Week 8 Check In

[Sheri]

Hi everyone!

Hope you all had a good week. It's sunny and warming up here, which I'm glad to see!

This week I finished:

Rich People Problems - book by an author of a different ethnicity than you. It was ok, but I was disappointed after the previous two. I really enjoyed them, this one seemed all over the place and spent too much time on characters that weren't Nick and Rachel.

What is Not Yours is Not Yours - book of award winning short stories. This was also just ok for me. I don't think i realized it was short stories going in, the description made it sound more like a narrative from many viewpoints. I don't always love short stories, i like having time to get to know a world and a character. These felt very fragmented, a lot of them ended and I was left going "...that's it?". I suppose it was well written, i just had trouble getting into it.

Currently reading:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - book with a vegetable in the title. I'm enjoying so far, almost half through now.

puts me at 18/50 for popsugar, 16/52 for ATY, 5/25 read harder.

How's everyone's reading going?

For those doing reading challenges: Are there any prompts you are dreading?

For everyone, do you ever have books you feel like you SHOULD read, but drag your feet about doing so? Whether they are classics, new books people rave about, books dealing with important subjects etc.

For me, Read Harder's book that you didn't finish or hated in school I'm dreading. I only had one book that I ever (remember) straight up not reading, and that was Heart of Darkness. I hated it, and I am not looking forward to revisiting. I get the point of the prompt, but doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it.

For specific books, it's The Hate U Give. Everyone I know who has read it has said it's amazing, but I also know it's going to be a really sad, depressing read. I have a lot of trouble with those, since a lot of my reading is escapism. I have it slotted as a past goodreads winner, but keep reading other books instead.

[Meg]

This week I finished Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay. I am now at 7/52 read this year. I have a Mercedes Lackey Elemental Masters book on tap for next if life gets less insane.

I feel like I should read more books that are non fiction or at least not SF&F but I have so little reading time that I am okay with not being caught up on the NYT best seller lists.

[Sheri]

Meg,

I think it's totally fair that if you only have limited reading time, to read what you want. Reading is my #1 hobby, and I read voraciously so I always feel like I SHOULD read more "important" stuff than all science fiction/fantasy. And I have been branching more and found stuff that I liked that surprised me! But I'd never say anyone should feel like they had to read stuff they didn't want to :) I try to break up my more "serious" reading with plenty of the stuff I like.

[Meg]

Sheri,

I find that a lot of the newer sf&f authors are covering “the important stuff” in more accessible ways. Climate change, gender identity, sexuality, etc. It’s true that if I had fewer other hobbies I probably would read more widely.

[Sheri]

Meg, that is true! And a lot of older stuff does too, like Ursula k le guin’s work. Plus ray bradbury, Asimov, etc

[Daniele]

I finished Resurrection: A Zombie Novel: Resurrection Book 1. I've currently got it slotted as Popsugar 28 - "a book with song lyrics in the title", since it has two song titles in the title, but I'm not thrilled. I think once I get through the challenge, I'll revisit this prompt with either "For Whom the Bell Tolls" or "Uncle Tom's Cabin". That said, the book is a pleasant read that I discovered through BookBub (thank you whoever posted about it on FoE!)

I also blew through Haunted, which is a firm Popsugar #38 - ugly cover. Recently, I've been writing in a format that closely resembles one in the book, so that probably helped me gloss over the uneven parts. Will definitely be reading more Palahniuk.

So that puts me at 13/40 and 2/10 for Popsugar,
7/12 for Modern Mrs. Darcy, and
6/24 for BookRiot.

My "should reads" are mainly classics, since I went to high school in French and read from different canon. I sort of sprinkle them in between the more recent fiction I naturally gravitate to.

As for tougher prompts, I'm pretty content with Popsugar, both basic and advanced, but I suspect I might find some of the BookRiot ones more of a slog. An assigned book I hated? A western? A romance novel (regardless of the starring a person of color bit)? I'm a little dubious, but hey, isn't half the fun of these challenges reading outside your comfort zone?

[Jessica]

I'm currently reading Beartown for my Popsugar Challenge prompt for a book involving a sport. It is good so far, I have a feeling it's not going to end well, but my mom raved about A Man Called Ove by the same author, so I picked this one.

I'm only finished with 5 prompts for pop sugar (including the advanced list) and 4 for Read Harder.

I always feel like I should read more nonfiction. I occasionally read classics or re-read some. My book that I was assigned but never finished is A Tale of Two Cities. I am kind of dreading that, but also kind of hopeful that I will like it better now. I had a couple others that were assigned reading in high school that would be interesting to revisit because I disliked them so much the first time around.

I remember Heart of Darkness not being one I hated, but mostly because it was short. I always liked the short ones.
The Hate U Give is what my 9th grader is reading right now, and I read the first chapter. I probably should read the whole book, but I don't really want to.

I normally read Urban Fantasy and Cozy Mysteries. Those are my go-to's. But, as I also read a lot. I'm a SAHM and now my kids are teenagers, so they need less hands on, or at least I like to think so.

Last week I read the Air Awakens series. All 5 books, I just couldn't stop reading them. I don't think they are particularly well-written, but for whatever reason the first 3 books really grabbed me, and then I wanted to see how she was going to wrap the whole thing up. I would recommend them, but the reviews are kind of hit and miss. It seemed like people either loved them or they made them crazy. I think they just lined up with the escapism I needed last week.

I need to get a move on with my prompts! I'm way behind you guys.

[Kathy]

I'm with Meg-read what you like, not what you "should". For most of my grownup life, I've read mainly mysteries, because I really like books with a strong plot and satisfying ending. I read Harry Potter as they came out, and as my kids became older I liked some of the other stuff we were reading together so branched out more into other YA. Also became friends with a librarian who made some great suggestions, and past few years started on Jen Yates' recommendations. So now have branched off more into fantasy and science fiction. But I did set a goal to read 12 classics this year, but so far they've been the Hobbit and Agatha Christie so still not "classics you should have read in school."

[Susie]

Jessica, I read A Tale of Two Cities a few years back and found it much more enjoyable then I expected when I began it. The thing about Dickens really is getting used to the pace of the writing. Once I finished it I gave myself the goal of reading one Dickens' book a year, which meant re-reading Great Expectations, which was a little sadder then I recalled.

[Stephanie]

Hello All!

I'm sooo late updating this week, but, on the upside, I managed to finish another book so I can give the complete feedback on it. This week, I finished Little Women, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. It was a re-read for me, and I thought it might be a little too "prim" for my taste, but I actually thought it was a pretty good book in terms of thinking about the roles and constraints faced by women during the time. I just saw last night that Masterpiece Theatre is doing a new version of Little Women beginning in April, so I'm looking forward to watching that.

As I mentioned before, I really only read Little Women because I've been wanting to read March, which is told from the perspective of the absent father in Little Women. It was so good! Well, the second half of it was so good--the first half I thought was a little meh. Overall, the author did a great job of using the foil of LW to create a book that delves into some of the lingering questions glossed over by that book, such as pretty much the whole Civil War and the type of person that Mr. March is. As it turns out (and this is no spoiler) Mr. March is a abolitionist chaplin and this book made for some enlightening reading, particularly during Black History Month. This was also my Popsugar prompt for a book from a celebrity book club (Richard and Judy), but I fully admit I picked the book first and then went looking for a book club where it had been read! I think my enjoyment of this book was also really enhanced by reading it right after LW.

I'm still working my way though the audiobook of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. I'm finding that a lot of the descriptive sections seem rather long, but, overall, still enjoying it.

As for books I feel I should read, I always feel that I should be reading more professional development-related books. I also sometimes read classics that have been foundational in a certain genre or field even if I'm not particularly interested in them. For example, I feel I should have read Paradise Lost by now because it's referenced in so much literature and pop culture. One of these days I'll get around to it.

[Lynette]

So the downside of not starting a new book is that I don't have anything to update! There was a week or two were I didn't have an audio book, and that was killing me! I had to go to the library stat! (My SO has Audible, so I don't want to pay for my own account, and my car only plays cd's- no audio jack.) I picked up After You. I has such strong feelings after the end of the first, it took me about 2 years to get to this one. I am liking it so far.

I also grabbed a book for in the house- Frog Music. I haven't started it yet, but I like knowing I have one to start.

I finally finished Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library with my class. And we started the second one right away, because that is what you do when there is the sequel in the class library.

I don't know if there are any prompts I am dreading- at first I was dreading the book about death or grief- but I just realized that After You is all about her dealing with grief- so in a way I fell into reading the prompt I dreaded.

[Jessica]

Susie wrote: "Jessica, I read A Tale of Two Cities a few years back and found it much more enjoyable then I expected when I began it. The thing about Dickens really is getting used to the pace of the writing. On..."

Thanks, Susie, I will have to try it again, but I'm not ready to tackle it yet :) I think I will like it more this time around. Partly because I don't HAVE to read it and I've read other classics as an adult and liked them more than I expected.