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

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

Ah, okay. Lemme know if you eventually end up needing a new edition created :)

I finished this book last week but never came back for DQs Days 4-6 because I was traveling for a few days!
Missed all the back & forth but I'm going to post more answers soon anyway, because it is fun.

I liked this book a lot more than many of y'all. Especially the Audiobook people ;D

@Jessi

For your audio edition of Les Miz, I see the translator is Julie Rose.
The "default" edition, for page count (1463), is translated by Lee Fahnestock.
If you look for books (translations) by Julie Rose, there is in fact a print version of her Les Miz, with its own, different page count. I dunno which one we should use?
IDK with these classics. So much weirdness on GR.

[[ Frankie ]] - Punkins & Pages! wrote: "Walking into my library is like stepping through a portal back to 1982. LOL. They don’t have hardly any newer books to choose from. But it wouldn’t hurt to double check, just in case, though!"

Hehe, I am having flashbacks to my childhood public library. I actually went back there about a year ago and some things are the same while others are super different. :)
Do they allow for Special Orders or Interlibrary Loans? 'Cuz most of the time they can get stuff for you no problem --
Librarians: Ask and You Shall Receive!

/end second Librarian PSA

@Frankie, are there any decent libraries near you, especially with digital loans? At all the libraries I've got access to, The Chestnut Man has long waiting lists but Two Can Keep a Secret is available.

/end Librarian PSA :D

Kerri wrote: "I’m debating whether or not to sign up for the second November BOM (already signed up for Chestnut Man!) since I’m only vaguely interested... but I might do it just for the points, lol.

Same here, for both of those. Not books I would normally pick up, but I have been using BOMs during team challenges as a way to expand my reading palate, on top of getting those awesome points. :D

I didn't volunteer for DQs on The Chestnut Man because, while I'm pretty sure my library hold will turn up in time to participate, I don't think it'll be in time to write DQs.

I can get the YA one fairly easily and will read it, but haven't signed up for DQs because I'm not sure whether I want to, there is still *plenty* of time, and also Allison volunteered already ;D

Joanne wrote: "I would like to read Wilder Girls (more than I wanted to read Gideon) but my library only has it in paper. I put a hold on it last week or the week before but I'm still 29th in line with 8 copies. ..."

So long as you read and answer DQs within one month of the BOM start, it would still count! So you would have until 16 Nov. Maybe there is still a chance that your paper copy will come in time!

Random factoid, and I am not telling anyone they have to do this, but for The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein during last year's Wheel-A-Thon, my library copy didn't show up until partway into the BOM, so in the meantime I went to Barnes and Noble and read the first few chapters of the hardcover whilst sitting on the floor, lol.

Hi everybody!
So sorry I was away today. I feel like the jerk who shows up at the end of the party and is like, "Great time, y'all!" ;D

SO COOL THAT WE ARE IN FIRST!!!!
Looks like a reeeeeeaaaaalllly close race with Team Acedia though. If it weren't for our super high BOM points we wouldn't have gotten ahead. Hopefully we can continue to kill it on the BOMs, though fewer of us have committed to the upcoming ones so far (and I am not eligible for Wilder Girls).

Go Team Ira!

Also this, due to spreadsheet issue with the start/end times being 7am in Australia:

If you have a US/UK reader who finishes a book on 13th, but after week 2 starts, there will have to be a fudge (or change the finish date to 14th)

:D

Jessi wrote: "Couple of quick things before I FINALLY get to read today!

1. There is a countdown for the end of week one. If you could please have your books updated on the spreadsheet 30 mins before the end so..."

Just as a quick follow up to Jessi’s first point —
If you have not finished a book by our cut-off of 30 minutes before the end of the countdown, take a break from reading and DON’T FINISH IT! That way, you can pick it back up again a bit later and use it for Week 2 :)

@Ozana — looks like Jessi took care of your books! :)

@Joanne — didn’t you listen to audio of Gideon? Cuz you have the hardcover shelved. (And Jessi, some of the HC editions on both of the spreadsheets may need to be changed to audio editions if teammates re-shelve...)

That goes for anyone who listened to audio but shelved something else: We are supposed to shelve the edition we read/listened to.
In the case of this particular book, it may not matter quite as much as usual because all TT players are allowed to use the same page count, but still.

Hi Teammies!
I finished both of my books. And, gotta say, it is awesome how active other people are on here on weekends (esp Saturday) when I tend not to be, lol. We are doing so great!!

@Rebecca
It doesn’t look like Harry and Hortense at Hormone High has a verified word count or length (via arboookfind.com or audio edition, respectively), and since it’s got Childrens as main page genre, we cannot use it without one of those verifications... 😕

I am almost done with Spirit Bound, and was gonna start another long book (for week 2), but I think I can squeeze in another short one before the deadline, to help get our numbers up!

I am going to finally read Shock & Awe — it’s only 108 pages so I am pretty sure I can finish it and check it in in time, before my internetless Sunday afternoon. If need be, I’ll find a WiFi hotspot 🙂

ETA: haha, it turns out I will be in a car for about 2 hours today, so I will have more reading time than I thought. Will finish both my books in good time! Yippee!

I wonder if there are teams that just so happen to comprise a bunch of fans of their matching genre. Like, if everyone on Gluttony really likes Historical Romance. They would be so lucky!

Young Adult def has it the easiest. Soooo many of us read YA, and it tends to be quick reading too.

Yaaaaaay!
Team Ira got picked to write DQs for both Wilder Girls and Save the Date!!!

Joanne wrote: "I think if we had any other sin, it would be reasonable to go for focusing on our own sin, but since both our colour cover and genre are the hardest of all the options, I don't know that it's worth..."

Yes to all that.
Only, sacrificing points in order to read a billionty books for our “sin specification” would not necessarily be the wrong thing to do if it starts to look like we are super far away from any chance of winning on points alone. Cuz it would still be nice to go for a win on some category. Hence the wait-and-see approach :)

Is anyone else also extremely curious as to when we’ll start to get Mini Challenges?
*chinhands*

Kerri wrote: "I'm marked down as readin 1.25 books a week, so I wasn't sure if I should try and read more than that or stick to it?"

If you are ever able to round that up to 2 a week, particularly without sacrificing the “Longer Books Get More Points” strategy that we are currently taking, then definitely don’t hesitate to do so.
The totals are per team; there’s no penalty for reading within 80-120% of our collective sign-up totals; and we can definitely use both the extra books and the extra points. Especially if there are times when other people are reading below their sign-up numbers for whatever reason. :D

ETA: I think the “gold standard” is basically to read Longer Books, but read them at the upper end of our 80-120% range. That won’t always be possible, I am just thinking out loud. So to speak.

@M
Can you tell us what was enraging to you in Dune?
I think we need to know for the justification...
And also cuz we just want to know :D

Allison Ann wrote: "I was just rereading the Sin Specifications and realized that Wrath allows for a hateful character. Now I can pretty much find a hateful character in any book I read, so do we want to aim for high ..."

Re aiming for more Wrath or aiming for more color covers & Top Shelves (for more points), we haven’t decided yet if that is a wise course of action.
Re colors&shelves: On the one hand, more points could be better and even a little bit at a time can really add up, but on the other, we don’t know yet what our point totals will be like compared to other teams.
Re Wrath: on the one hand, if it looks like we cannot get a high ranking via points, we might want to concentrate on our Wrath sin alignment instead, but on the other, that “most effort at sin alignment” prize category might also be easier for other teams who have easier ones.

So at least for this week, we are going for more points, and taking a wait-and-see approach. Does that make sense? If other people have opinions about this stuff, please do tell. :)