Cory Day’s
Comments
(group member since Aug 18, 2012)
Cory Day’s
comments
from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 661-680 of 1,205
It looks as though The Rosie Project might work for the exiles task too - the author's Goodreads profile says he's a New Zealand born Australian...
20.8 Exiles and EmmigrantsKat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis
+20 Task (born in USA, lives in Wales)
Lexile 740 – no styles
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 215
20.8 Exiles and EmmigrantsLady of Devices by Shelley Adina
Review: I thought this book might be good to give my sister-in-law, but in the end decided not to gift it to her. It moved quickly – partially because it’s a short book and partially because I think it’s meant to be young adult (although it’s not listed at BPL). It’s basically a steampunk story – set in London in a vaguely Victorian time with interesting devices abounding. The main character, Claire, is graduating from finishing school and about to have her season when some horrible things happen and she’s forced to go out on her own. Wackiness ensues, yada yada – it was cute, but not something I desperately am looking forward to continuing. I might pick up the second in the series at some point. One thing to note – I wasn’t thrilled that the summary says something along the lines of “when she meets Andrew, she realizes more can come of her life.” Claire seems pretty set on GETTING more out of her life, and Andrew plays a passing role at best in this story, although he does have some chapters told from his perspective and the later books seem to feature him more heavily.
+20 Task (hopefully the statement "That was enough to keep her going through the rest of her adolescence, a career, a move to another country…" in her profile is enough?)
+5 Combo (10.4 – set entirely in the UK)
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 195
10.4 Sovereign StatesYou Had Me At Hello by Mhairi McFarlane
Review: This book both delighted and frustrated me. It uses one of my favorite tropes – friends to lovers – combined with a shot of second chances, which is always nice. However, after beginning with a bang, the story started lagging in the middle. The premise is that Rachel and Ben were friends in college, and after not having seen each other in ten years, they begin a tentative new friendship. Ben is married and Rachel has just left her boyfriend of thirteen years. The story pings back and forth between Rachel’s mess of a life as a thirty-one-year-old and their relationship in college. Unfortunately, I eventually got really tired of both of them – a lack of communication can only be tolerated so far, right? Still, it was cute and sweet at the end, although I agree with other reviewers who wished for more – I’ve rarely seen people asking for an epilogue, but this book called out for one.
+10 Task (set entirely in the UK)
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 160
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 57 Cory Day wrote: "20.8 Exiles and EmmigrantsHer Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
Review: I’m in the phase of my reading year where I do what I like to call ‘prere..."
Oh interesting - I never thought to look.
20.8 Exiles and EmmigrantsHer Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
Review: I’m in the phase of my reading year where I do what I like to call ‘prereading’ for presents – I identify books off my to-read list that my friends and family might like and try them out in preparation for potentially giving them as gifts. This year, I’m light on items for my sister-in-law, and this was on the list. I am happy to say that I can check off a gift, because I had a lot of fun with this and I think she will too. Georgie, the protagonist and narrator, is a lesser royal living in Depression-era Britain. Her allowance has been cut off, so she decides to make a go at a life alone in London. Antics, hilarity, and wackiness ensue, and she finds herself in the midst of all kinds of trouble, but manages to get out of all of it. The whole thing is silly, but so much fun that I’m tempted to just keep reading the series. I think that might be a bad idea, though, because she would probably get on my nerves after a while.
+20 Task (her Goodreads profile says, “I was born and raised in England but currently divide my time between California and Arizona where I go to escape from the harsh California winters”)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.4 – takes place entirely in the UK, 20.5 – on list, and Georgiana is the narrator and main character)
Task Total: 40
Grand Total: 160
10.8 Two for OneFirst Time, Forever by K.C. Burn - 24,000 words
In Sea-Salt Tears by Seanan McGuire – I can’t find a direct reference to the number of words, but the PDF is 22 pages long, and when I pulled it into Word and used word count it was 9,689 words
Review: First Time, Forever hits a spot that few romances do – what happens during the “after” in the happily ever after? Derrick and Trevor’s story opens the day they drop their son off at college. Still relatively young, they’re individually looking forward to rekindling the sparks that used to fly before they had to tone it down because a child was in the house. The story should be heartwarming and cute, and it is, but it falls way flat. These two are the worst communicators ever – they misinterpret cues, refuse to share their feelings, and just stink at getting on the same page. There’s also a large amount of sexual imagery, which is fine but I don’t love when there’s not much depth to the story. I’m not sure I’m interested in moving forward with this author, so I’m glad the story was so short.
In Sea-Salt Tears is short but a very interesting addition to her October Daye series. This is one of my very favorite urban fantasy series, and this task is reminding me to finish up with some of the leftover shorts she’s published over the years. Unlike the full-length novels, this gives a partial background of two side characters – two women whose love affair happened and caused some major heartache. It’s wonderful, but would probably be hard to follow without having read the series – at a minimum a lot of context would be missing. I hope Seanan McGuire keeps writing in this world, even after Toby’s story has run its course.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 120
10.4 Sovereign StatesStormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz (670 Lexile)
+10 Task (set entirely in England)
Low Lexile, no styles
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 100
May as well reserve some more: From Wool Omnibus: The Gone-Away World
From The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Four-Story Mistake
From All Quiet on the Western Front: Storm of Steel, The Eye in the Door (through arrows)
From The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman: Jakob the Liar
From A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Moloka'i since it's another group read... (through arrows)
20.4 1001Embers by Sándor Márai
Review: This is really not my kind of book – a guy looking back on his past, with not a whole lot actually happening, told in almost a stream of consciousness style. However, I absolutely loved it. I’m not sure what clicked with me – at first I had trouble getting used to the switching between present and past tense, the lack of clearly defined characters through the use of more pronouns than nouns, and the long strings of dialogue said only by one person – but I zipped through it and really enjoyed the experience. The plot is minimal, but it reads quickly – I actually had to slow myself down while reading it since I felt like it should be savored more. The tale itself is pretty heartbreaking – a friendship ruined through betrayal. Maybe that’s what got me – I’ve been running into a little bit of that myself lately, although not nearly to the extremes portrayed in this book.
+20 Task
+10 Combo (20.1 – published 1942, 20.9 – lived 1900-1989)
+10 Review
+5 Oldies
Task Total: 45
Grand Total: 85
10.4 Sovereign StatesNo Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean
Review: This is the third book in the Rules of Scoundrels series, and I just realized I never read the second one. It still stands relatively on its own, especially since I read the first book, which has most of the setup. This one was tough at first for me to get into – the premise is that the heroine, Mara Lowe, fled twelve years before after leaving the man now known as Temple, who happens also to be the Duke of Lamont, in her bed with a pint of blood covering him. Since then, he’s been exiled from society and labeled the “Killer Duke”, since everyone assumes Mara is dead. Now, Mara has to show her face again since her brother has lost all her money at the gambling hell where Temple has remade his fortune. The problem is, while we see her regret, she has ruined his life and continues to cause him trouble without SHOWING that regret. As they got to know each other, I found it more believable that they could fall in love, but it was tough at first. I also hated her brother so much, and even though in the end he kind of got what was coming to him, she was silly about how she handled him. I’ll go back and read the second book though – Sarah MacLean writes fun romances, and I always need a good stock of them to keep me entertained.
+10 Task (set entirely in the UK)
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 40
10.8 Two for OneIcecapade by Josh Lanyon - 18000 words
Heat of the Moment by Elle Kennedy - 16000 words
Review: I’ve got a bunch of romance novellas on my Kindle that I’ve collected for free, so I’m taking this opportunity to fit them in here and there. Sometimes the short length can really make it hard for me to feel enough of a connection to the characters, and in this pair I thought one was more successful than the other.
Icecapade is a male-male romance that I suspect may have started out as White Collar (the USA show) fanfic, but since I like the show I’m fine with that. The narrator is a former jewel thief, who slept with his nemesis at the FBI years back and has never forgotten the experience. The statute of limitations has almost run out on his last heist, and yet another anniversary of his hookup is approaching, when the man reenters his life. It was very well done for its length – I didn’t feel anything was missing, but was definitely left wanting to keep following the characters. It was also seasonal, set at Christmastime, so that was nice.
Heat of the Moment was really more erotica than romance, and that’s not really my jam. The main female character has been lusting after a Navy SEAL who frequents her café for a year, and she hears him talking with his best friend about how she’s probably too “vanilla” for him, since he’s got a wild sexual history. She sets out to prove them wrong, having a threesome with the two of them. It wasn’t my favorite, although the characters were charming – I may try the follow-up novel, but it’s not a top priority.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 20
Kate S wrote: "Those all work, Cory. Enjoy!"Thanks for the quick response :)
I've gone through and looked for ones I own or have out of the library, so can I check the following please? From Tenth of December: Bobcat and Other Stories
From Tess of the D'Urbervilles: Cold Comfort Farm
From Revolutionary Road: Dog Soldiers or Housekeeping
From Wool Omnibus: Ancillary Justice
From A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: Bobcat and Other Stories (in case the other link doesn't work) or Land of Love and Drowning
From The Bone People: Moon Tiger
Also, may as well point out this group read:
From Waterland: Restoration
I think I need to read the books I own - this list is way longer than I expected ;) Thanks!!!
20.2 Birthplaces (Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland) Dracula by Bram Stoker
Review: I’ve read a lot of modern vampire stories, but hadn’t read what amounts to the “original” until now. Unfortunately, I think I prefer the new ones. I think I knew this was an epistolary novel, but I don’t think I realized how little of it actually focused directly on Dracula. I feel like I’ve read enough novels inspired by Dracula that the real thing left me a little cold. I think it’s a case of going back to the original and feeling like it’s been done before, even though it was the beginning of it all. I did like some of the characters though, and it can’t be denied that this novel was the start of a tradition I have to say I love.
+20 Task (born in Ireland)
+10 Review
+10 Oldies (published 1879)
+20 Combo (10.2, 10.7, 20.1, 20.10)
Task Total: 60
RwS Completion Bonus: 100
Grand Total: 1420
