Laura’s Comments (group member since Nov 04, 2015)

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

Arena Battles Vs. District 2

Round 2 - Completed

Round 3 - Completed

Mini-Challenge:

Team Member Shelves

• Laura
• Yasmine
• Keely
• Claire
• Patti
• Sana
• Kamaria
• Preeti
• Kari
• Lexie
• MelanieJoy
• Carrie

Some helpful links:

The Rules of the Game

Team Tracking/Planning spreadsheet: (Under Contstruction)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

To verify word count for Childrens/Poetry/Plays/etc:
https://www.arbookfind.com/default.aspx

Tineye, to help with color decisions. Tineye is notorious for not always seeing the correct color, so this is just to help, especially for questions of if a book cover is 50% a certain color:
https://labs.tineye.com/color/

T, I loved it! It’s very intense.

Kaley wrote: "Cris (The Biblio Blonde) wrote: "I was thinking I was ready for a break after Uno, but best laid plans and all that."

Me every year! LOL"

Me too. I get to the end of Uno, and after a few books, when my Goodreads challenge updating only takes seconds, I look around. And usually I've missed the signups for here. But this year I remembered that I will start missing it!


I just finished Red Rising, and all the Hunger Games references are making me want to hurry to the next one!

I'm done, too.

Captains, just wondering if there is a problem with my book Their Perfect Omega? It seems to have been deleted from the spreadsheet at some point. I've added it back in as I'm starting it tonight.

Laura wrote: "Enough blue? I can't decide if it's 50%. "

I'm going to say Blue. :)

Enough blue? I can't decide if it's 50%.

Karolyn wrote: "Blue or not blue? We’re having a very fierce debate in our house.

"

I think it's too grey-green.

Heather wrote: "Hi I was checking the books that we have read and Strong as a Horse is marked as a blue cover. But I don't think it is. It looks mostly black to me. What do you all think, is it 50%..."

Lol! Obviously not blue. But I don't think I marked it as blue. The spot it's in on the spreadsheet right now is not where I originally put it. Is it possible that the book that was originally in that spot is the one that was blue?

Hey Robin, just FYI, the page points column automatically calculates the points when you enter a date read. :)

DQs Day 3
Chapters 13-19

9. I don't know how I feel about the school basically milking Ray owning a Stradivarius and him having to do an interview without even getting asked to do so. I personally would have preferred to keep it private, at least for a while. What are your thoughts on the situation?

I felt that he was used a little bit. But he did get a full scholarship, and this will probably ensure that others have the chance for more scholarships. I was a little upset with Janice, but as the story goes on, I really believe she always has his best interests at heart, so I forgave her.

10. I can see where Ray's family is coming from wanting to sell the Stradivarius and divide the money, but they never showed any interest in the violin even though it had been in the family for a century, and Ray's grandmother gave Ray the fiddle for Christmas. He had to take care of everything surrounding it and his school/education himself, and he never even had much money to begin with. Would you be selling whatever in your life might turn out be worth this much money, and would you feel like your family was entitled to fair shares?

I think Ray is entitled to the violin, because his grandma gifted it to him before she died. That being said, she had no idea of the value, so I think that Ray sending money to all of them is a nice thing. But there needs to be an end date/amount.

11. Another family claiming ownership of the violin - it was bound to happen. On one hand I'm surprised they're suing Ray for the Stradivarius since I doubt they can prove the fiddle was stolen in any way, but on the other hand the odds clearly are against Ray. And now his family is suing him for the violin as well?! Who do you think is the rightful owner of the Stradivarius?

Ray.

12. We've been introduced to a lot of different people (whose names I don't even all remember) and they all (most of them anyway) seem to have different reasons to possibly want to steal Ray's Stradivarius - greed, jealousy, racism,... it's all there. Do you have any more guesses of who's behind it all?

I've finished it, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself. I had my suspicions in the beginning, but the author nicely threw in a bunch of red herrings to keep me guessing.

Side note: I laughed out loud when [don't remember who] described the Tchaikovsky competition as a cross between the Olympics and American idol; what does that even mean?! 😂

I'm not super familiar with Eurovision, but I have heard of it a bit, and I kind of think of it as the Eurovision of the classical music world. Just less often. Like the difference between World Cup events and Olympics. :)

DQs Day 2
Chapters 7 - 12

5.His mother and Aunt Joyce had gone to the store - ostensibly because they needed more collard greens, but in reality because one of the biggest family traditions was to keep Aunt Joyce out of the kitchen
Do you have any unusual family traditions, Thanksgiving if it applies, or Christmas, if it's not too early, or any other significant cultural event that revolves around a convoluted family meal?

Pie. Way too much pie. Like one per person!

6. When Grandma gifts PopPop's fiddle to Ray, his mother's immediate reaction is that he can't keep it and she even scolds her own mother,
Mama .... what are you thinking?
What do you think motivates Ray's mother's resistance to his pursuit of music?
Is it purely because she wants his focus to be on earning money for the family, or does she anticipate the racism and resistance he could face and is trying to protect him from heartbreak?

I think she doesn't see a future in it. And it is mentioned that her parents tried to interest their kids in music, so she may just resent the pushing.

7. Ray's meeting with Dr. Janice Stevens seems a pivotal moment, giving him access to the connections that sustain the close-knit classical music world
Do you feel there is a message here that hard work and talent may not be enough to overcome barriers to success, or is Ray's progress and recognition simply a result of his dedication?

I think it's a combination of his dedication, and Janice as a mentor. She believes in him, and works hard for him. I bet she has some stories of people who helped her out and she's paying it forward to the genius that she discovered.

8. So... PopPop's old fiddle might be a Stradivarius, but before the appraisal Rowland offers to buy it for $25,000 dollars. Ray refuses, declaring
I'm not selling it. Ever
What do you think is behind Ray's attachment to the instrument at this point, the rarity of it and the legitimacy it will give him in pursuing his dreams, or the link to his family's history, back to slavery, or something else?

I think it's the link to family. But not so much back in history. I think it's the link to his grandmother. It was special to her, and she was the only one that believed in him.

DQs Day 1
Chapters 1 - 6

1. Can you even imagine losing a 10 million dollar anything?! Have you ever lost something and felt as Ray is portrayed in chapter 1...constantly retracing your steps over and over? What are your thoughts on other security precautions, if any, that should have been in place?

I can't even imagine! I have never lost something that I valued enough to search that diligently for. I don't know what else he could have done. He took it everywhere with him. (view spoiler)[Maybe background checks on his girlfriend? (hide spoiler)]

2. At this point in the book, when/where do you think the Stradivarius was taken?

(view spoiler)[Putting it under a spoiler tag, because I have finished the book. But I did suspect the girlfriend from the beginning, then began to trust her. (hide spoiler)]

3. Money can be a keen motivator...the ransom note leads us to believe it's all about the money...do you think it's possible it's about something else?

It sounds like there is contention over the ownership of the violin, so I wondered about that.

4. It's eluded to that Ray is about to make history because of his race with the upcoming competition in Russia. His family sure doesn't seem to be proud or supportive. Should Ray be proud of this accomplishment or is putting the focus on race poor form by everyone concerned?

I actually thought that the focus was on nationality first and race second. It wasn't so much that he is a black American, for the musicians, but that he is an American. It's in America that he isn't taken seriously because of his race.

Also, his family sucks!

We have no limit on our bonuses!

Sammy wrote: "Looks gorgeous!

Pretty book covers is 100% why I signed up to Illumicrate 😂"

Same! And then I found Fairyloot. And Owlcrate. And Bookish Box. And I ran out of money!

Heather wrote: " I think because the BOM participation box has not been tacked on the tracking sheet it has not been updated on the official sheets sorry for that. For Round 5 please tick the box to make sure we get the points for this round. ..."

I will. I didn't know there was a box to tick for that!

Right. Except for Book of the Month. That has a page count set by the mods.