Reading with Style discussion
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Anika wrote: "Kathleen (itpdx) wrote: "15.5 TDoSThe City & the City by China Miéville
Anika —> Joanna
Review This is mental gymnastics wrapped in a detective story or vice versa..."
Oh man! That is what I get for trying to work from memory. Let me try to rework this.
Please change posting 347 of The City & the City to 10.6 PC with a task total of 15. That will reduce my season total to 145.
15.6 TDoSA Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories by Will Eisner
Adam => Bea
From the preface: "It has been most gratifying to see the graphic novel and many of its exceptional creators gradually become an accepted part of the book world. I couldn't find a major publisher to take A Contract With God only a quarter century ago, and now graphic novels represent the book industry's fastest growing genre." And that coming from one of the grandfathers of the graphic novel. Will Eisner has been in the business since the 1930s and in this graphic novel, he gives us a snapshot of Depression-era tenement life in the Bronx.
Graphic novels really have come into their own over the years and those were the stories I cut my teeth on...this one just didn't have the complexity and connection I was hoping for. I appreciated it for what it was, but each story was pretty depressing and completing it just left me feeling flat.
+30 Task
+5 Review
Task total: 35
Season total: 1055
Holy cow, Kathleen! I can't believe you can do it from memory! I have an entire notebook dedicated solely to RwS planning which I check and recheck and recheck and...yeah.
10.7 Page Count 350-399pRound 2
Catch Us The Foxes by Nicola West
384 pages
Review
I don't often get NetGalley's pre-approval emails and when I do, I don't usually find those books that interesting and so was my first thought about this novel. I'm very much a cover girl so I have to say that cover really didn't interest me and I can't really remember why I decided to take up this offer anyway. In any case, good job, past me, because I would've really missed out! I thoroughly enjoyed Catch Us The Foxes.
The novel opens with a prologue where protagonist, Marlowe 'Lo' Robertson, is about to speak about a book she wrote. A book about what happened in the past. A book that we all gets to read because this is the main meat of Catch Us The Foxes. It is a book within a book. The Showgirl's Secret is the title of Lo's book where she told the story of her friend's suspicious death and the ordeal she went through as she determinedly tried her best to discover the truth.
But what is the truth? Does she even truly know her friend? or her town? What secrets are such small sunny beach tourist town like Kiama could keep in their hearts? A town where she has lived her whole life. Lo must uncover layers of lies and decide who she can trust.
Within the first few minutes, I knew that this was a novel I would really liked. I found Lo easily likeable even if her character sounds a little unstable at times but then again, that is the way Lo portrayed herself in her book so, without too much spoiler, you do have to wonder what her character truly is like.
The setting, Kiama, being only a couple of hours' drive away, really made me want to just nip down there for a day but... lockdown :( However, if you visit author's insta, you can see some of the views there. I have been previously so it was a tad difficult to imagine such a dark foreboding secret at such a beautiful spot.
Catch Us The Foxes is a thrilling suspense where tension is taut from the very beginning right to the very last word. It was creepy. It was tense. It was one hell of a ride. I was caught by twist upon twist right up to the end of the epilogue where only the readers, us, know what is 'true'. I'd highly recommend this to all thriller fans.
My thanks to Simon & Schuster Australia for ecopy of book via NetGalley in exchange of my honest thoughts
+10 Task
+5 Review
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 470
Task 10.5 Page Count 250 – 299Deadlier than the Pen: A Diana Spaulding Mystery (Diana Spaulding #1) (2004) by Kathy Lynn Emerson (Hardcover, 266 pages)
Review: This is a novel that couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to be. It’s a mashup of (1) female empowerment story set in 1888; (2) traditional gothic romance, with a tall, dark, mysterious male love interest; (3) historical novel, including unusual events recorded in contemporary 1888 newspapers; (4) a murder mystery, tacked on toward the conclusion; and (mild spoiler) (view spoiler). The story itself never quite gels, and the heroine’s character changes to suit the plot. By trying to do too much, the novel winds up doing too little. I wouldn’t recommend it.
+10 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 10 + 05 = 15
Grand Total: 135 + 15 = 150
20.5 Riding the MetroTruly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty
Sydney, Australia, Oceania
+20 Task
Task total = 20
Season total = 160
10.1 ; 10.2 ; 10.3 ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; 10.9 ; …
… ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; …
20.1 ; 20.2 ; 20.3 ; 20.4 ; 20.5 ; … ; … ; … ; … ; …
10.2 Page CountThe Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
121 pages
This took me FOREVER to get through.
I really wanted to love this, and it was not bad - in fact, there were some lines that were excellent. But alas… this is not my type of story.
It’s all place setting. This feels like a little teaser for something more developed. Maybe that’s what the next book will be… I was shocked at the end when it says “Chih will return in”…. Why do I care? Does any reader care about Chih? Was I supposed to care? Because utter failure there. Chih is a nothing - there to record a story. There is no internal monologue, nothing that differentiates Chih from a bit of technology, though presumably Chih is human. Almost Brilliant was almost brilliant… a character that’s interesting, whose very presence does a lot of world building, but…nothing is done! So frustrating! Towards the end Rabbit started to become more realized, but then it’s over.
The bones of the story are fantastic, but there are only bones.
There’s so much potential, but this feels very half-done. I have Book 2, and I will give it a shot, but if I did not already own it I would not be tempted to continue.
+10 task
+ 5 review
Task total = 15
Season total = 755
15.5 TDoSDeath on the Nile by Agatha Christie
Lisa & Nick
Although I wasn't certain, I thought I had seen the TV version of this with David Suchet. As I read, I realized I had seen it and that I knew the motive for the crime. The details still eluded me. Some of the lovely scenery of the boat and cabins were in the memory bank. Even so, I couldn't recall exactly *how* things were done.
I thought there were too many characters and I couldn't keep them all straight. I admit part of the problem might have been because I knew just who I should pay greater attention to. In addition, it's entirely possible that I've just read as much Agatha Christie as I need for the time being. I'm afraid this one was just an unenthusiastic 3-stars for me.
+30 Task
+ 5 Review
+ 5 Before 1996 (1937)
Task total = 40
Season total = 315
10.9 Page Count 450-499The Tree of Man by Patrick White
This is the life story of Stan Parker, born in Australia in perhaps the 1880s. As a young man he inherits a small plot of land in what is then bush, where he goes to live. He marries and has a long and mostly uneventful life, although there are incidents with flood, fire and a distant war. So if you enjoy this book, it will be for the style and the way Patrick White gets under the skins of his characters, not the plot. I found White's ability to turn an evocative or telling phrase awe-inspiring.
I listened to it on audio, which I have come to realise gives me much more patience with a book. Unlike with paper or Kindle, I listen while I'm doing something else like walking or decorating, so the book is a bonus rather than a thing I'm choosing to do over other claims on my time. This means I don't mind if it seems long and slow at times (which this book did) provided it rewards me somehow. I wanted to give it five stars, but made it four because of this audio bias.
+10 Task (480 pages)
+ 5 Review
+ 5 Pre-1996
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 330
20.4 Riding the Metro10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
set 77% in Istanbul
Country: Turkey
Continent: Asia
"Tequila Leila" is an Istanbul prostitute who, when the book opens, has just been murdered. The title refers to the maximum time for which doctors have observed brain activity in a patient after clinical death. Leila spends this time remembering episodes from her life and thinking of her five friends, mostly foreigners or outsiders in Istanbul.
While I enjoyed this book with its vivid portrayal of life in modern Turkey, I found the idea of this brain-active time so freaky that it dominated my thoughts while I was reading. Do most of us have a few minutes like that after death? Are we really conscious or is it more like dreaming? If the eyes are open, can we see? Leila didn't seem to feel pain or frustration or regret, nor anger at her killer. I'm not sure I will be such an accepting corpse. I might have to work on that before the moment comes.
+20 Task
+5 Review
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 355
10.4 Page Count 200-249The Old Road From Spain by Constance Holme
204 pages
+10 Task
+5 Before 1996 (pub 1916)
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 770
10.4 - Page Count - 200-249 - Second RoundMurder on Potrero Hill by M.L. Hamilton
+10 task - 246pgs
Task total: 10
Grand total: 280
10.8 - Page Count - 400-449 - Second RoundTemptation Ridge by Robyn Carr
+10 task - 416pgs
Task total: 10
Grand total: 290
10.5 Page Count 250-299pRound 2
The Mind's Eye (Inspector Van Veeteren #1) by Håkan Nesser
278 pages
+10 Task
+5 Pub. 1993
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 485
20.7 Riding the MetroAfterlight by Rebecca Lim
City: Melbourne
Country: Australia
Continent: Oceania
Review
WHAT. IS. THAT. ENDING!?!!!!
I like this ghostly trope so it was no surprise that I enjoyed this book and managed a read-in-a-single-sitting. Sophie Teague is an easily likeable character; all the more so due to her awkwardness and yet unfailing kindness. However, it is her generous heart that got her into the mire this time. Luckily, though, help came from a very unexpected place. Afterlight is a very easy & very smooth read. I would've said a good-feels kind of read except for that ending... I'll never get over that. I keep thinking throughout the reading that it feels like a series sort of book and not a stand alone. I do think the author needs to produce a sequel... I'm hurt.
+25 Task
+5 Review
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 515
Round 210.2 Page Count 100-140 pages
Sounder by William H. Armstrong
The father of a poor African-American sharecropping family steals a ham to feed his hungry family in the late 19th Century. He had been hunting every night with his coon dog, Sounder, but had no luck. The sheriff and his deputies arrest the father, and seriously wound Sounder when they shoot him. The son helps his mother with the work, and searches the chain gangs for his father. Along the way, he meets a schoolteacher who helps him learn to read, and tells him stories about life.
"Sounder" is a beautifully written story about a sad situation. The book is written from the point of view of the boy who is coming of age in a prejudiced world during hard times. Many of the characters, including the dog Sounder, display courage in a quiet, dignified manner. This Newbery Award winner can be enjoyed by both older children and adults.
+10 task
+ 5 review
+ 5 before 1996 (published 1969)
Task total: 20
Season total: 405
15.9 TDoSSiege and Storm (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy #2) by Leigh Bardugo
Rated 5-stars by Kat and Anika
+45 Task
Post Total: 45
Season Total: 560
10.3 Page Count 150-199pRound 2
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho
160 pages
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 570
10.5 - White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf by Aaron Bobrow-Strain - 257pgWhite Bread is an interesting look at one of the most inconspicuous elements of daily life – that loaf of bread on the counter. Where did it come from? How is it made? How did it come to be as influential a part of the American diet as it is? If you’re interested in popular culture and food anthropology without being *too* in depth, it’s worth reading.
+10 task
+5 review
Task total: 15
Season total: 180
10.1 ; 10.2 ; 10.3 ; 10.4 ; 10.5 ; … ; 10.7 ; … ; ... ; …
… ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; …
20.1 ; 20.2 ; 20.3 ; ... ; … ; … ; … ; … ; … ; …
Cities: Perth, Edmonton, London
Countries: Australia, Canada, England
Continents: Australia, N. America, Europe
10.6 Page Count 300-349To Tell You the Truth by Gilly Macmillan
Review: I'm back! After a long reading slump, being really busy, moving, and just picking at books here and there I devoured this entire book today while recuperating from my second vaccine shot. I'm sure I found it on one of Modern Mrs. Darcy's lists and very glad I requested it from the library.
We've got an unreliable narrator who is an author who happens to still communicate with her old imaginary friend (and star of her famous books). Is she crazy? Is she not? Is this an alternate personality?
Lucy lost her brother after an ill fated night in the woods many years ago, and now her husband is missing after moving her into a new house close to her old home.
I enjoyed this! Entertaining and intriguing! A mix of In the Woods and Girl on the Train?
+10 Task - 320 pgs
+5 Review
Task Total: 15 pts
Grand Total: 30 pts
10.8 Page Count 400-449Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
425 pages
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Completion Bonus 100
Season Total: 880
10.4 Page Count 200-249The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie
I remember thinking this was clever the first time I read it, and I think it's one of Christie's most memorable solutions, but perhaps it doesn't have much else to recommend it when you know who did it and why. There's no Poirot or Miss Marple, but there are some classic Christie features including a dubious séance, a village cut off by snow, and a mysterious older woman. I read it for the snow for another challenge, and I did enjoy it but marked it down to three stars this time.
+10 Task (248 pages)
+ 5 Review
+ 5 Pre-1996
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 405
10.5 Page Count 250-299The Sugared Game by K.J. Charles
This is the second book in a trilogy set in the 1920s and featuring WWI veteran and bookshop owner Will Darling and undercover agent Lord Arthur Secretan, known as Kim. It's romance/lighthearted thriller featuring a gang and a seedy nightclub. I read the first in the trilogy so long ago that I couldn't remember anything about it, but that didn't matter. A fun read.
+10 Task (286 pages)
+ 5 Review
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 420
15.8 TDoS Small Island by Andrea Levy
5* Elizabeth (Alaska) + DeeDee
I did enjoy this, but it took some time for me to warm up to it. I found the first fifth (or so) not particularly compelling but then we start (in earnest) on Gilbert’s story and Levy pulls everything together. Levy’s characters were interesting and believable. Levy also handles the racism that the characters face deftly – you are angry it happened but not so completely repulsed you have to stop reading. I did feel worried about Hortenese’s naivety, and am glad she had Gilbert to help her navigate the reality of England (in 1948) for a Black person. 4*
45 task
5 review
____
50
Running total: 460
15.1 TDoSCall Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera
5 * Dot--Kim
The early 1920s were desperate times in South Carolina after a multiyear boll weevil infestation destroyed the cotton crops. Then the farmers planted tobacco, but it did not fetch a good price. Hurricanes also ravaged the area.
Three women from different classes and races are trying to hold their lives together in this novel. Gertrude is an impoverished and abused wife trying to keep her four daughters fed and sheltered. Annie is estranged from her daughters, and has recently discovered a devastating family secret. Retta works as a cook for Annie at the plantation where her ancestors were slaves. Retta is a healer, has the gift of sight, loves her husband, and grieves for her daughter who died young.
The lives of these three women intersect during the summer of 1924. Deb Spera's writing is vivid and dramatic. Spirits of the dead haunt the living. The book is worth reading if only to be introduced to Retta with her store of wisdom and caring heart. Lovers of Southern Gothic will especially enjoy this novel.
+15 task
+ 5 review
Task total: 20
Season total: 425
10.1 Page Count 75-150Round 2
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (107 pages)
AND
Traces of Love by Eileen Chang (33 pages)
total pages: 140
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 580
10.2 Page Count 100-149 pRound 2
Tales of Lunis Aquaria by Tessa Hastjarjanto
116 pages
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 590
15.6 TDoSEmpire of Sand by Tasha Suri
Rated 5* by Megan and Tien
+30 Task
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 910
10.4 Page Count 200-249pRound 2
Silver Brumbies of the South (Silver Brumby #3) by Elyne Mitchell
240 pages
+10 Task
+5 Pub 1965
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 605
10.7 Page Count 350-399 pagesMr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder by John Waters
372p.
John Waters is a delight to read....even if some of his subjects are bizarre and....well....filthy. Best known for creating the movie Hairspray....he is also a filmmaker of many offbeat movies. "Offbeat" really doesn't capture the strangeness of Water's plots and characters. His books are an insight to how he develops usually hilarious scenarios of outlandish plots. And if you really want a (probably) new experience in your reading... read the chapter here dealing with Waters' history of himself visiting sex clubs. He is not shy about discussing his freakiness. If you want to skip over that chapter...there are still plenty of compelling adventures- real and imagined in this book. 4 stars
Task=10
review=5
Task Total=15
Season Total=375
10.1; .....; 10.3;10.4 .....; .....; 10.7; 10.8; .....; 10.10
20.1; 20.2; 20.3; 20.4; 20.5; 20.6; 20.7; 20.8; 20.9
20.4 RtMThe Concubine's Tattoo by Laura Joh Rowland
This book is an odd combination of the mystery and romance genres. The murder mystery is well conceived and engaging but the romantic subplot about Sano Ichiro and his wife Reiko is fairly predictable and sets up what I suspect will be a crime solving collaboration in future novels in the series. The book is set in feudal Edo (Tokyo) which allows for lots of sword play and presentation of Japanese culture as « other ». Characters have a tendency to verge on being cartoony portrayals of Japanese stereotypes
20 pts. 20.4 RtM Toyko (Edo) Japan
5 pts Review
Total task: 25 pts
Total Season: 260 pts.
10.1 10.2 10.3 ... 10.5 10.6 ... ... ... ...
15.1 15.2 15.3 ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 ... ... ... ... ... ...
Countries: England, United States, Australia, Japan
Continents: Europe, North America, Oceania, Asia
15.6 TDoSGo Down, Moses by William Faulkner
Nick & Ava Catherine
This is an interesting collection of inter-connected stories which taken together is presented as a novel. Most reviewers seem to like "The Bear" the most, and as is often the case, I am an outlier. It was my least favorite. I labored and sighed reading it, the longest of the stories, not because of the confoundedness of the prose but because it wanders. It tells more than one story and I even wondered at one time if Faulkner had been drinking too much as he was known to do. For me the only thing it had going for it was the reminder of characters in some of Faulkner's other novels. Most notable was Boon Hogganbeck who is featured in The Reivers.
The first story, "Was", takes place before the Civil War and lays the foundation for the relationships - especially blood relationships - between black and white in the south of Faulkner's fiction. One can both wince and smile in this story. There is a poker game, but, unlike most poker games where the high hand wins, in this poker game it is the losing hand that will take home the stakes.
My favorite of the seven stories in this volume was "The Fire and the Hearth". To me, it spoke more eloquently of the connection between blacks and whites, but again, Faulkner does not deal as heavily as he can and often does. I think you could not even call it petty larceny when a man "borrows" a mule and exchanges it for a piece of machinery worth $300 which he wants very badly. The man has every intention of being able - overnight! - to get more than enough money to buy the mule back so that the true owner never knows it was missing. I thought this kind of thinking was much the same as Faulkner gives us in The Reivers.
The shortest story is that of the title. In that story I was quick to note Gavin Stevens as the prosecuting attorney who is a main character in Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion. Had the collection continued with this kind of story and those in a more humorous vein, I would happily give the novel 5-stars. Unfortunately it does not. But there is enough good in the two stories I mention and others to have me give it 4-stars, though perhaps toward the bottom of that group.
+30 Task
+ 5 Before 1996 (1942)
+ 5 Review
Task total = 40
Season total = 355
Riding the Metro - 20.6Murder in the White House. Margaret Truman. 7.9.21
Washington, DC
North America
2.5 rounded to 3 stars - I previously read and enjoyed Murder at the Library of Congress, and expected this to have some of the same characters (being in the same series), but it did not. It was interesting to see the White House from an insider's view, but that was the best part of the book for me. The rest fell short.
Task: 25
Review: 5
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 260
10.3;10.4;10.5;10.6;10.7;10.8;10.9
20.1;20.2;20.3;20.4;20.5;20.6
Riding the Metro - 20.7A Moveable Feast. Ernest Hemingway. 7.10.21
Paris, France
Europe
4.0/5.0 - It has probably been 50 years since I've read a book by Ernest Hemingway, so this short memoir about his time in Paris in the early 1920s was interesting to me. He talks about his friendships with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald and others. Throughout the book, he speaks of his great love for his wife, Hadley, all the while foreshadowing their eventual breakup. All in all, this book has encouraged me to seek out more of his writing.
Task: 25
Review: 5
Task Total: 30
Season Total: 290
10.3;10.4;10.5;10.6;10.7;10.8;10.9
20.1;20.2;20.3;20.4;20.5;20.6;20.7
20.4 Riding the MetroSignal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
set in Mexico City
Country Mexico
Continent: South America
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 930
10.8 Page Count 400-449pRound 2
No Man's Land (John Puller #4) by David Baldacci
420 pages
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 615
15.3 - TDoSThe Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Rated 5* by:
Katy & Heather (DeathByBook)
+20 Task
+ 5 Before 1996 (just a bit)
Task total: 25
Season total: 60
10.5 250-299pTrail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
+10 Task: 287 pages
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 180
10.3 PC pgs. 150 - 199The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
This is a strange book that isn’t for everyone as the author Patrick Rothfuss notes several times in the foreword and the author’s end note. And the title hints at how the story goes. For those who have read the Kingkiller Chronicles (or the two so far published), it is a bit of Auri’s story and an introduction to the Underthing beneath the University. Auri is the small person that Kovthe meets and slowly gets to know. Rothfuss describes her as a broken person. We watch her as she moves through the Underthing and environs to prepare for a meeting with “him”, I presume Kovthe. We experience what she needs to to do to keep herself together. It is beautifully written.
+10 task
+5 review
Task total: 15
Season total: 160
20.5 RtMFatherland by Robert Harris
Set in Berlin in 1964, this book is based on the assumption that Germany won World War II. It is, in broad terms, a police procedural mystery with a German police officer (the German police are administratively part of the SS) investgating the murder of an older man. As expected, he begins to uncover things that have been hidden since the war. Interesting plot and assumptions about how the world and its governments have developed. Well worth a read. But any more would be a spoiler
20 pts. 20.5 RtM Berlin Germany
5 pt pre 1996
5 pts Review
Total task: 30 pts
Total Season: 290 pts.
10.1 10.2 10.3 ... 10.5 10.6 ... ... ... ...
15.1 15.2 15.3 ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 ... ... ... ... ...
Countries: England, United States, Australia, Japan, Germany
Continents: Europe, North America, Oceania, Asia
10.9 450-499pMy Year Abroad by Chang-rae Lee
+10 Task: 477 pages
Post Total: 10
Page Count Completion Bonus: 100
Season Total: 290
20.3 Riding the MetroI Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
Set in Chicago, Illinois
Country: USA
Continent: North America
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 310
20.4 Riding the MetroTo the Land of Long Lost Friends by Alexander McCall Smith
Set in Gaborone
Country: Botswana
Continent: Africa
+20 Task
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 330
10.10 Page Count 500p or moreRound 2
Storm and Fury (The Harbinger #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout
512 pages
Review
Before I started reading this novel, I didn't realise that this trilogy is actually a spin-off of author's earlier trilogy, The Dark Elements, of which I've only read book 1. I'm not particularly fond of paranormal novels featuring angels and/or demons but what I found interesting in these trilogies are the twist on gargoyles being shape-shifter protectors of humankind. Oh, and of course, usually they're pretty hot in human form 😜
In Storm and Fury, we meet Trinity. She's rather special and have lived in a very protected & protective remote community of Wardens (what those gargoyle protectors are called). Her time of hiding is running out though as for somehow, someone found out and she is wanted for some nefarious reason or another. Her bonded guardian was kidnapped and she has to place her trust in another Warden from another clan, Zayne (him from The Dark Elements trilogy). Sparks flew, complications arose, twists abound, and a broken ending promising more doom in sequel.
I wasn't really that keen on Trinity as a character to begin with but I do like Zayne very much 😬 Understandably, Trinity's sheltered life made sure that she's rather innocent and yet, this naivety sometimes makes me want to shake her. Zayne has his own set of baggage, if you've read The Dark Elements. Though if you're like me, it's not necessary to have read that earlier trilogy as whatever you need to know is told to you in this novel. This also means that I'll probably never read the rest of The Dark Elements.
Storm and Fury is straight out YA paranormal romance. It's fluff for a grey day with sparky snarky dialogs between romantic protags and a fast paced twisty plot that makes the day go quickly by.
+10 Task
+5 Review
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 630
Task 20.5 Riding the MetroSetting – Athens
Country – Greece
Continent – Europe
Scorpionfish (2020) by Natalie Bakopoulos
Review: This is a character-driven novel set in contemporary times in the city of Athens, Greece. Our heroine is in her 30s; she was born in Greece to Greek parents, but has spent most of her life in America. As a result, she feels like she’s Greek when she’s in America, and American when she is in Greece. As the novel begins, her parents have died in a car crash, and she’s just arrived in Athens to settle their affairs (she’s an only child and so has to do it all herself). While she is in Athens, she reconnects with people she’s known all her life but hasn’t seen in awhile. Everyone has feelings and the reader gets to know all of those feelings. Several of the characters are at transition points in their life (including our heroine) which makes all this interesting.
Recommended for readers interested in nuanced character studies.
+20 Task
+05 Review
Task Total: 20 + 05 = 25
Grand Total: 150 + 25 = 175
20.8 Riding the MetroThe Silence of the Rain (Delegado Espinosa #1) by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
City: Rio de Janeiro
Country: Brazil
Continent: South America
Review
I'm blown away by that ending! Both disgusted but yet admiring of such courage... I don't think I could. We are told by the description what happened at the beginning, a suicide, which was complicated when no weapon nor letter was found. As the police hunted for a murderer, others were conspiring for something else. The ultimate motive, of course, was money. Or was it? The ending while conclusive on one point was also openly inconclusive on another.
The character of Inspector Delegado Espinosa would appeal to all readers all over the world:
1. he always visits a bookstore just because he's in the area -there was one point that he resisted but he already made a note to visit another time
2. spends his weekend rearranging his book stacks
3. his penchant for Dickens
4. a daydreamer
5. luuuurrrrvveesss coffee
I may have just described myself...
I love his philosophy on tidying up too -"The books piled up against the wall bore witness to my efforts to cooperate with the cleaning lady. There was probably some charm in the mess of the apartment: the disorder did not simply reflect the lack of order; it distorted normal ideas of order."
While the novel is of police-procedural persuasion, I feel it tends to the noir side of things with corruption being rife in the precinct, the twists and turns of the plot, the beautiful but deadly women, and of course, that ending. Highly recommended for Dashiell Hammett's fans or any crime noir readers.
+25 Task
+5 Review
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 660
15.9 TDoS The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
This is a well written and very readable family story. In it Lahiri explores the American immigrant experience (specifically, an educated South Asian family) and that of their children (first generation Americans). There were a lot of things I particularly enjoyed in this novel, but I think the stand out for me was how Ashima, a traditional bride of an arranged marriage, comes into her own late in life. 4*
5* from DeeDee + Anika
45 task
5 review
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Reading with Style
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Authors mentioned in this topic
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The City & the City by China Miéville
Anika —> Joanna
Review This is mental gymnastics wrapped in a detective story or vice versa. Mieville challenges the..."
I feel so bad having to say this, but I’ve never read this book…don’t even have it on my “want to read” shelf 😬