Sarah's Sequential Slog of Sizeable Stories

[Sarah]

I have just finished listening to my first chunkster Night Film. I really enjoyed it and I gave it ★★★★★. My Review

I'm still reading my second chunkster Perdido Street Station.

[Peggy]

Yay! Well done Sarah! I'm glad that your first one was such a good one :)

[Laura]

I'm glad you liked it, Sarah. I thought the audio for that was well done. Woo hoo for finishing your first!

[Janice, Moderator]

Isn't it a great feeling to finish the first book of the challenge with a five star rating? Hopefully, there will be many more!

[Sarah]

Yes it feels get to get one knocked off and it was a really good one to start the challenge with. Normally I only listen to audiobooks while tidying and on the bus but I couldn't put this one down so my print book which I would usually read at home got pushed to the wayside while I listened to this one. Now I can get stuck into Perdido again!

I agree Laura that the audio was superb. I would like to see the print version too at some point as I just found out that it contains pictures, case files, emails etc. to make the story interactive.

[Laura]

If you ever get hold of the audio from the library, I noticed that the CD had the PDF of all of the attachments.

I may read my first Perdido this year! The one you are reading looks good.

[Sarah]

That's interesting Laura! My library does do audiobooks but in addition to this they have a free app which I have on my phone that allows me to borrow audiobooks from them which downloads direct to my phone - this works well for me as it's free whereas the ones from the library they charge for. So as I downloaded it, I didn't get access to the bump that would have come with the original audiobook. Will check the book out though for those bits as it looks interesting!

I'm thoroughly enjoying Perdido and look forward to the others too.

[Laura]

I love the downloads too! Makes life so much easier. I'm surprised though that your library charges you to check out the physical audiobook. Unless I misunderstood you?

[Sarah]

We have to pay £1.60 to borrow an audiobook from the library (CDs) for 3 weeks. The audios on the download app we also get for 3 weeks but are free! And most of the time there are books available at the library which aren't on the app and vice versa. I suppose with the downloads there's no risk of loss compared to the actual CDs.

[Laura]

Right, but I've never run across that in the US, so I'm surprised. (Not to say it doesn't happen, though.)

It's great you have access to a free download, which is so quick & simple. I don't know what I'd do without audiobooks! I love them.

[Sarah]

I'm in the UK. Here we don't have to pay a subscription to the library nor do we pay to check books out. The only costs are for CDs, DVDs and audiobooks.

I've only recently started with audios but I'm loving them more and more and my house is much tidier now because of them!

[Travis]

Your bound to fall victim to Audible soon enough I think

[Sarah]

Travis of NNY wrote: "Your bound to fall victim to Audible soon enough I think"

I have looked at the subscriptions already but I'm going to try and exhaust the library app for as long as I can before submitting! It does mean that I may listen to some books which I wouldn't normally but that's ok (for now).

[Laura]

Sarah wrote: "I'm in the UK. Here we don't have to pay a subscription to the library nor do we pay to check books out. The only costs are for CDs, DVDs and audiobooks.

I've only recently started with audios but..."

We used to pay for DVDs also.

What would we all do without libraries?!

And I agree with Travis, Audible is great when the library doesn't have something you need.

[Sarah]

I have just finished my second chunkster Perdido Street Station which seems to have taken me forever to read. While it's a reasonably straightforward storyline, the world it takes place in is complex and there is a lot of new technology, theories, races, etc to take on board and process. I did really like the author's writing style - he's clearly a very intelligent guy - so many new words included throughout that I had never heard of before let alone know what they actually meant.

I gave it ★★★★ My Review

I'm going to move on to something a bit easier for my next chunkster I think.

[Rusalka, Moderator]

Sarah wrote: "he's clearly a very intelligent guy"

I saw him on the monthly book club show on the ABC (our BBC). He was so switched on, and oozed intelligence. Not to mention incredibly attractive and came across as a really nice guy. Add in successful to the list as well, and you wonder why some people get all the luck. But he was just too nice to hate!

[Pragya]

You are all set to go with those lists! I didn't realise The Help was a chunkster. It just read itself. Hope you love it.

[Sarah]

I'd have liked to have seen that. May have to check YouTube! He's quite political too and he does a good job at weaving aspects of that in to his novels.

[Sarah]

Pragya wrote: "You are all set to go with those lists! I didn't realise The Help was a chunkster. It just read itself. Hope you love it."

The paperback version isn't. I'm going to listen to it on audio which has no page numbers so I get to use the Hardcover edition for page number reference so I'm in luck! It has been on and off my TBR over the last year or so as I couldn't decide whether I wanted to read it or not but as I've heard lots of good stuff about it I thought I'd give it a go.

[Pragya]

I hope the audio is good and you like it. :)

[Sarah]

Just starting my third chunkster Life After Life. I was also hoping to start the audio of my fourth The Help but the library app is saying it's not available at the moment so I've had to put a hold on it and I'm 6th in line.

[Marnie]

I have Life After Life on my possible chunkster list too. I will look forward to your thoughts on it. The Help- is worth the wait- hope you get to read/ listen to it soon.

[Laura]

Ooh, The Help was very good. Audio version of that is also good, Sarah. Enjoy it!

I'm gonna take a look at your Perdido review. I was mulling over reading that one.

[Sarah]

I have just finished reading my third chunkster Life After Life. It took me a while to read it. I really liked the premise of the book - it was repetitive (what do I expect for a book which focuses on dying and then coming back to life again) which and most of the time this was fine but towards the end I was thinking "How is this going to end? Is she just going to keep coming back to life? When she going to die for good?" I rated it ★★★★ I still have to write a review for it.

So now on to my fourth chunkster with The Lies of Locke Lamora which I can't wait to get stuck in to.

[Rusalka, Moderator]

I'm watching with bated breath Sarah.

[Esther]

Sarah wrote: "So now on to my fourth chunkster with The Lies of Locke Lamora which I can't wait to get stuck in to.."

Enjoy. It was a ok read for me. But i really liked the 2nd one.

[Lisa]

Ooh, looking forward to hearing your thoughts on The Lies of Locke Lamora Sarah! I cannot wait to read it myself!

[Sarah]

Thanks guys - will keep you updated with Locke Lamora!

I've just written my review for Life After Life - My Review

[Travis]

Esther wrote: "Sarah wrote: "So now on to my fourth chunkster with The Lies of Locke Lamora which I can't wait to get stuck in to.."

Enjoy. It was a ok read for me. But i really liked the 2nd one."

I too liked the 2 and one better although most people found it hugely disappointing looking at reviews . The third book I found to be a flop hoping #4 is better.

[Janice, Moderator]

Enjoy "Lies" Sarah. I also have that one coming up soon.

[Sarah]

I really need to get back in to this challenge again. I started so well in January. I had wanted to read 2 chunksters a month but I slipped up in February.

[Travis]

I'm on a bit of a hiatus from my challenge as well. I have read probably 10 chunksters that I haven't put inmy challenge. Sometimes iI need to read challenge free or it feels like a chore. I probably should get a couple more challenge books read but lack the motivation at the moment.

[Sarah]

I'm wondering whether to scrap my list and then just allow myself to read freely and then add the chunksters I read to it. But I liked all the planning. All the books on my chunkster list are all books I'm really excited about reading so I'm not sure why I don't just get on and read them!

[Esther]

The fun about this kind of plan is to change them. I only really plan the level I am at, at this only because i want to be able to pick amongst the pile.

I am almost done with my slug so I will have to sit down with the Mickey pile soon.

All the books are book I already own (or would have bought as next in the series) or are in my must read tbr list from the library.

Because of this it does not feel like a chore and my huge pile by my bed may actually come down.

[Snoozie Suzie]

This is why I didn't plan! And I have already scrubbed some choices off my list. Good luck and happy reading whichever way you decide to go.

[Lynn]

Well the Toppler did kind of take over February :)

[Laura]

Good luck, Sarah. Maybe you need some long thrillers to hook you back in. They read so fast!

[Sarah]

I'm going to finish Slicks as I've planned then I'll see what I fancy reading next and plan from there I think!

Yes the toppled did take up February and what with it being a shorter month anyway, perhaps I'm being hard on myself for not reading more chunksters!

[Travis]

Once I read through my planned books I'm gonna wing the rest of it too I think. I take these year long challenges in spurts anyway . Hammer down then take a break then hammer down again .

[Janice, Moderator]

I've debated swapping out some of my Slick books into Mickey books. I have a number of audiobooks that are chunksters that I'm delaying until I finish Slick.

I had planned to read 2 chunksters a month too, but because of the toppler, I'm just starting my second chunkster for February now.

[Roz]

So far I've only read one book on my chunkster list. True, February's Bingo and various challenges got in the way. At one point I was going to scrap the whole thing and just read books as they came along. But I hate quitting. I'm on vacation now and I took my second selection, New York along. I have it as an actual book because I didn't think I could finish it before I'd have to return it to the library, but it's a bit difficult to read it at the beach (windy, small print...) so I'm reading other books I have on my Kindle already. Then I checked and I could download a Kindle version from my library so I did that and I'm now happy at the beach making headway on my chunkster. Unfortunately I forgot to freeze my library real book requests and 2 came in. Hate it when that happens.

[Cherie]

Have fun in the sun!!!!! Where are you beach vacationing?

[Sarah]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one!

Enjoy your vacation Roz!

I am resuming The Lies of Locke Lamora today which I started before the toppler but I had only read 10 pages if that so I think I'll start from scratch. This will be my 4th book.

[Peggy]

Do you have any idea when you will be reading American Gods Sarah? I have it in my Slick's Slugs as well, and I will get to it in March. Let me know if you would like to make it a buddy read :)

[Laura]

I may want to join you all on that one as well, if you'd like another reading buddy.

[Sarah]

I plan on reading it in March (hopefully). I am reading Locke Lamora at the moment and obviously have some challenge books set for march but I think I can fit it in towards the end of the month - we could go for a start around 24th March perhaps?

@Laura - do join us - the more the merrier!

[Peggy]

Sounds like a plan! I still have over 800 pages to read in my current book and also the challenge and monthly read, and I could read my final first milestone book in between if I finish all the others before the 24th.

And yay Laura!

[Sarah]

Do you want to set a thread up or shall I?

[Peggy]

Go ahead Sarah :)

[Laura]

Wooooot! I read Anansi Boys a few years ago as my first Gaiman. I really enjoyed it, but I had no idea that I probably should have read this one first. Looking forward to it!