Anika’s
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(group member since Dec 25, 2011)
Anika’s
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from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 1,261-1,280 of 2,801
30.1 Go for the GreenA Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry (860 Lexile)
I recently re-read The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter which features the daughters of notable literary characters: Dr. Jekyll's daughter in addition to Mr. Hyde's daughter, the daughter created by Dr. Moreau, a "daughter" assembled by Dr. Frankenstein...and then one I thought was a figment of the author's imagination: the poisonous daughter of Dr. Rappaccini. Upon further research, Dr. Rappaccini and his unfortunate daughter feature in a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne (which was later made into an opera!?). The "poisonous maiden" story has been traced back to a traditional Indian fable and has been retold several times in varying forms of media. Poison Ivy from the Batman comic books stems from this tale (no pun intended). This book is the most recent installation in this vein--and is utterly forgettable and should really not be bothered with at all.
The story is told from the POV of Lucas, a wealthy and privileged Texan high-schooler who spends his summers at his father's hotel in San Juan. He's *boring*. He's useless as a story teller and as a character full stop. Ugh.
The descriptions of the island itself are a sensory carnival and I loved that little bit. It's supposedly "magical realism"--but I've read A LOT of magical realism and this just did not reach that level for me. It was confusing with no reward for sticking it out. I would have DNF'ed, but was hoping for some sort of payoff. Nope. Epic Fail. Gave it 2 stars (only because I reserve one-star ratings for books that lack any semblance of editing, have an awful story line, AND are written in a way that even a Junior High student would be embarrassed to claim authorship).
+30 Task (Set 99% in Puerto Rico)
+20 "Blue" country
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.2 AFASPMS: PASS; 10.8: Puerto Rico, USA, Dominican Republic; 20.5 "He was enjoying a glass of red wine.")
Task total: 75
Season total: 1885
30.1 Go for the GreenRough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race by Lara Prior-Palmer
I'm not a horse lover. It's not that I dislike them, it's just that in my limited association with them I've been thrown twice and we have respectfully decided to go our separate ways. I don't go out of my way to pay attention to any of the Triple Crown events--I only know the term "Triple Crown" thanks to a trivia game we had when I was younger. I was never one of those little girls who would ask Santa for a pony.
All of that to say: you don't have to love horses to love this book about the world's longest horse race. The author, Lara Prior-Palmer, was the youngest person (aged 19) and first female to win this race (I'm not giving anything away--that tidbit is dropped within the first seven pages), which ostensibly follows the mail route established by Genghis Khan, 1000 km and an average of ten days in length.
I loved the philosophical ramblings that overtake her mind as she's traversing the vast, solitary steppe: from The Tempest to Winnie the Pooh, Mongolian history to the uncomfortable legacy of Empire, family history to single-minded desire to take down the competition all the while brimming with youth and vitality...this was a grand journey to be on.
For fans of the tv series Alone or The Amazing Race and books about solitary journeys (Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, A Walk in the Woods, etc.).
+30 Task (set 91% in Mongolia)
+20 "Blue" country
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-Novel
+15 Combo (10.2 RMRTHWLHLPP: PHT--thank you to scrabblewordfinder.org for that one!; 10.4; 10.8: Mongolia, UK, Austria)
Task total: 85
Season total: 1810
20.3 ProlificHamlet by William Shakespeare
This has to be in my top five of Shakespeare's plays. Every time I read it, listen to, or watch it, I am impressed by something different (and I'm always shocked that I am forever misquoting the Yorick line...you'd think I'd get it right by now!): this time it was the fact that Hamlet negotiated with PIRATES to escape the England-bound ship and return to Denmark--how have I missed that in all of my readings!? I think, however, the obvious answer is because it directly precedes my favorite part in the play: the gravediggers' joust of words with Hamlet and Horatio and the subsequent burial of Ophelia where Hamlet proclaims the depth of his love for her. Ah! It's so good and so heartbreaking--so heartbreaking *because* it's so good? I just love Act V...
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-Novel
+25 Oldies (1603)
+15 Combo (10.3; 10.6: currently #52 on the list; 10.7)
Task total: 80
Season total: 1725
20.2 JournalistMissoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
It took me 16 days to read this book: not because it was boring, but because I would get to the point that I was SO ANGRY that I had to put it down and was reluctant to pick it back up again because I knew it was just going to be more injustice, more violation, and more trauma. But it was *important* reading, and I knew I had to finish it. Krakauer's research is on point and his narrative ability to turn you into a fly on the wall is uncanny. Choosing to focus on Missoula was brilliant: small college town, super-popular football program (filled with altar boys, according to their many boosters), and a straight-up EVIL attorney who by turns refused to prosecute rape cases out of hand or went to absurd lengths to demonize the victims and exonerate the perpetrator. I have never so much in my life been tempted to write a hate letter to someone, but Kirsten Pabst is deserving of one and I hope that there is a particularly noxious corner in Hell with her name on it.
+20 Task (on pre-approved list)
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.2 MRATJSIACTJK: TRICKS; 10.4; 10.7; 10.8: Montana, Washington, Oregon)
Task total: 60
Season total: 1645
30.1 Go for the GreenDark Currents by Daniel Putkowski
While it says it's "inspired by actual events" (so I'm anticipating a thinly-veiled imagining of what happened to Natalee Holloway), there is only the tenuous connection of an American woman disappearing in Aruba used as "inspiration."
Kathy and Glenn haven't been dating long but decide the time is right to take a Caribbean holiday. They each have an ulterior motive but are so focused on their own motives that they don't even consider that the other person might have something up their sleeve.
I didn't love the characters. I didn't love the way the author jumped from viewpoint to viewpoint with no warning--I had to re-read several paragraphs/pages to figure out who was speaking (such ineffectual writing!) and that normally only happens when I'm tired...
I did like the way it ended--I wasn't expecting it which shocked me since so much of the rest of the book was milquetoast--and the fact that it turned several assumptions about partner-abuse/murder cases on their heads...for that reason alone I'd give it 3 stars (rather than the 2 stars that I would have given it had it been a DNF).
+30 Task, 98% in Aruba
+20 "Blue" country
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.8: Aruba, U.S., Bahamas; 20.5: "He and Kathy shared a bottle of wine, then a second.")
Task total: 70
Season total: 1585
30.1 Go for the GreenThe Garden Of Burning Sand by Corban Addison
It all starts with a young girl walking in the dark. We can glean that she has some sort of developmental disability, she needs glasses, she's alone and a little confused. A man pulls up in a silver SUV, gets out, smiles, offers her some candy. She takes it, eats it, then passes out. We realize she has been drugged and know that can't lead to anything good.
This book read like Law and Order: SVU, Zambia told from the point of view of a wealthy international lawyer from the U.S.
I enjoyed the search for truth and fight for justice: I hated pretty much everything about the central character, Zoe...the wealthy American whose senator father is running for president who falls in love with a Zambian police officer (ugh! the romance bit was soooo unnecessary! Really bogged down the middle of the book for me). She was so irksome!
Another reviewer hit it on the head for me (I was struggling to pinpoint what exactly it was about this one that bothered me so much and when I read this I said, "Ah! Yes! Exactly that!"): "The characters are cardboard and the issues are excessive, focus on maybe rape, OR disability, OR AIDS, OR the legal system OR politicians OR social ills, OR family dynamics - as opposed to a mish - mash of everything. I'm left none the wiser about anything."
While I'm okay with a few issues being raised in a single book written by a deft author, this one left me feeling meh. It wasn't great, it wasn't terrible. It was one of the better books I've read for our Around the World reading challenge, but as far as books in general go? It's maybe a 2.75 for me: entertaining though often irksome and ultimately forgettable.
+30 Task, set 94% in Zambia
+20 "Blue" country
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.2 TGOFSCA: ASCOT; 10.4; 10.8: Zambia, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, USA; 20.5: "She took a sip of wine.")
Task total: 80
Season total: 1515
(I subtracted 5 from total re: Post 590...argh, I don't know how I keep forgetting that it's a task for novels only! Sorry about that...)
20.3 ProlificIn an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
This is book four in the "Wayward Children" series and I think it's my favorite so far. It's set in a world loosely based on Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market," which is a poem I have long loved. I also love that, rather than following one of the students we encountered in Every Heart a Doorway, we get the backstory of one of the faculty at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. Katherine Lundy has always been a rule-follower, never been particularly popular, a middle child sandwiched between a hellion of a brother and an infant sister. She has never fit in...until she finds her way through a door in a tree and into the Goblin Market. These are strict and binding rules that allow the Market to exist and Katherine is determined to live by those tricky rules to stay in this place of marvels--even when living by the rules is the most dangerous option there is.
I wish there had been more description of the Market, but being familiar with the poem I unconsciously filled in the missing details with those supplied in Rossetti. I think the visuals conjured up in my brain were more along the lines of Heironymous Bosch, "Garden of Earthly Delights" though--fantastical and terrifying in equal measure.
If you are a lover of fairy tales, especially the darker ones where toes are shorn off to fit in glass slippers and mermaids dissolve into sea foam because "happily ever after" is just a construct of Disney, this series is for you.
+20 Task, author has published 30+ books (including titles published under her pseudonym, Mira Grant)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.2 IAADSM: MAIDS; 10.4)
Task total: 40
Season total: 1440
20.5 WineBearskin by James A. McLaughlin
I don't know if I ever would have picked this one up had it not been mainly set in Virginia, a state I was missing in my USA Roadtrip challenge in another group. I liked it. I liked it in the way that I like watching Bosch and Sons of Anarchy and Justified--a guilty sort of "like"...a "like" that I can't explain because it's so outside the bounds of what I normally like. It also has a Cormac McCarthy feel to it--someone I don't normally like at all.
When I described it to my husband, all I could come up with was: "It's about bears and the Mexican cartel and hillbilly bear-poachers in Appalachia and rape and murder. Oh, and dogs. There's quite a bit about dogs in there." It's such an incongruous mix of subjects and personalities, but it worked. I like that it was a standalone novel, even though I really did like the main character enough that I wouldn't be sad to read more with him. If I could award partial stars, this would get a 3.75.
+20 Task "On the mountain they cooked enchiladas with prosciutto on his little camp stove, drank a bottle of cheap cabernet, partook of one line of cocaine each."
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.2 BJAM: JAMB; 10.3; 10.8: Virginia, Arizona, Mexico)
Task total: 45
Season total: 1400
10.4 PilgrimGoodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki
I met with a friend for lunch yesterday. Her father recently passed away and she was telling me about what a nightmare it was cleaning out his house--he was a hoarder and it took her six weeks, twelve hours a day, to clear everything out. It made me think about the state of my own household, which made me think about how much I really need/want to downsize. When I get this restless feeling of too-muchness, I want a book on minimalism to spur me to action. This book, while an inspiration, didn't really add anything new to the minimalist conversation. It was a good reminder that things aren't what give us joy, that being in the moment with people we love is more meaningful than any object could be, and that the psychic weight involved in dealing with all of our things becomes a true physical limitation--I even cleaned out a few drawers and took a box of things for donation and really did feel lighter--but it was just different words to the same ideas of every other book on this subject I've read which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but his voice was not my favorite--perhaps that was a result of the translation...but I doubt it.
+10 Task
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.7; 10.8: Japan, USA, India)
Task total: 40
Season total: 1355
Ann wrote: "15.10 Power of 9In order by birth year
The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
1890
+15 task
+100 completion bonus
+50 single criteria bonus
+50 in order (09-90) b..."
Congrats, Ann!! Nicely done ❤️
30.1 Go for the GreenThe Vatican Diaries: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities, and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church by John Thavis
John Thavis has been a journalist covering the Vatican for over 40 years. This book describes the travels, scandals, and the reigns (I don't know if that's a proper word to describe the time a Pope serves--I'm not Catholic :-/ ) of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.
It read better than any Dan Brown novel and was even more gripping because it was all real. It was so interesting to get an insider's look at the City, the Vatican itself, and all of the inner workings of the people inside the holy palace. While his stories of traveling the world over covering the Pope's ministering to the church members were exciting, the stories about things centered in the Vatican were far more interesting to me: the political intrigues and power struggles between the cardinals; the treatment of the sex abuse scandals; the man (I know he held a church position, but not sure which one) who translates Church documents into Latin--I couldn't help but picture him as a jolly, alcoholic Jack Black; the archeological jackpot that was found while digging a parking garage; the logistics of making sure all the proper announcements are made, and in the right order, when choosing a new Pope (particularly difficult when the smoke comes out neither black nor white but an ambiguous grey). I love non-fiction that reads as interestingly as fiction and this definitely fit the bill.
+30 Task, set 90% in Vatican City
+20 "Blue" City
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Review
+25 Combo (10.2 TVDABTSLATPPAPATHOTCCJT: BLAST; 10.7; 10.8 Vatican City, Italy, USA, Brazil, Mexico, and so many more; 20.2; 20.5 "Chortling, he reached into his briefcase and pulled out a small bottle of white wine, unscrewed the cap, and took a long drink.")
Task total: 95
Season total: 1315
I had high hopes of a MegaFinish this season, but it's not quite working out that way...between the backyard disaster that still takes up a fair chunk of time (can't hear an audiobook over the chainsaw), being back at work which cuts into my reading time (I'm so sad that we don't have red eye flights anymore! They gave me so much time to read!), and trying to get four quilts (gifts) done before Christmas, I don't think a MegaFinish is in the cards for me. :-(That being said, I've read some FANTASTIC books so far this season so it's not a total loss ;-)
30.1 Go for the GreenPieces of Happiness: A Novel of Friendship, Hope and Chocolate by Anne Østby
After reading about war and repression and and a sinister, pervading darkness it was nice to lounge under the Fijian sunshine with this group of ladies! Kat has traveled the world her entire life and now finds herself settled and in possession of a cocoa plantation in Fiji. She sends an invitation to her four best friends, still living in Norway, and invites them to join her. They're all now in their mid-60s and, mostly retired and widowed, they accept.
The women are familiar: Kat is a near carbon-copy of Meryl Streep's character in Mamma Mia (though in character only, not necessarily in circumstance); Lisbeth is so Blanche from The Golden Girls, obsessed with her looks and attractiveness to the opposite sex; Ingrid, with her alter-ego Wildred, are right out of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe ("Towanda!"); Maya is Beth from Little Women, the sweet but sick one; and Sina is reminiscent of Olive Kitteridge. Their chocolate-making venture is very Chocolat--when it's actually talked about, which very little. There is the wise and faithful housekeeper, Ateca, who is always praying for the ladies and for her son and basically keeping their precarious metaphoric ship afloat. The book as a whole felt very Maeve Binchy on a tropical island.
Yes, it's pretty derivative, but I enjoyed the point of view of women in their maturity who don't care about what other people think or want from them and can just be themselves. The themes of releasing regret in later life, of forgiveness, of accepting even the ugly parts of ourselves, and of living every moment of life made for a refreshing read that wasn't complete fluff.
+30 Task, set 95% on Fiji
+20 "Blue" Country
+10 Reveiw
+25 Combo (10.2 POHAO: HOOP; 10.4; 10.8: Fiji, Norway, Nepal; 20.2: states in goodreads profile that she is a journalist; 20.5: "That night, we celebrate Armand's arrival with a glass of wine.")
Task total: 85
Season total: 1220
30.1 Go for the GreenGoodbye to Budapest: A Novel of the Hungarian Uprising by Margarita Morris
I'm always a little wary of titles that are free on Kindle...I know there are a lot of self-published, unedited, horribly written books that end up on my e-reader only because they sounded "okay" and were free, but every once in a while I'll find a gem--this was definitely one of them.
I don't know much about Eastern Europe immediately post-WWII other than the Cold War propaganda that was swirling about in the early '80s (I was only in Elementary School then, so the limit of my understanding began and ended with the Disney movie, "Night Crossing," about an East German family who builds a hot air balloon to escape to the West): long bread lines, Communism, KGB, and everything seeming pretty grey--that was about the extent of it. This book, set from 1952-1956 in Budapest, gives us a glimpse of what it was like: the constant fear and suspicion, the midnight arrests of innocents who were forced to sign "confessions" concocted by their captors, the yearning for change and spark of revolution that is steamrolled by the inexorable Party.
I loved the telling of this story--the writing was smooth, well-edited, and enjoyable. I loved the characters which, while numerous, were easy to remember and tell apart (which can sometimes be a challenge when there are so many characters' stories being told).
Overall, this was 4 stars for me.
+30 Task, Set 99% in Hungary
+20 "Blue" Country
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.2 GTBANOTHUMM: BANG; 10.4; 10.8: Hungary, Austria, England; 20.5: "'More wine?' asks Sandor, uncorking a second bottle of red. He refills everyone's glasses then lifts his in the air.")
Task total: 80
Season total: 1135
30.1 Go for the GreenA Pledge of Silence by Flora J. Solomon
OH GOD, THE HORROR! It's been a while since I've read a book that I've actively hated, one at which I find myself screaming, "You are THE WORST!!!" I only finished it because I kept holding out for some sort of redemption. Silly me. Nope
I wanted to read this because I didn't know much about what was going in the Philippines during WWII. I'm embarrassed to admit that I always thought it was the "Bhutan Death March" my friends were accusing me of leading them on when we'd go hiking. That never made any sense to me as I didn't think there was much war action in that region of the world (which there wasn't). At least I did learn that one historical tidbit from this book: it was the Bataan Death March and it sounds like it was rather horrific--even though this book only glancingly touches on it. Instead, it is set (52%, to be precise...had it been less than 51, I would have given up on it) in the internment camps set up by the Japanese for civilians. So I learned something new...the only saving grace of the past eleven hours and thirty-seven minutes of my life wasted listening to this atrocious narrator read this abomination of a book.
The characters were two-dimensional--I didn't care about a single one of them--their actions (especially those of the protagonist, Margie) were unrealistic in the extreme and the writing was dreadful. The last four hours were torture--I don't care about these characters and certainly don't want to follow them for another fifty years...It felt like I was reading a soap opera (and I detest soap operas). Awful, awful, awful. I don't know how in the world this has such a high rating on goodreads! 1 star, and only because I can't go lower. I would give it .5 stars and only because I encountered historical events that are new to me so it was useful in that regard alone.
+30 Task, set 52% in Philippines
+20 "Blue" Country
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.2 APOSFJS: SOAPS; 10.4; 10.8: US, Philippines, Saipan; 20.5 lots of wine and champagne being drunk by the officers and nurses before Japan invaded, wrote down an exact quote somewhere and now I can't locate it)
Task total: 80
Season total: 1055
30.1 Go for the GreenMelmoth by Sarah Perry
If you look up "greige" in the dictionary (the most neutral, nondescript color I can think of), you'd find a picture of our protagonist, Helen Franklin: she's forty-two (right at MIDDLE age), "neither short nor tall, her hair neither dark nor fair." What could possibly be interesting about this middle-of-the road woman? That's what we spend this entire book finding out.
I had a hard time putting this one down (another that I went back and forth, from audio to ebook, and had to "put it down" a lot, as I'm back at work and hate being interrupted when I'm reading an intense book so would rather not read it at all when on the plane...both were exceptional, though the audiobook had a marked advantage in the reader who was perfect for this! Her voice, inflection, and timing added so much to the atmosphere!). It has all of the hallmarks of a classic gothic novel: gloomy setting, CHECK: Prague in winter; supernatural beings, CHECK: the eponymous Melmoth; curses or prophecies, CHECK: we find these in historical documents--journals, letters, diary entries--a la Dracula; damsels in distress, CHECK: our greige Helen is most certainly in distress. We have echoes of classic literary figures including Poe's Raven (which are disguised as jackdaws here), Miss Havisham, and a brief glimpse of a Heathcliff (I'm probably missing a few other allusions as well). We have every last thing that I was hoping for in a novel to read at the onset of autumn. The one reason I gave it four rather than five stars is because, like every gothic novel I've ever read, the ending was a bit of a let down...though, perhaps, that's unavoidable when the tension and suspense are constantly being tightened and heightened in the build up, there no way for the ending to be anything but a slight disappointment.
+30 Task, set 75% in Czech Republic
+20 "Blue" country
+10 Review
+25 Combo (10.3; 10.4; 10.8: Czech Republic, Philippines, U.K., and more; 20.5: "He peered at Helen over a glass of wine, then drank it."; 20.8)
Task total: 85
Season total: 975
20.8 BedtimeWe Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
With the onset of autumn, I am ready for atmospheric books! Bring on the spine-tinglers! The creepy crawlers and hair raisers! The bumps in the night!
This was definitely a great way to kick off the Halloween season...Shirley Jackson is the grand dame of the chiller (not so much a thriller but definitely knows how to make your blood run cold, thus: "chiller"). The Haunting of Hill House is the only other thing I'd read by Jackson, but I'd been ruined for it thanks to Hollywood (specifically the horrible 1999 film, "The Haunting"). This one came with a clean slate, a spooky book cover, and scads of five-star reviews so had a feeling I'd be in good hands. I was not disappointed. It starts out with Constance, the imaginative youngest child of a dwindling dynasty. That imagination draws you in, blindfolds you, turns you around, then gives you a firm push in the back.(view spoiler)This is masterfully constructed and I enjoyed every single twisty turn.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (pub. 1962)
+5 Combo (10.2 WHALITCSJ: WILTS)
Task total: 40
Season total: 890
20.1 AwardAn American Sunrise: Poems by Joy Harjo
"To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way." --June Jordan, Caribbean-American poet
This is one of four epigraphs to this slim volume and it perfectly tells you what you're going to find inside: the truth of the earth, the truth of history, the truth of hate and love and everything in between. And it is political in a way that is vital for this moment in our history.
The impression I had when reading this was that I was making my way through a family photo album, peppered with newspaper articles: a deeply personal account hand in hand with the accepted historical/public narrative. It is a testament of the people lost on the Trail of Tears. It is a prayer to the Earth ("The final verse is always the trees./They will remain"). It is the voice of the dead breathing through a modern landscape. It is an overlapping map of what is and what was and what existed before maps were.
It's so hard for me to review poetry...it's so much impression and interpretation and feeling and the poet speaking directly to your brain in a way that is difficult to explain. Let's just say that the current U.S. Poet Laureate does not leave you wanting...
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-Novel
+15 Combo (10.2 AASPJH: ASH; 10.7; 10.8: Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and more)
Task total: 55
Season total: 850
Also, could I please move my book posted in message 64, The Glass Hotel, from 20.4 to 20.5, no change in points...Thank you!
