Joanna’s
Comments
(group member since Nov 17, 2010)
Joanna’s
comments
from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 1,321-1,340 of 2,307
This is the perfect place for me to put The Obelisk Gate! I read the first in the trilogy last season and really wanted to find a spot for the second book this season.
If I read a book of short stories, do there have to be 9 characters within one story or would it count up across all the different stories?
20.5 Myra BreckinridgeLess by Andrew Sean Greer
This book is more than it seemed at first. I started listening to this earlier this spring, then I quit because I got bored with what seemed like just another navel-gazing writer story. Less reminded me of The Accidental Tourist, only in modern gay form. Then, after I finished another book I was listening to. I decided to give this another try since it won all these prizes. Right around the middle of the book, I suddenly came to like poor old Less. The book found its voice and its heart.
I particularly appreciated the discussion that Less has with another writer about whether his writing is bad or whether he's a "bad gay." Less struggles with this question--must his writing reflect well on gay men and their relationships?
The narrator for the audiobook captured a tone that fit Less's story perfectly. In a different novel, I might have found the narrator a little whiny, but it was just right here.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 1055
Will subtitles count for this task?
20.6 Ellen FosterA Tangled Tale by Lewis Carroll
This book consists of a series of puzzles (called "knots") of the missionaries and cannibals problem (wherein one must get all the people across a river in a boat that only holds xx persons and there are constraints about who can travel together or be left alone on one or the other side of the river). Some of the problems were more math based and some were more like traveling salesmen type maps.
Overall, many of these "knots" felt more like tricks than like puzzles or problems. I got fewer than half of the solutions correct, but in reading the answers, I sometimes felt that I'd been unfairly tricked by the phrasing of the problem rather than by a failure of thought. I suppose that's the way with these things.
At the end of the book, the author gives the solutions and also reviews the solutions that were sent in when these problems were published. I enjoyed reading the answers and hearing about the wrong answers that others had come up with--at least that made me feel better about failing to find the correct solution so often.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.3, 10.8, 10.9, 10.2)
+10 Oldies (1885)
Task total: 60
Grand total: 925
+100 RWS finish
Grand total: 1025
10.7 Olive KitteridgeThe Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
This book is everything I want from fantasy--complicated world that makes intrinsic sense and is full of interesting characters who are actually doing something instead of just milling around telling you about their world. The author never stops the plot to explain things, but I was always following and felt like I understood the important points about how this world works.
Also, characters here have sexuality that isn't the focus of their characters. There's a trans-woman and her experience is described, but it isn't the only thing we learn about the character; there's a three-way family unit that exists for a time and it's just taken as routine. Similarly, characters here have physical racial characteristics that the other characters use to try to place their origin, but the skin color of a character is just part of the package of what we know about a character. In 2019, I shouldn't still be impressed by this, but I find it rare still in a lot of novels.
I will definitely read more from this series and this author.
Also, the reader for the audiobook did an excellent job and handled the combination of scientific and made-up-scientific words with ease. I hope it's the same reader for the rest of the trilogy.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.8, 20.5)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 865
Do the characters have to be significant, or just be named at all?
My bookclub is reading the Crawdads book for July as well.
10.5 Civil WarCrave Me by Geneva Lee
I tore through books four and five and half of book six, then I sort of lost interest in getting to the happy ending. This book is book five and continues the story of Belle and Smith. There's absolutely no reason to read this book without first reading Covet Me, the first part of the story of this couple.
This is a Shades of Grey style bodice ripper -- really rich man with dominating tendencies exploring light kink with a willing partner. Belle is no doormat and she comes across as a real character here, which makes the book enjoyable. Again, not literature, just fun.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 835
10.5 Civil WarCovet Me by Geneva Lee
Books four, five, and six of the Royals Saga are actually about Belle, the best friend of Clara from books one through three. Belle catches her boring fiance sleeping with someone else around the end of Clara's series. This book picks up shortly after Belle's breakup when she is out job hunting and finds a job with a sexy but perhaps crime-connected attorney. Naturally, because this is a bodice ripper, by halfway through the book, Belle and her attorney have become an item.
This trilogy is more directly BDSM than Clara's story was. Belle and Smith are substantially more kinky than Clara and Alexander and Smith is involved with real criminals. There's better plot management through this book and a lot of build up of the relationship that made this an enjoyable read.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 815
10.5 Civil WarCrown Me by Geneva Lee
I can't believe I went down the rabbit hole of this series. These are bodice-rippers--good for light fun reading, distracting from the real world, but of limited literary value. I'm glad to be finished with these characters. In this book, the naughty prince will finally marry the heroine, but there's plenty of drama on the way to keep things interesting. The sex in these books is sort of Fifty-Shades-lite--strong possessiveness, a somewhat controlling male figure, but nothing too unusual. The next three books in the series focus on the best friend of the heroine in this trilogy, so readers will get a break from the actual royals for a few books.
+10 Task (Lee)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.9 - heroine's sister is also in the book)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 795
10.2 Published xx81-xx90The Gunslinger by Stephen King
I always end up liking Stephen King books when I read them, but somehow I haven't read that many of them. I've always heard that the Dark Tower series is worth reading, but I knew little about it going into this book. This felt like more of a western and more science-fictiony than most of the other King books that I've read.
The story traces a lone Gunslinger through relatively bleak desert-type landscapes as he tracks the mysterious Man in Black and occasionally has to do dirty deeds like shooting and killing a whole town of people.
The narrator, George Guidall, is a very experienced narrator, but not one of my favorites. He reads this story in a matter of fact tone throughout that tells the story but does little to add to the suspense or the characters. If I continue the series, I'll have to look to see if anyone else has read them or perhaps switch to reading these in print.
+10 Task (1982)
+10 Combo (10.10, 10.8)
+5 Oldies
+10 Review
Task total: 35
Grand total: 770
Possibilities:250,000 or more ratings
The Casual Vacancy - +5 big
100,000 - 249,999
Where the Crawdads Sing
75,000 - 99,999
Redshirts
25,000 - 74,999
Sourdough
Less
15,000 - 24,999
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It - +5 nonfiction
Beatrice and Virgil
10,000 - 14,999
Stand on Zanzibar - +5 big; +5 old
5,000 - 9,999
White Tears
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century - close to the edge; might tip over - +5 nonfic
The Piano Teacher - +5 old
1,000 - 4,999
Rosewater
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century - close to the edge; might tip over - +5 nonfic
250 - 999
Safeword Matte
Not Much Just Chillin': The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers - +5 nonfic
The Other Side of Desire: Four Journeys into the Far Realms of Lust and Longing - +5 nonfic
fewer than 250 ratings
Safeword Matte In Training
The First Hurt: Stories
20.4 NefertitiJoan of Arc by Mark Twain
I don't know how I'd never heard of this book. It's wonderful! Mark Twain is such a clever storyteller. The book is told through the narration of a friend of Joan's gives the story of her short life. In this telling, Joan is near-perfect--compassionate, strong, guided by God, pious. She follows the "voices" that tell her that she's been chosen to fight for France against the English and off she goes to lead an army. In this novel, she comes to life as a human character, with a life and a history and real emotions and love for her parents and a crazy path. But Twain sells it. She seems believable even as she does the unbelievable things that she did.
The narrator for the audio version (Mark Anthony) that I listened to did a good job getting the characters to seem individualized and pacing the story. His pronunciations of French seemed off to me, but it's been a long time since I was able to speak even a little French, so maybe it's my faulty memory of French words rather than his accent.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (20.1)
+10 Oldies (1896)
Task total: 45
Grand total: 735
10.9 SistersHalf Magic by Edward Eager
830 lexile
This was a reread with my children. We read it three years ago when they were 4 and 7. Now at 7 and 10, they both enjoyed revisiting this story and had surprisingly good recall for what was going to happen with the wishes. The premise of half-way granted wishes is a great one--this would make a good starting point for an adult fantasy novel as well. We all particularly enjoyed the trip to see King Arthur/Lancelot and a jousting match. For whatever reason, my kids have not wanted to read any of the other books in this series, so we'll move on to something else entirely.
+10 Task (4 siblings; 3 girls, one boy)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.8)
+5 Oldies (1954)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 690
10.9 SistersConquer Me by Geneva Lee
Completely escapist non-literature. This is almost like Shades of Grey fanfic except that it's an overall more healthy relationship than in that book. These characters started to get tiresome in this book--the whole notion that the naughty prince is dangerous/has darkness felt exaggerated and repetitive in this book. The unreasonable amount of sex even managed to get tiresome--ugh, is he shoving her against a wall again? Get on with it already. I had felt like the female lead was at least not a doormat through the first book, but her level of angsty-worrying was tiresome here. The last quarter of the book picked up enough that now I'm tempted to read the next book just to follow the plot through. At least these are fast reads.
+10 Task (Clara's sister Lola is here)
+10 Combo (10.3 - conquer, 10.5 - Lee)
+10 Review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 660
10.5 Civil WarCommand Me by Geneva Lee
This book is of the Fifty Shades of Grey and Crossfire genre. Absolutely predictable cotton candy reading, but perfect for a rainy grey day when I was home sick from work. Requires very little concentration and completely takes my mind away from real life stress. The twist here is that the hero is the Crown Prince of England, so the poor heroine of the story is pulled into the tabloids and can't just have a regular relationship with a new beau--it's all fraught with the Royals. There are seven books in this series, plus a spinoff series. I don't know that I'll have interest in these characters for long enough to read all of them, but I enjoyed this one.
+10 Task (Lee)
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.3 - command; 10.9 - the heroine's sister is in the story)
Task total: 30
Grand total: 625
10.3 ScrabbleThe Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
1000 lexile
I read this three years ago with my older child and enjoyed sharing this classic with him. Now, I reread it with both children...
my now ten year old and my seven year old who had no patience for this book three years ago. Both kids loved the book this time around. The ten year old was much more able to understand the word play and both kids especially liked hearing about all the demons from the land of Ignorance. The book really is quite clever and manages to talk through different puns and word twists in a way that is both entertaining and tangible enough for my small literalists -- subtraction stew (where you get hungrier the more you eat), the Doldrums, the Watchdog (who can fly, because time flies).
+10 task
+10 review
+5 Oldies (1961)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 595
10.6 Public DomainThe Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
I've heard so many of the lines from this as quotes before without knowing the origin. I was not in a contemplative enough mood to really sit and think hard about the aphorisms here, but I enjoyed having them read aloud by the narrator of the audiobook that was available from my library.
These fables or poems or stories are all short and none of them make any real effort to fully flesh out a philosophy. They're more a light gloss on how to think about life, love, children, power, etc. While I enjoyed the quotable tidbits, I wanted more from this than just little dabbles of wisdom quotes. Another reviewer called it "philosophical porn" which sums it up nicely.
The book does highlight how similar different religious beliefs are at heart--be good to each other, find ways to live that don't interfere with other people living, think about the effect of your actions on others, etc.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Oldies (1923)
+5 Combo (10.3)
Task total: 35
Grand total: 565
