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

Katy’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

20.8 - Veteran Author

The King of Torts by John Grisham

+20 task (The Firm in 1991, Calico Joe in 2012)
+5 multiple (4th book for this task)

Task total: 25 points
Grand Total: 315 points

Know Your ABCs:

15.5 - 5th book - letter E
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
2011

Incidentally, this is one of the best books I've read all year. Highly recommended!

+20 Task

Grand Total: 290

Know Your ABCs:

15.4 - 4th book - letter D
The Devil's Hearth by Phillip DePoy
2003

+20 Task

Grand Total: 270

10.9 To Be Continued
Garment of Shadows by Laurie R. King

In my defense, I was taking quite a bit of cold medicine at the time, but when I took a nap partway through reading this book, I woke up definitely convinced that I, like Mary Russell, had amnesia. It's one of my favorite things when a writer can get into my head that way and make me really feel like I am part of the book in a real (and in this case slightly dangerous) way! The story is terrific and despite knowing the series and being pretty good at predicting mystery outcomes in advance, I was surprised by a number of plot twists and turns. Beautiful establishment of setting, too! All in all, a strong addition to the series.

+10 Task (Book #12 in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series which I've read the rest of)
+10 review

Task Total: 20 points
Grand total 250

20.4 - Carmilla
Babyji by Abha Dawesar

This book was a totally pleasant surprise to me. It was one of those books that I took off the library shelf while browsing because I had heard the name somewhere. I saw something on the cover about "the Indian Lolita" and flipped through. I was surprised to find that it was an entire book detailing the romantic exploits of a teenage girl in India who is juggling up to 3 women at a time! Something in the writing of the first few pages drew me in and I found myself a bit entranced. Never mind the fact that this girl has, at 17, a FAR more exciting romantic life than I do at in my thirties -- the real point of interest here for me was how perfectly the author captures a teenager's point of view. It may feel like my teen years are long over but MAN did they come rushing back while reading this! The narration was pitch perfect, in that awkward way that makes you really, really glad you're not 17 anymore.

+20 task (LGBT narrator)
+10 combo (10.2 - author born in India according to this link, 20.7 - the narrator has many conversations with many other female main characters, mostly about their romantic life together)
+10 review

Task Total: 40 points
Grand total 230

20.8 Veteran's Day

The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman

+20 task (author published at least from 1970 - 2006)
+5 multiple (3rd book for this task)
+5 oldies (pub. 1970)

Task Total: 30 points
Grand total 190

Know Your ABCs sample post:

15.3 - 3rd book - letter C

Gold by Chris Cleave
Published 2012

I liked this way more than I was expecting to. The characters were not necessarily super likable, but were definitely interesting!

+15 Task

Grand Total: 160 points

15.2 - 2nd book - letter B
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Published in 2000

+15 Task

Grand Total: 145 points

15.1 - 1st book - Letter A

Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie -- published 1996

Phenomenal book, by the way. I wasn't sure when I started, but this was one that I couldn't put down.

+15 Task

Grand Total: 130 points

Task 20.8 Veteran's Day

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

+20 Task
(no style pts -- YA assignment/780 Lexile)

Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 115

10.2 Oktoberfest

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Review: I had trouble getting into this book at first, but once it got going, man did it get going! We get to know Esch, Skeetah, Randall, Junior, and their dad, along with assorted other characters, over the course of 12 days or so. Every chapter seems jam-packed full of *things* to think about -- how Esch is going to handle her pregnancy, how the siblings relate, how Randall’s dreams are deferred...and all the while you know what they don’t know about the storm approaching. In that way, Katrina hanging over their heads makes this almost like a horror movie. The story built up almost like a hurricane, moving from slow, meandering winds to furious speed and power. Definitely a good read!

+10 task (Ward was born in the US)
+10 review

Task Total: 20 points
Grand Total: 95 points

20.7 Women of Achievement Month

The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis

I had a bus trip to take this weekend, and this was my outbound reading material. It was perfect for that type of reading -- it was interesting enough to hold my attention despite the growing pain of my knees being banged into the seat in front of me and it was light enough that I could understand it despite the noisiness of my various fellow travelers. The structure of the story felt disjointed at first, as we see the story and the mystery coming together from different points of view, each adding a new bit of information. However, once I had a handle on the main players in the story, I came to enjoy the narrative structure, since I knew I'd get more information from another source soon. It was definitely the kind of book where the solution wasn't obvious to me from the beginning but as soon as it came clear, I realized that the plot was cleverly done, even with a few events that required some wiling suspension of disbelief.

+20 Task: Bechdel Test - Nina Borg, the woman more or less solving things, talks to her friend Karin, the boy's mother, and another woman (Anne) about details of the crime and medical issues on a number of occasions.
+10 Review

Task Total: 30

Grand Total: 75

As long as zombies count, I highly recommend Feed by Mira Grant and the subsequent books in the trilogy. I'm not a huge monster/zombie fan, but this is probably one of my top favorite books I've read in quite some time. It's like a political thriller with zombies and some philosophical questions raised. I loved it.

20.8 - Veteran's Day
The Dead Zone by Stephen King

Review: This was an interesting read for me. First, I knew some of the characters and the basic premise from the TV show, so I was reading not quite as much for plot. I was more appreciative of what he was doing with establishing the setting -- he's so great with those little details that place you in the right time period! Second, I read 11/22/63 by King a few months ago, and having read that recently made a big impact on how I read this book. King seems to have really stuck with this question of whether or not you should change history if you could, from book to book. Dead Zone was published in 1979 and then 11/22/63 in 2011 -- that's a lot of years to mull over this question! So it was interesting to see him approach it from different angles and with, presumably, more wisdom from the intervening years. I don't have an answer myself to the question he poses, but it's certainly one of those late-night-talk questions that begs for a beer and a couple of friends.

+20 task (King has published works since at least 1974 and continuing to present)
+10 combo (10.2 -- King was born the US. 10.8B -- Stephen has 7 letters)
+10 review
+5 oldies (pub. 1979)

Task Total: 45 points
Grand total: 45 points

Rosemary wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "the number of authors we have already identified for tasks 20.4, 20.7 and 20.10 - and that list isn't definitive - is nearly 900. "

I have more books planned for 20.8 th..."

I love 20.8 also...but I'm really excited about ALL the tasks this time. It seems like every task has SO many interesting possibilities. And I'm *really* excited about the group reads. I've read a couple of them, but the ones I've already read were terrific, and all the ones I hadn't read are either on my high-priority TBR list or should have been there! I actually let out an audible noise when I saw "Triangle" on the list -- I'd been trying to find a good place for that, and it seemed random enough that it was unlikely to be a group read. Hooray!

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Keep in mind that the books on the groups reads are ones we read in the previous challenge, so the person nominating it on the group read would know about any lexile scores."

Awesome! Thanks, for some reason I couldn't find the Hiroshima Lexile score listed.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Indra Sinha, Joseph Conrad, and John Hersey, also can be combo'd with 20.8 Veteran author."

Hiroshima is also on Art Garfunkel's list, for another combo...except Hiroshima is listed as YA by some of the branches at BPL, and there's no Lexile score that I can find. I can't recall -- does it work if some branches list it as YA and others don't?

FYI, The Secret Agent also seems to be YA Assignment at BPL...although there are numerous entries for various editions of the book and I didn't check them all.

20.4 - Literature Map

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

+20 Task (Using the lit map of Scott Westerfeld)

Task Total: 20 points
Grand Total: 285

20.5 - Making History

A Night to Remember by Walter Lord

+20 Task (chronicles the 1912 Titanic sinking)
+5 Combo (10.3 - Dewey Decimal 910.45 in the Brooklyn library)
+10 Not-a-Novel (nonfiction)
+5 oldies (pub. 1955)

* Brooklyn Public Library categorizes this as YA Assignment, but the Lexile is 950)

Task Total: 40 points
Grand Total: 265

TDoS 15.2 - 2nd book 5-stars by Lisa Sokol and Rebekah

I Am Half Sick Of Shadows by Alan Bradley

+20 task

Grand Total 225