Katy’s
Comments
(group member since Aug 04, 2010)
Katy’s
comments
from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 221-240 of 1,214
15.2 Growing GenresThe Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
+15 Task 2018 Mystery
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 170
Ann Cleeves - won the 2017 CWA Diamond Dagger (lifetime achievement) - https://thecwa.co.uk/past-winners?pas...
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Katy wrote: "10.4 3, 4, 5 Vera Kelly: Lost and Found by Rosalie Knecht
+10 task
+10 series (previously claimed Vera Kelly Is Not A Mystery for t..."
Oh whoops! I was thinking of the whole title as one - forgot the colon! Yes, it would work for 20.10 though - the character Max is one of the two main characters. Let's switch it to that! Thank you!
10.5 Wimsey Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
+10 task (initials SM)
+5 combo (10.3 - InCryptid is the series name)
+5 series (InCryptid series #1)
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 145
10.4 3, 4, 5 Vera Kelly: Lost and Found by Rosalie Knecht
+10 task
+10 series (previously claimed Vera Kelly Is Not A Mystery for task 20.3)
Task Total: 20
Season Total: 125
10.4 3, 4, 5 Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg
+10 task (4 words in title)
Task Total: 10
Season Total: 105
Laurie R. King was awarded the Edgar Grand Master award in 2022 - https://edgarawards.com/2022-speciale...
20.3 POVMad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
+20 task (told in alternating POVs)
+5 combo (20.6 - approved in help thread - Jodi Picoult won the Hale Prize)
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 95
20.3 POVVera Kelly Is Not A Mystery by Rosalie Knecht
+20 task (several chapters from Felix's POV, the rest of the book from Vera's)
+5 series
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 70
How about Jodi Picoult - she won the Hale Award - https://www.vnews.com/Sarah-Josepha-H... - "The Sarah Josepha Hale Award recognizes New England writers who have made valuable contributions to the field of literature and letters."
15.1 Growing GenresHow to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
+15 Task 2023 Mystery
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 45
20.10 Uncommon LetterLessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
+20 Task (MC is Elizabeth Zott - 2 Zs!)
+10 Combo (10.4, 20.3 POV - several chapters told from pov of her dog and one or two others)
Task total: 30
Season Total: 30
15.5 Alpha OmegaStrangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv
R - V
+15 task
Task Total: 15
Season Total: 315
10.2 Pronouns Listen To Me by Tess Gerritsen
This is #13 in the Rizzoli & Isles series, the most recent, I believe. I always have enjoyed the series (and the TV show!) but not enough to keep track of when new books are coming out and seek them out. This one, I would say, fits that mold - I enjoyed the book, it was a good read, entertaining, fun, and a few good points to think about, but it wasn't something I'd be running around telling everyone they have to read, either. It's a twisty story with an interesting plot about a murder that seems truly random, and leads to some interesting turns, some of which I felt were predictable and others very surprising. The most interesting thing in this installment is that the story is partly narrated by Jane's mother, Angela. She's always been a prominent character in the stories, but not a narrator, so I've only ever really considered her perspective through what Jane says about her. Hearing her actual words added some new texture to the story.
+10 task
+10 combo (10.3 - one of the narrators & mc is a police officer, Jane Rizzoli, 20.10)
+10 review
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 300
10.10 Group Reads Tracey Lien by All That's Left Unsaid
Tien, thank you so much for picking this book! I doubt I would have come across it or picked it up on my own - but it's one of my favorites I've read in some time! The story is set in Australia in the 1990s, in a community of Vietnamese refugees. The timing means that the parents in this story left Vietnam during and after the war, and the young people were babies or toddlers (or in some cases, not yet born) during the years of war, refugee camps, and culture shock. In the story, Ky, a young woman who is working as a journalist in a city far from her Sydney neighborhood, has come home for the funeral of her little brother Denny, who was brutally killed at a high school graduation party. Looking for answers, Ky searches out witnesses who were at the restaurant as well (all of whom have told the police they saw nothing). Ky’s chapters are interspersed with narration from the point of view of some of the witnesses, creating a kaleidoscope of perspectives on the experience of being Vietnamese in Sydney in the 1990s. Though in some ways this book is a mystery – we’re hoping to discover who killed Denny, and why – in other ways it really isn’t. By the end, it almost doesn’t matter who must be brought to justice, because the other issues that emerge seem so much bigger, and the writing is so enthralling! It’s a testament to Lien’s work that saying this DOESN’T bother me. I am a long-time mystery reader and have very little patience with investigations that don’t go anywhere. In this case, though, it worked.
+10 task
+5 combo (20.10)
+10 review
Task Total: 25
Season Total: 240
20.1 BirthdaysThe Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie
This was an enjoyable but slightly wacky story. I am kind of liking my dabble into Agatha Christie's non-series books, just for fun - but the storylines do get weird. In this book, one young man seemingly just bumming around Africa asks another similarly situated young man to run a simple errand. Saying yes leads Anthony Cade into all kinds of trouble, as the memoirs he is supposed to take to the newspapers are the object of much intrigue. Chimneys, a country house where lots of secret state business gets carried out, also turns out to be the center of this adventure's resolution. Plenty of fun, and memorable characters!
+20 task (publ. 1925)
+5 combo (20.10)
+10 review
+10 aged
Task Total: 45
Season Total: 215
20.2 Biography?Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott
This is one of those books I think everyone should read – certainly anyone who works with kids or families in any capacity, but really I think everyone. This book grew from some NY Times reporting done by the author, and turned into a full book. It follows one girl, Dasani, and her family, starting from when Dasani was about 11 and continuing to the present. When the reporter met Dasani, she was living with her family in a notoriously unsafe homeless shelter in Brooklyn (which, thanks in part to this reporting, was shut down soon after). The book follows her family through years of ups and downs, moments of hope and crushing moments when hope was torn away. It was wonderfully written and paced, while also being incredibly enlightening about the challenges that families like Dasani’s go through – challenges that often don’t seem to be necessary and are more the function of horribly convoluted bureaucratic red tape or thoughtless decision-making (for example, if the family returns late to the shelter by even a minute, they’re locked out and the whole family has to travel the 1.5 hours to the intake center and wait there until it’s resolved, which sometimes takes days – and the whole family has to stay there so the kids can’t go to school). Highly recommended!
+20 task (biography of Dasani Coates)
+5 jumbo (602 pages)
+10 review
Task Total: 35
Season Total: 170
10.5 Journey The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie
Nice one-off Agatha Christie featuring Anne Beddingfeld, orphaned and looking for adventure, who stumbles onto a complex mystery involving murders and gangs of thieves. Much of the story takes place aboard the Kilmorden Castle, a luxury ship traveling from England to South Africa, and then aboard a train from Cape Town to Zimbabwe – as Anne and her various friends and foes work to solve the mystery and figure out who to trust and not trust. I didn’t love the romance angles but mostly ignored them to enjoy the mystery plot. Unlike many Agatha Christies, this one felt a bit more thriller-like and had a larger emphasis on potential danger and exploits than on cerebral crime-solving, but I enjoyed the departure.
+10 task (discussed in help thread - mostly takes place during a journey by boat then train)
+15 combo (20.1 - 1924; 20.7 - 102k ratings; 20.10)
+10 review
+10 aged
Task Total: 45
Season Total: 135
