Deedee’s
Comments
(group member since Aug 04, 2010)
Deedee’s
comments
from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 481-500 of 2,283
Do we count the letters in "Jr."? For example, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. -- 12 letters or 14 letters? And, to generalize, other titles (like "III" or "Dr.")
Task 10.3 150-199pAcross the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children #6) (2021) by Seanan McGuire (Hardcover, 174 pages)
+10 Task
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 280 + 10 = 290
Task 20.8 Riding the MetroSetting – Tokyo
Country – Japan
Continent – Asia
Set approximately 95% in Tokyo.
The Typist (2010) by Michael Knight
Review: This short novel is told in first person by a young American soldier who is stationed in Tokyo after World War II. He’s an excellent typist (hence the novel’s name), and he’s been assigned to General MacArthur’s office staff. The novel follows our protagonist through his life, 1945-1947. He’s part of the American occupation force in Japan (and all that means), as well as part of a family back home in Alabama. The style is exemplary – sparse but with sufficient detail to follow the story. Recommended for readers of literary fiction.
+25 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 25 + 05 = 30
Grand Total: 250 + 30 = 280
Task 20.7 Riding the MetroSetting – Paris
Country – France
Continent – Europe
The Montmartre Investigation (Victor Legris #3) (2003) by Claude Izner; translated from the French by Lorenza García and Isabel Reid (Hardcover, 309 pages)
Review: The Montmartre Investigation is a historical mystery set in Paris during November, 1891. This is the 3rd in the series. The characters were established in the 1st of the series, Murder on the Eiffel Tower. In this installment, the author assumes the reader already knows the characters and their backstories, and so doesn’t ‘waste’ time re-explaining who everyone is. ‘Author’ really should be ‘authors’; Claude Izner is a pseudonym for two sisters who are ‘secondhand booksellers on the banks of the Seine’. This book has a lot of name-dropping, both of people and of famous Parisian landmarks. The story has way too many coincidences to be taken seriously as a mystery. Recommended for those who enjoy name-dropping in novels, and for those who like to read about Belle Époque Paris.
+25 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 25 + 05 = 30
Grand Total: 220 + 30 = 250
Task 20.6 Riding the MetroSetting – New York City
Country – United States
Continent – North America
The View from Penthouse B (2013) by Elinor Lipman (Goodreads Author) (Hardcover, 252 pages)
Review:This is a slice-of-life situational-comedy novel centered on two sisters sharing an apartment/condominium in Manhattan, New York City. The funniest scenes reminded me of Nora Ephron’s rom-com (romantic comedy) films. I was rooting for all the characters to find their individual and unique happy endings – and was pleased that each one did. Humor is very subjective; I found the novel funny and would recommend it. Others might not be as amused as I was by the travails of the New York City’s upper middle class during the Great Recession (2008).
+25 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 25 + 05 = 30
Grand Total: 190 + 30 = 220
Task 10.6 Page Count 300 – 349Ariadne (2021) by Jennifer Saint (Hardcover, 308 pages)
Review:This novel is the retelling of the story of Ariadne from Greek mythology. I checked my mythology books; the author stays very close to the actual myths. Ariadne was a princess of Crete, the daughter of King Minos. Her brother was the Minotaur (The Bull) who lived in the Labyrinth underneath the palace. We follow Ariadne from the time she was a teenager until her death. My main complaints about the novel are: (1) too much of the novel is “tell” rather than “show”; and, (2) the women are treated as badly in this novel, just like the women are treated badly in the original Greek myths. The author obviously wanted to stay close to the classical myths, no modernization, no feminist re-interpretations. Recommended for fans of Greek myths.
+10 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 10 + 05 = 15
Grand Total: 175 + 15 = 190
Just realized that the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is set in Gaborone, Botswana, with a 2011 population of over 200,000.
Task 20.5 Riding the MetroSetting – Athens
Country – Greece
Continent – Europe
Scorpionfish (2020) by Natalie Bakopoulos
Review: This is a character-driven novel set in contemporary times in the city of Athens, Greece. Our heroine is in her 30s; she was born in Greece to Greek parents, but has spent most of her life in America. As a result, she feels like she’s Greek when she’s in America, and American when she is in Greece. As the novel begins, her parents have died in a car crash, and she’s just arrived in Athens to settle their affairs (she’s an only child and so has to do it all herself). While she is in Athens, she reconnects with people she’s known all her life but hasn’t seen in awhile. Everyone has feelings and the reader gets to know all of those feelings. Several of the characters are at transition points in their life (including our heroine) which makes all this interesting.
Recommended for readers interested in nuanced character studies.
+20 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 150 + 25 = 175
Task 10.5 Page Count 250 – 299Deadlier than the Pen: A Diana Spaulding Mystery (Diana Spaulding #1) (2004) by Kathy Lynn Emerson (Hardcover, 266 pages)
Review: This is a novel that couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to be. It’s a mashup of (1) female empowerment story set in 1888; (2) traditional gothic romance, with a tall, dark, mysterious male love interest; (3) historical novel, including unusual events recorded in contemporary 1888 newspapers; (4) a murder mystery, tacked on toward the conclusion; and (mild spoiler) (view spoiler). The story itself never quite gels, and the heroine’s character changes to suit the plot. By trying to do too much, the novel winds up doing too little. I wouldn’t recommend it.
+10 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 10 + 05 = 15
Grand Total: 135 + 15 = 150
Task 20.4 Riding the MetroSetting – Cape Town
Country – South Africa
Continent – Africa
The Woman Next Door (2016) by Yewande Omotoso
Review: This is a character-driven literary fiction novel starring two heroines, both of whom are in their 80s. It was on the International Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist (2018). The two women are next door neighbors, and have been next door neighbors in a neighborhood in the Cape Town metropolitan area for over 20 years. The twist: one is of European ancestry, and the other one is of African ancestry. I liked the novel because all the characters are a mixture of good traits and bad traits. Towards the end the author gets political, which didn’t really fit the rest of the novel. The bulk of the novel focuses on relationships between family members and on the tribulations of getting older. Recommended for readers looking for character studies and not for Action! Adventure!
+20 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 110 + 25 = 135
Task 10.4 Page Count 200 - 249 pagesThe Safe-Keeper's Secret (Safe-Keepers #1) (2004) by Sharon Shinn (Hardcover, 222 pages) (Young Adult)
+10 Task
Task Total: 10
Grand Total: 100 + 10 = 110
Task 20.3 Riding the MetroSetting - Caracas
Country - Venezuela
Continent – South America
It Would Be Night in Caracas (2019) by Karina Sainz Borgo translated by Elizabeth Bryer; (Hardcover, 230 pages)
Review: This is Karina Sainz Borgo’s first novel. In her afterward she writes: “Some episodes and characters in this novel are inspired by real events, but are included here for literary purposes, not as testimony.” Karina, like the heroine in the novel, was born and raised in Caracas. The heroine of the novel was present in Caracas when the country descended into chaos and hyper-inflation. Many evil things happened, which the novel describes in detail. The author now resides in Spain (no spoilers on the fate of our heroine). Maybe writing this novel was therapy for the author?? Overall, it’s a very grim novel, more so because it was based on actual events. I gave it 3 stars.
+20 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 75 + 25 = 100
Task 15.01 TDoSShin ==> Kendyl
Mort (Discworld #4) (1987) by Terry Pratchett
Review: Discworld is a collection of 40+ books of lighthearted fantasy. The books do not need to be read sequentially, as they are (mostly) all “set in the same world” rather than sequels. Mort is a good one to start with. There is more world building in this novel than in later novels of Discworld. The premise: the character of DEATH takes a young man named Mort as an apprentice. Hijinks result. 😊 Recommended for those looking for offbeat, fantastical, very British humor.
+15 Task
+05 Published before 1996
+05 Review
Task Total: 15 + 05 +05 = 25
Grand Total: 50 + 25 = 75
Task 20.2 Riding the MetroSetting - Haarlem
Country - Netherlands
Continent – Europe
Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins–and WWII Heroes (2021) by Tim Brady (Hardcover, 298 pages) [940.53]
Review: This non-fiction book is about three teenaged girls living in Haarlem, The Netherlands, during World War II. The Germans completely conquered The Netherlands in five days, May 10-15, 1940. The author, Tim Brady, first gives the background of each of the three teenaged girls; next, the motivation (witnessed atrocities by Nazis against Jews, including the callous murder of a Jewish baby); how each teenaged girl came to join the Resistance; some of their actions; and, finally, a coda at the end, of what happened post-war to the people discussed in the book. The book is obviously well-researched, relying on postwar interviews with Resistance members, German paperwork referencing their activities, diaries and memoirs, and physical evidence. Occasionally two primary sources disagree about what happened; in those cases, the author presents both sources, side by side, with the comment that at the end of the day, the bridge was bombed / the Nazi was assassinated / the classified information was relayed to British Intelligence, even if the exact particulars as to HOW cannot be determined.
I picked this book up partially because of the 7 episode BBC series “World On Fire” (2020). The BBC series is set in Poland during World War II. There is a heroine living in Poland who is part of the Resistance. The fictional Polish heroine is shown as doing the activities in Poland that the Historical Real Life "Three Dutch Teenagers" actually did in The Netherlands.
Overall, recommended for anyone with interest in Espionage and/or living life in wartime.
+20 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 25 + 25 = 50
Task 20.1 Riding the MetroSet 54 pages in New York City; and, 218 pages in Berlin, Germany. So, that works out to:
19.85% in New York City and
80.15% in Berlin
Setting - Berlin
Country - Germany
Continent – Europe
Fake Accounts (2021) by Lauren Oyler (Hardcover, 272 pages)
Review: I was first attracted to this novel because I thought it was science fiction (it is not). Next, the blurbs all indicated that the female first person narrator discovers, in January 2017, that her long-term boyfriend Felix is an “anonymous internet conspiracy theorist”, very pro-Trump (he is). It looked like it would be a novel about a relationship told partially through blog posts and text messages and other modern social media (it is not). Instead, the novel’s focus is on our narrator’s obsession with living life on social media rather than in person.
The novel begins in New York City, just as she has discovered Felix’s secret online life. About 50 pages in *something happens* (big spoiler to reveal what, so I won’t), after which our narrator moves to Berlin, and the rest of the novel takes place there. The author inserts sometimes amusing rants on various contemporary (non-political) topics while our narrator walks the streets of Berlin and looks at the internet on her phone. The ending was abrupt, and a lot of loose ends were left dangling. Still, the rants were amusing, so I'd partially recommend this novel.
+20 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 00 + 25 = 25
planning subject to change✔ 1. Mort Shin - Kendyl
2. Little Fires Everywhere Kendyl (p. 5) - Lindsay (p. 2)
3. The Phantom Tree Lindsay - Cindie
4. Lilac Girls Cindie (p. 2) - Snowtulip (p. 1)
5, The House in the Cerulean Sea Snowtulip (p. 1) - Rosemary (p. 2)
6. Empire of the Sun Rosemary (p. 1) - Karen Michele Burns (p. 1)
7. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Karen Michele (p. 2) - Kristina Simon (p. 2)
8. Artificial Condition Kristina Simon (p. 1) -
Chinook (p. 1) or Joanna (p. 1) or Katy (p. 1) or Angelbis (p. 1) or Leigh (p. 1) or Al Valvano (p. 1) or Mai (p. 2)
9. ?
10. ?
Task 10.02 NameFor 10.9 Combo:
Amaretto
how TO AMERicAn: an immigrant's guide to disappointing your parenTs
How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents (2018) by Jimmy O. Yang (Hardcover, 240 pages) [791.43028]
+10 Task (“Yang”)
+05 Combo (#10.9 “Amaretto”)
Task Total: 10 + 05 = 15
Grand Total: 485 + 15 = 500
Task 20.3 OppositesRead a book written by an author of one sex, using a point of view of the opposite sex. The point of view should be a main character and a significant portion of the narrative.
About half of the novel is told from the point of view of Nolan (male). The author is Sharon Shinn (female).
Heart of Gold (2000) by Sharon Shinn (Mass Market Paperback, 342 pages)
+20 Task
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 465 + 20 = 485
Task 10.4 SpringRead any book with a 5 in its original publication date.
Welcome to Night Vale (Welcome to Night Vale #1) (2015) by Joseph Fink (Goodreads Author) and Jeffrey Cranor (Hardcover, 401 pages)
+10 Task
+05 Combo (#10.2 “Fink”)
Task Total: 10 + 05 = 15
Grand Total: 445 + 15 = 460
