Cory Day’s Comments (group member since Aug 18, 2012)

Cory Day’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

10.7 First Letter

Mahu by Neil S. Plakcy

Review: Mahu wasn’t exactly a romance novel. It was more of a coming out, accepting yourself, figuring out life kind of novel with a mystery co-plot. Kimo is a 32-year-old police officer in Hawaii with a coveted spot as homicide detective in Waikiki. A kind of convoluted opening finds him witnessing a crime behind a gay bar and not following protocol in the hopes that no one would find out he was present in such a place. Of course, it all goes wrong, and soon, through a combination of his own decisions and others’ he is out and living an honest personal life for the first time. By the end of the book, he hasn’t found anyone to have more than casual sex with, and those relationships are not really much of the book – take them out, and you’re still left with a guy wrestling with who he is and the murder plot. Still, I was curious to see what happened in the next one, despite slightly clunky writing. I’d like to see Kimo find someone to share his life with, so eventually I’ll probably track down the rest of the series.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 860

Karen Michele wrote: "I think all we need for a Bingo is a 10.9 book. Am I right? Do you have one for that one, Gabriel?"

Oh! I just read one of those lol.

I'll post it soon. I didn't check your work, Karen, but I think we were pretty close before, so...

10.1 Square Peg

Blow Down by J.L. Merrow

Review: Blow Down is the fourth book in the Plumber’s Mate series, which I usually adore. This installment just wasn’t my favorite, and I can’t put my finger on it. I think it’s because Merrow hinted at things – conflict, deeper issues, sex – but didn’t really show any of it. Tom and Phil are still working on their relationship, and there were some very touching moments, but it fell flat. Maybe too much emphasis was placed on the mystery, which is I guess part of the point of the book, but didn’t grab me. I still love anything Merrow writes, since she addresses issues of class and belonging better than pretty much any other author I’ve ever read. There’s a lot of her backlist I’ve yet to get to, and I’m definitely looking forward to it – and of course I’ll also read the next in this series, even if this one was a little disappointing.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 840

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 452 Cory Day wrote: "20.6 War

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Review: I’ve lost track of how many challenges I’ve slated this book for and not read it, but I ..."

Thanks!

Karen Michele wrote: "Good luck on your interviews, Cory! Also thanks to Dan and Cory for getting 20.6 finished up for us!"

Thanks! I'm in the middle of moving as well, so it's kind of stressful.

But! I posted my 20.6, which also gives us some LiT points if we need them for another square. That should help, right?

20.6 War

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Review: I’ve lost track of how many challenges I’ve slated this book for and not read it, but I had it left on my Kindle from last season and when my BINGO team needed a 20.6 task, I plunged in. I’m not sure what I expected from Suite Francaise, since it’s one of those rare snapshots into history – a novel written during war and never completed – but it turned out to be almost lovely in its execution. I’d expected something rawer, angrier, or more full of fear. Certainly those things are present, and may have become more so had Némirovsky finished it, but the novel is mostly a snapshot of ordinary life, and the villains aren’t really the Germans but wealthy French people. It’s a shame that she was deported and killed before she could finish it – before, even, she knew what the end of the story was – but it’s remarkable nonetheless. I was even more engrossed by the notes at the end, and the letters after she was arrested. It’s amazing how much can survive during times of such chaos.

+20 Task (WWII fiction)
+10 Review
+10 Lost in Translation
+10 Combo (10.7, 20.3, 20.7)

Task Total: 55
Grand Total: 820

Don (The Book Guy) wrote: "Working on my WWI for 20.6. Almost done."

I'm working on my WWII, but I'm not quite as close - just a little over 33% done. It'll be complete in the next few days, but I have two job interviews to prepare for next week, so my fun reading is slow going.

15.1 FYTS: Time Traveler
1966-2016

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (pub 1976)

+15 Task

Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 765

Nope, I just made a mistake. I'll edit the post when I get to my computer.

10.7 First Letter

Murder on the Mountain by Jamie Fessenden

Review: Murder on the Mountain was a murder mystery-romance hybrid that ended up kind of falling flat on both accounts for me. Continuing my inexplicable trend of choosing books with people who have been widowed, Kyle begins the novel having not dated in the five years (!!) since his wife died, but who is thinking more and more about exploring his attraction to men that he’s had his entire life. He’s comfortable being bi, and even shared that with his wife, but being a police detective is making him a little hesitant to fully embrace it. That conflict doesn’t really pan out – once he meets Jesse he quickly tells his partner and embraces that part of his life. I did appreciate that since the book only takes place over the course of weeks the couple is not necessarily in love at the end, but are happy and together. It was fine, but not anything special really.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 755

10.6 Traveling the DDC way

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott

Review: I’d heard so many good things about Karen Abbott going into this book that I was really excited to read it. The execution in some ways lived up to expectations, especially in the moment, but writing this review a week or so after finishing it is making me think maybe I wasn’t as satisfied with it as I thought. It’s a kind of pop history type book, so there were a lot of things that weren’t specifically cited, and it bothered me a little. There are many times when Abbott, ostensibly relying on diaries and memoirs written by the women she’s chronicling, states things like “she felt this” or “she thought that,” which kind of rankled. The background history about the Civil War was pretty basic, and given that I took two intense semesters of Civil War history in college, I didn’t really need it. Anyway, it’s not a bad book, but not amazing and definitely not all that scholarly.

+10 Task (973.785)
+10 Review
+5 Jumbo (513 pages)
+10 Combo (10.7, 20.7)

Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 735

*This doesn’t qualify for BINGO since I was more than 50% through it at the beginning of July*

Don (The Book Guy) wrote: "So as I read it, we need a 10.8 and 10.9 and the two books for 20.6. Anyone working on one of this tasks?"

I was having a hard time tracking down my original pick for 20.6, but realized I have one that fits on my Kindle already. It's from the WWII list. I can start it in the next few days :)

20.9 Political

Condor One by John Simpson

Review: If Condor One hadn’t fit both of the reading challenges I’m doing right now, I would have quit practically before I started. The premise is kind of fun, if completely unrealistic – a gay man becomes president and falls in love with his Secret Service agent. The execution, however, was completely flawed. The writing, especially the dialogue, was stilted. The worldbuilding made no sense. It’s set in an alternate 2012 United States where instead of a 2008 Obama victory somehow Antonin Scalia has had a single term in office, but he’s not running again and he’s not mentioned past the inauguration. The rest of the book was clearly written in 2008, because it talks all about Bush and his policies. The problem is that setting this story in the 2008 political climate is ludicrous when you realize that the whole premise is that the Democratic candidate (who, by the way, is cousins to the British royal family) is outed as a gay man six weeks before the general election and still manages to win. He’s an unabashed liberal and just does what he wants, basically playing around at being president. I’d have preferred if the author either created a fun happy utopian America or really faced the issues he was confronting on a surface level. Oh, and the romance was completely shallow and insta-love-ish… add in a sneaky shadowy assassination plot, and it was just ridiculous.

+20 Task (politics on main page)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.7)

Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 700

Yeah, my current book is not all that good but it fits the politics category and also fits into another challenge in doing, so I'm finishing it. Good thing it's short!

I posted another! 20.8 with a review... I'm not getting a lot of combos or anything right now. I also just started a 20.9, which should be a fast read.

20.8 Kotick

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (1210 Lexile)

Review: A lot of times “literary fiction” feels like a chore for me, but this is the second Jhumpa Lahiri book I’ve read and neither one was a slog. Nothing exactly happens, and there isn’t exactly a happy ending or anything, but it’s a slice of life kind of story with themes revolving around family, identity, and culture that is interesting nonetheless. I hadn’t realized that one of the main characters (THE main character?) would turn out to be an architect, but Lahiri did a passable job at describing the profession. I do think that by 1999 more people were using CAD than drafting tables, but I’m not sure since that was right around the cutoff and that was pretty minor. Gogol ends the story at about the same age I am right now, and the book did a good job of showing the changing dynamics between child and parent as they grow older.

+20 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 665

I only got to 47% in the book I was reading the night of June 30, so it will work for this! It's 20.7, and I reviewed it. I also just posted a 10.7 and reviewed it :)

10.7 First Letter

Syrah by Nessa L. Warin

Review: I read this book because one of the challenges I’m participating in required a book with alcohol on the cover. It didn’t have super great reviews, but it seemed like it would be okay, and that was basically my opinion after reading it. The story is pretty simple - Shawn comes into Royce’s wine shop on Christmas Eve and they’re attracted to each other, but after they start dating Shawn’s boss tries to get him to stop being gay, basically, by threatening him. That ends up being the main conflict, since Shawn originally decides he’d rather keep his career afloat than continue dating Royce, but it gets pretty quickly resolved. There’s a little insta-love going on, and in general the conflict didn’t seem all that high stakes, but it was a sweet little story and if a second in the series were published I’d probably check it out. Oh, and I loved the cats – one of them reminded me a LOT of my cat, so that was fun.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 635

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 246 Cory Day wrote: "15.1 FYTS: Time Traveler
1971-2016

The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjöwall (published 1971)

+15 Task

Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 585"

J..."

You're right - thanks for looking out for me! I changed my plan at some point and just didn't update the records, so I'm still good :)

20.4 Go for the Gold!

White Balance by Ainslie Paton

Review: I seem to be on a roll in accidentally picking up books with widowers in them. I don’t know if it’s some subconscious thing or what, but it’s a thing. In this one, Aiden has lost his wife two years before and he’s still a big mess – maybe he could use some counseling. Regardless, it’s a relatively interesting story that combines his finally coming out of his depression, his friendship and working relationship with his best friend, and his romance with Bailey. It also bounces around in perspective to Bailey herself, Blake (the best friend), and Cody, a teenaged boy Aiden is volunteering as big brother to. To me, the weakest link was Bailey. Sometimes she was very strong, capable, and self-assured, but then she’d have MASSIVE issues with trusting the wrong person blindly or not standing up for herself. I know people have their ups and downs and their blind spots, but her personality did not seem consistent at all.

+20 Task (set entirely in Australia)
+10 Review

Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 615