Romance Readers Reading Challenges discussion
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TART Challenge - Round 3 - Fast like Molasses (11)
lol. i thought the same thing. How does Kat come up with this stuff.
I plan to read this one, but it's right on the cusp. Can someone else look at so that they can verify when I began reading it, that it did fit the criteria4.15 rating 209 reviews on May 4th
Chan wrote: "I plan to read this one, but it's right on the cusp. Can someone else look at so that they can verify when I began reading it, that it did fit the criteria4.15 rating 209 reviews on May 4th..."
You're probably fine since it's over 2 years old so probably won't change a lot in just a couple of days, but I got a screen shot of it just in case.
I'm going to read
Rated 4.26 with 12 reviews
rated 4.36 with 84 reviews.I might trade one of those for
Rating 4.26 with 25 reviews.
Elizabeth wrote: "I'm going to read Rated 4.26 with 12 reviews rated 4.36 with 84 reviews.I might trade one of those for [bookcover:..."
Liz, the book has to be under 4.2 rating, not over.
Ok. I found
. 4.10 rating, 137 reviews 👍
Oh, and my second one
. It was recommended to me in PTP, so I've been meaning to fit it in somewhere. 4.03 rating and 157 reviews
Completion - Task 23 - 117. Read 8 books with an average rating under 4.2 AND under 250 reviews.Book 1:
Her SanctuaryPages: 359 (Kindle version)
Rating: 4 stars
Completed: 5/4/21
How the book qualifies: Rating is 4.10, 202 Reviews
Book 2:
Accidentally CattyPages: 352 (Kindle version)
Rating: 3 stars
Completed: 5/5/21
How the book qualifies: Rating is 4.03, 146 Reviews
I've started a third book that also qualifies for this task, but I won't finish it until sometime tomorrow afternoon. If anyone is struggling to get through 2 books I can post this one when I finish it, but I'm not reading it specifically for this challenge, so if it's not needed that's great too.
I should finish my first one this afternoon. I started with
, and it's so ridiculously bad. Like the author just took every over-used sci-fi romance plot point and jammed them together without asking herself how they were supposed to fit together.I'll start my second tonight, but if you get done before me, that's ok.
Ok, sounds good. If we don't have 8 books by the time I finish I'll go ahead and post it, and if we do, I won't. 😁
Completion Post - Task 23117. Read 8 books with an average rating under 4.2 AND under 250 reviews.
Possessed
Pages: 250 (Kindle Edition)
Completed: 5/6
How the book qualifies: Current rating 4.03, with 157 reviews
Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Review:
This is a new author to me, and I was really excited by the precis, but this was just really disappointing. None of this was thoughtfully done and feels more like the author just mashed together a whole bunch of overused sci-fi romance plot points without actually considering how they would make sense together.
To start with, Astrid is just the worst. I hate when authors infantilize their heroines to make them sweet or endearing or what ever other garbage they're going for. Astrid is not sweet or endearing, to put it bluntly, she's kind of a moron. The story begins with her messing up the navigation of her sister's ship and taking them into the off-limits Vandar territory. She admits in her inner monologue that she is pretty much useless at everything, and her sister keeps giving her different jobs in hopes of find something she can do without messing it up. Obviously this wasn't it.
Instead of blowing the freighter up, the Vandar decide to board it, and the chief guy, Kratos, says he will execute the captain of the freighter to teach them a lesson. It actually takes Astrid a bit, but she finally steps up and offers to take the punishment, because it is her fault after all, and Kratos is so overcome with her bravery that he decides to take her as his captive instead.
Now, first off, how on earth is stepping up and taking the blame for something you did bravery? Sounds like just not being an a-hole to me. What kind of person would let their sister die for something they did wrong? But for some reason, the reader is supposed to think Astrid is something special for doing the bare minimum of what any decent human would do?
Then, after she's on the Vandar ship, we learn that she's a virgin...because all the best girls are virgins, right?
Oh, and she's even better than all those other virgins because she doesn't swear either!
Yes, sweet, little, moronic Astrid is so super goody two-shoes perfect that she giggles when she says curse words out loud. 🤦🏽♀️And for the bulk of the story, she hangs out with a Vandar child because, let's face it, she is written like a child as well.
Then we have Kratos, who is supposed to be this big, bad, alpha, tough-guy, but EVERYONE questions him ALL THE TIME. He wants to bring back the human? His warriors want to know why. He wants to spend time in his room with the human? His warriors tell him they think he's going soft. Heck, even Astrid says she doesn't want to have sex with him, and he totally backs off and says he'll wait until she asks him to.
I don't think the author had any idea what kind of character she actually wanted to write. You can't just say a character is tough and then never show it. It doesn't make sense!!!
And can I just stop for a minute and rant about the whole tail thing? Seriously, why did the author give these guys tails. I read a lot of alien smut, so I'm no stranger to a tailed hero, but I feel like the author just threw that in there because she needed some sort of alien part on these guys, and she couldn't think of anything. Like, normally when an alien has a tail, he doesn't just look human. But in here, the Vandar all just look like normal guys. Normal guys with normal skin. The author states that their tail has poofy black fur at the end. But what about the rest of it? Is it like a lion's tail? Like, yellowish, skin colored fur that ends with a darker tip. If so, where does the fur start? Right where the tail hits the butt? Or is it not furry? Is it like human skin all the way to the bottom until the furry tip? Like a rat tail?
And she mentions that they wear those leather kilt things with no underwear, but where does the freaking tail go!!!! Is there a hole in the kilt? At one point, Kratos unhooks the kilt and it just slides off, and I imagine a hole small enough to not show his ass around the tail would be so small that it would get stuck on the furry part at the end, so it wouldn't slide off so easily. So is the tail just under the kilt? Swishing around all day? These guys must be flashing each other all the damn time.
It seems the only reason the tail is there is to give these guys an "otherness", and so it can be used as something different to shove up the heroine's snatch, which is really just all kinds of gross. Like, does he wash it first? How about after? I mean, he's walking around with it all day uncovered. It could be hitting other people, getting in dirty corners of the ship....and it's supposed to be sexy when he rubs it on Astrid's privates?
Just nothing about that tail was sexy, and I really don't think it was well-thought out.
So the characters are all flat and make random decisions with no thought, and there is no actual relationship here. Then on top of that you have a plot that is a mash of nonsense.
Apparently, after Astrid is taken, her sister goes to the big space empire that the Vandar fight against, the Zagrath, and asks for their help. Why would the Zagrath help a nobody woman who captains a junky freighter to rescue her sister?
I mean come on; it would be like one of the Jawas going to the Empire and asking them to rescue a Jawa that was stolen by Hans Solo. You think they would give a crap?
It's just absolute nonsense. And added to that, the first time they come to kidnap Astrid back, they say they're going to kill her, but the second time they just welcome her to the ship and talk about how they can finally get her sister to leave them alone by handing her over?
None of this works; it's all a mess with nothing actually thought about before it's written. I hard pass for me, and I definitely won't be continuing with the series.
#23 | 117: Read 8 books with an average rating under 4.2 AND under 250 reviews | Book 1Book: Irish Crown
Rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Pages: 239
Completed: May 5, 2021
Qualifies: Rating 4.15 and 209 reviews
#23 | 117: Read 8 books with an average rating under 4.2 AND under 250 reviews | Book 2
Book: An Island in the Stars
Rating: 😕😕😕
Pages: 227
Completed: May 6, 2021
Qualifies: Rating 3.07 and 14 reviews
I double checked and this is what i have for completions:Karen: 2 books
Courtney: 1 book
Chan: 2 books
Liz: 0 books
Yeah, that's what I have. I started my second book already (which I should have read first because it's way better 🤣), so I should be done tomorrow evening at the latest. But if Karen finishes hers before me, that's fine, too.
#23 | 117: Read 8 books with an average rating under 4.2 AND under 250 reviews | Book 1Book:
Rating: 😌😌😌
Pages: 382
Completed: May 6, 2021
Qualifies: Rating 3.76 and 142 reviews
Book 2
Book:
Rating: 🙂🙂🙂
Pages: 288
Completed: May 5, 2021
Qualifies: Rating 3.42 and 152 reviews
Completion - Task 23 - 117. Read 8 books with an average rating under 4.2 AND under 250 reviews.Book 3:
Her Last ChancePages: 340 (Kindle version)
Rating: 4 stars
Completed: 5/6/21
How the book qualifies: Rating is 4.17, 75 Reviews
Completion posted in Q&A thread.
~KarenH~ wrote: "My first thought when I saw this one was that it's downright evil, but I found a couple that work."No, evil would be if I made the average rating lower, under 4 or even under 3.5, so you have to read books others didn't like very much!
I dunno Kat. I'm with Karen on this one.I think you rubbed your hands together and cackled when you thought of this one 😁
Here is your next task!Task 24 - 92. Read over 1500 pages in books set in the future or the past - teams decide.
As a team select whether you are reading books set in the future or in the past, then read
*Edited to correct error.*
Ok, so we originally decided to do past. Is that still OK for everyone?
I'm going to do
384 pages. Nothing is really jumping out at me this time, so I figured I'd just go for something that's been on my TBR for a while 🤣
Ok. This is actually really cute. 🥰 I love a heroine that's super sassy and witty.
I'm reading
1500 pages - 384 (Courtney) - 412 (Chan) = 704 pages left
Team, i'm confused by Kat's instructions. It says read over 1500 pages, but then the detailed instructions say 6 books.
Chan wrote: "Team, i'm confused by Kat's instructions. It says read over 1500 pages, but then the detailed instructions say 6 books."
It should be 1500 pages, I got confused when typing the details. I really should just have them typed up somewhere to copy over when used, but I actually type them up each time. It would help avoid errors like this. 🤦🏻♀️
Chan wrote: "I dunno Kat. I'm with Karen on this one.I think you rubbed your hands together and cackled when you thought of this one 😁"
Not for this one, I did cackle a little for the task where you read books initially published in the decade of a teammate's birth. That one has the potential to be scary - you know if you are old like me!
I'm reading
.1500 pages - 384 (Courtney) - 412 (Chan) - 384 (Karen) = 320 pages left
I'm reading
1531 pages - 384 (Courtney) - 412 (Chan) - 384 Karen - 351 pages.
Completion - Task 24 - 92. Read over 1500 pages in books set in the future or the past - teams decide.
The Duke with the Dragon TattooPages: 384 (Kindle version)
Rating: 4 stars
Completed: 5/7/21
How the book qualifies: MPG Historical
You're so fast! 🤣🤣🤣I'm about halfway through mine. I got to take a Mother's Day weekend nap today, so I'm a bit behind. Best gift ever, though! 🤣
And the crazy aunt in my book is Lady Courtenay, which just kills me! 🤣
Courtney wrote: "You're so fast! 🤣🤣🤣I'm about halfway through mine. I got to take a Mother's Day weekend nap today, so I'm a bit behind. Best gift ever, though! 🤣
And the crazy aunt in my book is Lady Courtenay,..."
LOL, that's because I don't have much of a life right now! 😂 Still in the middle of the neverending move from hell, and where I'm at right now (and for probably another month or two) almost everything I have available to do can be paired with audiobooks. Don't even have "normal" TV, only streaming, and my wifi is limited to my cell data. In theory that's unlimited, but it drops WAY down in speed after a certain point, and it doesn't take much TV at all to get past that point. So, lots of listening time!
Task 24 - 92. Read over 1500 pages in books set in the future or the past - teams decide.
Pages: 384 (Kindle version)
Rating: 3 stars
Completed: 5/8/21
How the book qualifies: MPG Historical
#24 | 92: Read over 1500 pages in books set in the pastBook: The High King's Golden Tongue
Rating: 👑👑👑👑
Pages: 412
Completed: May 8, 2021
Qualifies: MPG Historical
Currently for task #24:Karen: 384 pages
Liz: 384 pages
Chan: 412 pages
Total - 1180 pages
Need - 320
~KarenH~ wrote: "LOL, that's because I don't have much of a life right now! 😂 Still in the middle of the neverending move from hell, and where I'm at right now (and for probably another month or two) almost everything I have available to do can be paired with audiobooks. Don't even have "normal" TV, only streaming, and my wifi is limited to my cell data. In theory that's unlimited, but it drops WAY down in speed after a certain point, and it doesn't take much TV at all to get past that point. So, lots of listening time!"That's rough. Are you all moved out of your old place, or still doing a bit of back and forth?
Hey, Liz, did you end up not liking In Bed with a Highlander? I remember it being kind of a just OK one for me. Not enough to get me invested in the rest of the series at the time, but I've debated about going back and giving it another try.
Completion Post - Task 2492. Read over 1500 pages in books set in the future or the past - teams decide.
Team chose past
Love and Other Scandals
Pages: 384 (Kindle Edition)
Completed: 5/9
How the book qualifies: MPG Historical Romance
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Review:
This book is exactly why I love historical romances so much. This was just such a wonderful read. Totally sucked me, totally loved the story, and totally loved this couple.
Joan is just my ultimate favorite type of heroine. She's super witty, lots of fun, and isn't afraid to stand up for herself. I was a fan from her first interaction with Tristan when he tells her she's impertinent, and she smiles and says "Thank you." I just knew I was going to love this lady.
And Tristan was the perfect pairing for her. I love how they good-naturedly butted heads in the beginning, but he really grew to love and respect her. Sometimes enemies-to-lovers stories are hard for me to really enjoy because the hero comes across a bit too nasty and is hard to totally forgive. But Tristan always treated their barbs as being all in good fun, and he never purposefully hit below the belt. The one time he made a mistake and did take it too far, he immediately recognized his error and fixed it.
There isn't much outside plot besides the growth of the relationship, but I always find these to be the best romances, as long as the author can do a good job of actually building a strong, believable relationship. Ms. Linden did such a great job of it here. I was really impressed.
I do think there was slightly a bit too much harping on about the heroine's weight and whether or not certain styles flattered her. I get that the point was to showcase how Tristan appreciated Joan for her personality over anything else, but it was just a little overdone for me.
Overall, just really happy with this one. I look forward to picking up more in the series. I always appreciate an author who can write a strong, likable heroine!
Ok, seriously, how did three of us all pick books with 384 pages 🤣🤣I feel like it's an episode on Lost or something. Who's going to play the lottery?
WOW! that is so weird. what are the odds of that?Yep, somebody needs to play those numbers
Courtney wrote: "That's rough. Are you all moved out of your old place, or still doing a bit of back and forth?"I'm completely moved out, although my mail and any package deliveries are still going there so I still need to drop by now and then. The fact that it was family buying the place makes this "in-between" time so much easier - I don't need to deal with changing my address on everything twice! Overall things are going pretty well, it's just a lot different from what I'm used to and the fact that I'm still not permanently settled and still dealing with a bit of uncertainty is frustrating at times.
Courtney wrote: "Ok, seriously, how did three of us all pick books with 384 pages 🤣🤣I feel like it's an episode on Lost or something. Who's going to play the lottery?"
That threw me too! In fact, I'd noticed Courtney's page count matched mine earlier, so last night (when I was getting tired) when I saw Chan's countdown had another 384 page count and saw Liz's name, my brain didn't see what was actually there and I had a split second of panic thinking we were all finished and somehow were still over 300 pages short! Fortunately reason kicked in quickly and I realized what had happened and Courtney's count wasn't listed yet, but for a minute there it was like a bit of the Twilight Zone!
Romance Readers Reading Challenges
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Task 23 - 117. Read 8 books with an average rating under 4.2 AND under 250 reviews.
Books selected for this task need to have an average GR rating under 4.2 AND under 250 ..."
My first thought when I saw this one was that it's downright evil, but I found a couple that work. I'm starting with