Cat’s Comments (group member since Jan 28, 2015)

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

A bit of news! Round 2 Bonuses have been mixed up a bit. Full details here but the key points for us are:

- up to 10 brown covers now (yay! love a brown cover....)
- once we have our 10 unique locations, we can duplicate them up to two times each (so if VNerd wants to read two more Undercover Bromance books, we can use the Nashville location for them both!)

Also, for anyone who was looking for Brazzaville, the location requirement for that has been widened to include the whole country - but careful - it means the smaller Republic of Congo, not the massive Democratic Republic of Congo....

hahahahahahahahahahaa!

but this is red, right?


set in Shanghai, China though, so good for that bonus

fingers crossed Andy agrees too! :D

brown cover???

Marie, no worries! if you are able to get them on your shelf Danielle or I will be able to grab them off there, otherwise we'll get them when you get decent internet.

Enjoy your week away!

Yeah, me too. Round 2 here we come!

Nearly the end of Round 1 and the start of Round 2! - about 6 hours

There are a couple of books on the Round 1 tab that are in progress - do let us know if you have more on the way, or if you have finished for the round, so Danielle & I don't have to monitor super closely right up to the end.

UKLE books for Round 2 need to be finished after the start of that round (6ish hours from this post time)

I've got one that covers page count and WHALE author.

How do we feel about putting helicopter into service as bird again?



ETA: and it turns out there is a person known as Ghost in the book..... we good with using a living person with that nickname for that task?

sadly not coastal setting though

defeated Bakekujira

spun.....

Bakekujira
1 100 to 175
2 Author initials in WHALE
3 Birds or fish on cover
4 ghost important to plot
5 Setting is costal or on the ocean


sigh....

teehee. sorry!

I've grey walls (paint name was something like Pavement) in one room and green in another. My green room has orange accents, and I very much enjoy being in a citrus grove vibe. As I recall, the green paint was some weird-ass name, not anything like "leaf".

It's a weird job, coming up with paint colour names!

I mean, it's not yellow ?

My comments for tracking:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 5

DQs Day 5 chapters 32 - end

19. I was excited that Louise and Mark were going to contact Aunt Gail. I liked meeting Barb. I was surprised that they could not really help, and suddenly, we were back where we started, in the creepy house with the puppets. Why do you think Barb and Aunt Gail were in the story?

Light relief!

20. I found the horror of Poppy’s plight with Pupkin to be the most concerning. Did you find the horror in this book effective? Which parts creeped you out the most?

The squirrels! I am not a fan of them in the least.
Also Aunt Honey, keeping these secrets all that time. plus the mother too.

21. Grady Hendrix is also known for his humor. I laughed out loud when the puppets got together to form a golem. What parts (if any) did you find humorous?

I enjoyed Barb and Gail.

22. I was shaking my head when Louise gave her daughter her stuffed animals. I would want no part of that house to be a part of my daughter’s life! How did you feel about that part?

Same! Especially given that the stuffed animals did nothing beyond hide under the bed!

23. How do you feel about the ending?

It was fine. I'm quite happy to have it clear that the squirrels and Pupkin will no longer be marauding around South Carolina!

DQs Day 4: Ch. 23-31

14. After Mark's story, the siblings kind of bonded. What did you think of that and the hug. At that point of the story, did you feel like they were going to be unified or that it would be short-lived?

I thought it would be short-lived - but that they'd lapse into just passive not talking, rather than back into hating each other

15. So they made a plan to go back in and take care of Pupkin vs. just burning down the house? Why?? Pretend you don't know how that turned out - what would you have decided to do after they both shared their Pupkin experiences?

Oh, so much fire! burn burn burn!

16. The battle! I don't even know what to say other than I kept needing to put the book down. Did you expect this level of brutality? Would you have been able to cut off the arm?

I was not expecting this! and I really hope never to have to find out if I could sever an arm!

17. Did you expect Pupkin to show back up like he did?

I realised that he'd be back, but hadn't expected the precise way, no. argh!

18. What did you think of Gail? If you haven't finished already, what do you think will happen?

She was all sorts of amazing bonkers! Loved the light-relief!

Bonus: Are you systematically removing all puppets from your house now? If so, don't worry - they'll be back =O

Thanks for that image, Suzanne! Thankfully, no puppets chez Cat!

Andy wrote: "CCC: is this brown?
"

I SO wanted to say it was pinkish blush, but, on making it bigger, I think brown :)

10 different cities. And of course they have to fit the spell out! Tricky! I've written off Brazzaville as an option already!

Sarah wrote: "This round is going to be harder with our limited letters!

Found a book for Vienna which covers an L. Are there even any books (in English or translated) set 50% in Brazzaville? Something to look ..."

definitely the challenging location!

DQs Day 3; Chapters 16-22

10. Pupkin is,,, alive??? Okay, no big surprise there to be honest, but we did finally get some interesting background info from Louise and Mark's childhood, even if that's not how Louise remembers it. Do you think she really doesn't remember, has simply forgotten, due to trauma or it just having happened way too long ago, or does she remember but chooses not to acknowledge it? Or maybe Mark misremembers himself and it didn't even happen (that way at least)? They were both still very young after all, Mark especially. Is it possible to remember something that happened when you were only two years old?

I think Louise did admit that Mark was telling the truth - and I suspect that nearly drowning is probably one of the things you'll remember. If they'd had a big conversation putting a different spin on the event I'd be more dubious, but given they never spoke about it, I do believe him.

11. The second perspective adds a new layer, however it only got added halfway through the book. Were you surprised we got Mark's POV at all, and would you have preferred for it to be there from the beginning of the book? Also, has this last section changed your opinion on him in any way? He did save Louise from Pupkin after all....

His story was interesting / bonkers all at once. I don't think I needed more of it earlier though.

12. To me, the last chapter feels a bit like a fever dream, definitely like they were on drugs. I personally don't remember which MPGs the book has and don't want to check in case of 'spoilers' now, but do you think there's a possibility the house, our main characters, the puppets, the dolls, Pupkin, everything- isn't actually haunted and none of it is actually happening?? What if it's just a dream (which would be the worst ending ngl), mental problems like Louise wants to believe, or mold in the house that's effecting them like this plus possible drug use from Mark when he was away?

I definitely worried about this being a dissociative personality thing (again)! but less of a Dallas-style it was all a dream!

13. I can't help but wonder how the book is gonna end... If Pupkin is indeed an evil puppet come to life I only see one way it can be destroyed - fire. Do you think they'll end up burning down the entire house (although Hill House (in the show at least) wouldn't let itself be burned down either, so who knows if that would work), or will the dolls and puppets take over? What do you predict will happen in the rest of the book?

I finished it - couldn't have scary puppets hanging about with me for that much longer, I'm afraid! At this point I expected deaths. I think the "sell" in the title made me think that there wouldn't be a total conflagration though....

446 pages
352 pages
338 pages
433 pages
352 pages

reporting 1921 pages

Current total: 1,533,433