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

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

Day 3- Chapters 15 - 22

11. We get an actual romance - you happy with this rather than friendship?

12. First kiss energy... Is this a thing?! I mean, GREAT kiss energy I get, but I've had some bad first kisses!

13. So, George the bug man, quiet unshowy intelligence or Arthur the Renaissance man, had to have the limelight.... Which attitude do you prefer?

14. Ewww! Hope Lovett haunting Gabe's mother and lover?!! Did you find any romance in the unveiling of this secret relationship? Do you buy Jo's view that as a poet, Katherine might have found a metaphor to support this trysting location?

This is a super laid-back challenge, so I'm ok with books finished today being used for tasks

or the Boar! I'm totally fine with only being allowed to spin the Greek as a very special treat!

we do always have the page counts here, if nothing else.

I'll spin a fourth monster in for us (we can have up to 5) as Mel is joining - yay! - I've exercised patience!

Sammy wrote: "Cat, can you remember if Gideon the Ninth has a funeral in it? (it seems like the kind of book that should have!) That one's my next-up audio and so far it doesn't fit anywhere else..."

ummmm.... maybe kinda if we squint. There are deaths, and events that could maybe be classed as consigning the body to the next stages / funerary remembrance rites. possibly a flashback that would work as such?

I also read the two Virginia Woolf books for Turf Wars.... went from them to the latest St Mary's book - felt the need for some action action action after all that wafting about thinking thoughts about art and life and keeping the men happy!

8s are (nearly) as good!

well, my current actively reading books are not helping me out here!

one is 350 pages, and in a S American influenced location, but it's entirely fantasy land, so that's of only limited use. It might have cave in though, so I'll check that and confirm! - ETA: It does! so I've got those two in El Duende :)

The one I'm mostly actively avoiding does have one eye on it, but I'm really not sure I can take the pain, even though reading it would get it off my TBR closet, and that darn Line of Shame is creeping up again!

Sophie wrote: "Would you like some company?"

We'd love to have you, yes!

ok. I am not allowed to spin! first one is Cerberus! @#*%&ing musical instrument and MPG!

yay!

shall we spin one of each wheel for starters?

I knew you had another in line, but couldn't remember details :)

and might have to shoe-horn the Triffids into that one too - I introduced my eldest nibling to the Triffids & Wyndham this summer - received pretty raptorously

@Elinor - I can see what that song lyrics would be in your head!
also, re the Crisis and detail of how it happened - do you think Ng decided to put all the detail in to show how close we are in reality to going down that path? as a sort of shout that we are possibly sleep-walking into a similar situation?

all my questions too Judith!!

When's the next team challenge going down, so we can con people into reading this to find the answers???

ETA: to be clear, I do NOT, under any circumstances, want that comment to be taken as serious, and will be shooting down in violent flames any suggestion that it becomes a backroom BOM!

Sammy wrote: "Hahahaha!! We'll need a dino team image 😂"

why do I do these things? Apparently the author's plumbed the depths (shallows?) of Dino Island and has moved on to a new series...




but, I pulled myself back from plunging into ALL the questions and have instead cobbled together an image for us. obvs team name and image are moveable feasts...

Post for quick reference information to follow

Team Members:
Cat
Sammy
Sophie
Mel
Domi
Sonia

Team Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/... (totally stolen off Vicky!)

Wheels:
✔ Greek: https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
✔ Asian: https://wheeldecide.com/?c1=Ropen&amp...
✔ Urban Legends: https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
✔ Fictional Human Monsters: https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
Specific Literary Monsters: https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
✔ Doctor Who: https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
Bad Romance: https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
Vegi-Might: https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
✔ Discworld: https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
World Villains - https://wheeldecide.com/index.php?c1=...
Holiday Monsters: https://wheeldecide.com/?c1=Joulupukk...

Master Sheet of Tasks: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

=========
26 Sep info on Monsters
A. Had Three Times (respin):
Joffrey (Game of Thrones) - Wheel has been completed
Python - Wheel has been completed
Charybdis - Wheel has been completed
John Willoughby and Marianne Dashwood (Sense and Sensibility)
George & Martha (Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf)
The 456 - Wheel has been completed
The Gelth - Wheel has been completed
Kabhanda - Wheel has been completed
Ropen - Wheel has been completed
Gremlin
Hungry Grass
Vampire Pumpkins
Dragon King of Arms - Wheel has been completed
Wintersmith - Wheel has been completed

B: Not Had At All:
The Luggage (Discworld)
Cal Hockley (Titanic)
Ent
Vegetable Lamb
Peter Stumpp
Sayyida al Hurra
Shap-ng-tsai
Torquemada

no Holiday Monsters

Sammy wrote: "Definitely! so long as you come up with a team name, lol."

well that's dangerous, as right now I'm stuck on Hot Prof ideas!

Thread here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

and my thinking cap is on for a better (or at least less annoying) name!

Sammy wrote: "Cat wrote: "Hot Prof's dinos"

Also, thank you for the lovely spray of fruit juice I now have all over my monitor..."

my pleasure! ;-P

oooh! we talked about teaming up to tackle some monsters - wanna do that?

Where are our bookish creatures first?

We've got a couple of Discworld ones already from TTX, plus a basilisk, and I'd add in things like:
- Tock the Watchdog from Phantom Tollbooth
- Nagini / Voldermort / Umbridge from HP
- Shelob, Gollum, Nagzul from LotR
- Pennywise because Jenny
- R Daneel (I Robot)
- Hot Prof's dinos
- Morlocks (and arguably also the Eloi) from The Time Machine
- Triffids
- Phantom from Phantom of the Opera

Dracula, Frankenstien etc if not elsewhere

DQs Day 2 - Ch 8-14

6. Have you ever eaten a meal that you provided all of the ingredients for (not by shopping for them?)
Basically, have you ever lived on a farm or ranch or foraged for a meal in the wilderness? (Dinner at Gabe’s house made me hungry.)

No, though my eldest sister has access to a veg cooperative, so gets all of her summer salad and veg from there. The protein is the tricky one...

7. What do you think of Jo and Gabe not being able to just turn Ursa in to child protective services? Do neither of them just want to be the bad guy? Is it at all realistic or a good idea that they are basically raising this child?

I guess they did try once and then decided that the risk of her running off properly was too great, and this is the best solution? I think they are both just drifters in that respect anyway

8. In a world where half of the population is in therapy of some kind and the other half is on some kind of mood altering drugs, how is it that mental illness is still so stigmatized? What do you think of Gabe’s back story? (I am going to start using the word “kaplooey” in random sentences now.)

Yeah, his family are not helping him in the least. Is it partly a generational thing perhaps?

9. Tabby is pretty cool, yes? The trip to Urbana gave us a clue to where Ursa came from, but then it was dropped from the story. Do you think that Jo just didn’t notice, or is the author just playing with us?

I think it was mostly that Jo didn't actively notice, and had other stuff on her mind. But I was surprised at the time how easily Jo let it go...

10. So, family dynamics are fun, aren’t they? What are your impressions of Gabe’s sister and mom, and how they interact? How about the newly minted “family” of Gabe, Jo and Ursa?

Not impressed with his sister at all. His mum is better, up to the point of infantilising his mental health and also being selfish about keeping him as her carer. It's good to see some functional, healthy relationships, between Jo and Tabby and increasingly with Gabe. I was impressed by Ursa's willingness to embrace the weird and uncomfortable in order to get to Gabe with what he needed.