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

Deedee’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

Task 20.8 Mother-Daughter

The Kitchen God's Wife (1991) by Amy Tan

+20 Task
+05 Oldies - 25 to 75 years old: 5 points (1942-1992)

Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25

I'm not at my "own" computer now -- will add "season totals" later :)

***UPDATED***

The Kitchen God's Wife is #3 on the list Bonds Between Mothers and Daughers, and indeed, the focus is on a Chinese immigrant mother and her American born-and-raised daughter.

Grand Total: 695 + 25 = 720

I looked at
https://www.harvard.edu/on-campus/com...

and:

2014 Joseph E. Stiglitz (economist)
1973 Robert Penn Warren
1753 Benjamin Franklin

Task 10.8 Double Letter Names (Cat's task)
Read a book with an author with a double letter in their name. The double letter can be in either the first or last name.

Wyrd Sisters (Discworld #6, Discworld - Witches Series #2 ) (1988) by Terry Pratchett
Lexile 700L

+10 Task

Task Total : 10

Grand Total: 670 + 10 = 680

Task 10.10 Group Reads
Anika: The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart

The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise (2010) by Julia Stuart
Review: The primary characters in this novel all live and work at the Tower of London. Our main protagonist is a Beefeater guard / tour guide who lives with his wife at the site. The novel mixes sadness, slapstick humor, and numerous interesting historical tidbits about the Tower of London. An amusing side-plot involves a location outside the Tower, namely, the London Underground’s Department of Lost Things. (Our protagonist’s wife works there.) The reader learns on page 10 that the only child of our main protagonist has died; that is the source of the sadness in the novel. In keeping with being a mellow, mildly amusing novel, the ending is uplifting and hopeful. Recommended.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 650 + 20 = 670

Anika wrote: "Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! So glad to hear your husband is well! What a fantastic birthday present."

The best birthday present :) Glad to hear the good news

Task 15.3 Reading Globally

Setting: United Kingdom (Europe)

Passing On (1989) by Penelope Lively

+15 Task

Task Total: 15

Grand Total: 635 + 15 = 650

Task 20.1 Gothic Authors

The Tattooed Girl (2003) by Joyce Carol Oates
Review: Joyce Carol Oates writes creepy literary fiction. The tattooed girl of the title is a young woman who has had many bad things happen to her as a child, and now her soul is broken as a result. By chance, she becomes an assistant / light housekeeping live-in helper for an acclaimed, unworldly, male, physically ailing, Jewish writer. Nothing good ever happens with that combination (at least not in a Joyce Carol Oates novel). The novel really gets inside the minds of its characters. I would have given this book 5 stars but the lengthy passages detailing the hatred some of the characters have for Jews and other humans was depressing to read about. OK, the readers get it, tattooed girl irrationally blame Jews for her poor life choices! Overall, recommended for fans of literary fiction.

+20 Task
+05 Combo (#10.5”Joyce”)
+10 Review

Task Total: 20 + 05 + 10 = 35

Grand Total: 600 + 35 = 635

For 15.1, would short stories that exist only on kindle work? One example: The Hetrodythermaline Highwayman. Another example: My Name is Markham. Thanks!

Twenty days out ... the time for me to get real about whether I can finish the Challenge or the sub-Challenge. I don't think I can, not when those twenty days include Thanksgiving. What that means is that for the sub-Challenge, I can start reading the remaining books out of alphabetical order. [I have "A" and "B" done :) ] I had a book picked out for Cambodia but it had to go back to the library.

Rebekah wrote: "Would the Group Reads book The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise work for this task?"

I'm reading this now ... was a decision ever made if it qualified for #20.2 Combo points?

Task 10.8 Double Letter Names (Cat's task)
Read a book with an author with a double letter in their name. The double letter can be in either the first or last name.

The Family Trade (The Merchant Princes #1) (2004) by Charles Stross (Goodreads Author) (Paperback, 308 pages)
Review: This is book #1 of a six-book fantasy series. The author, on his blog http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-...
informs his readers that "The Family Trade", was split into two books ("The Family Trade" and "The Hidden Family").. This is good to know because at the end of The Family Trade the story just --- ends. Nothing is resolved. Knowing that books #1 & #2 were written as one complete novel, and that it was a publisher decision to split the novel in half, makes me forgive the author for the nothing-muffin ending to this book.

The premise of this novel: a Clan or family of related individuals have the ability to walk between worlds. One of the two worlds is our familiar Earth. The other one is a world stuck in medieval life. Over time, the Clan has leveraged their world walking ability into major riches on our Earth, and major aristocratic power in the medieval world. Where there is power, there is violence and political intrigue. Our heroine, born in medieval world, was adopted as a baby in our Earth. She’s 30 years old, and a very practical, competent individual. She discovers by chance that she can world walk. The story proceeds from there. The first third of the novel is slow-moving, with a lot of info-dumping. If considered as part of a 600+page novel, the info-dumping is not excessive, but as part of a 300-page novel it gets wearisome after awhile. Once the info-dumping is complete, and the action gets started, the novel becomes a lot more interesting. I’m planning to read #2 sooner rather than later, if only to see some of these storylines resolved! Recommended for readers of science ficton/fantasy.

+10 Task
+05 Combo (#10.5”Charles”)
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 05 + 10 = 25

Grand Total: 575 + 25 = 600

I was stopped at a red light and got rear-ended. I'm OK but still shaken up by it. Not sure if my car is fixable :(

Task 10.5 Grandparents
Grandparents' Day is September 10. Read a book whose author's first name is the same as one of your Mod's grandparents' first name: Charles, Jessie, George, Ida, Joseph, Elizabeth, Jean, Ernie, Joyce, Tom, Mary. Names must match exactly.


Tapestry of Fortunes (2013) by Elizabeth Berg
Review: This is a contemporary novel about women who are middle class, middle aged, and are looking back over their adult life. They make decisions to change whatever they see that they don’t like. A lot of the plot contains unrealistic wish-fulfillment scenarios – one woman sells her house for her asking price the day she lists it; better jobs are offered just when needed; relationships are healed after ONE soulful conversation. And – the four women become instant best friends the day they meet!

This novel is a break from reality – nothing wrong with that! One striking element is that women get 98% of the “screentime”. Sometimes the women talk about men, but otherwise, this novel is a male-free zone. All the action and almost all the conversations are women interacting with women. (There are several mother-daughter conflicts and conversations, but they are not the main focus of the story so no 20.8 combos.) Recommended for when you are in a waiting room and want something undemanding to read to pass the time.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 555 + 20 = 575

Task 10.7 Big Words (Tien's task)
Read a book with a word in the title ending in -sion, -tion, or -cion.

The Dimension Next Door (2008) edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie L. Hughes (Paperback, 291 pages)
Review: The late Martin H. Greenberg, over the course of several years, edited theme collections of science fiction/fantasy stories. He will establish a theme, and publicize the theme amongst science fiction short story writers. He then picks out the stories and creates the anthology. Other anthologies include the 21 “Fantastic” anthologies (example: Assassin Fantastic, Horse Fantastic), anthologies like The Further Adventures of Batman and several on Sherlock Holmes, and freestanding anthologies like If I Were An Evil Overlord. The quality varies from anthology to anthology. The authors are usually not the better-known ones; nevertheless, the stories are often excellent.
This collection contains thirteen never-before-published stories by different authors that (from introduction) “breach the barriers that separate our everyday world” from other realities. Some of the stories include one or more of the following concepts: cursed books; ghosts; alternate universes; time travel; modern day Neanderthals; ancient Mayans; necromancers. This is one of the higher quality Greenberg anthologies. Recommended for fans of science fiction short stories.

+10 Task
+10 Not-a-Novel: short story collections
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 + 10 = 30

Grand Total: 520 + 30 = 550

Task 20.4 Nighttime
The darkness of night is often an element of Gothic fiction. Read any book which takes place in a single night (a single day, 24 hours).

After Alice (2015) by Gregory Maguire (Hardcover, 273 pages)
Review: Gregory Maguire takes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as the starting point for this novel, After Alice. There is one mention in Lewis Carroll’s book of a girl named Ada: ’I’m sure I’m not Ada,’ she said, ‘for her hair goes in such long ringlets…..’. In After Alice, Ada is the friend and neighbor of Alice. The novel alternates between two stories: (1) Ada, who accidentally falls down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland; and, (2) Lydia, the older sister of Alice. The Ada part of the story is told in a dreamlike manner, a surrealistic style that is hard to follow if you know the underlying Alice story, and possibly impossible to follow if you don’t. The Lydia part of the story is told in a straightforward manner, following teenaged Lydia as she deals with the death of her mother and as she chafes at Victorian social restrictions concerning what is acceptable for gentile teenager females. The tone of a lot of the novel is snide – (derogatory or mocking in an indirect way) -- which can be fun if you agree with the author about what deserves to be mocked. Additionally, Maguire seeks to stretch your vocabulary, including rarely used English words. (Here are some examples (not a complete list): “brazen glints”, “eternal bucholia”, “opodeldoc”, “the grommets”, “glaucous eye”, “exegetic murmuring”, “crepuscular tunnel”, “farrago of a comedy”, “capacious”, “pietistic”, “lyceum tea”, “quotidian”, “charteuse”, “dropsical”, “boskiness”, “stertorous commotion”, “nostrum”, “imbricated”, “viburnum”) I found the overuse of unusual words made it difficult to get into the flow of the story. Overall, a quirky and surreal story. Recommended only for fans of Alice in Wonderland.

+20 Task (#20.4)
+05 Combo (#20.5)
+10 Review

Task Total: 20 + 05 + 10 = 35

Grand Total: 485 + 35 = 520

Task 10.8 Double Letter Names (Cat's task)

An Appetite for Murder (Key West Food Critic Mystery #1) (2012) by Lucy Burdette
Review: This novel is a cozy mystery set in Key West, Florida. It is the first one of a series. Our heroine Hayley is 25 years old. She had been living in her mother’s basement (parents are divorced) in New Jersey. She took a chance on love, moving from New Jersey to Key West, Florida. Alas, the man she followed had other lovers, and now Hayley is unemployed and homeless. Fortunately her college roommate lives nearby and gives Hayley a temporary place to live. Hayley is a suspect when her ex’s latest lover is found murdered. Hayley divides her time in the novel between searching for the murderer and searching for steady employment. (Mild (view spoiler)[she finds both (hide spoiler)].) What I liked about the novel: descriptions of Key West; descriptions of food (recipes included in the appendix); actual character growth of Hayley (more mature by the end). What I didn’t like: the author doesn’t “play fair” with the mystery, as important relevant information is revealed only at the end; and, one of the characters is a very very cliché “gay best friend”. Really, guys, does EVERY single woman in a cozy mystery HAVE to have a “gay best friend”? Recommended for fans of cozy mysteries. I’ll probably pick up the sequel as Hayley’s ditzy mom in New Jersey is visiting Hayley while she begins her new job.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 465 + 20 = 485

Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "I am doing better on here than I am on SRC"

I post on SRC even though I know I will never finish that challenge. I figured out that it takes 30 books in 3 months to finish the challenge here at RWS and 90 books in 3 months to finish the challenge at SRC. I read about 40 books in a 3 month period, so I can finish RWS if I stay dedicated to books that fit. SRC is an impossibility.

This challenge (so far) I've finished 10 of 20 of the RWS tasks, but only 2 books in the sub-challenge. My Bulgaria book, The Shadow Land, was a slow read, which is what put me behind on the sub-challenge.

Task 10.1 Square Peg

The Lawgiver (2012) by Herman Wouk
Review: I started reading The Lawgiver in the library. Twenty pages in I checked out the book and brought it home to finish reading in between my other books. The story is told 100% through personal letters, memos, e-mails, new articles, recorded calls, Skype transcripts and text messages. Easily 95% of the text is believable, as in, yeah, that letter, memo, etc., really could have happened that way. (For 5% of the text -- some of the emails were overly long.) The central action of the novel is the production of a movie about the biblical Moses. The movie is called “The Lawgiver” hence the title of this novel. Events include screenwriting, locking down funding, casting, and legal contracts. In between all the events are real people having emotional reactions to everything. The various romantic entanglements are fun to read about. Herman Wouk casts himself as one of the individuals in the novel -- is that "breaking the fourth wall"??

Overall, this novel was a great fun to read, and I would recommend it.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 445 + 20 = 465

Task 10.8 Double Letter Names (Cat's task)
Read a book with an author with a double letter in their name. The double letter can be in either the first or last name.

How to Wash a Cat (2008) by Rebecca M. Hale
Review: This is the first book of a series of cozy mysteries. The series is set in modern-day San Francisco, and stars a female accountant who has inherited an antiques shop. She lives in the apartment above the shop. Her two cats are an ever-present presence. I’d say the novel was an OK cozy mystery – there are better ones out there, there are worse ones out there. The heroine (who is never given a name, even though everyone else is given a name, even characters who are present in the novel for only a page or two) gets to be more and more annoying as the novel progresses. The mystery doesn’t play fair with the readers – facts not mentioned at all during the novel are necessary to determine the solution. What saves the novel is the character of “Monty”, the across-the-street neighbor of the heroine. The novel brightens and sings whenever he is present, and sinks into mumbo jumbo whenever he is absent. I’m undecided over whether to pick up the second book in the series.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task Total: 10 + 10 = 20

Grand Total: 425 + 20 = 445

Task 20.2 The House
Read a book where a dwelling-place (house, castle, cottage, villa, church, prison etc.) is a "character" in the sense that the story revolves around the dwelling, it's history or former inhabitants.

Rooms (2014) by Lauren Oliver (Goodreads Author) (Hardcover, 305 pages)
Review: I wasn’t sure which book would fit task #20.2 so I watched the posts and saw this one read by Karen Michele and claimed for #20.2. I also saw that she had given it 4 *’s. (Thanks to Karen Michele!) I know that the author Lauren Oliver usually writes YA books although this one is not YA. I checked the book out from the library and now have read it. I gave it 3 *’s but that was because the ending was so very sorrowful.

The writing style was clear and easy to follow. The characters were well-drawn as to personality. (And, yes, the rambling old house is a “character” in the story.) In the novel, the various ghosts are confined to the house until such time as they confront and deal with the personal issues they had whilst alive. And, wow, what personal issues!! All the characters in this novel had very bad luck, both the living and the dead. All the characters in this novel then compounded their bad luck with bad decisions, resulting in distressing outcomes. Overall, while the novel is well-written, it is not really my “cup of tea”.

+20 Task (Room)
+10 Combo (#20.3 ghost, #20.7 single word title)
+10 Review

Task Total: 20 + 10 + 10 = 40

Grand Total: 385 + 40 = 425