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

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

i generally plan out my tbr every month and then for this challenge i have to break that down into a weekly tbr but at least i've got a shortlist already, i just need to see what has the right letters or genre. and then also cross my fingers that i will actually read it and not dnf it after the first few chapters. sometimes i get into a real mood and delete like 5 books of my tbr in a single day bc nothing is keeping my interest -_-;

i know i am going to read Roadkill by Rob Thurman first because i am buddy reading the series with a few other people and that will work for b and g for sure with character names, possibly i as well ...i can't remember how much ishiah is in this particular book but if he shows up enough i'll add it to the options. also it is tagged as adventure so it works for the bonus points too.

not sure what else i'm reading yet as i haven't had a chance to go through stuff, but i'm hoping to figure it out sometime today or at least tomorrow night

lol i feel like it used to be easier to finish a series because they used to be so much shorter. it would be so rare to have a series with more than 3 or 5 books unless you got into some big expanded universe franchise thing

ok cool i'll go request the thread then. i think mary is also doing wheel but surely at least one letter will work for her week one

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

i can start earlier, apparently our first word is beige and branje is back in the next book so i can use that for b. i'll wait to see if anyone else cares. and even if i request the thread for the 15th we can always start later if we need to

of course it is. not that the letters themselves will be that difficult [although ugh, double e's] but i just absolutely hate beige as a color lol. also i'm not sure what i have that would quality as adventure but i'll do some digging around later.

anyway, i did tower teams and wheel last year, but those were my first two team challenges in this group. i'm guessing we are all pretty fast readers since our team seems to be the smallest? i think i will probably be able to do 6 or 7 wheel-appropriate books per week although i do read graphic novels and short stories on the side as well. i read most genres although fantasy is my favorite. i am still holding out hope for cinnamon as our next word since i am reading almost all lgbt books this month for pride lol

@Cat good to know because i will probably listen to it on audio as well

Good to know that you guys enjoyed it. I'm hoping to get to it next month even if it won't be a BoM lol. Ok, let's try another one! I try to find popular books on my TBR to nominate but then of course sometimes that means they've already been done.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again.

BRIEFING NOTE: Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn't mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse's fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales.

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff

The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy

Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, twenty-two year old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned Atticus’s great grandmother—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.

At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.

A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of one black family, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.

when do you guys want me to ask for the thread for the next book? usually i would say the 15th but maybe we want to push it back to the 18th so we can decide if we want to read it faster or slower depending on what our words for wheel are that week? or are you guys doing wheel?

i'm not sure what my first book was, but i either read or deleted it sometime last year since i cleared off all my 2016 books then

also he's like 20 at this point i think? sorry cal, pretty boy definitely fits ;)

hahaha

Cal: FEELINGS? sounds fake. i am too ~manly~ for that!
Robin and Niko: [facepalming with both hands] why is he like this???

also - i think it's in this book but they blur together a lot - i love how delilah always calls him pretty boy and he's like 'can't i be upgraded to smoking hot man-meat' and she just laughs for like 10 minutes straight. like oh cal, you are precious

yeah i think she is very good at presenting different cultural viewpoints in a way that makes a lot of sense on both sides, which i appreciate because there are so many sci-fi books where it's like 'oh look there are the aliens who are just like us except they have some feathers' lol. but she clearly put a lot of thought into her world-building

that's my favorite series ever, cal is such a little smartass lol. we've actually been doing buddy reads for the past few months and we're on the 4th one now if you wanted to catch up really quick ;)

haha i've got like literally hundreds of highlights in all of these books because i've read them so many times so that would be a bit much if i posted all mine

about seamus: ah you're totally right, i glossed over that part too apparently lol. i am out of it lately i guess. but yeah i still would have thought a bigger deal would have been made out of it but i guess they did have a lot going on right then

i saw all your highlights lol and totally agree about all the cherish stuff. also about seamus (view spoiler)[i totally forgot that it was cal that did it, which is ridiculous because i've read this book like 15 times lol. but they never really go into it that much so i guess it's just one of those small details i always gloss over. it does make sense as its a very cal thing to do but i'm kind of surprised more isn't made of it. i guess if niko knew then they would probably be having a talk, but also part of me thinks he must at least suspect ... (hide spoiler)]

DQs Day 4 (Chapter 20-25)

13. Do you think that they split the treasure they got fairly from the bodies of dead soldiers? What do you think about Agamemnon picks before Achilles?
i don't remember who all got what so really i couldn't say, but i would argue that there is no 'fairly' when splitting up stolen goods and ...you know ...people. but i guess by their own rules achilles should have gotten first pick and agamemnon was going to ignore that so in that sense what he was doing wasn't 'fair', but it's hard not to just look at it from the modern perspective of like 'you're all dicks' lol

14. As represented in the novel, what are some of Odysseus’ defining qualities? Do you find him a sympathetic character? Why or why not?
i mean he's pretty much there to be 'the smart one' and i don't know if that necessarily makes him sympathetic but it certainly makes him more interesting. my thoughts on odysseus are basically 'just because you're a smartass instead of dumbass doesn't mean you aren't still an ass' lol but if i was picking favorite characters he'd probably just be up there just because it's interesting to see what he is plotting and will do next, not necessarily because i find him 'likable'

15. Consider the explosive falling out between Achilles and Agamemnon. In what ways are each of them at fault for the rift? Could it have been avoided, or was it inevitable given that Achilles’ fate is determined?
i'm sure it was inevitable one way or another, and in this case agamemnon probably 'started it' or whatever simply by taking the priestess girl in the first place, but also achilles is literally willing to let a girl he's known for years get raped to make himself look more sympathetic so he's not getting any brownie points from me either.

16. Achilles and Briseis each claim Patroclus’ loyalty and affection. In what ways are they similar or different? What are the dynamics of each of their relationships with Patroclus?
i think briseis and patroclus have a similar mindset about things and are both able to see the big picture and that is kind of what their friendship is based on, but he's obviously not in love with her like he is with achilles.