Katy’s Comments (group member since Aug 04, 2010)

Katy’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

15.2 Name of the Game Round 2

Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox

Square 7B - letter G - author has no G in name
Square 3B - letter A - set in country that starts with A (Australia)
Square 9D - letter I - word "by" that rhymes with I
Square 10C - letter T - main page genre thriller

Word = GAIT

Task Total: 15
Season Total: 820

15.1 Name of the Game Round 2

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Square 12B - letter S - main page genre science fiction
Square 16D - letter E - no letter E in the title
Square 8B - letter W - author name starts with W

Word = SEW

Task Total: 15
Season Total: 805

15.10 Name of the Game

Point-Less: An English Teacher's Guide to More Meaningful Grading by Sarah M Zerwin

Square 13D - letter T - title has to/too/two
Square 11D - letter H - published in 2020
Square 2D - letter E - 8 word title
Square 6E - letter N - new to you author
Word = THEN

+45 Task
+5 Non-fiction
+100 Completion Bonus
+100 3 or more 4 letter words (yeah, tiny, tile, then)

Post Total: 250
Season Total: 790

10.5 Author

The Tenant by Katrine Engberg

This was a thoroughly satisfying book 1 to a mystery series - I hope there are others and that they too get translated to English! I'm not sure it's worth learning Danish for, but definitely worth reading in English. The mystery revolves around a murder in an apartment building owned by Esther, a mystery author and retired professor. Esther realizes that the murder was a copy of one that took place in a manuscript she was writing, one that only her fellow writing group members had access to. Needless to say, this raises the detectives' alarms, but both fellow writers have alibis. As the investigation proceeds, there are family secrets and unraveling lies and plenty of red herrings, and great characters across the board. Esther, one of the writers at the heart of the story, is particularly intriguing to see how the author develops her personality and her role in the story.

+10 task (two of the main characters are authors and the plot revolves around their writing)
+10 Lost in Translation (translated from Danish)
+10 review

Task Total: 30
Season Total: 540

10.10 Group Reads

All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny

I am kind of sad to have gotten "caught up" on this series! I know there's another one coming, but there was something so satisfying about starting a series with 16 entries and liking it - so much to look forward to! This was a terrific installment - and would work well as a standalone if anyone wanted to dip into the series at this point. Inspector Gamache and family are together in Paris for the birth of his newest granddaughter, when an old family friend is hit by a van and it's not an accident. This leads to a twisty tale of loyalty (real and false), intrigue, lies, and deception. The book was action-packed and thoughtful at the same time, bringing new dimension to some of Gamache's relationships and delivering a surprising set of twists by the end.

+10 task
+10 review

Task Total: 20
Season Total: 510

10.1 Square Peg

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

This was a totally delightful book - I am now frantically putting holds on the rest of the series! Over the summer some friends and I had a brief pandemic book club to read the Expanse series - we only made it through the first 2 or 3 books (though we liked them!) - and in some ways this book reminded me of those, though I think I preferred this series. It's much shorter - this first book is solidly in the novella range at around 150 pages and the other installments are similarly 150-250. But the author manages to pack a lot of intrigue, character development, and humor into small packages. The book centers on Murderbot, a genderless artificial security construct rented to spacefaring teams of scientists or entrepreneurs, who has managed to disable its control features and have independent thought. Despite the name Murderbot, I found myself completely sympathetic to and on the side of this character and was rooting for it all the way. I can't wait for the rest of the series - highly recommended if you enjoy science fiction.

+10 task
+10 review
+15 prizeworthy (Hugo 2018, Nebula 2017, Locus 2018, Alex 2018)

Task Total: 35
Season Total: 480

15.9 Name of the Game

Chase Darkness with Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders by Billy Jensen

Square 1A - letter R - 10K+ ratings (currently 10,233)
Square 14C - letter Y - author name ends in Y
Square 8D - letter E - wild card!

Word = RYE

+30 Task
+5 not a novel (nonfiction)

Post Total: 35
Season Total: 445

15.8 Name of the Game

Redemption Point by Candice Fox

Square 10B - letter T - published in teens (2018)
Square 3B - letter A - set in a country starting with A (Australia)
Square 7B - letter G - no letter G in author name
Word = TAG

+30 Task

Post Total: 30
Season Total: 410

15.7 Name of the Game

The Searcher by Tana French

Square 13C - letter T - The ____ title
Square 9E - letter I - set in/author born in Ireland (both true)
Square 15C - letter L - page count over 400 (451 pg)
Square 16B - letter E - author born in Europe (French is born in Ireland)

Word = TILE

+20 Task

Post Total: 20
Season Total: 380

15.6 Name of the Game

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
860 lexile

Square 12E - letter S - main page genre scifi
Square 3C - letter A - author born in August (born Aug 11)
Square 4C - letter D - main page genre dystopia

Word = SAD

+20 Task

Post Total: 20
Season Total: 360

10.7 La Nina

A Better Man by Louise Penny

This is the 15th installment in the Armand Gamache series, and I'm both happy and sad to have gotten this far - only one more and then I'm caught up (yay!) but then I won't have more to read until August! (Boo!). I have really been enjoying the time I've spent with Armand and the villagers of Three Pines, and even though there's always a challenge in making murder series work in small settings (how many murders can there possibly BE in any one small town??), I think Penny does a great job in making each story feel fresh and unique (and realistic enough!) by introducing new characters, new subplots, new job titles, and generally letting her characters grow and change. In this book, for instance, Armand is starting a new/old job (re-starting a job he already held, this time with his second in command as his semi-boss), and Beauvoir is about to move to Paris. Heading into book 16 now, and looking forward to it...

+10 task (rain and flooding start the crime solving in motion)
+5 combo (10.4)
+10 review

Task Total: 25
Season Total: 340

10.6 Notable

The Neighborhood by Mario Vargas Llosa

This was a strange read, but overall one I enjoyed and I thought worth reading. It's set in 90s Peru, dealing with corruption and a fairly sleazy media figure who takes down big names with huge cover stories. He threatens to expose Enrique, one of the main characters, with photos from an orgy, and then is murdered. From there, we have a really memorable cast of characters carrying the story forward, from the second in command journalist who pursued the story to the near-homeless former poetry reciter with a grudge against the paper. The other central plot line involves Enrique's wife, who is having an affair with his lawyer's wife. There was definitely more steaminess to the affair scenes than I anticipated!

+10 task (#88 on the 2018 list)
+10 lost in translation (originally in Spanish)
+10 review

Task Total: 30
Season Total: 315

10.3 The Last Hunt

The Last Hunt by Deon Meyer

I've read a number of Meyer's books before and enjoyed each one. This is typical of his Benny Griessel series - well drawn South African setting, good solid plotting, interesting characters. This was especially interesting to me for a few reasons - it's one of his most recent, and deals directly with modern day government and corruption issues within South Africa, so it was a look into an issue I didn't know as much about. Also, one of the precipitating events was a murder on the Rovos Rail, a luxury train line across the country, and one my parents have actually traveled on! (There was no murder when they went on it!). I always enjoy when there's some small piece of a book that jumps out and connects to places or people I know in real life.

+10 task
+10 lost in translation (translated from Afrikaans)
+5 prize worthy (ATKV-Woordveertjie for Spanningslektuur 2019)
+10 review

Task Total: 35
Season Total: 285

I've started reading A Better Man and a central event is a massive flood (caused by a cold winter - more ice - and then heavy rain/snow. I thought it was just background but it seems more important than that and causes the uncovering of the murder victim. Does that seem to fit?

20.3 Post Modern

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

This is the follow-up novel to the Handmaid's Tale - 30 years later! I have read mixed reviews but I loved it. It's told from 3 perspectives - Aunt Lydia (one of the antagonists in the original book), a young woman inside Gilead, and a young woman in Canada where Gilead is unpopular and protested-against. Even more so than the first book, this is a fast-paced ride. I especially enjoyed reading Aunt Lydia's perspective, as it added a really unexpected and fresh dimension to her character and also to the full story of Gilead. It answered (partially, at least) one big question I had - what happened to all the women? Clearly some were killed but what were the different pathways? What led to the formation of this society? If you read or liked Handmaid's Tale, I definitely recommend this follow-up.

+20 task
+5 combo (10.6)
+10 review
+15 prize-worthy (Booker, Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis, GR Choice Award)

Task Total: 50
Season Total: 245

10.8 Lunar

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

This isn't the first time I've read this book, but it's been a while. However, I really wanted to read The Testaments, and wanted to remind myself of the book. I've watched part of the TV series that came out a few years ago, and thought it was really well done, and that also renewed my interest in revisiting this book. It really holds up - despite it being an older dystopian novel, the society portrayed is still chilling. It made me imagine how a dystopian society (any dystopia!) begins -- what has to take place to set this society in motion?

+10 (pub 1985)
+10 combo (10.4, 20.3)
+10 review
+15 prize-worthy (Arthur C. Clarke Award, Audie Award, LA Times Book Prize, Gov General's Award)

Task Total: 45
Season Total: 195

20.9 Nieces

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

I got the idea for this book (that it would fit the task) from another member of the group and it absolutely fits - great shelving! I enjoyed, but didn't love, this mystery. The story centers on Malcolm, a bookstore owner who had once published a blog post about "eight perfect murders" in literature -- and now, someone is recreating those murders in real life. Naturally this draws the attention of the FBI, and Malcolm begins to investigate as well. I had read one other Peter Swanson book and I felt similarly - interesting, good plotting, but characters I didn't care about or connect with quite enough to feel strongly. They just didn't feel as well rounded as I might have hoped. However, the plot was enough to keep me reading, if not ready to put it on my top ten list!

+20 task (shelved 90x as books about books)
+5 combo (10.4)
+10 review

Task Total: 35
Season Total: 150

10.3 Winter

Knife by Jo Nesbø

I got back into the Harry Hole series recently and once I read #11 (which was crazy!) I was eager to get onto this one. Harry Hole is a recovering alcoholic police detective who, through the 12 books in the series, has been through a whole range of personal tragedies and traumas - including working on many wild serial killings, as he's a top detective in Oslo. In this installment, Harry wakes up with blood on his hands, and the story proceeds as he tries to determine if he, in fact, committed the murder he seems to have done. The story is a thriller and as always, Jo Nesbo's plotting kept me on the edge of my seat.

+10 task
+10 Lost in Translation (translated from Norwegian)
+10 Review

Task Total: 30
Season Total: 115

15.5 Name of the Game

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side by Eve L. Ewing

Square 4E - letter D - consecutive letters (oo in schoolyard)
Square 5C - letter I - title word "in"
Square 6B - letter N - not a novel
Word = DIN

+20 task
+5 not a novel

Post Total = 25
Season Total: 85

15.4 Name of the Game

The Thirst by Jo Nesbø

Square 10D - letter T - translated
Square 5D - letter I - no I in author's name
Square 6C - letter N - Nordic Noir
Square - 14B - letter Y - set in Norway
Word = TINY

Post Total = 15
Season Total: 60