Nina’s Fall Reading Challenge

[Nina]

Books Read: 11
Prompts satisfied: 13 / 15
Prompts satisfied two or more times: 4

1. Has a red cover

✔✔✔ 2. Fits the phrase "I'm falling for you"
Rogue & Gambit: Ring of Fire ***
Man of My Dreams by Johanna Lindsey ****
Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss *****

✔✔3. Has a leaf on the cover
Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire ***
Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss *****

✔ 4. Is magical realism
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa ****

5. Is set in autumn

✔✔ 6. Is historical fiction
Man of My Dreams by Johanna Lindsey ****
Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss *****

✔✔✔✔✔✔ 7. Makes you think of pumpkin spice
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone *****
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ****
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ****
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ****
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ****
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince *****

✔ 8. Is one last summer read
Rogue & Gambit: Ring of Fire ***

✔✔ 9. Has a tree on the cover
Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire ***
Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss *****

✔✔ 10. Features family drama
Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire ***
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone *****

✔ 11. Is a banned book
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone *****

✔ 12. Reminds you of homecoming
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

✔ 13. Is set in a small town
Man of My Dreams by Johanna Lindsey ****

✔✔✔ 14. Features sports
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone *****
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ****
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ****

✔ 15. Was published in September
Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss *****

Note: Unlike the main challenge, I am counting re-reads and double-dips.

[Nina]

Week 1 (9/1/22-9/7/22)
Finished Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire. Last year, I did a binge-read of all 15 of the previous books in this series in about 2 months. The good part about binge-reading a long-running series like this with an ensemble cast is that it’s a lot easier to keep track of the story and remember who everyone is, what their history is, how they relate to each other, what the rules of their magic are, etc. The bad part is that the author needs to keep repeating the history so that readers who might have had to wait a year between installments can refresh their memories. Plus, the little things that might annoy you about the characters, the plots, the worldbuilding, and/or author’s writing style stand out more easily. When I finished the 15th book, I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to keep going with the series. It had the kind of ending to which one could easily append “and they all lived happily ever after” and move on. Though I still have some issues with the series, after 9 months away from it, I wasn’t distracted as much by the frequent infodumps as I was towards the tail end of my binge so I was able to enjoy the story on its own terms. I almost wish I had skipped it, though, because there is no way to append “and they all lived happily ever after” to the ending of this one…

Finished Rogue & Gambit: Ring of Fire, a graphic novel compilation of a 5-issue X-Men miniseries. I was a complete comic book nerd when I was a teenager, but shortly after college, I drifted away from them for various reasons. Rogue was always my favorite character in the X-Men and, around the time I stopped reading comics, she and Gambit had an on-again, off-again, star-crossed romance that, to my frustration, didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Recently my husband dragged me to a comic book store and I ended up buying Mr. and Mrs. X, Vol. 1: Love and Marriage, in which Rogue and Gambit get married. Because there turned out to be a whole lot of references to stories that I had never read, I decided to set it aside for now and get caught up on some of the stories I missed, starting with this one. There was a lot of neat stuff in it, especially the mushy bits towards the end, but the villain was kind of lame, which detracted from it.

[Nina]

Week 2 (9/8/22-9/14/22)
Finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling. It’s been a while since my last re-read and I may end up binging my way through the whole series this fall. I need some comfort reading and Hogwarts is always a fun place to hang out.

Finished The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. I don’t even know where to start with this one. If I hadn’t read Harrow a few months ago, I would definitely say that it was the weirdest book I’ve read this year. It’s a photo finish. Both are intensely weird, but thought-provoking. This one seemed more focused than Harrow, but I had a harder time understanding the meaning behind the strangeness than I did with Harrow. Kafkaesque is probably the best word for it. It has a lot of Orwellian overtones as well, but the reasons behind what the Memory Police are doing are far more opaque than one sees in a typical Orwellian dystopia. What possible reason could there be to make people forget about birds and harmonicas?

[Nina]

Week 3 (9/15/22-9/21/22)
Finished re-reads of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling and Man of My Dreams by Johanna Lindsey. Most of my fall challenge will probably be re-reads this time around. As the days grow shorter and the temperatures drop, it’s comforting to snuggle in with a book that you already know you’ll enjoy. Plus, I only use new (to me) books for the main challenge so it’s a nice change of pace.

Chamber of Secrets isn’t my favorite entry in the Harry Potter series (mostly because I don’t like Dobby), but it is still a fun read. Next stop, Azkaban. I’ll make sure to stock up on chocolate.

Man of My Dreams is from Johanna Lindsey’s middle period, which went roughly from the late 80s to the early Aughts. This is the era when she wrote most of my favorites, as her earlier books were a bit too rapey and her later books were rather dull. This one isn’t at the top of my list, but it’s a pretty good one.

[Nina]

Week 4 (9/22/22-9/28/22)
Finished a re-read of Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. I first read this one in elementary school and have read it many times over the years, often skipping over the boring bits (of which there are more than a few). In the first half of the book, the author is clearly ripping off Margaret Mitchell, though thankfully the Scarlett O’Hara role is played by the heroine’s cousin rather than by the heroine herself. (I’ve always thought Scarlett was a spoiled brat.) Our heroine instead engages in one of my favorite tropes in historical romance, i.e., the cross-dressing female character who successfully disguises herself as a boy or (occasionally) a young man. Sometimes the hero sees through the ruse right away, but plays along with it (e.g.Gentle Rogue by Johanna Lindsey) and sometimes the hero unmasks her early on, but helps her keep her secret (e.g. Moonstruck Madnessby Laurie McBain). In this one, the hero is utterly clueless, the cold weather of his home state of Minnesota having addled his brain (as it does for most of us who live here) and it takes him a lot longer to figure it out than is plausible, especially given how irresistibly sexy our heroine turns out to be as soon as she switches from trousers to dresses.

When the action moves to the hero’s home state, the author switches from ripping off Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind to ripping off Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, though her execution in the former case is considerably more effective than it is in the latter case. The second part feels bloated and relies entirely too much on having the main characters passing the idiot ball back and forth. Still, this will always be one of my favorites in the genre, likely because I read it at an impressionable age and am therefore utterly incapable of looking at it objectively.

Also finished a re-read of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling, which, despite the major events that take place, always feels like the calm before the storm.

[Nina]

Week 5 (9/29/22-10/5/22)
Finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’m on board with those who say these should have been called the Hermione Granger books. Harry would be toast without her.

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