Keli’s Comments (group member since Jun 23, 2016)

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

Well for a rough idea we could have an interstellar or interdimensional or dystopian America baby stealing organisation run by vampires that our MCs have to hunt down.
4x Describe the setting of your story - pick any of the states and florida
8x Describe your protagonists (max 2 characters) - an inept bounty hunter/pi and her best friend an actual p.i. or police officer who grew up an orphan. She has a passion for socual justice and he has a lot of tattoos mostly of birds moths and insects
8x Describe your antagonists (max 2 characters)Governor of the country of florida where the government is harsh and cruel and cabal of baby stealing vampires (though we'll only introduce one)
3x Describe your secondary characters (max 3 characters)
4x What's DEATH up to? ('cos DEATH is in every story!)owns a bar in hellish Florida with some people playing darts in the background. But it's also where Death holds fights to the death, the vampires are often the winners. But some of these gator punching locals can truly hold their own.
6x Who's the cameo(s)? (max 2 cameos)
4x What's the spur that starts the story? A woman finds her baby missing. Stolen out of her house during a cocktail party (champagne glass on cover)
4x What's the motivation of the antagonists? In this new horrible world something terrible afflicts Floridians. They've all become crazy violent infertile mad people. And no other place will allow them to move into their areas bringing their crazy Flordia taint. Some sort of evolutionary and behavioral changes within nature in urban environments that has caused infertility and violent madness. This is also why vampires love florida, it's become hell on earth. So for wealthy Floridians if they want a baby they've got to pay for a stolen one.
4x How do the protagonists react?
4x What's the next plot point?
6x What are your secondaries up to?
2x What's the McGuffin?
4x What obstacles are in the protagonists' way?
4x How do the protagonists overcome them?
4x Time for the final twist! Definitely aliens
8x And now to wrap things up for the protagonists, antagonists, secondaries, cameos, DEATH et al!

Cat wrote: "read which is all sort of domestic abuse trigger warnings, but also brilliant writing"

As a feminist, I always want to read books like this but they make me so angry. I'm finding it hard to not break things whilst listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires with it's casual dismissal of women. I think I'd go insane reading about abuse. Even though I cannot read them, I am so glad books like these exist.

Sammy wrote: "Finished #65

Borrowed it off my little brother last time I saw him... In 2019! Will finally be seeing my family in a couple of weeks (if stoopid virus doesn't do..."

🤞 you'll see your family soon. It was a really good book.

I'm really going to need to start the Expanse series soon. I have also added The Perks of Being a Wallflower to my tbr. But I have read two, so it went down briefly.
I finished Small Magics yesterday. Most of the stories were great but I particularly liked the ones related to the Kate Daniels series. I especially loved Curran's pov.
I also finally got to World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. I liked the movie more. The structure was interesting at first, but became a bit boring after a couple hundred pages. I think I would've preferred a straight-up narrative, but that's not what he wrote.

⚚♆ Cynthia ♆⚚ wrote: "Hi Team! I have added an extra tab to the SS called "Plan" with all the tasks left to do. Because we have been given a shelf to use that we can pick 50 books from, I have provisionally assigned 28 ..."

Re the hippo book, whatever is easiest. I am happy to read it. I am a little behind on where I'd like to be on my reading. I was hoping to have WWZ finished by yesterday but I ended up doing extra baking for a charity I volunteer for and then had a wisdom tooth out today. I have spent my of my afternoon sleeping. I was not prepared for the ache and the swelling! I had the top one done a few months back and only had a little pain. This lower one is a whole other story. Anyway, i will have Z and Small Magics finished tmz. Then I can either start the Hippo, Mort or some other book.

I like fantasy romance.

⚚♆ Cynthia ♆⚚ wrote: "Keli wrote: "I'll read MC is a cat shifter with Small Magics
I'll also read for cold covers and, the hippo one of course. I'm also reading mort. In july, I can read..."

I am 100% r..."

No, it's all yours, I just looked at ones that hadn't been claimed and thought I'd pick the trickiest that I actually books for. I wasn't planning on the cold cover book otherwise. So I'll puck something else. Or even start planning the jackanory.

Also, an up-to-date summary would be brilliant.

I'll read MC is a cat shifter with Small Magics
I'll also read for cold covers and, the hippo one of course. I'm also reading mort. In july, I can read The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World, which is #140 on the non-fic list. But I do not read non-fiction quickly. That book will probably take me a couple weeks. I'll read others alongside. If someone wants to read for that task, don't let me stop you. I'm just tossing my hat in the ring so we know it'll get done.

Kate S wrote: "Will be finishing a few more books tomorrow and Friday.

I will work on #11 inept MC with Three to Get Deadly, 121 MPG War with Beneath a Scarlet Sky, and 197 (or 198) w..."

If you haven't started Beneath the Scarlet Sky yet, i will have World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War finished tonight or tomorrow at the latest. It has a war MPG

Sarah wrote: "Hey guys,

Starting to find a new normal here. Dad is home but can only use one arm, which we expected, but still having some mobility problems. Nothing too bad though!

I have like 10 books to add..."

Sarah, it's great to see that your dad is back home and on the mend for the most part.

Megan wrote: "Omg! I didn't know a book with a hippo existed. Thats great, no rush for you to read it Keli! Just fab you can.

What books are they from Keli? I was thinking along those lines, like inept at holdi..."

Charley Davidson is from the phenomenal UF Charley Davidson series. The first book is First Grave on the Right, all the books have grave in the title. She's kooky and funny, though she does go on about the superhot Reyes. Though, it works in this series. These aren't clean and I think eventually, like a few books down the line, there are some sex scenes. But I don't think it's in the first book.

Stephanie Plum is in the mystery series Stephanie Plum. The first one is One for the Money. These all have sequential numbers in the title. I've only read the first one so I can't say how good or not the series is, but it's pretty popular as it goes to book 24 or something. Stephanie is truly inept in that first book. Everything that could go wrong does and generally because she's flying by the seat if her pants or, in her case, bicycle shorts. I will say that it was fun to go back in time. Though it's from the mid to late 90s it seems so old.
I do have the next book in the series but I'm not going to make a claim for this task.

Also, I think someone like Charley Davidson or Stephanie Plum could qualify as inept. Charley cos she is generally uncoordinated. And Stephanie because she's a newb and it's only by luck that she gets her man, at least in the first book.

i own this, so I can read for hippo on the cover.
It probable won't be for another week or so. I need to finish Dark Hollow and Mort first.

I've post the tasks which fit Shadow of Night, two of them are for words in text. If you choose to use it for one of these, let me know and I'll give the quote. I just didn't want to put them both there. They'd take up so much space.

Camilla wrote: "⚚♆ Cynthia ♆⚚ wrote: "Hi Team! Looking for some recs. Does anyone read horror and have any recommendation? Also, I have always wanted to read a Stephen King book but never got to it, so if anyone h..."

Girl with All the Gifts is a great book. Very tense and scary. Also, really liked Pines too. I'd say it definitely falls into that creepy weird horror category.
Good recs. You

Chloe wrote: "Okay, so I joined Goodreads in 2018 so all of the books listed are from my 2018, 2019 and (some) 2020 TBR's. Most of my 2020 books I'm using for the TBR Tackler 2021. & I'm only listing the books I..."

You've got some fantastic books lined up. I love 1984 and Brave New World. Though I would recommend reading a book in between those two. They're both heavy.
Dreamers Pool is a really good book. And Into the Drowning Deep was worth the effort. I won't say it was great but it puts mermaids back into there original terrible and terrifying form, which was interesting.
Enjoy your reads!

⚚♆ Cynthia ♆⚚ wrote: "Hi Team! Looking for some recs. Does anyone read horror and have any recommendation? Also, I have always wanted to read a Stephen King book but never got to it, so if anyone has a rec for him, plea..."

Cynthia, I'm not the most well read SK person but The Stand was pretty decent, especially if you like big good vs evil battles. King's a bit too grandiose for me and I hate his "magical negro," which he includes in every story. 🙄
Personally, I loved The Birds. Du Maurier did a fantastic job of ratcheting up the terror abd suspense in this novella. The Spear was pretty good too. And The Passage started off well. I haven't finished the series though. But that might be a personal thing. I don’t find the devil/god type of stories verying interesting, not unless it's gods no one believes in anymore like Greek or Aztec. Then I'm all for it.

Hi all, just wanted to stop in and thank Redshirt for the recommendation. I read the brown book for my group, Tiffany Aching, so if you're struggling to find one River Marked came in at 60.7% brown and it's fab read. Good luck and have fun.


And I read the set in China with The Three-Body Problem a really good hard sci-fi.

Sarah wrote: "Hey everyone! My Dad's in short term rehab but probably not for much longer. He has rotator cufff surgery and when the intubation tube was pulled out he aspirated on the post nasal drip. So he had ..."

Wonderful that he is on the mend.💗 I'm happy for him and your family.

Eldarwen wrote: "Red Sister was absolutely awesome! I actually need to continue with that series."

Me too!

I didn't mind Jorg's age. I thought it an interesting change. In dystopian futures children are often not included. Or if they are I spend time worrying about them, like The Road. But life would be hard for everyone and like the medieval children grow up quick.