Melanie’s Comments (group member since Sep 01, 2014)

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

I didn't have as much time to read tonight as I normally do, so I started with the short book I had for the week (280 pages). Tomorrow I'll pick up one of the 400 pagers I have.

How's everyone's start to TT going?

Completion Post:



Book: Death in the Stacks
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Date Read: 10/7/2019
Page Count: 280
Sin: Pride
Sin Bingo (Yes or No): No
How it fits?: Top Shelf — Contemporary
SS Updated (Yes or No): Yes

I'm not a big coffee drinker unless it's a frozen coffee as those tend to be sweeter. Tea I can only drink if it's iced tea mixed with lemonade as I find tea by itself tends to be too bitter for me. And I feel like the odd one out in that I don't actually like chocolate. I'll eat white chocolate, but that's not actually real chocolate. I am however a big fan of cheese despite my lactose intolerance and will gladly take all of that (with a side of my medication for LI).

So 90% of the time, I finish books in one sitting, it's pretty rare for me to take more than one day to finish a book. I find I have issues finishing books if I can't read them in one sitting. Because of that, most of my longer books (500+ pages) will be read on the weekend, which I know is the exact opposite of your suggestion and I'm sorry about that.

I know my first three reads already as they are library books I have to take back by the 12th and they don't fit into my final week of Lava reading.


400 pages / 423 pages / 280 pages

Then during the first weekend of the challenge, I will pick up a longer book. This will likely be the first longer book I get to.


607 pages

Honestly this is likely how most of my reading weeks will go. 3 to 4 books during the week around 300-500 pages each and then 1 longer book at 500+ pages during the weekend.

I'm only a planner to the extent that I'll pick a group of books I want to get to but then I'll choose randomly from that group as my mood dictates.

I've learned that when I try to plan my reading out book by book then I have a tendency to not want to read whatever is next and end up going off plan.

I'm hopeful for clearing my Netgalley backlog as I have a mix of genres to choose from and at least initially there are 36 choices, so my options shouldn't feel too narrowed.

I will likely use this challenge to catch up on all the Netgalley ARCs I'm behind on. I have 36 ARCs published from Nov 2017 to Dec 2019, so this challenge will be a good time to try and get through them all before the end of the year.

Hm, I don't have too many books that I've 1 starred but here are a few.

Outlander - I read this one when the show was coming out and I honestly just don't understand why everyone loves it. It took me 2 months to finish because I hated it so much. I don't need 20 pages describing the scenery of Scotland when you just spent 20 pages describing it 50 pages ago. And I don't get why everyone loves Jamie so much when he was such a one-dimensional character.

Wrong Question, Right Answer - This one initially held such promise and then one of my most hated plot devices was used, (view spoiler)[pregnancy after a one night stand (hide spoiler)]. It didn't help that after that happened both of the main characters did complete 180's and became complete idiots.

I Do! - This one is more on me for hating it as I missed in the blurb that the entire premise of the characters' relationship is based on cheating. I will never root for a relationship that began with cheating as I think it's one of the worst things an author can include in a romance. Besides that though, the writing was also terrible and full of stereotypes about Texans which I found unnecessary.

First day of the month and I've already added 3 books. This does not bode well for the rest of the month.

I made some headway this month, I added quite a few books but overall my number of books went down by 3. I just have such a hard time resisting the shiny new books.

Start of month:
Books on shelf: 36
Feedback Ratio: 85%

Added:


Finished:
My Review My Review My Review My Review
My Review My Review My Review My Review
My Review My Review My Review My Review

End of Month:
Books on shelf: 33
Feedback Ratio: 87%

Hoping to make some headway on the already published books this month. I'd like to get them all cleared before the end of the year, so I need to start focusing on them.

Start of month:
Books on shelf: 33
Feedback Ratio: 87%

Books (ordered by pub date):




Added:


Finished:
My Review My Review My Review

End of Month:
Books on shelf:
Feedback Ratio:

With October coming up, is anyone planning any spooky or horror reads?

I'm hoping to get to Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories as it sounds perfect for Halloween. Plus at 795 pages, it will be worth a decent amount of points (and of course with my luck, my edition is only a few pages shy of the top tier of points).

Ora wrote: "For purple 2 out 3 captain's say yes it's purple

Playful Bride series, only one coach has chimed in

If it is the page count that matters, I just checked: 1 novella is 100 pages, the other is 110..."

Thanks for checking that for me. The page count thing makes sense, I'll keep that in mind if I come across any others like that (and will double check they're ok before using).

I have a question related to the Gluttony sin.

For this section of the task requirement "Books in a very long series (12+ books).", do novellas count when getting a series to the 12+?

For instance, this series:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/1210...

There are 11 novel-length books plus 2 novella-length books. So the series contains 13 items, but would it count for the task of 12+ since 2 of the items are novellas?

I've run across a few series like this where novellas make the series over 12+ works, but I'm unsure if they can count towards the task or if it needs to be 12+ novel-length items in the series.

ETA: I was specifically questioning because I was wondering if I'd be able to count The Irresistible Rogue as a Sin Bingo or not. Relatedly, is this cover pink enough to count as a pink cover?

Karen ⊰✿ wrote: "That is a bit weird. I can't work it out either, so I've just typed over it :)"

Glad it wasn't just me. Thanks for fixing the points!

Hello, I noticed an error in Team Lava No More's spreadsheet.

In SZ3, for some reason a Y in the spell it out is only giving 40 points instead of the 50 points it should be. I checked and the formula looks fine so I'm not sure why it's not calculating correctly. It's Line 47 in the spreadsheet for whichever mod takes a look at it.

Thank you to whoever takes a look!

Kristie wrote: "Well, I've done it again. I picked up Into the Fire . It is the fifth book in the Orphan X series and now I need to read them all. Fortunately my r..."

I've read the first two books in this series and they were fantastic. I have a print ARC of book five, so I really need to catch up on the other books before it releases.

Hello team Sloth! I agree with Lau Maia, you guys have the cutest mascot for your sin.

I likely won't read the BOM's. A lot of them tend to be fantasy which I typically don't like so I don't really read it (urban fantasy being the exception).

Lau Maia wrote: "It's working now, might have been a bug with the link"

Glad it started working. Google Sheets can be wonky sometimes and doesn't work the way it should.

Hello everyone! Looking forward to playing with everyone. This is my first TT, but not my first challenge. I have played a couple rounds of wheel, UNO, and currently am in Lava.

I have created a tracking sheet we can use.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

I'm open to suggestions on anything I may have missed in the spreadsheet. Anyone who has the link should be able to edit it, but let me know if you have any issues. I included a column with check boxes for when the book is added to the official sheet (I thought this might be helpful for the captains to keep track, but if not feel free to delete).

On the Book Log tab, the points columns will calculate automatically based on the information entered into the other columns (pages and sin criteria specifically).

I included a Book Suggestions tab where we can add in any books we want to remember/recommend and then you just mark which sins it fits under in the other columns.

I have a deep love of spreadsheets and planning, so I may have gone a bit overboard...