Group Reads - Highlights

[Hank]

I read
Touch
Ninefox Gambit
Artemis
Nimona
Into the Drowning Deep
Sea of RustHomeland
The Changeling
The Poppy War
Babel-17
Rosewater
The Book of Phoenix
Six Wakes

and soon
Jade City

I think Sea of Rust was my favorite and Homeland was my least.

[Sabrina]

I just found out that I’ve read 17 books of the shelve this year, that’s better than all the previous ones, where I actually did the challenge…

Anyway, my top 5 reads were:
Touch
The Handmaid's Tale
Ship of Magic that was a re-read
The Thousand Names
Doomsday Book

I also really liked:
The Sparrow
Parable of the Sower
Alif the Unseen
The Underground Railroad
Nimona

Mediocre but still good:
The Calculating Stars
The Changeling
Ender's Game
Brave New World

I did not really like
Broken Monsters

So, overall this was a pretty good year and I'm amazed at all the good books we have on our shelve!

[Gabi]

I only joined the group reads in August with "The Changeling", which so far was the one I liked the least.

The 5 star reads for me were:
Parable of the Sower
Rosewater
Jade City

"China Mountain Zhang" is still outstanding, but I hope I'll have time to read it before year's end.

[Jen]

My 2018 group reads, ranked most to least favorite:

Preludes & Nocturnes
Nine Princes in Amber
Ender's Game
The Last Unicorn
The Word for World is Forest
The Dispossessed
Brave New World
The Calculating Stars
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Babel-17
Nimona
The Windup Girl
Parable of the Sower
Old Man's War
Lord of Light
Armada
The Golem and the Jinni
Deathless
The Underground Railroad
Into the Drowning Deep
Annihilation
Sea of Rust
Rosewater
The Power
Altered Carbon - the show did it better
The Road - unrated - still don't know how I feel about it

[Anna]

I'm still reading Jade City, but I'm far enough that I can do this now. I've read all 24 group books of 2018, some of them before they were picked.

2018 group reads I loved:
China Mountain Zhang *
The Calculating Stars
Parable of the Sower
The Farthest Shore *
Nimona *
Ninefox Gambit *

* reread

Among Others would be on this list, but I didn't reread it in 2018, although I've read it several times.

2018 group reads that disappointed me:
Jade City
The Traitor Baru Cormorant
The Poppy War

I was expecting to love them, and really didn't. There were several other books I didn't like, but I knew that before going in, so they weren't disappointments.

Older group reads I loved:
The Speed of Dark

[Anthony]

I joined the group in the middle of the summer, but I have read 9 of the last 12 official monthly picks, and am in the middle of China Mountain Zhang, which I’m very much enjoying. I’ll definitely finish out the year by reading Rosewater and Jade City as well.

The best of those 9 I’ve read were:

The Farthest Shore (you’ll see a fair amount of Ursula K. Le Guin represented in this post. She was a genius.)
Parable of the Sower (Octavia E. Butler had an uncanny, unparalleled ability to write unflinchingly, unsentimentally, and compassionately, and the result was unforgettably powerful.)
Babel-17 (A wild fever dream of a book that I love the more I think about it and the more I read other novels that are bland and unimaginative in comparison.)
The Song of Achilles (Emotionally rich, poetic, and both intimate and epic.)

Most disappointing was The Poppy War, which had so much going for it, but just never caught my heart the way I wanted it to.

I also read a bunch of other books from the group shelf that had been official selections in years past, a lot of which were excellent. From that group, these books are among the most affecting and incredible novels I’ve ever read:

The Word for World is Forest
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Fifth Season
The Obelisk Gate
Tigana
Assassin's Apprentice
A Wizard of Earthsea
The Tombs of Atuan
Dawn

Others that were really strong (but not quite as life-changing) from the group shelf were:

The Shadow of the Torturer
The City & the City
All the Birds in the Sky
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

In terms of disappointments from the group bookshelf, I was pretty let down by some of the sexist aspects of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Dragonflight.
But the absolute worst, most frustrating, most enervating reading experience I had this year was when I forced myself to slog through the highly recommended and much-beloved The Eye of the World.

All in all, it has been an epically wonderful year of reading, and so much of it was due to the community here in this group. Thank you all!

[~ Giulia ~]

This year I read 5 of our 2018 group reads.
My favourite was Ninefox Gambit.
My least favourite were The Invisible Library and Into the Drowning Deep

I also read 10 other books from past years' selections.
My favourites were The City & the City and The Three-Body Problem

[Monica]

I read 8 books on our bookshelves this year. 7/8 were selections from 2018. I liked all of them. My favorite was China Mountain Zhang which surprised me. My least favorite was Ubik.

Ninefox Gambit
Touch
Ubik
The Changeling
The Poppy War
Babel-17
China Mountain Zhang
Rosewater

China Mountain Zhang and Babel-17 had both been on my tbr for several years so thank you SFFBC for your help in my futile tbr mountain removal project.

[Jemppu]

I came in so late in the year that there's a lot I missed, which I'd love to still get to, but of the stuff I did get acquainted with the best were:
The Song of Achilles
The Sparrow
Tigana
The Fifth Season
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Lathe of Heaven
The Word for World is Forest
Assassin's Apprentice
Slaughterhouse-Five

The Poppy War was the most disappointing, though it too offered some potentially fascinating (albeit fairly liberal) alternative readings, and The Traitor Baru Cormorant became my first (and so far the only) DNF - though not for the content alone, but for my lack of patience to sit through it (it didn't seem likely to ever completely win me over).

And an honorable mention to Rendezvous with Rama, which itself wasn't as 'thrilling' as the tops of this list whilst reading, but which has definitely stayed with, and thanks to it's status as a classic has already significantly aided the enjoyment of other works, which have based aspects of them to the book.

[Coralie]

I read a total of 19 books from the shelf (including a reread of The Dispossessed) Nine of those books were this year's books and ten from previous years. Ten of this year's books I had already read (I have been reading Science Fiction for a very long time).

The one book I didn't enjoy was the catch up book The Passage.

The one I enjoyed the most was The Calculating Stars.

[Meredith]

I read 9 Group books this year and generally liked them.
Calculating Stars was my only 5-star, but I think in hindsight I would also put Among Others and Ninefox Gambit up at the top. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was my lowest with 3 stars, the rest were all 4 stars. I'm also currently reading Jade City and Rivers of London and enjoying them both, so they are likely to be near the top of my reads for the year too.

Ninefox Gambit
The Three-Body Problem
Among Others
The Underground Railroad
Into the Drowning Deep
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Blackout
The Calculating Stars
Babel-17

(in progress)
Jade City
Rivers of London

[Joon]

I think I counted about 52 or so on the shelf that I've read, with a number of DNF's as well.

Some of my favorites from the list:
Pushing Ice Took forever to get going, but it has one of those endings where you both want a sequel and don't.
The Princess Bride Possibly my favorite book ever. Maybe due for a re-read.
Machine Man Love it, even if it is my least favorite Max Barry book
Doomsday Book This one took a couple attempts because it is unbearably bleak and depressing.
Karen Memory Read this one just last month. Not even sure why. Definitely an Elizabeth Bear fan now.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Liked this one a lot, even if the storyline didn't really go anywhere.
Uprooted Not sure why I even read this one because I had no interest at all in Novik's other series; as much a fan of fantasy as I am, for some reason dragons just never grabbed me. Still though, this book was good enough that I'm going to give that other series a try.
Wool Omnibus I'm actually much more a fan of Howey's Molly Fyde series, and admittedly the Wool series kind of took a nosedive after this one. But this first is still outstanding.

Some I didn't like:
Warbreaker Did not like this one at all. It seemed Sanderson was getting too cute with the plot twists, and most of them were utterly predictable or just didn't land well. Book reads like the first of a series, with painful pacing.
Night Watch Adored the movie. Could not get into the book at all. DNF, but may one day give it another try.
Perdido Street Station Couldn't get past the bug faces. DNF and put me off Mieville entirely, which is admittedly unfair lol
Neuromancer Hated this one every minute I was reading it, but I forced myself to finish. This was maybe two decades ago, and I've not read another Gibson book since.

[Meredith]

Joon wrote: "I think I counted about 52 or so on the shelf that I've read, with a number of DNF's as well.

Some of my favorites from the list:
Pushing Ice Took forever to get going, but it has on..."

It took me 2 or 3 tries to get into Doomsday Book and it was worth it in the end, though I agree it was very bleak and even grueling at times. I did really like it.

I recommend Mieville's The Scar, set in the same world, but far fewer bug faces. I liked it a lot more than PSS (which I did enjoy), though if you aren't into body modification(s) you will probably not enjoy this one either.

[Joon]

I'm actually more intrigued by some of Mieville's other books, particularly Un Lun Dun, Railsea, and Kraken.

And I did read and enjoy King Rat, many years ago, before I attempted PSS.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

OH BOOK THREAD! YOUR WORK IS NOT DONE! I SUMMON YOU BACK.

Sorry you had to see that. We try to keep that part quiet, but some take more work than others.

So! Update us! Favorite books from off the shelf? Books on the shelf that did not meet your expectations? Books on the shelf that really exceeded your expectations?

[Hank]

I ended up reading 23 off the shelf this year. My highlights were
Spinning Silver and
China Mountain Zhang

My did not live up to expectations were
Here and Now and Then and
Gods of Jade and Shadow

[Raucous]

If I look at just the bookshelf books that I read (or attempted) this year my favorites are:
A Memory Called Empire
The Outside
The Raven and the Reindeer (soon)

And the disappointments:
The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time #1)
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe
Swords and Deviltry

[CBRetriever]

Good
Catseye
The Last Policeman
Annihilation

OK, but
The Way of Kings = burned out on the next two books
Too Like the Lightning = liked it, but not a highlight and won't continue with series


My did not live up to expectations were
The Once and Future King
The Black Prism

[Gabi]

This year I've read 73 books off the shelf.

Fortunately I found a lot that impressed me. My I-loved-them 5 star reads were:

The Way of Kings
The Carpet Makers
All the Birds in the Sky
The Shadow of the Torturer
The Three-Body Problem
The Terror
Memory of Water
Wool Omnibus
Kindred
Flowers for Algernon
Cloud Atlas
The Wolf in the Whale
Annihilation
1Q84
The Handmaid's Tale
The Mere Wife
Perdido Street Station
Red Mars

My 2-stars reads were, also fortunately, few (most of the time I give 3 stars, when I don't like a book but feel it was a case of wrong target audience)

The Bone Witch
Into the Drowning Deep
The Gospel of Loki
Too Like the Lightning
The Yiddish Policemen's Union

[Coralie]

Of the books I read this year, there was one 5-star book
Arcadia
and one 1-star book
Sphere

Of this year's books (in my opinion) the best was/is
Remnant Population
the worst
The Gospel of Loki

[Amanda]

Every bit as good as I hoped:
Parable of the Sower
All the Birds in the Sky

Better than expected:
A Closed and Common Orbit

Unfortunate disappointments:
Assassin's Apprentice
The Aeronaut's Windlass

Wasn't even on my radar but ended up loving it:
Too Like the Lightning

[Meredith]

I've read 18 this year and anticipate finishing a couple more. Looking at my star ratings I really liked nearly all of them.

5 stars:
A Night in the Lonesome October (fun read and fantastic reading experience with the group)
A Closed and Common Orbit (love the characters and their interactions and growth in the story)

favorite from the 4 stars:
Semiosis (enjoyed the structure, the novelty of the premise, and unpredictability of the story)

I was the most "meh" about Kushiel's Dart, but I'm still reading (actually, currently "On Pause") Jade War, which has really not grabbed me, so that might wind up also as a "meh" or even a disappointment.

[Beth]

(Sorry for the repeat; I put this in the wrong thread. Deleted from there, copied to here.)

So far this year:

Best:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
A Wizard of Earthsea
Ancillary Justice (reread)

Disappointments:

Gardens of the Moon - at least I finally finished the damn thing after three or four tries
A Memory Called Empire - did not live up to the hype from earlier this year

[Gabi]

At the end of the year I can add another 5-star read to my group read experiences:
Elysium was a lot better than I feared.

[DivaDiane]

I've read 13 from the book shelf this year and hope to finish 2 more by the end of the year.

Most I rated very highly with 4 stars. I had 2 5 star reads:

A Night in the Lonesome October because the story was fun and the group reading/discussion experience was so awesome, and

Red Mars. The scope of this novel is fantastic and I just love Robinson's writing style. I had been avoiding reading it for a long time because I was intimidated by it, but completely wrongly so!

I'm afraid that the book I'm listening to at the moment (at 1.75x speed) is not doing it for me: The Windup Girl might be a DNF for me. I already abandoned it once. I may whiz through it though only half listening and in the end give it 2 stars or something. Good book, wrong audience.

I had 2 books I rated with 3 stars, which means while the story, etc was OK, it wasn't great and didn't move me at all:

Catseye
Player Piano

I have Embassytown on my docket next.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I'm so glad to hear that the Lonesome October BR was a hit for others as well. That was a lot of fun to slowly digest that book ^^

Diane, I have a good feeling I think about Embassytown for you. I already have Wind Up Girl on my "never read" list, so I don't blame you if you don't love it lol.

[Christopher]

Every year I set out to read 24 group reads, but this year I fell quite a bit short, only reading 10. I hope to do better in 2020!
Overall these got an average of 3.8 stars.

Three were 5 Star reads:

Planetfall - I couldn’t put it down once I got to the last third
Semiosis - I enjoy multigenerational stories ever since my first (Foundation) and the plant intelligence was fascinating
The Raven & the Reindeer - the writing here was very strong and I just felt myself enjoying every moment

Four were 4 Star:

All You Need is Kill
The Calculating Stars
Remnant Population
Spinning Silver

Two were 3 Star:

Black Girl in the Ring
The Book of Loki

One was 1 Star:

The Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

[Kristin B.]

I've read 20 books off the group bookshelf this year. (May manage one or two more depending on how the rest of the month goes.)

Weirdly I didn't have a ton that I loved this year:
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch Of course I already loved this one from before I ever joined the group.
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe Which a lot of folks really couldn't stand.
War for the Oaks And I convinced an IRL friend to read it.

The big misses for me were:
The Poppy War
The Gospel of Loki
Elysium

Everything else fell somewhere in the "meh" category

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Another year down! Any new favorites or books you wanted to love but couldn't?

[Gabi]

I read 20 of the 24 group reads (gosh ... I'm growing slack)

Terrificly 5 star reads for me were

The Vanished Birds
The Memory Police
The Just City
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

The ones with 2 stars or dnf were

The Collapsing Empire
Gideon the Ninth
Shadowshaper
The Many-Colored Land
The Dawnhounds

Of the rest there were more on the 4 star side than on the 3 star side. A successful group reading year for me all in all.

[Anna]

Of our 2020 books, I've read 22/24.


Did not start
Hollow Kingdom
Forty Thousand in Gehenna

5 stars
The Just City

2 stars
The Humans
Recursion
The Dawnhounds
Servant of the Underworld
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
The Many-Colored Land
Probably also The House of the Spirits, tho my current GR rating is rounded up to 3

[Christopher]

I read 12 of the monthly reads, the 5 star books were:



2 stars or DNF were (hmm this is sorta long...):
The Ghost Bride
The City We Became
Hollow Kingdom
The Memory Police
Moon of the Crusted Snow
Dreamsnake
The Dawnhounds
Servant of the Underworld
The House of the Spirits
The Vanished Birds

[Silvana]

7 books for me.

New faves: The Vanished Birds and Catfishing on CatNet

Wanted to love but could not: Well, I had high expectation for The Bone Shard Daughter but could only give it three stars max.

[Amanda]

My one 5-star group book this year was The Vanished Birds. I had a number of 4-stars but the two that really had me wanting more were Forty Thousand in Gehenna and Rosewater.

Biggest disappointments were The Song of Achilles and The Dispossessed, both of which are very well loved but I found just ok. Another disappointment was Naomi Novik; I found both Uprooted and His Majesty's Dragon pretty meh and I think it's just a case where I don't get along with her writing style.

And finally my sole 1-star, Nine Princes in Amber, which I had hoped would at least be ok, but at least managed to be bad in an amusing way and was short enough to avoid the dnf.

[Beth]

Of this year's books, I read Shadowshaper, The Dawnhounds and Gideon the Ninth.

Gideon's definitely the winner here!

[Meredith]

I read 21 from the shelf this year, including 12 of this year's picks (and picked up 4 more that I read in previous years). I have 3 more shelf books I'm still reading.

My five star reads were: This Alien Shore, The Vanished Birds, Station Eleven, and The Ten Thousand Doors of January. This Alien Shore and Vanished Birds were the best of the best for me.

My least liked was Deathless (2 stars) and Gideon the Ninth was the lowest of my 3-star reads. Neither really worked for me. Gideon at least grew on me (until the end, grrr), while Deathless started out promising and became a grim slog.

[YouKneeK]

I read 7 of this year’s group reads with the group. I typically only join the group reads when they’re standalone books that are old enough that I can reasonably expect they’ll probably stay standalones. Those are the books it’s easiest for me to slip into my regular reading schedule without interfering so much with the other things I'm reading.

I didn’t like Shadowshaper much at all and rated it 2.5 stars. I liked This Alien Shore and Recursion quite a bit, 4 stars for each. I gave Dreamsnake 4 stars too, but have found it less memorable as time passes.

My feelings were more mixed about The Memory Police (3.5 stars), The Ghost Bride (3.5 stars), and The Humans (3 stars).

[Anna]

(Did you know Alien Shore has a sequel that just came out?)

[Meredith]

Yes!! Probably will try to arrange a buddy read sometime next year.

[YouKneeK]

Anna wrote: "(Did you know Alien Shore has a sequel that just came out?)"

Ha, yeah, proof that even older books are not sequel proof! Somebody mentioned it to me over on LibraryThing a while back and I haven’t quite decided what I want to do about it, if anything.

[Anna]

It looks like a standalone companion, so not exactly a sequel :) Lots of people liked Alien Shore, so a BR is probably a good idea!

[Eva]

I read 8 of this year's group reads (15 from the group shelf this year overall) and liked quite a lot of them (I usually don't read/finish books I don't like):

5 stars were: An Unkindness of Ghosts, Gideon the Ninth, and The City We Became

4 stars: Recursion and The Raven and the Reindeer

I didn't like Servant of the Underworld and The Ten Thousand Doors of January much, but can understand why others like them.

I'm planning to read more of this year's group reads - e.g. Collapsing Empire, Sword of Kaigen: often I just ran out of time to read the month's books, but did buy them and I'm still planning to read them.

[Stephanie]

I've finished 11 from the group shelf this year (one more to go)

I loved Ninefox Gambit and Tigana.

Also very good were Among Others and Embassytown.

I didn't much like The Collapsing Empire or The Martian.

[CBRetriever]

I enjoyed the Dreamsnake discussion, but I didn't read any of the others yet (I have two in my TBR pile)

[Hank]

I managed 22/24 of this year's group books, counting one I will be done with in the next couple of days and one I had read before.
I don't think I will ever read Catfishing on CatNet but I own The Memory Police and will hopefully fill that in next year.

I also added 9 from previous years so my percentage read went up, which may or may not be a good thing.

Favorites were
This Alien Shore
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and
Gideon the Ninth

Misses were
The Just City
The Many-Coloured Land, although that one was a hilarious miss.

I enjoyed complaining about YA novels, whatever those are, and was continually astounded at the amount of effort our moderators put in to keep this one of the best groups on goodreads. I assume they have other lives and jobs but can't figure out how that works with sleeping and eating.

[Monica]

Didnt' read very much scifi this year though I did manage 8 from our bookclub shelf:

Loved!!: The Three-Body Problem -really did not anticipate liking this book so much. Looking forward to the sequels...

Enjoyed:
This Alien Shore
The Forever War - So freaking quirky, and odd. I know this one is divisive for very good reasons, but I saw a lot of interesting things in this book.
Recursion - A thriller that I enjoyed a lot, even if the plot makes very little sense...
The Collapsing Empire - A fun romp, though for me full of clichés, tropes and intended humor that sometimes missed the mark...

Meh...Nope:
The City We Became
The Lions of Al-Rassan
Ancillary Sword

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

aww, thanks, Hank! we're glad to have some place like this that tolerates our shenanigans!

[Melanie, the neutral party]

Hank wrote: "I enjoyed complaining about YA novels, whatever those are, and was continually astounded at the amount of effort our moderators put in to keep this one of the best groups on goodreads. I assume they have other lives and jobs but can't figure out how that works with sleeping and eating."

I second this except change "complaining about YA novels" to "defending YA novels" :)

PS: Allison and Anna- your shenanigans are often a bright spot in my day.

[Melanie, the neutral party]

21 Group Reads this year. I might squeak in one more depending on how the year ends. 2 were rereads, so I'm definitely losing ground.

Best:
Altered Carbon
Catfishing on CatNet
Hounded
The Mere Wife

Not Official Group Reads but I'm Putting Them on My Favorite List All the Same:
Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

Not a Favorite But Made Me Think:
The City & the City
The Humans
Parable of the Sower
The Stars My Destination

Disappointments:
The Just City

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

i feel like bunnicula and all tkingfisger books are our mascots.

and thank you for the kind words! I'm not sure I can articulate how much I value all of you ^^