Reader's Choice Spring 2021

[Patty]

All the Forgivenesses by Hardinger, Elizabeth

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Lefteri, Christy

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher

The Bromance Book Club by Adams, Lyssa Kay

The Chain by McKinty, Adrian

The Chestnut Man by Sveistrup, Soren

The Flatshare by O'Leary, Beth

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Moreno-Garcia, Silvia

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by Eason, K.

Miracle Creek by Kim, Angie

The Night Olivia Fell by McDonald, Christina

The Right Sort of Man by Montclair, Allison

Singapore Sapphire by Stuart, A. M.

The Sun Is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds by Van Hemert, Caroline

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Harrow, Alix E.

Trust First: A True Story About the Power of Giving People Second Chances by Deel, Bruce

The Twisted Ones by Kingfisher, T.

The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After by Yip-Williams, Julie

Waiting for Tom Hanks by Winfrey, Kerry

The Woman in the White Kimono by Johns, Ana

[Patty]

Y'all are so lucky to have the library doing this. I moved from Utah 7 years ago and I really miss the library there and Reader's Choice.

I'm so grateful for the librarian who sent me this list!

[Audrey]

You can at least still read along.

[Patty]

Audrey wrote: "You can at least still read along."

Yep, so grateful for that.

I finished The Flatshare last night. Overall I felt it was well done. I liked the premise and she did a good job with that and the development of characters. I thought they stayed true to who they were. I loved how she did the his/her point of view with the added post its.

Warning: some swearing and a few things of a sexual nature.

[Patty]

If anyone wants to add them to Good reads easier you can see my Reader's Choice 2021 shelf here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

[alisonwonderland (Alison)]

Patty wrote: "If anyone wants to add them to Good reads easier you can see my Reader's Choice 2021 shelf here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list..."

It looks like your shelf is set to private.

[Patty]

alisonwonderland (Alison) wrote: "Patty wrote: "If anyone wants to add them to Good reads easier you can see my Reader's Choice 2021 shelf here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list......"

Thanks for letting me know.

It's weird because I am finding that you can't mark a shelf as private. I did change my profile so other Goodreads people can see it so hopefully, that will work. If not, let me know and I will friend you.

[Audrey]

Private is all or nothing -- your profile is private or public. You can't set individual shelves to private.

I have an Unread Reader's Choice shelf that includes all the nominees since I first participated, around 2006.

[Elizabeth]

The current Reader's Choice Nominees and past winners are available on our website here:

https://www.slcolibrary.org/we-recomm...

You can also vote there online!

[Patty]

thanks

[Audrey]

I finished The Bromance Book Club. Cute; contains sex and swearing.

[Ellen]

We just have two more months left for Reader's Choice! If you don't want to bring your ballots into the branch, you can still vote online:
https://www.slcolibrary.org/informati...

[Audrey]

Which way has better odds? :)

[Ellen]

Votes hold the same weight whether they are submitted via website or online. But coming into the branch means you get to explore the shelves and say hi to your librarians so.... :)

[Britt, Book Habitue]

So far I've read All the Forgivenesses (meh, fine, not really my thing) and The Bromance Bookclub (hilarious but [not surprisingly] LOTS of language and sex).

[Audrey]

Miracle Creek -- more drama than mystery; kind of long-winded

The Flatshare -- fun

Trust First -- better than expected

[Britt, Book Habitue]

Chestnut Man....meh. I don't know what it is about Scandinavian thrillers, but I just never end up liking them as much as I want to. And it was realllllly long, lol.

[Patty]

I read A Boy and His Dog. Not really my type of genre, but I thought it was ok.

Now I'm laughing at something I just realized, but it would be a spoiler.

[Audrey]

I read Rory Thorne a year or two ago. I liked it.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

I'd been avoiding The Chain since I started hearing about it, but then it was on the reader's choice list....sigh.
the first half ended up being somewhat more detached, and therefore less traumatic, and more compelling. Until I realized I was only at 55%.....
I finished it, but I ended up at 3x speed..... and it still felt too slow.

[Patty]

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "I'd been avoiding The Chain since I started hearing about it, but then it was on the reader's choice list....sigh.
the first half ended up being somewhat more detached, and therefore less traumatic..."

Besides being slow did you like it anyway? Or just one you didn't like at all?

[Britt, Book Habitue]

Patty wrote: "Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "I'd been avoiding The Chain since I started hearing about it, but then it was on the reader's choice list....sigh.
the first half ended up being somewhat more detached, ..."

The first half wasn't bad, fairly compelling but also pretty unbelievable. But the second half was garbage.
Honestly, it made me mad, lol.
1 star

[Britt, Book Habitue]

And honestly, I really really really try to not give a book a bad review or rating just because it's not my style or I didn't really want to read it or whatever, so I kind of expected this to be one where I didn't necessarily enjoy it but give it an okay rating because it's well done or whatever.
No. Not the case.
In fact, the more I think about it the madder it makes me.
(Also, my husband's reaction when I tried to describe different parts of the book were hilarious. He didn't even read it and it's bugging him.)
(I should also point out that I wrote my first comment about it really late at night.... so....yeah. Not as intelligible as I could have been.)

[Patty]

Lol thank you! Now I'm wanting to read it to see if I have the same reaction. :)

[Britt, Book Habitue]

Patty wrote: "Lol thank you! Now I'm wanting to read it to see if I have the same reaction. :)"

Looking at the GoodReads reviews, I am certainly not alone but also certainly in the minority.

[Patty]

I finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January. I had a different impression of the book before reading it. I was thinking it would be this cool book of discovery somehow. It turned out to be pretty angsty for me.

[Audrey]

Patty wrote: "I finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January. I had a different impression of the book before reading it. I was thinking it would be this cool book of discovery somehow. It turned out to be pretty ..."

I have a trusted reviewer (GR friend) who didn't like it. It looked promising otherwise.

I read about a scene in Waiting for Tom Hanks (view spoiler)[where the heroine takes nude photos of the hero and shares them (hide spoiler)] and there is no way those two should get together after that.

[Elizabeth]

Audrey wrote: "Patty wrote: "I finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January. I had a different impression of the book before reading it. I was thinking it would be this cool book of discovery somehow. It turned out..."
I started this one, and really didn't like it. I never even got to that scene before I DNF.

[Patty]

I loved The Beekeeper of Aleppo. Not an easy read emotionally, but being with a refugee organization it is a story that needs to be told and it is done so well. It helps others to get a little idea of what refugees go through without sharing so many details that may have too many turning away.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World was fine. Maybe in a different mood I'd have loved it... *shrug* Didn't see the twists coming.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

Surprised by the depth of The Flatshare. Definitely not "just" a romcom. Romance isn't my jam, and this isn't a clean read, but ultimately I enjoyed it more than expected.

[Patty]

I agree. It had a little more substance. It wasn't completely clean, but I was glad it didn't get bad enough I felt I had to put it down.

[Audrey]

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "Surprised by the depth of The Flatshare. Definitely not "just" a romcom. Romance isn't my jam, and this isn't a clean read, but ultimately I enjoyed it more than expected."

Agreed. When Justin showed up to "propose," my palms got all sweaty.

[Ellen]

Yay! I loved The Flatshare and I'm glad it was a good pick even for non-romance readers.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse might end up being my favorite this round. So much fun!

[Patty]

I really liked Trust First. Loved the things he shared. Gave me a new way to look at some things and how to treat people.

[Audrey]

I finished The Twisted Ones. It was weird but I liked it.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

Trust First and The Sun Is a Compass were both interesting.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

Enjoyed The Night Olivia Fell. (Quite a bit of language though)

[Britt, Book Habitue]

Singapore Sapphire was highly enjoyable. Five stars.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

4 stars for Gods of Jade and Shadow.
13 down, 7 to go....

[Audrey]

Wow. I'm trying to squeeze in Jade and Shadow and Chestnut Man before the end.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

The Right Sort of Man was a lot of fun. A little too witty early on maybe (like the dialogue was more developed than the characters) but improved by the end.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

The more I think about Jade and Shadow the more I think it maybe only gets 3 stars....

[Britt, Book Habitue]

Miracle Creek is pretty well written, especially considering it's a first novel... but...ugh. It was just kinda hard to read.

[Audrey]

I'm debating between 2 and 3 stars for Jade and Shadow. It is not holding my attention very well.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

I liked the concept but really struggled with the sense of setting in terms of time. It kept talking about Art Deco and such but I didn't really buy that it was the 20s.

[Britt, Book Habitue]

The Twisted Ones, while somewhat creepy, was straight up hilarious. Not at all a clean read, and it would probably make a terrifying movie, but I laughed out loud the whole way through.

[Ellen]

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "The Twisted Ones, while somewhat creepy, was straight up hilarious. Not at all a clean read, and it would probably make a terrifying movie, but I laughed out loud the whole way through." While I'll admit there was lots of humor, I definitely wasn't laughing much while reading The Twisted Ones. I just kept looking out my window in fear!

[Audrey]

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "I liked the concept but really struggled with the sense of setting in terms of time. It kept talking about Art Deco and such but I didn't really buy that it was the 20s."

Same.

I also laughed all through Twisted Ones even though it was creepy.