheel shelf yet either but she finished both Rook and One True Loves (on 10/21 and 10/22)
/end spying

Namita wrote: "I finished a book. The Apollo Murders not sure if it should be in Round 1or 2.

Melissa, I’ll leave that up to you."

Round 1 isn't over for 2 more hours so that's definitely where Apollo Murders would need to be...

Done with Catalyst Gate!
Updating spreadsheet now, and starting next book. 😁

I’m finishing Catalyst Gate before the end of Round 1!
Nearly done, doesn’t pay to wait 🙂

Psst on the main spreadsheet it looks like someone put Carey as a character surname for Poison Fruit, but it's actually the author surname :)

Okay, cool. I'll just keep an eye on it.

But if other people's books have an A too, and they know they'll finish in time, LMK and I'll can pause mine anytime tonight or Sat morning EST.

Yes

Melissa wrote: "Thanks Louise! :)

Namita - no worries! It's a long challenge there are plenty more rounds to read for :)

Sharon - We definitely need 2 A's to complete 2 words. Other then that we have SHAMR open ..."

If it makes more sense for me to finish my current book (O author!) after the round changeover, LMK!

I wouldn't be able to both start and finish a different book in time for it to count towards Round 1, so it'd mean one less book for Round 1, but if you really think we'll need the O for later I don't mind pausing and just starting something else.

OMG, I just saw #151 at the top of my screen and was like WHAT?!?!?
Still have 24 hours, phew! :D

I finished Poison Fruit the other night, and finally had a chance just now to update it. Will go update on spreadsheet too!

Melissa wrote: "The next round starts October 23 and 9pm UK time"

Thanks! I will need to check whether that's 4pm my time or if there's some annoying Daylight Savings conversion. It's about that time of year. *grumpy*

I should be finished w/one of my current 2 books late tonight, and the other by Fri night or Sat morning.
For me in EST, the round ends on Sat afternoon but I would like to be crystal clear on exactly what time.

Today I hate everything that is preventing me from reading. Catalyst Gate is SO GOOD.

Is there a Countdown clock for end of Round 1 / start of Round 2?
I just checked in the "All About and Announcements" posts and didn't see one (though I did see there's new info about Round 2... :D :D :D)

Finished my 2nd book!
Neither of my two finished books is that Jacqueline Carey one that I started first, LOL.

Finished #29


Started off fun but quickly became tedious and remained so. :/

Also, read whatever you want, but longer books = more points, so longer books are always better, especially for people who read a lot.
Hence, using shorter books as last choice.

Trio wrote: "I read a ton, but I was nervous about how this challenge would fit in with my other challenges. I figured it would be better to "under claim".

So if I add books to the Team Trakcing Spreadsheet mu..."

@Trio
Whilst I am not captaining, so Louise and Melissa can obviously chime in if I’m wrong, in my experience everybody should just read and list as many books as possible. If we are (collectively) getting over limit, the captains can A) warn people to hold off finishing stuff until after the Round has ended, and B) just draw from the tracking spreadsheet and leave off the books on it that are worth the fewest points! 🙂

Well we won't have to worry about over-reading on my account at my current snail's pace, that's for sure.
I'm going to need to plan for some short books and some books I know will be so amazing I will want to blast through them. Hopefully that'll get me back on track for my target numbers, because having time off work so far has only meant more time for my family to bug me when I would rather be reading. 😂

DQs Day 4 - Chapters 18-end

14. We get more information about what happened to the Bible-writer's group. Marco, Steen, and Petrov ended pretty horribly. Kara chooses to believe the Bible-writer and Singer somehow made it out of the Willow World, but that seems unlikely. What do you think happened to them?

Dead. Or worse, like the bus driver!

15. Kara finally figures out what's going on with the corpse-otter, literally stating "Everything snapped into place." This leads into the scene where various taxidermied animals reanimate. What did you think of this section? Scary, silly, both, or neither?

I said in a previous answer that reanimated taxidermy is somehow less creepy to me than regular taxidermy. When moving, they look like regular animals, basically. And I didn't fully buy that some of them were on Kara's side, so I thought the whole thing was a little silly. (I did appreciate the bit towards the very end about Prince being in a slightly different position from before, though. I'm even able to picture that as an antlered head on a wall, rather than a purple-clad singer!)

16. What did you think of Kara's well-intentioned decision to go back through the hole? Her final visit to the Willow World was quite climactic, bringing together a lot of the scary and/or gross bits of the book: the animals, the trees, Sturdivant, pain, THEM… Did it work for you?

I wish she'd been able to tell or bring Simon with her, but it was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing for her to jump back through the way she did. The last scene with Sturdivant was particularly freaky, and the descriptions of Kara's effed-up knee were so graphic, and relatable in a way that most of the gross-out things in this book were not. I thought it was all quite well done.

17. We find out how the corpse-otter ended up at the Wonder Museum. Did you figure it out earlier, or were you surprised?

I didn't guess the details, but was like "Oh, makes sense." The origin and recent journey of the corpse-otter were in keeping with the rest of the book, in that there was both creepiness and humor. With hints of realism: it's totally common to receive a package and not, like, Read The Warning Labels, so to speak. Woody should have said something in advance of sending the package to the Wonder Museum, but he also can't really be blamed for what happened after. Especially because Kara was so slow on the uptake about the corpse-otter being involved in the newly-appeared hole in the wall.

18. In the end, we see Kara and Simon close off the hole. Life goes more or less back to normal. Kara reflects on her experience. What are your thoughts? To steal from the last line of the book, do you "wonder what happens next" for these characters? Please elaborate!

I don't know if Kara was all that changed by her experience. She's a grown ass woman; this is not a coming-of-age novel. But she did reset some priorities, and maybe got over her divorce a little faster than she might have otherwise done. I was satisfied with the ending, and I don't really wonder what happens next. I just hope to see characters like these more often, because they felt real in a good way.