Week 14 Check In

[Sheri]

Hi everyone!

Michigan is deciding to be sunny after being snowy and gross yesterday. It's still way too cold for spring.

This week I read:

The Ship of the Dead - I'd hoped this woudl count for my book set at sea, but the ship part of it was fairly minor. They just used the ship to travel around, most the adventures were off-ship. However it does count for ATY's book by an author with initials beginning with the same letter. (Rick Riordan).

Immortally Yours - Needed a break from one of the books I'm currently reading, doesn't count for a challenge.

currently reading:

The Hate U Give - This will be my popsugar past goodreads winner. I can see why it's getting so much attention, but I'm having a lot of trouble getting through it. It's very sad, upsetting, and too real with all the shootings on the news. I find I can only read it in the middle of the day, I need to start the morning with something lighter, and read something else before bed.

Maplecroft - This is my novel based involving a real person. Lizzie Borden meets Lovecraftian horror. And yes, this is easier to read than the other, because this evil isn't real.

I also am poking through a re-read of Steadfast for right before bed since neither of those are really conductive to a good night's sleep.

I never have this many books going at once, but whatever it takes, I guess.

I keep borrowing questions from Popsugar, so sorry to anyone following around from there. But it's hard thinking up new ones! This week's is interesting so I'm going with it.

Have your reading tastes changed as you have gotten older?


I think they have matured, but not changed drastically. I still read a lot of sci fi and fantasy, but I'm less tolerant of overused tropes and problematic ideas. I'm also trying to be more mindful of authors, and broaden the diversity of who I am reading. When I was a kid, I was horse obsessed so I read pretty much anything that had a horse on the cover. I still enjoy horses, but not to the point of reading a bunch of books about them. Also I never used to read nonfiction unless absolutely forced to by school. Now I'll read the occasional one if it looks interesting, works for a prompt, assigned by a book club etc.

[Daniele]

A single completion, and a tiny one at that: Obscurely Obvious, a (tiny) collection of short stories from an author whose first novel I had quite enjoyed. It felt like I was reading her notes of scenes that could one day lead to something bigger, but hadn't yet. That's my Popsugar #22: A book with alliteration in the title. 17/40+4/10.

Still working on The Satanic Verses. I'll most likely work my way through that one before switching back to Neverwhere.

QOTW: My reading tastes have expanded, perhaps, but not changed much. I read more non-fiction than I used to, and I've used prompts to explore a bit, but home is still a haven of sci-fi and fantasy.

[Susan]

I finished Buns this week. It was a great filler book. It is #3 in the Hudson Valley series.

I am most of the way through and will finish soon The Millionaire Mind. It is interesting but fairly repetitive so I find myself skimming the latter parts of chapters, so it is going faster than usual. It is from the library and will be due soon anyway.

I have several books queued up. I need to get back to Artemis. I started a while ago and then library books intervened. It also isn't grabbing me quite as strongly as The Martian did. So we'll see what I think once I get more into it.

QOTW: Like others I see expansion and maturity. I too read a LOT more non-fiction. I don't really recall ever reading non-fiction for pleasure and now it seems like most of what I read. I still like random romance novels when I feel like it and sci-fi and fantasy when they're good.

Someday I'll go back and re-read novels that I loved. One that comes to mind is The Mirror of Her Dreams. It will be interesting to see how well it ages and how I see it differently versus my memory of 'pacing myself so that I didn't finish too quickly because then it would be over'.

[Jessica]

Sorry I've been absent for a couple of weeks. I had visitors last week.

I just finished Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore earlier today for the Pop Sugar challenge. I really enjoyed it!

I had listened to the audio book of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House in the last couple weeks of March. And really didn't learn anything that hasn't already been covered on the news.

I also finally slogged through Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?: A Story About Women and Economics, which I had read for the feminist prompt for Pop Sugar and the social science prompt for Read Harder. It was interesting, but also really repetitive in places.

I also read Karen Memory which was the Vaginal fantasy group read. It was ok....I didn't love it. It was like a weird steampunk, wild west book that was kind of all over the place. But it was a quick read.

QOTW: I would say that the stuff that I gravitate toward hasn't changed much, but I do make a point to read more challenging things too and broaden my horizons a bit. Sometimes I like the books, sometimes I don't. But I do feel it's important to venture out of my comfort zone sometimes.

[Stephanie]

Hello All! I missed last week as I was on vacation, so lots to talk about this week.

I finished reading The Bear and the Nightingale. I really enjoyed it, even if I did find it was a bit slow-paced. I just learned that it's part of a trilogy, so I'm interested in reading the next book, but not so interested that I'm going to deviate from my reading plan for the next while. I will definitely circle back to it, though. I rarely read books set in Russia, so part of my enjoyment of this book was reading more about the history and mythology of that country. This was my "book you meant to read last year but didn't get around to" pop sugar choice.

Next I read Home, which is the second book in the Binti trilogy. I love this trilogy--I really can't say enough about it. Sci-fi meets feminism, meets social taboo, meets issues around culture and race--this is all right up my alley of loving books with a social commentary subtext. This is a novella and I read it in one sitting on the plane. It doesn't count toward any challenge.

Next up was my book that I've already seen as a movie: The Martian. I think I slightly annoyed my husband reading this book because he was trying to read his own material on the beach and I kept laughing out loud and having to read him some of the passages. The info dumps got to be a bit much by the end of this book, but otherwise, I adored it and wish I could meet the main character in person. I got this from the library, but I plan on buying a physical copy so I can make my husband read it (not as mean as it sounds--he loved the movie and will definitely like the book) and so I can have it to re-read whenever I need a good bit of escapism with a fantastic main character.

Next, I read Six of Crows as my heist book. I saw that Sheri also read this last week. I kind of enjoyed it, but I thought the author made some pretty lazy narrative choices--like making all the characters in their teens. The only way you could tell they were teens was that the narration kept mentioning it. I feel like the age choice was just so that it could be marketed as a YA novel. This is part of a trilogy, as well, but I don't think I'll be picking up the next book.

Finally, I'm about 80% through Room. This is my book by a local author. Emma Donahue is actually in a book club with one of my former supervisors, so I heard all about her Oscar gown before she went down there for her Oscar nomination, haha. I also found myself sitting in the theatre seat she sponsored at our local art house theatre a couple of months back. I haven't seen the movie for this, but I am really, really enjoying the book. Like, can't put it down enjoying it. I didn't realize that it was narrated from a child's point of view, and it's a very effective choice. I'll be sad when I'm finished reading it because I'll have to say goodbye to the characters. I'll probably finish it tonight, so for the purposed of my tally, I'm going to count it as done. That puts me at 15/40 + 3/10 for the Popsugar challenge

QOTW: Hmm, my reading tastes expanded greatly in my early 20s (20 years ago) when I was taking English courses in university. Since then, my taste have always been pretty widely flung, so I haven't changed that much, except that I am slightly more likely to pick up a non-fiction book these days. I have to do so much academic reading and editing for my job that even the slightest desire to read non-fiction is a very large change in taste for me!

Susan, your post is reminding me that I still haven't read Buns. I should have taken that one on vacation with me!

[Susan]

Stephanie, thank you for your always-thorough reviews. I add so many books to my "want to read" list (and avoid others) based on your reviews.

I am so glad you loved The Martian. It is probably my favorite book of the last several years. Hands down. I'm not yet "into" Artemis as much. I'm giving Andy Weir the benefit of the doubt knowing that The Martian is a very hard act to follow for his sophomore book. At least, at the moment, Artemis is moving slower.