BOOK POOL CHALLENGE - FEB/MARCH 2025

[Erica]

I'm currently on holiday at Womadelaide fest. Will update scores on my return :)

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Erica wrote: "I'm currently on holiday at Womadelaide fest. Will update scores on my return :)"

Awesome. I went to the NZ on a few years ago & had a thoroughly good time! Enjoy!

[Kat]

Book 6
Another life.
Bit of a tear jerker but i enjoyed it, an easy read. I am such a fan of Kristin Hannah. This one was good but not quite as good as some of her others.
4 1/2 stars for this one

[Kat]

Erica wrote: "I'm currently on holiday at Womadelaide fest. Will update scores on my return :)"

Wow cool! Hope you had a good time :-)

[Erica]

I'm back! Was very fun :) Back to my reading now haha

[Erica]

Scores are updated :) Only two weeks-ish left of March! Don't know where this year is going.

[Jennifer]

#8
I'll Give You The Sun
4 stars

Interesting book. I liked the strands of characters and how they intersected with each other. I also liked the sequential POV style (not sure what else to call it). Really liked it!

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

#1
Book #5
Hine Toa
4.5★
An amazing story beautifully written.
Finished 19/03

[Erica]

Ahh I give up. I was 280 odd pages into Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship that Saved Yosemite but in a publishing mishap the last 50 odd pages of the book were all completely jumbled. Book was only barely holding my attention so I considered that a sign from the universe to give up. So this one is a DNF from me.

I've read so much good non-fiction over the last few years that these old-school detail-heavy historical bios just don't cut it for me.

Really disappointed, I had high hopes for this one.

[Kat]

Book 7 finished
The Air Raid Book Club
4 stars
Such a nice book and an easy read. Really enjoyed this one

[Stacey-Beth]

Book number 2
Things we never got over by Lucy Score
3 stars

Not my favourite romance. Had a grumpy x sunshine trope which did get a bit annoying for me at times. The characters didn’t act their age and had lots of small town drama. The parts I found the most interesting were associated with the young girl, not so much the romance 😅 Anyways, it’s been on my list so I’m glad I’ve gotten around to finally reading it

[Stacey-Beth]

Book number 3
The Starless Sea
Rating of 2

I felt like I had to drag myself through that book. It was unnecessarily lengthy. The descriptive writing was very pretty and poetic, but the actual story was lacking for me. I didn’t care about any of the characters and felt like there was no plot. There was heaps of jumping back and forth between the different stories so it was quite disjointed. When it all started to tie up at the end, I just didn’t even care. I can understand how some people would absolutely adore this book but I just wanted it to be over. Many times I thought about not finishing it, but soldiered on with the thought that it had to get better… it didn’t. Just made me more frustrated.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Stacey-Beth wrote: "Book number 3
The Starless Sea
Rating of 2

I felt like I had to drag myself through that book. It was unnecessarily lengthy. The descriptive writing was very pretty and poetic, but the actual stor..."

Your mini-review above is exactly how The Night Circus made me feel.

[Erica]

One more day left until the challenge comes to an end. Hope everyone has had a good March

[Jennifer]

I agree with you exactly Stacey-Beth re The Night Circus!

[Jennifer]

#9
The Dictionary of Lost Words
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The best thing about historical fiction is that you not only get an interesting story, you generally learn factual information as well! This book has it all - the history of the Oxford English Dictionary, suffragettes, love, tragedy, war. I recommend it to all histfic fans :)

[Kerry]

Stacey-Beth wrote: "Book number 3
The Starless Sea
Rating of 2

I felt like I had to drag myself through that book. It was unnecessarily lengthy. ..."
I didn't get to this one even though I nominated it. I hoped it would be a good read.

[Erica]

I'll update the scores tonight :)

[Erica]

Thanks so much to everyone for participating!

Congrats to our top 3 readers:

Jennifer with 9 reads!
Kat with 7 reads and
Carol with 5 reads :)

I hope everyone has a great reading month!

[Erica]

As always keep an eye out for kiwi books to check out. We've got the kiwi reads challenge throughout the year so feel free to post a comment in that thread so we can all discover our next favourite local book :)

[Jennifer]

Thanks for organising the challenge Erica!!! As usual, it was a lot of fun!