RJ - Slayer of Trolls’s Comments

RJ - Slayer of Trolls’s comments from the 2025 Reading Challenge group.

Note: RJ - Slayer of Trolls is not currently a member of this group.

#31 in 2024:

I finished the short story collection


The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading another collection


Dubliners by James Joyce

I finished another excellent noir crime novel by one of my favorite authors


The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Lion by Nelson DeMille

#30 in 2024:

I finished another excellent noir crime novel by one of my favorite authors


The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Lion by Nelson DeMille

I finished the first book in the "Space Trilogy" but I won't be finishing the series


Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

#29 in 2024:

I finished the first book in the "Space Trilogy" but I won't be finishing the series


Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

I finished this novel about crack dealers in New Jersey housing projects


Clockers by Richard Price
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

#28 in 2024:

I finished this novel about crack dealers in New Jersey housing projects


Clockers by Richard Price
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I finished the Booker Award-winning historical novel set in 1960s rural India


The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter

#27 in 2024:

I finished the Booker Award-winning historical novel set in 1960s rural India


The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter

I read the novel a few years back so I won't read it again but I'll gladly participate in the discussion.

The novel is based on a short story with the same title. When I was in grade school (a long time ago back in the 1970s) one of my teachers read the short story to the class. I remember how emotionally powerful it was back then, and I believe it was probably my first exposure to written Science Fiction. I still prefer the short story to the novel.

I hope everyone enjoys this story and I look forward to the discussion.

I really enjoyed this one when I read it a few years ago. I hope you both like it as much as I did! Right now I happen to be reading Spinning Silver by the same author and I am enjoying it too.

I finished


The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Getaway by Jim Thompson

#26 in 2024:

I finished


The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Getaway by Jim Thompson

so with May's Group Read vote ending in a tie, which book will we read?

I finished the foremost Swedish vampire novel


Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Night Shift by Stephen King

#25 in 2024:

I finished the foremost Swedish vampire novel


Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Night Shift by Stephen King

I finished the fifth Philip Marlowe book


The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

#24 in 2024:

I finished the fifth Philip Marlowe book


The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Rosalyn wrote: "i nominate

Chocolat is a timeless novel of a straitlaced village's awakening to joy and sensuality. In tiny Lansquenet, where nothing much has changed in a hundred y..."

second

Here's some thoughts and my review link

I have read nothing by Bardugo so didn't have any expectations except that I knew she wrote YA fantasy novels. I picked my copy of the book for free at one of those "Little Free Libraries" that you see around in residential neighborhoods. I started reading it on the return cross-country airplane flight to visit my daughter at college in early March, and it caught my attention and was easy enough to read so I stuck with it. While the setup seemed a little contrived, and the characters for the most part weren't more than stock archetypes, I did find myself drawn in along the way, legitimately wanting to know what was going to happen next. I credit that to Bardugo's skill at creating suspense by doling out plot twists and revelations at a measured pace. I wasn't too surprised by the reveal and I had actually suspected the parties involved midway through the book. There was some silliness at times, including at the end, that made me roll my eyes but it was no worse than I expected from a book that I suspect was carefully crafted for mass-market appeal. Nothing wrong with that - the world needs Best-Sellers too. A set-up for a sequel (which there is one with probably more on the way) was expected, and I wasn't let down. Final verdict - not bad for brain candy.


Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...