Dev’s Comments (group member since Sep 09, 2017)

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

hey mods, can we get a thread for for 12/22?

yeah i feel like it probably would have been more cohesive to do like 3 in a row with each POV character but i guess you've gotta write whatever you are inspired to lol

no, 3 and 4 are from the brother's POV so maybe i was just thrown by the shift the first time around and it will be better this time. i remember that i like 4 because she does some very interesting things with the 'werewolf' type creatures in this universe. then book 5 is back to verity. and then 6-8 are the younger sister and 9 will apparently switch to sarah. book 9 comes out at the end of february so now would actually be a good time to start reading them again if we wanted to get through them by then. could you both read book 2 this week and we could pick up on 3 next week?

sooo i just actually looked at the audio version of this book and it's almost 15 hours long so i'm definitely gonna have to bow out of this series because my interest is not high enough for such a long listen. i didn't really think to check before because i think the other books were like 9-10 hours and i didn't expect such a shift in length. so if you guys are gonna keep buddy reading the series i guess just let me know whenever you have time to try something else.

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
Date: 12/15
Pages: 112

can be used for lust > new releases or vanity > lgbt books

that's the last one from me. sorry that it's not worth many points but i wanted an even 75 books on my TT shelf and didn't have time for a longer one!

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
Date: 12/14
Pages: 352

Sin: Vanity
Criteria: cover is 60% Fedora (Violet)

A Study In Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes by Joseph R.G. DeMarco
Date: 12/13
Pages: 303

Sin: Wrath
Criteria: cover is 76.8% brown according to tineye with all browns added together

i only read two of the winners this year - the newest riordan which like yeah they're always good but also he ALWAYS wins so it's kind of like ok calm down and then the ninth house which i hated but it's bardugo so again ...of course it's going to win. oh well

i was also thinking something would be cool if you did so many books from each actual decade. like one from 1910s, two from 1920s etc. would be an interesting way to try to find older books. although i have enough trouble finding things before 2010 idk how i would find stuff from early 1900s XD. that would have to be like a totally separate challenge from this i think though.

we can do one more in this series just because i WANT to like them but they always end up way more boring than i'm expecting. but yeah after that maybe go back to incryptid ...although we're on the third one and i don't like that one that much lol maybe i'll like it more this time. 4 and 5 in that series are really good imo though but yeah we can just start book 4 of this next monday?

haha it makes sense in theory but i think i'm too tired to actually go 'oh of course' right now. but thank you for clearing it up ;)

in theory i'm good whenever you guys are ...in reality i am still in a big slump lol. but who knows how long that will last so if you guys pick a date then i will do my best to start it then. if i'm not into this one though i think i am gonna drop this series because i have not missed it at all.

i actually got mine almooooost down to 300 this year so i'm very happy with that. i only add the next book in a series after i read the one before it though so unfortunately a lot of those represent more than one book. although i have been dropping a lot of series after the first book lately just bc i hate super long series most of the time

i definitely got very burned out early on so i'm really sorry about that. thank you to the awesome people who read more than they signed up for to keep us on track!

Just Watch Me by Jeff Lindsay
Date: 12/8
Pages: 320

Sin: Lust
Criteria: new release 12/3

it was so hard for me to find things i wanted to read before 2010 lol and yeah i think i will be able to finish, although it will mean i don't get all my new releases read this year, but i guess i can finish them out in january. maybe after next year's challenge begins ;)

i've got six more and it's such a struggle lol. is the feb 20 date actually accurate for the end date? just wondering bc it seems it has always ended in january in previous years. also will the new one be going up at the beginning of jan or will it be up in feb after we finish this round?

DQs Day 6
Ch. 26 – end

23. We start off this section with Blake trying to kill Alex for revenge. Did you expect this and did you accept that he was also responsible for Tara’s murder? Or did you suspect there was still something more?
Also, were you surprised when Dawes came through to bash him in the head? I was not expecting that, but it was awesome.

i honestly never got to the point where i could tell many of the side characters apart or care about who the murderer was at all so no didn't see it coming and also don't care? sorry

24. We find out that girls had been killed over the years on dates that coincided with the formation of houses and that Dean Sandow knew about it. Did you immediately jump to the same conclusion as Alex, that Sandow killed Tara to form a nexus?

i was barely paying attention at this point so i was just like 'sure whatever'

25. What were your thoughts when Belbalm revealed herself? Were you surprised? Did you suspect the connection with North?
It makes sense to me the Belbalm had a stronger role in the story than initially portrayed, but I was not expecting that.

was surprised but i guess it makes sense looking back. would have been an interesting twist if i was still at the point where i could care about any aspect of this book at all.

26. Belbalm seems to have the same power as Alex and she was able to live so long by stealing the souls from other girls like them and that they’re drawn to New Haven. Do you think Alex will meet other girls with her powers in subsequent books that are drawn to Yale?

idk, it would make sense but if they are going to rescue darlington they might just focus solely on that. this might have been a self contained plot for just this book.

27. What are your overall thoughts on the novel? Will you read book 2?

was bored out of my mind most of the time and absolutely hated it at several key points. definitely won't be reading book 2 and i should just learn to trust my gut reactions with these types of things because i originally decided not to read it when it first came out but changed my mind since it was a BOM for TT

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Date: 12/6
Pages: 480

Sin: Vanity
Criteria: Contemporary is in MPG

Link to my first set of BOM questions here

DQs Day 5
Chapters 21-25

18. Turner and Alex are working together now, trying to solve Tara's murder. How do you think, is it only a temporary truce or will they be able to become partners?

as someone above said, nothing would surprise me at this point

19. Colin knew about Blake using Merity to rape the girls and didn't report it, hoping to use this opportunity for his society. Somehow I have the feeling that he is not the only one, who would act this way - most of the other members of his society (and probably other societies too) would do the same. What do you think?

i mean they're literally all rich entitled assholes who think they should be able to have whatever they want just because their families have money so like ...duh and/or hello

20. Colin has an alibi for the night when Tara was murdered, as well as Dean Sandow. Do you believe these alibis or do you think one of them could still have killed Tara with the help of a portal (as Turner suggested)?

[vague shrugging] i never got to the point where i was invested in the murder mystery aspect part of this so idk

21. During the summoning Darlington (or the Hellbeast) said Murder. What murder do you think he meant? Were these the murders that Alex commited? Or the hellbeast eating him? Or some other murder?

could be all of the above. i think a lot of people in this book have murdered someone else through various degrees of action or inaction really.

22. Do you think it is final that Darlington is dead? Or has he survived somehow?

i hope he's dead just because narratively it would be very cheap to bring him back at the very end ...but i feel like that's probably what's going to happen anyway.