Week 41 Check in

[Susan]

Hello Everyone,

I hope you've all had a good week. I'm taking part in a medical study and had two in-person visits yesterday and today (and my first MRI and fMRI ever). It was very interesting. They're studying the brain, stress and hot flashes in peri-menopausal and menopausal women.

I only have one finish, Legends & Lattes. I did enjoy this book. It was very light, cozy and just enjoyable. It isn't like it's the best book I've ever read. But it was fun, easy and no stress. I could just escape into it.

I'm also reading Call Us What We Carry still. I am almost done with it. Reading poetry is hard for me. I said this last week and it is still true. I think I need to listen to it to appreciate it. Reading it just doesn't do much for me. But I will finish and it can check off a few prompts.

I'm listening to The Bullet That Missed. I am loving it as much as the first two Thursday Murder Club books. I like the writing style, the characters, their lives and the story. I really recommend this series.

QOTW:
Do you prefer series or stand-alone books?

I think I have a slight preference for series in fiction. I read enough non-fiction but it isn't really a thing there. For fiction, the first one needs to be good in order to make me want more. If the first book doesn't grab me I almost certainly won't continue the series. Familiar characters and places can make for an enjoyable read. I'd say my fiction preference is maybe 60/40.

[Jen W.]

I'm having a bit of a rough time right now. :( The week was good up until yesterday, when we found out that our storage locker was broken into. We have insurance on it, but we still don't know what was stolen. I don't even remember everything that was up there, so coming up with a list to file a police report is going to be a huge headache.

On top of that, I'm due to go get the updated COVID booster today, as well as my flu shot, so I may or may not be feeling under the weather for a few days on top of it.

QOTW: Usually I have a slight preference for series. It's largely a mood thing with me. Lately, it feels like I've been reading more standalones, but I think I've said before, I'm overdue for a big catch-up on a bunch of series that I started and fell behind on, or intended to start ages ago but never did.

Finished:
Into the Light - 4.5 stars - This was an ARC I received from NetGalley. I enjoyed it a lot. It kept me engrossed from the first page.

The Ex Hex - 3 stars - I wished the author spent more time with the worldbuilding, but overall I liked it but didn't love it. I'd be willing to read the next in the series.

I Choose Darkness - 4 stars - A short essay by Jenny Lawson (The Blogess) which is currently an Amazon Prime freebie. Amusing anecdotes about her childhood Halloweens and how it became her favorite holiday.

Comics and manga:
Something's Wrong With Us, Vol. 9
Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 21
Love in Focus, Vol. 1
Love in Focus, Vol. 2

Currently reading:
Winter's Orbit - It's a bit slow-paced, with a heavy focus on characters/relationships and political maneuvering, but I tend to like that kind of stuff, and I'm intrigued to see where it's going.

Planned/upcoming:
You Only Live Once, David Bravo
Over the Woodward Wall
A Deadly Education (speaking of series catch up....)

[Rebecca]

I had a nice week of vacation followed by a former co-worker's epic annual Halloween party. Tomorrow I have to go back to work, boo.

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music - I'm not really a Nirvana or Foo Fighters fan, but Dave Grohl seems like an interesting guy, and indeed his path to stardom was pretty wild. The book is structured as a series of essays, which are arranged in rough chronological order but can each reference different periods of his life. This mostly works well but occasionally results in repetition. Grohl does have a tendency to refer to everyone he has ever met as incredibly brilliant and kind, with anyone who is unpleasant remaining unnamed. He also leaves a lot of stuff out, which is of course his prerogative, but this results in things like mentioning going through a divorce without ever referencing having married, and only talking about his (second) marriage as a fait accompli, so with that and the book's non-chronological nature, I'm not sure when some things happened in relation to each other. Still it was entertaining.

The Chocolate Cobweb - This was a very well-written "domestic suspense" novel, sort of Hitchcockian in design, where the reader is made aware of one character's plans for murder, but the other characters only glimpse certain aspects and must attempt to puzzle through that person's designs. I absolutely could not hack the suspense and had to peek at the end of the book to see whether the plot was successful, so I guess this is just not the genre for me. I did think it was superbly executed, so if you do like that sort of thing, definitely check it out, and I've heard good things about the The Unsuspected from the same author.

QOTW: I mostly don't like series, because I don't want to have to keep up, especially with currently ongoing things with unknown endpoints. I am OK with series that are mostly one self-contained plot per book with minimal continuing story arcs, as is often the case with mystery novels where there is a common detective character, and they maybe undergo some personal development (marriage, promotion, whatever) over the course of the run, but it's not really necessary to read all the books in order.

[Shel]

Things have been kind of stressful for me lately, I'm fighting with my son's school over his schedule, so that's fairly exhausting. Last time I checked in I was re-reading the Belgariad - I finished the series and I will probably read the Malloreon also fairly soon, but I had some library loans to get to.

I ripped through Upgrade by Blake Crouch in a single day (I used it for the blue prompt, because the cover is all blue). I really enjoy his sci-fi thrillers! Lots of food for thought in this one because it centers on the ethics and potential consequences of genetic engineering.

The past week or so I've been picking at The Atrocity Archives, the first of the Laundry series, which I've been meaning to read for ages. It's fun, but not quite grabbing me to the point that I can't put it down, so it's taking me a while to get through.

I also started listening to Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness on audio - they read it themself (is it themself or themselves for a single non-binary individual?) which makes it even more engaging.

Current bedtime reads with kids are Hogfather with the sixth grader and More All-of-a-Kind Family with the second grader.

QOTW: I LOVE a good long series. There's nothing like the depth of world-building and characterization that can be developed over multiple volumes. That said, it has to be done well, not drag on unnecessarily. Of course there are so many wonderful stand-alones that I read plenty of those too, so it's hard to state a strong preference.

[Kathy]

I had a great trip to Powell's bookstore in Portland last week when I was visiting for a conference. It's in an old car dealership and takes up a city block. I estimate there were about 12 aisles of 10 foot tall shelves of scifi/fantasy, plus that many more of mystery. I usually just request from library or order from bookstores based on recommendations from others these days. It was just so nice to browse, even though I had a targeted list.

Finished Stiletto second in the series. Also enjoyed, and liked that there were different main characters from first book, although that protagonist was still in it. Powell's is hosting a virtual tour event for the third book on October 20, wiht the author in conversation with Charlaine Harris, who is another favorite.

Read an older paperback Dangerous in my slow effort to reread and purge my shelves, because it met the book nerds prompt for a book with a script font. Fine but able to join the get rid of pile.

I read the short story The Cask of Amontillado - an Edgar Allan Poe Short Story because I keep seeing references to it and didn't really remember what it was about. All those references are funnier now...

Haunted Heroine was one of my Powell's purchases about two Asian-American superheroines, 4th in series. Kindof silly but sometimes that's what you want to read.

QOTW: I am a huge fan of series, nothing better than enjoying a new book and finding there's more with the same characters! Most of my reading before finding FoE was mystery series, primarily by women authors. Some characters feel like old friends. I didn't realize then that mystery authors are generally much better than fantasy authors at providing satisfactory endings to each book and avoiding cliffhangers that you need to wait on for a year or more. But I am still a pretty big fan of series.

[Daniele]

I haven't checked in in a long while... mainly because I was slowly making my way through Dune, so I didn't have a whole lot to report. It was hard to get into but ultimately enjoyable. Enough to make me read the entire saga? Probably not. I wound up using it for the Book Nerds "One-word title, max. 5 letters" prompt.

I've since completed a couple more:

A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, which is a Hollywood-centric look at curiosity. Lots of meandering, stream of consciousness type stuff, with a few worthwhile nuggets of wisdom interspersed. I used it for a 2021 prompt, book with more than one author.

Death in Her Hands, which had been on my TBR list for ages, following a recommendation from... someone. No clue - it's been that long! The author and narrator created a vividly fleshed out protagonist, but ooh boy do things unravel. The ending fell flat for me. I used it for the Damsel in distress prompt.

That puts me at 25/100 prompts for the year, and about 31 books, because I read a series of graphic novels earlier that I didn't slot individually. I am confidently headed to yet another catastrophic failure at completing my own challenge, and that's ok :)

In other news, it was the local Lions' Club book fair this past weekend, so my TBR stacks have grown by another 15 or so books. My university is also holding its book fair this week, so that number may grow some more before my next update!

QOTW: I like series, but I don't like waiting for the next book to come out. I will usually only pick up a series once it is complete, or once it becomes likely it will never be complete (looking at you, George R.R. Martin)

And @Shel, I'm a regular re-reader of the Belgariad and Malloreon too! Glad to see you enjoyed Blake Crouch - I've had Recursion on my TBR list for ages!