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

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

Sammy wrote: "My favourite part has actually been the part from the POV of the aliens. They make so much more sense than people. :D "

I think you're just spending too much time with Jenny. :D

One of our Ira members read Pandora's Star for Top Shelf Space Opera some weeks ago, and had read it at least 2 times before that (in 2016 and 2018). And the average rating is so high! Maybe whoever hated it is in the minority.

It's been strangely reassuring to see how many of the "bad" books really are bad books though. Inter-rater agreement is nice.

Also @Allison
Re your questions on the spreadsheet about next week.
Dress - YES!
Bad Book -- we would use it for Bingo Mini *INSTEAD* of Bad Books Mini, no double points unfortunately.

Cool. And it's kind of reassuring to know that so many of the "bad" books really are bad books, lol.

And @Allison, way to go on Stray!
Good adjective for a story, too, if you happen to feel like taking a crack at one, or two... or partials. ;D

Sammy wrote: "I've just been looking for Pandora's Star, and can't find that either, but I remember it popping up in the thread, and it's on the master list. Guess it was in the same post..."

Minx recommended that one. The ones where people posted covers are harder to spot that the ones where people posted text titles.

Jinx 3!
Jenny Jenny Jenny!
Sammy Sammy Sammy!

😄

This came up for another team. It looks like the original “recommendation” was deleted but the book still counts. We can put “mysterious benefactor” or some such :D

Allison Ann wrote: "How are we doing for numbers this week?"

We have 26 finished books, 6 on the planning sheet but not finished, and one person who has not reported in any books at all but usually pops up kinda last minute. So we should be okay in terms of meeting the minimum if at least 4 of our unfinished planned books get done in time (and this includes one of mine that is almost finished 😉).

@M —
Holy long edition of American Gods, Batman! 😃
I updated the page count on the planning spreadsheet (and in GR, based on the Amazon listing) so... all fingers crossed that you shelved the edition you meant to!

Sounds like fun! I have not seen a live performance in ages, except for Circus. Way more family-friendly than RENT, lol.

I won’t be online for most of the day tomorrow between 9am and 5pm but I am sure whatever you come up with will be good so I shall look forward to it.

And anything anyone else comes up with 😉

I love it! Not sure how literal we need to be with the prompts but your story is great. Maybe we can re-edit a little and incorporate some bits of both.

But you know you can use books from the whole Week 5 list though, right? Not just the stuff I used in my own “story 1”?

Or do you wanna try your hand at a second, possibly “partial” story with the remaining books? That would be helpful.

Kerri wrote: "should we just post it here to the thread or is it better to put it on the spreadsheet like you mentioned"

Either way, I guess!

DQs Day 6: Chapters 99-113

26. How convenient that Hess found the chestnut people & animals by accident in the photo from the case in 1989. I honestly thought this could have been carried out /written better. What were your thoughts? Did you still remember they had requested the photos but never looked at them?

Way too convenient. Similarly, Thulin's whole "HOW MANY KINDS OF CHESTNUTS ARE THERE?!?!?" was way too convenient. I had forgotten about the photo request but only because I set the book aside for a few days. If I'd powered through I think I'd have remembered.
Speaking of convenient, the "reveal" about what happened to Hess five years previously was… really lazy writing. The Dead Pregnant Wife trope? Seriously?

27. Lol after the chapter in which Genz and Thulin went for a run I made a note to ask you guys what your thoughts were of him, and then there was this big reveal! Did you suspect him at all?

Way too convenient. And actually does not make that much sense when you go back and poke holes in some of the details. Like, why not lie to Hess about the bone dust on the machete, or to Thulin about the species of chestnuts? Unless he wanted to be caught, which doesn't track with his framing of the couple in the warehouse (whose kidnapping of Gustav also has nothing to do with anything else, really).

28. It had been mentioned before that Rosa was in the foster system. Did you pick up on it back then and already make the connection? What was your theory?

I thought it might be connected but hadn't quite figured out how. I thought maybe Rosa had been at the farm and blocked it out or something. I am still waiting to find out why Genz took Kristine precisely when he did, rather than, say, years earlier, and to find out how he got Bekker to take the fall. Not sure I trust the author to connect all the dots efficiently though.

29. Wow, that last chapter 113 - didn't expect this background story to hit me so hard. Did you expect anything like this? How do you feel about Rosa, her parents and the twins right now?

It's terrible what happened to the twins at the farm, and I suspected from the opening scene that the boy killed the policeman. But regarding Rosa's childhood experience with the twins as co-fosters, well, kids make stuff up, so I don't blame young Rosa overmuch for what happened (assuming that the story was made up or exaggerated, and not a half-true or all-true version of something that really happened at school; it was not clear to me, even after reading that part several times). But her parents are jerks for turning the twins out over that incident. If they'd been all in on adopting the twins for good, they would have dealt with the situation instead of kicking it to the curb. Seriously, wtf.

30. Also, where is Frederick Vogel??? Do you think he plays a part in this, or was it just a coincidence that he wasn't there when Rosa asked about him?

Coincidence. Unless he is also working with Genz, which would be stupid. Or Genz somehow manipulated him into something.
TBH, I will not be surprised if he's absent because he's been out dating some woman who looks like Rosa (since it's been pointed out that he may have a thing for her). Then we'll be treated to yet another gross male POV.

To kind of pick up on the bonus question of Day 4 - I think this book would make an amazing tv show, do you think or hope it'll get made into one? Would you watch?

No. That is quite enough sexism and lazy writing for me, thank you.

And just so’s this is less abstract, here is my rough story idea:

The heavily Inked Princess Bride and her friend the delicately Marked Sea Witch -- they had bonded over their mutual interest in body modification -- went to Wolf Hall to Feed on the delightful royal banquet being served there. The princess wore a Crown of Coral and Pearl and the witch wore Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy, which was kind of gross but nicely complemented her skin tone. Discussing the events of the day, the princess commented on some Dark Matter, and the explorer mentioned her recent reread of Anna Karenina. The king, overhearing their conversation, was angered by their opinions and swiftly banished them to The Land of Painted Caves.
The world said, "When it comes to politics and books, some people have no Sense and Sensibility."

(ETA: some teams use partial titles, which I personally feel weird about, but is apparently okay to do, within reason)

Right now there are 3 “blue cover Sin” books that have been moved to my story, for lack of better options... and to make a fun story.
But if we are able to avoid moving any more Color covers than that, it will probably be for the best :)

ETA: when I say “any more than that”, I meant “any more than 3” - it can be ANY 3, not necessarily the ones I used, if someone else has a better story idea 🙂

We want to do one complete story, with majority comprised of Bad Books. A second complete story would be good — since we are so close — so long as we do not have to sacrifice too many of our Color covers. We can balance some of that loss with the bonus points we get for the story completion (plus potential Mod bonus points).

After that we can use any remaining “bad books” for an incomplete story, since they will get 2 extra points each like that.

Make sense?

[[ Frankie ]] wrote: "“Croesus”? Yikes. Good job to whoever finds that one!

Yeah, I won’t move anything around! I’m already halfway scared to add my books to the planning sheet. LOL. So you don’t have to worry about me touching any delicate spreadsheet info. :p

It's not so much that it's delicate, only that -- since I am apparently the only person who has been playing around in the "Story" area all week -- Day 5 of 7 seems like a weird time for other people to start messing with it before we start posting story options to the team, lol.

I don't care if people add their entire stories to the spreadsheet, just, further down the sheet with a note that there's no problematic "duplication", if that makes sense!

Re "Croesus”... right?! I guess it depends on how creative people wanna be in their interpretation!
ETA: Tip, word-in-text should not be that hard for Croesus!

Yup, you're good!

Some of those titles are in the "story" mini area with Question Marks. Don't worry about it.
We can use ANY Week 5 books we want in the story/stories, so long as our final submissions are consistent between the Lust mini and the "main" books sheet.

[[ Frankie ]] wrote: "I wouldn’t get your hopes up that it will be anything extravagant, but I can sure try my best. LOL."


"Extravagant", huh? I think you already have Bingo words on the brain :D
We went with Card #3 in part to avoid the "All-You-Can-Eat" one, but we did some other assessment too. Right now I'm just hoping that someone can cover "Croesus" lol.

Looking forward to any and all attempts at story!

I would just ask that nobody move the stuff that is in the spreadsheet, for now. It's just that the current entries took a lot of time. So, do the story-building elsewhere, post to the team (or PMs to Jessi and me if you're more comfortable) and we will fill the sheet in when we have final decisions.

[[ Frankie ]] wrote: "Allison Ann wrote: "I'm fine with whatever Bingo card you pick. I'll be honest, I think there are too many mini-challenges this round of TT. When you have one basically every week, then the tone of..."


Well, assuming there will be one Mini for each sin, there is one week more left than there are sins left.
So my guess is that either we'll get a "break week" (while Lust Part 2 is ongoing), or we'll be off the hook for Minis during Week 10. Or, there could also be another Mini that goes for more than one week. No way yet to tell!

[[ Frankie ]] wrote: "I just bought Ten Thousand Doors of January the other day & can’t wait to read it! Why won’t it be a part of TT? "

Because TT ends before the YA Dec BOM ;D

Put your "not purple enough" book down for Top Shelf for now! We can always move it later.

I'm hoping more people will take a crack at writing the story/stories for the Mini-Challenge. I've written one, which I've only shared with Jessi so far and which corresponds to what is currently in the "First Story" area of planning sheet, but I'm not married to it.