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

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

And for color covers -
Are we using TinEye Color Extractor or are we eyeballing it like we ended up doing during TT7?

@Tina and Jessi
I have some questions, because

Looking at tasks and such -
I'm assuming a single book can be used for a task, a BINGO square, and Jackanory, as long as it's only used once for each?

Like let's say a book has Romance MPG (tasks), mentions a "bag of coffee beans" (Bingo B7), and its title is used in the Jackanory. All good, right?
Or can a single book only be used for one thing between those 3? Like, we pick "bag of coffee beans" (Bingo B7) and that's the only thing it can be used for, full stop.


For Jackanory:
It says "A completed story (minimum 8 books) gets 80 bonus points" -- is that a one-time bonus? Or is it 80 points for every story and we can write as many stories as we want?
Either way, I hope we have at least one person on the team who is good at creating stories for this kind of stuff. I know I'm TERRIBLE at it, haha!

Tina ❣ wrote: "Yes there's a tracking spreadsheet! I'm just editing it and getting it clear for us to use and will send it out when we're done fixing it up :)"

Yay, thanks Tina!

Stacey wrote: "I'll have The Foundling from my library (well actually The Lost Orphan since it must be the US version). So that will likely be one of my first books."

Same!
(I was like “Dammit how do my libraries not have this?!” and then realized it has an alternate title and felt pretty stupid, because I am a librarian in real life and should have figured that out faster. 🙃)

Night Shine by Tessa Gratton

An orphan girl must face untold danger and an ancient evil to save her kingdom’s prince in this lush, romantic fantasy perfect for fans of Girls of Paper and Fire and Tess of the Road.

How can you live without your heart?

In the vast palace of the empress lives an orphan girl called Nothing. She slips within the shadows of the Court, unseen except by the Great Demon of the palace and her true friend, Prince Kirin, heir to the throne. When Kirin is kidnapped, only Nothing and the prince’s bodyguard suspect that Kirin may have been taken by the Sorceress Who Eats Girls, a powerful woman who has plagued the land for decades. The sorceress has never bothered with boys before, but Nothing has uncovered many secrets in her sixteen years in the palace, including a few about the prince.

As the empress’s army searches fruitlessly, Nothing and the bodyguard set out on a rescue mission, through demon-filled rain forests and past crossroads guarded by spirits. Their journey takes them to the gates of the Fifth Mountain, where the sorceress wields her power. There, Nothing will discover that all magic is a bargain, and she may be more powerful than she ever imagined. But the price the Sorceress demands for Kirin may very well cost Nothing her heart.

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel.

Pray they are hungry.

Kara finds these words in the mysterious bunker that she’s discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle’s house. Freshly divorced and living back at home, Kara now becomes obsessed with these cryptic words and starts exploring the peculiar bunker—only to discover that it holds portals to countless alternate realities. But these places are haunted by creatures that seem to hear thoughts…and the more you fear them, the stronger they become.

Kimber✌ wrote: "I dont see the tasks list? :( can u send a link"

It’s on the Team spreadsheet (Message #1)

Are we going to have a separate spreadsheet we can all edit? I’ve had that in all or most previous challenges and find it helpful, but I’m happy to go with whatever tracking method(s) cap and co-cap want to use 🙂

Also, hello Captain Tina!
(Stupid broken notifications, *grumbles* , I did not see your Welcome post)

Anybody else going through that thing where you want to start reading a new book, but feel like you should wait and save it for TT ?!

I’m reading the current April YA BOM but otherwise I will try to read mostly random “worthless” stuff, like graphic novels and single short stories and such, until TT starts. 🤗

DQs Day 1
Chapters 1-6

1. We have met the crew. And what a crew it is. I couldn't help bursting out laughing when Tyler was introduced to the last one and simply burst out "Nooooo". Loved it!
What do you make of the set-up of the crew? Ty, Scar, Cat, Zila, Fin, Kal?

It's a really fun set-up. I love how Tyler was all "I am going to miss the draft" over and over, and this crew was who he ended up with. I agree with Cat that they're not really the dregs though, in terms of their abilities. Just difficult to get along with. I love these kinds of stories wherein a rag-tag bunch is forced to come together for a greater goal, as I'm sure will happen here to some degree or another.
Also could have done without the "Cat secretly loves Tyler" thing, but we'll see what happens.

2. There is a lot of mystery surrounding our other important character, Aurora. Do you think the hallucinations she's having are due to her overly long exposure to the Fold or are they maybe visions of something that may come in the future? How do you think she's holding up?

I didn't get a sense that Auri's having outright hallucinations, but rather having fractured memories return to her consciousness. Whether her memories were forcibly removed or altered is another question...

3. We have learnt very little about the actual setting of the world as of yet. Bits and bobs here and there that let us piece together quite a bit of it but not all that much detail. Do you like what you've seen and heard so far?

I like the way that the world-building is coming in drips, and in a show-don't-tell kind of way, for the most part. I do find it slightly hard to picture stuff so far, but in my experience of Kristoff's writing (Kaufman is new to me; dunno who has greater authorial presence here!) that will change.

4. The question with the obvious answer, I'd assume: what is their precious cargo? And following off of that one: What could possibly be go wrong with their mission?

Haha, it's so obviously Aurora. But why, we can't possibly guess at this point. SO MUCH can go wrong, least of all the potentially shifting loyalties of the crew members.
I am having a weird flashback to Jayne Cobb selling out the Tam siblings on Firefly for some reason, considering this crew is more like Alliance than like Browncoats!

I'm Alysa from NYC.
This is my 2nd TT (I was Jessi's co-captain last time *I Love You Jessi!*) and I've done Wheelathon and a few other team challenges here.
I've read a few Discworld books but not very many, and have long wanted to read more. I've read 2 of the 3 Discworld BOMs but not recently so I'll most likely do them again.
I've also read some of Pratchett's non-Discworld books, like maybe 4 of them, and love them all.

I have a bit less time for reading and chatting than I would like these days, especially compared to previous years. This is mainly due to big changes at my job, though I'm hopeful that the situation will improve over the next few months (even though it'll go crappy again in the fall for a while -- academic calendar!) so we'll see.

I'm looking forward to TT reading and getting to know all of you! I don't think I've played with anybody here except Jessi and maybe Karen?

Off to eat dinner and start a movie with my daughter. I have promised to show her GREASE for the first time, lol!

Hi Hi Hi!!!!

Yeah it is TERRIBLE.

No worries...
she says, having not started the book yet. *hides*
After work I'll finish my current read and then get to this one. Three Day Weekend!

Go Team Carrot Ironfoundersson !

Thanks, Mods!

I was actually planning to read Guards! Guards! soon anyway, after recently considering it for something during the Apples to Apples game.
I did read a different Discworld book for that though, so all's well that ends well. :D

Laurie wrote: "Overall, a successful sprint! I managed a three-hour chunk earlier today and almost spelled DEAR - I did finish my R book, but 12 minutes past the deadline. 🤪

All total, I read from 6 different bo..."

Wow, that is super impressive, Laurie!

Congrats, fellow DEARs! Or is it DEARers? Droppers?
I’ll go with DEARs, haha.

Next year 12 April will be a Tuesday...
*attempts to plan day way too far ahead* 🙃

Aiswrya wrote: "Alysa wrote: "Hey, just thought... Do I get 2 coins because I completed 2 different mini-challenges? Or 3 total because I did the 3+ hours thing twice?
🤔"

Haha I’m going to say no, but I’ll check ..."

No biggie either way. I just like to look at my pretty coins. :)
There are some challenges like that, where you can do multiple rounds and get a coin each round, and others like this one where the coin rules seem somewhat ambiguous.

Cat wrote: "Alysa wrote: "Well I just finished reading A Stranger in Olondria which is very much about The Power of Belief and Stories!
Could fit some other squares too but definitely that one...."

The writing was gorgeous, and the worldbuilding was quite impressive. Some issues with plot and weird meandering, like the author became a little too in love with her own book.
Overall I liked it a lot, but it wasn't quite 5 stars.

I'd recommend it but not for a reading sprint (the way I crammed it in for DEAR Day, lol) as I think it would have been better to spread out a bit.