Hour 7 - March 2015 Read-a-Thon

[Michelle, Mod Assistant]

Whoa! Hour 7 is here! It's time to shake it off! Shake it off! 'Cause the readers gonna read, read, read, read, read!



It is time for another challenge (slightly modified) courtesy of the amazing BookTubers on YouTube! By the way, if you missed any of the book challenges for previous hours that's okay! You can still go back and answer any time. Remember we're on GoodReads and we can continue to discuss long after the Read-a-Thon is over which is awesome! We're doing the Taylor Swift Book Tag via jessethereader! If you're not a Taylor Swift fan, well, I apologize to you but this will still be fun! And it has been two hours since our last update so this is a mega-challenge! So let's do it! Here we go!

We're Never Getting Back Together
1. Tell us about a book or book series that you thought you were in love with or going to love but, turns out, it just wasn't meant to be.

Red
2. Pick a pretty book with a pretty red cover. What do you like about the cover? Have you read the book? Do you plan to read it?

The Best Day
3. Tell us about a book that makes you feel nostalgic.

Love Story
4. Tell us about your favorite love triangle, forbidden love, or love story in a book.

I Knew You Were Trouble
5. Pick a book with a villain character that you couldn't help but love.

Innocent
6. Choose a book someone ruined for you. Spoiler alert!

Everything Has Changed
7. Tell us about a character in a book that went through extensive character development.

You Belong With Me
8. What is your most anticipated book release this year? What is your most anticipated book for the 2015 Reading Challenge?

Forever and Always
9. Pick your favorite book couple.

Come Back, Be Here
10. Tell us the book you'd be least likely to lend out.

Teardrops on My Guitar
11. What is a book that made you cry?

Shake It Off
12. Tell us about a book you loved that other people seemed to hate. 'Cause the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate!

Stay, Stay, Stay
13. Choose a book that you wanted to go on forever. Pick a book series you wish would never end.

I'm not sure how many are rocking this out all night with me but I'll be spreading the updates out to every two hours until the morning hour hits to give people who are not participating until tomorrow a chance to respond to some of the challenges. If you're still here and still reading, wow, you're amazing! Thanks for keeping me company!

[Jukka]

First book finished, Me emme valehtele ja muita Puolueen hyväksymiä novelleja. The title translates as "We Do Not Lie and Other Short Stories Approved by the Party". It's a collection of speculative fiction stories with a political theme, though none of them are political as such. Incidentally, the cover is red:


(It's also unofficially known as the Red Anthology, following the same folks' earlier White, Black, and Grey Anthologies.)

I think the cover, with the Statue of Liberty duelling some sort of Soviet colossus, sums up its style rather well: the stories are entertaining and irreverent towards their topics, even while ranging from serious ghost story about the Finnish civil war and alternate history where it was the USA, not the Soviet Union that broke up through Realpolitik superhero tale and absurdist near-future marketing dystopia. For some reason, there are more than one story set in the Helsinki University viewed through a Kafkaesque lens.

Next up, a classic: Tainaron: Mail from Another City. But first, breakfast.

[Jenny]

We're Never Getting Back Together
1. Tell us about a book or book series that you thought you were in love with or going to love but, turns out, it just wasn't meant to be.

Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich One for the Money

Red
2. Pick a pretty book with a pretty red cover. What do you like about the cover? Have you read the book? Do you plan to read it?

Ensnared I don't plan to read it. I read the first book in the series at my teenagers' request. Okay, I did that for them. Not my kind of books :)

The Best Day
3. Tell us about a book that makes you feel nostalgic.
I'll Be Seeing You Letters, pen pals, war, a nation that pulled together, and a decade of uncertainty

Love Story
4. Tell us about your favorite love triangle, forbidden love, or love story in a book.
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living I loved how the husbands's love and support in these two women's lives made each of them able to achieve success and fulfillment.

I Knew You Were Trouble
5. Pick a book with a villain character that you couldn't help but love.

Josef Weber The Storyteller

Innocent
6. Choose a book someone ruined for you. Spoiler alert!
I can't think of a specific time this happened for me. I can tell you in general that if Oprah Winfrey picks a book for her book club, I most likely will NOT like it. So, I guess Oprah ruins books for me because I've learned to pass over the titles she recommends. Sad.

Everything Has Changed
7. Tell us about a character in a book that went through extensive character development.
Liesel Meminger The Book Thief. Maybe Peter Houghton from Nineteen Minutes. I just haven't finished reading it yet, so it's unfair to say at this point.

You Belong With Me
8. What is your most anticipated book release this year? What is your most anticipated book for the 2015 Reading Challenge?

I don't know about the book releases. My most anticipated read is Ella Minnow Pea.

Forever and Always
9. Pick your favorite book couple.
Robert Kincaid, photographer and free spirit searching for the covered bridges of Madison County, and Francesca Johnson, the farm wife waiting for the fulfillment of a girlhood dream The Bridges of Madison County

Come Back, Be Here
10. Tell us the book you'd be least likely to lend out.
My Bible. I'd be happy to get you one of your own though!

Teardrops on My Guitar
11. What is a book that made you cry?
The Fault in Our Stars

Shake It Off
12. Tell us about a book you loved that other people seemed to hate. 'Cause the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate!

I absolutely love the book Peace Like a River, and some of the people I've recommended it to have been like...meh.

Stay, Stay, Stay
13. Choose a book that you wanted to go on forever. Pick a book series you wish would never end.

I wouldn't want any series to go on forever. Infinity detracts from the power of finite perfection. But I did enjoy The Shadow of the Wind to the point that I was melancholy for a few days when it ended. I haven't read any of the other books in the series yet, though.