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

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

Finished #8!


Witch Hunt

Basically, I made a list of the Kindle Freebies I got in 2013-2014, asked my partner to choose between 1 and whatever-it-was (without telling him why), and ended up with this book.
It was pretty good! A fast-moving, entertaining Urban Fantasy. I gave it 4 stars, rounded up from 3.5 stars.

Lexi wrote: "I just took one of my oldest physical books out to the little free library as I finished it last night - I Capture the Castle. That book has moved at least three time so nice to see it..."

LOL, that was one of the candidates in my BOM takeover last month. Now I'm kind of glad that it wasn't chosen. I am still planning to read it for this challenge though!

I am also reading less due to no longer having a commute (by train), and when my daughter is home with me all the time, I can't read during workday breaks, etc.
I love my family... but I WANT TO READ! ;)

One of next month's BOMs is among my oldest TBRs, so that'll help me out, at least.

I am impressed with you people.
I am sooooo behind on this challenge.

But on the bright side, there have been even more old TBRs that I've tried and ended up deleting. I think I'm up to like 350 deleted books since the beginning of Jan! Once I start digging into the ones that I did *not* delete, I'll probably have a bunch of DNFs though.

I think I'm just afraid to read a lot of that old stuff because I'm afraid of DNFs resulting in a reading slump, just when I'm kind of emerging from a minor one...

Yay! If I can get a copy at the right time, I will join...

(It's on Scribd, but I was planning to pause my membership right around the same time that this BOM starts!)

Didn’t finish a 2nd book but made a lot of progress nonetheless. Spent about 6 hours reading, altogether. I am calling this a success!

I finished !
I haven’t started any brand new book today, but I still might, and in the meantime I have taken breaks from The Bird King to continue reading The Ghost in the Third Row, and will also read more of The Last Human and possibly The Lavender Menace: Tales of Queer Villainy!....
Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t start yet another book today when I still have all of those to deal with, lol.

@Devann - How do you watch one thing and read something else at the same time?! I would remember nothing of either, and my head would explode. 🤯

Read for about 3 hours so far today... I think about 1 more hour for me to finish up The Bird King...

I am excited. I will hopefully able to finish The Bird King which I started last week along with some other stuff. Then I may try to cram in a shortish book just for the day..

Finished #s 6 and 7:


This was on my TBR since it was announced in 2013, despite the fact that I read and enjoyed Books #1 and 2 in the series, back to back, in June of that year and the fact that this 3rd one was released in 2014. I didn’t buy it right away, for obscure reasons, and then once I bought it, just didn’t get around to reading it.
It was a lot slower than I recall the other installments being. And apparently the author still has not released #4, so I guess I didn’t miss anything by waiting so long.



Another old paperback down thanks to reading aloud to my daughter! It was fun for both of us. I think it held the kid’s attention more than many other comparable modern fantasy stories have. (She also learned a lot of great new vocabulary words from it, which was a nice, unexpected bonus!)
We plan to read more of this series, which she calls “Kendra” — though I’m not sure I would if it was only me without my little buddy, simply because I haven’t been wanting to read as much Middle Grade stuff on my own meager alone time recently.

Jessi wrote: "I'm trying to do all BOMs this year. We shall see how that goes. Also, it was Alysa's takeover sooo I had too."

LOL!
Hey, if you do even half of the BOMs this year, pretty soon you'll be doing your own Takeover ;D

Previous coins already traded in from the following BOMs:

The Bear and the Nightingale, March 2017 -- 1 Ruby Coin TRADED!
The Lightning Thief, August 2017 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
The Roanoke Girls, September 2017 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, November 2018 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
Into the Drowning Deep, April 2019 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
The Song of Achilles, June 2019 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
Dry, July 2019 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
What Remains, July 2019 (Back Room) -- 3 Ruby Coins TRADED!
This is How It Always Is, July 2019 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
Good Omens, August 2019 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
Recursion, September 2019 -- 3 Ruby Coins TRADED!
Sorcery of Thorns, September 2019 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
Gideon the Ninth, October 2019 -- 2 Ruby Coins TRADED!
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, December 2019 -- 3 Ruby Coins TRADED!

DEAR Day 2020

Drop-Everything-And-Read Day!
Read for at least 2 hours on 12 April 2020, and check in on challenge page :)

Read during DEAR Day 2020:



1 Tourmaline Coin

Yay yay yay! I really, really need DEAR day this year.

Being stuck at home for me has actually meant *less* reading because I’ve lost my commute.
And I keep neglecting books to go down stress-inducing internet rabbit holes. Hopefully DEAR day will force me to spend the entire day reading instead!

Hi Sophia! How far are you on the book? I will finish in a couple of days. I still quite like it :)

Lily wrote: "I have really enjoyed this book and reread it many times. The series does continue to improve as the writer figures out how to properly add in plot twists and developed characters and such."

Good to know! Makes me more excited to continue :)

DQs Day 3: Part 3

9. This section gets Nathaniel -- and readers -- further out of the narrow confines of Underwood's house, and into the greater London area and countryside. As a result, we learn more about the book's [Alternate Universe] world, which doesn't really line up with any particular real-life time period. What do you think about this world, and this approach? Would you have preferred a more defined setting (for example, Victorian or contemporary)?

I enjoyed the blend, which combined a sort of Victorian feel with modern touches (I recall e-mail being mentioned briefly), although I wish it had been executed in a more deliberate way. That is to say, I'm sure the blend was a deliberate choice, but it came off as almost accidental at times anyway, if that makes sense. It's as if Stroud set the parameters of his magician-dominated AU London as a sort of contemporary evolution from the Enlightenment period and then later quasi-Victorian times, and then just kind of decided that that was enough, even though it wasn't necessarily.
Is it possible that Bartimaeus is narrating from further temporal distance? Like, the story takes place 100 years ago but is being told now? That wasn't the sense I got while reading, but it seems possible, especially considering that Nathaniel's sections are in 3rd person and Bartmaeus's are in 1st. And I could have forgotten or missed something that may have clarified.

10. I was annoyed, but not surprised, by how little the gender representation evolved from my first impressions. But I was actually surprised by how little the "street gang" (led by a certain mysterious girl) ultimately factored in the plot. Please comment on these points.

This book had fairly dismal gender representation at best, and sexism at worst. It did not improve as the book went on, but for the possible implications of Nathaniel's new master being a woman -- and apparently a quite powerful one, though it remains to be seen whether that's an exception that proves a rule.
I really thought that the street gang (part of the elusive Resistance movement?) with its girl leader would come back into play. That could have helped, depending on how it was done and whether the girl was wholly written as a Plucky Urchin stereotype, but I guess this too remains to be seen. I will be even further surprised if the street gang/Resistance isn't a bigger part in the rest of the series.
I don't think Stroud was ever being sexist on purpose -- but that's the thing about most male privilege, innit?

11. Character development question: Do you think any of these characters grows or changes from the beginning to the end of the book, or do they stay basically the same? Why or why not?

They all stay the same. From Bartimaeus, well, one can't really expect change from ancient spirit beings. I mean, it's fun when it happens but can't be expected! And much of the charm of the character is in the snarkiness and sneakiness. It's left to the reader to decide how unreliable a narrator Bartimaeus really is, and how much we care about the relationship, such as it is, between spirit and magician.
In Nathaniel's case, I don't think there was any real growth. The flashbacks to his younger years show a natural childhood sweetness, but when we first met him (during his initial summoning of Bartimeus) that sweetness had already been largely subsumed by his interest in power and prestige. An interest that's portrayed as endemic to the Magician class regardless of how minor or ineffectual one's "Master" may be. If Nathaniel's devious manipulation of the events following Lovelace's death are anything to go by, Nathaniel's character began and ended this book in the same place: cunning, scheming, immature, fragile, and grasping. And yet still sympathetic, which is actually fairly impressive for the author to have pulled off.

12. Did you like the book overall? Would you read the next book in the series?

From most of my Q&A, I'm sure it seems as if I disliked the book. I didn't! I disliked certain things about it -- mainly the gender issues -- but overall I liked it. It's both grim and funny at the same time (no easy feat), the world building is interesting, the plotting and pacing are good, Nathaniel is a compelling character for me.
I have a paperback of Book 2 that I picked up for free somewhere, and I will read it eventually. I want to see what happens next, and I especially want to see if we've been set up for a clever take-down of the problems presented in Book 1. There has to be a reason that this series is so highly rated, right???

Finished #5, thanks to the BOM 😁



I liked it, but not as much as I’d hoped. Especially considering how long I’d been sitting on it!

Better a day late than never!

DQs Day 3: Part 3

9. This section gets Nathaniel -- and readers -- further out of the narrow confines of Underwood's house, and into the greater London area and countryside. As a result, we learn more about the book's [Alternate Universe] world, which doesn't really line up with any particular real-life time period. What do you think about this world, and this approach? Would you have preferred a more defined setting (for example, Victorian or contemporary)?

10. I was annoyed, but not surprised, by how little the gender representation evolved from my first impressions. But I was actually surprised by how little the "street gang" (led by a certain mysterious girl) ultimately factored in the plot. Please comment on these points.

11. Character development question: Do you think any of these characters grows or changes from the beginning to the end of the book, or do they stay basically the same? Why or why not?

12. Did you like the book overall? Would you read the next book in the series?