Anika’s Comments (group member since Dec 25, 2011)

Anika’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

15.6 Name of the Game, Round 2

Obit by Victoria Chang

11D--Letter H--Hot off the presses (7 April 2020)
12B--Letter S--75-199 page count (120 pages)
16D--Letter E--Title has no "E"
Word: SHE

+20 Task
+5 Not Fiction

Task total: 25
Season total: 855

15.5 Name of the Game, Round 2

Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest

4E--Letter D--Double consecutive letter in author name
5C--Letter I--Title word: IN, inn, into
6E--Letter N--New to you author
Word: DIN

+20 Task
+5 Not Fiction

Task total: 25
Season total: 830

15.4 Name of the Game, Round 2

I'll Have What She's Having: My Adventures in Celebrity Dieting by Rebecca Harrington

2D--Letter E--+8 Word title
7C--Letter G--Goodreads author
10B--Letter T--Pub'd in teens (2015)
Word: GET

+15 Task
+5 Not Fiction

Task total: 20
Season total: 805

15.3 Name of the Game, Round 2

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare

1C--Letter R--MPG: Romance
2B--Letter E--Author name has 2+ "E"s
6D--Letter N--Title has a number
13D--Letter T--Title word: to, too, TWO
Word: RENT

+15 Task
+5 Not Fiction
+5 Pre-'96 pub

Task total: 25
Season total: 785

15.2 Name of the Game, Round 2

The Saga of the Volsungs by Anonymous

5D--Letter I--Author name has no "I"
6B--Letter N--Not a Novel
10D--Letter T--Translated
11E--Letter H--Highly rated: 5 stars from Lisa
Word: THIN

+15 Task
+5 Not Fiction
+5 Pre-'96 pub.

Task total: 25
Season total: 760

15.1 Name of the Game, Round 2

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

1B--Letter R--+10K Ratings
13E--Letter T--Title contains a character's name
14B--Letter Y--Setting: Italy
16B--Letter E--Author born in Europe
Word: TYRE

+15 Task
+5 Not Fiction
+5 Pre-'96 pub.

Task total: 25
Season total: 735

Valerie wrote: “ I agree with Elizabeth, it sounds like weather (caused by climate change) plays a major role, and so would work.

Awesome!
Thanks, guys ❤️

I think I'm struggling with climate vs. weather...I want to read The Sunlight Pilgrims but it sounds like it's CliFi...it's climate change that is shifting the world, but it's manifested in a widespread change in weather....
I think it should work, but I'm questioning my judgement and would love to have someone else confirm or deny o_O

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Anika, I did not think of it as a multi-title volume or like a collection of stories. The reason we put that in there is because titles at BPL are sometimes shelved as such when teachers use them i..."

That makes absolute sense. That explanation will DEFINITELY help me to better find future books, thank you! <3

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Anika wrote: "So...I wanted to try something by Ted Hughes, but the only thing that I can get in a timely manner from my library is Collected Poems for Children...it's obviously Juven..."

No worries.
I think it's this rule that throws me off: "Note (added Winter 16/17)
A single volume that contains multiple titles will not be used to determine YA. In the case of short story collections, omnibuses, essay collections and other multi-title volumes, the volume will be accepted for applicable tasks and styles"...
In my brain, a collection of poetry would be an "other multi-title volume", but suppose not. Ah, well...guess I'll wait an age to request an inter-library loan for a different collection of his :-)

So...I wanted to try something by Ted Hughes, but the only thing that I can get in a timely manner from my library is Collected Poems for Children...it's obviously Juvenile, but since it's a compilation of works rather than a novel I want to make sure I can still use it for NotG (why do I still second-guess myself anytime Lexile/Bklyn Lib is involved!?)...

10.5 Author

Your Story, My Story by Connie Palmen

In high school, I was angsty and pretentious and morose and all of the things that a good "mod" kid was...lots of black clothes and smudgy eyeliner...my friends and I would sit at Denny's for hours, reading poetry aloud over cheese fries and herbal tea. In a word: we were nerds. But that's where my love of poetry began and that was where I was first introduced to Sylvia Plath.
Sylvia, the patron saint of lost little girls everywhere...little girls who are pretty sure that they have something big inside of them but are also pretty sure that said big thing is bound to explode and kill them in the process. I gobbled up every word of hers I could find and my thrift store hardback copy of The Bell Jar was my constant companion.
And, OH, how I hated Ted Hughes. I didn't know a whole lot about him other than he was a man whore and a spotlight thief.
Years have passed and I am (blessedly) no longer that tortured kid, but I still have a soft spot for Sylvia (and a chip on my shoulder when it comes to Ted) so when I saw this book as an Amazon First Read selection, I didn't bother reading the blurb I just clicked the button to make it mine.
I didn't realize it was going to be entirely in Ted's voice.
I didn't realize how much I was going to end up liking the guy, rather than reviling him as was my knee-jerk reaction.
I didn't ever really consider how difficult it would be to be caught up in Hurricane Sylvia--all day, every day, for years.
I didn't realize how amazingly well the author was going to inhabit his voice...what an absolutely poetic book! The writing is *so good* (since it's translated, I have to wonder if it's the author that is so great or if it's that the translator is absolutely transcendent?) and it was incredible to be a fly on the wall in the home of these two literary phenoms--even though it's a fictional home...the author did extensive research to get these two right, so it feels like indisputable reality.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Lost in Translation (from Dutch)
+10 Prizeworthy (Libris Literatuurprijs 2016, De Inktaap 2017)

Task total: 40
Season total: 700

20.7 Lifetime

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

It's always a difficult thing to read the first-hand accounts of former slaves...even harder to read when so many of his words, calling out the hypocrisy and perceived grievances of the white man, could have come directly out of the mouths of modern day pundits--truly, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I am also always amazed at the resilience, fortitude, and drive exhibited by the exceptional individuals whose accounts I have read. While I was only familiar with Frederick Douglass from high school history and from Don Cheadle's portrayal of him in a Drunk History episode, I didn't know much of his story. He is absolutely amazing and brave and all of the superlative adjectives...his brain is a marvel.
One think I kept thinking over and over (which was also a theme in another book I recently read) was what an absolute freedom it is to be able to read and write...it opens your mind to the understanding of ideas that it would never otherwise encounter, it gives you facts which lead to options and possibilities which would otherwise be obscured. It's something I have always taken for granted and I was given a renewed gratitude for these things.

+20 Task (1845)
+10 Review
+5 Combo, 20.1

Task total: 35
Season total: 660

10.2 Christmas

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

I've not seen the movie so had no idea what I was in for.
I don't quite know how to review this without giving a lot away, so forgive me that it's a "spoiler" of a review...
(view spoiler)[At first I thought it was a reverse Lolita--older woman, underage boy, lots of sex, foreplay is boy reading aloud to said woman--but that's only a small part of the book and necessary to set up the real story. After the hanky-panky starts to cool, Hanna suddenly disappears with no explanation.
Flash forward to: The Real Story.
Hanna ("older woman"--mid-30s when we first meet her, but now in her early 40s) was a guard at a concentration camp during WWII and is ultimately put on trial for her actions, one of which was allowing the prisoners under her watch to perish in a locked church which ended up burning down...she "had the keys" (or so posit her accusers) so why didn't she release them?
Michael ("young boy"--was 15 when we first meet him, but is now a law student in his 20s) attends the trial every day...ostensibly to take notes for one of his professors, but it's really to see what happens to his first and most unforgettable lover. He ends up figuring out her secret, the would-be KEY to her defense, but doesn't use it to unlock her from her fate. (hide spoiler)]
This book dredged up so many uncomfortable and ethically difficult ideas that my brain is still reeling, but I loved every second of it (well, the Lolita-esque bit was meh, but necessary so we'll let it slide) and even though I knew how it was going to end it still had me swimming in a lake of my own tears. The writing is simple and straightforward which worked well to let your brain marinate in the ethical quandaries rather than get distracted by the words.

+10 Task (#176)
+10 Review
+10 Lost in Translation (from German)
+15 Prizeworthy (Exclusive Books Boeks Prize 1999; Prix des libraires du Quebec 1997; Prix Laure Bataillon 1997)
+10 Combo 10.4, 20.9--shelved as "books about books" 82 times

Task total: 55
Season total: 625

20.4 Science

The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage by Mara Hvistendahl

This one took me longer than expected to finish...while the science was interesting and the espionage Bond-worthy, it just wasn't grabbing my attention the way I'd hoped (view spoiler)[and--not really a spoiler so much as a rant--I was also finding myself increasingly annoyed by the amount of resources and money spent by the US (the FBI specifically) to protect intellectual property of corporations, specifically IP that doesn't really effect national security. I understand it when they're stopping people from smuggling out plans for fighter jets or technology that could put the country in peril--but SEEDS?! I get it: Monsanto and Pioneer pay their R&D people A LOT...but if they can't protect their own IP, why should stopping the perpetrators fall to the federal government and ultimately the taxpayers. (hide spoiler)]

+20 Task (approved in thread)
+10 Review
+5 Combo 10.4

Task total: 35
Season total: 570

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 353 Anika wrote: "10.5 Author

Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest

While this is a highly self-indulgent memoir ("boo hoo, I was dating this spectacularly popu..."
Oh no! How did I overlook that?! I have used my square peg, guess I’ll have to work it into my next NotG round :-( Sorry about that, will delete Post 353 straightaway!

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 256 Anika wrote: "15.6 Name of the Game

Square 11E--Letter H--Highly Rated (by Lisa)
Square 8D--Letter O--Wild Card!
Square 7B--Letter G--No "G" in auth name
Word = HOG

+20 Task

Task total:..."

I don’t know how in the world I messed that up :-/ sorry! I’ve amended the post, but it was The Christmas Pearl by Dorothea Benton Frank that was used here. Sorry ‘bout that!

10.4 Valentine's

HHhH by Laurent Binet



When you look at this (granted, it's small and not terribly detailed), you immediately recognize it: it's the Mona Lisa, of course. But if you could see it more closely, you'd realize it's a Mona Lisa composed of Lego rather than paint. A Mona Lisa that could be taken apart, brick by brick, until it was a pile of plastic rather than a recreation of a masterpiece.

This book reminded me of the person I imagine putting the Lego Mona Lisa together: examining each brick and analyzing how it will fit into the bigger picture, placing each one with care and sometimes deciding that two have been transposed and needing to switch it up, all the while having a conversation with anyone who happens to enter the room.
While the author is ostensibly telling us about Operation Anthropoid (the Lego Mona Lisa he is attempting to create) each chapter is a close look at each individual Lego: the stories that create the final story, the stories of men and women who sacrificed everything to see the fall of an evil empire, the acts of bravery that ended as we--and they--knew they must: with their deaths, the politicking occurring in the Reich, the simple and the grand, the secret and the flamboyant, the journey of the author from the present into the past and the constant reminder that the present reflects on and distorts the past in very practical ways....every brick has its place and every brick must be present for the final picture to come clear.

It was a strange ride of a book, which I enjoyed immensely.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Lost in Translation
+5 Prize-Worthy, Prix Goncourt du primier roman 2010
+10 Combo: 10.5 (approved in task thread), 10.6 (2012)

Task total: 45
Season total: 530

10.1 Square Peg

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

I'm already ready for the next installment of this series!!
Galbraith (Rowling) is sooo good at creating relatable, well-rounded, fallible characters--and not just the main characters. Every person you encounter in these books is astoundingly whole--the only other time I've encountered this in a mystery series is Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache collection--and that wholeness extends to the plot as well. It's never just a simple plot-driven whodunit, but a story filled with personal lives and complications and people who have nothing to do with "the case" weaving in and out of the tale. While it clocked in at 944 pages (or 31 hours and 52 minutes if you're listening, as I did--the reader is FANTASTIC), I was still saddened that it was "over already?!" It could have gone on for several more hours and I would have been pleased as punch.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+20 Jumbo (944 pgs)

Task total: 40
Season total: 485

15.10 Name of the Game

Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning

Square 8E--Letter W--Winner Goodreads Choice (Paranormal/Fantasy, 2011)
Square 9E--Letter I--Set in Ireland
Square 15C--Letter L--+400 page count (608 pages)
Square 10E--Letter T--Title has no "The"
Square 12C--Letter S--Series #4-7 (#5)
Word = WILTS

+45 Task
+100 NotG Completion
+100 Bonus, created five 4+ letter words

Task total: 245
Season total: 445