Challenge: 50 Books discussion
Finish Line 2012!
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Jim E's goal to read 50- DONE! (for real this time)
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47. The Scorch Trials
This book was mediocre. The first part of the book really dragged throughout the beginning. I had trouble motivating myself to listen to the book before finally just settling in and getting it done. The action picked up towards the end but it is getting a little annoying not knowing what is the truth behind what any of the characters are saying and what is false. A bit of a let down from the first book.
48. The Death Cure.
The book was an unfulfilling ending to a series that started out very well. I was rather disappointed in the final result. The death of one key character felt like it left unresolved issues that I think readers really wanted to figure out. Additionally, the ending was too open-ended that left a lot of questions without really resolving things and telling the "truth" as the book cover stated. Overall, the series was satisfactory but it won't be one that I'll want to read again and again like some (Harry Potter, Star Wars, Hunger Games, Percy Jackson). Decent but not spectacular. Besides, I really was getting annoyed with the fact that Minho didn't learn to stop being such a hot-head and keep his mouth shut once and awhile.
49. Department 19
I didn't really care for this book. First, I'm not a huge vampire fan so that aspect kinda put me off when I learned that (got to do a better job of reading/remembering the cover synopsis). I didn't like the way the author tied Victorian literature into the book. I allowed the primary one that Dracula was a "history" as opposed to fiction but when they started adding others like Frankenstein and then the pointless cameo of F. Scott Fitzgerald, it got stupid. The author also has a poor writing style that has points where it gets annoying. For instance, he'll usually tell each segment of the book from a particular character's point of view but frequently will jump out of that character's head and into another character's for a quick line or two as to their thoughts. The jumping around is distracting. I didn't care for the progress of Jamie and Larissa's "relationship" and the "true" traitor was rather telegraphed, especially towards the end. I'm not sure about Kate's role but it seemed unnecessary unless she plays a bigger role in the second book. Same goes for Matt. The climax was unfullfilling, abrupt, and rushed. I'm not sure if I will read the second book. I certainly won't jump right into it but may read it if I can't find anything else at the library.
50. Flesh Eaters
This book was rather mediocre. The plot seemed to be secondary to the "action" of the zombie fights. It's more like the decided the action scenes first then tried to build a plot to fit them together rather than using the action scenes to advance the plot. The main subplot was also predictably with me figuring out the ending with about a 100 pages still left in the book. The book is billed as explaining the events that caused what happened in Dead City, the first book in the series. However, it doesn't really explain what happens, how the zombie plague started, as much as it showed parallel events to what was going on in Dead City. The author also has a poor, subtle as a brick, way of foreshadowing. This is so badly done because he essentially tells you what is going to happen next. For instance, we one group of characters decides to leave them home to try and make it to safety, before they leave, the author states that its the last time the characters will see the inside of their house. Or the last time they will ever talk to a certain person. At one point, he states that one of the characters, when talking about the events weeks later, says certain things. This lets you know right there that the character, a main character, will survive the book thus removing any tension and room for doubt.
Technically speaking I have completed 50 books this year. Woo hoo, goal met!! However, my original intent was to read 50 "new" books; books I haven't read in the past. 6 of the 50 books on this list are ones that I've re-read, therefore I am only at 44 books. So my next goal is 50 "new" books. After that, I'll try to advance it to 50 adult books since a large number of what I've read this year are young adult books which my wife doesn't think should count. Getting up to 50 adult books before the end of the year might be a real challenge.
Congratulations, James. Whatever type of book you choose to count, you are doing very well.Personally, I count rereads, because while I am rereading a book I realize how much I have forgotten about it, and therefore it is "new" again.
51. Virals
First, I have to say I listened to the audio version of this book so that makes a big difference in my rating. I found this book very exceptional and I think the actor who read it was a big reason for that. I've never heard of the actress before but she did an incredible job reading the story and acting it out from Tory's point of view. I've tried to listen to other Kathy Reichs books on audio and the reader was so boring I didn't even complete the first disc. That was not the case with this story. I don't know if it was the actress or the plot but I found it very engaging and witty compared to what I remember from the adult Reich's books. I think Tory was a much more interesting character than Temperance and Reichs does a better job of writing the teenage heroine than her more famous aunt. I think Reichs should stick to the YA genre. The storyline along with the actress doing the reading made for one of the more enjoyable audio experiences in some time. I have no desire to read a Tempy book but will definately get the second virals book on audio.
52. Z
this was okay but in the trend among several YA novels I've read, it ends before the climax instead going for an ineffective cliffhanger rather than completing at least part of the overall story arc. The book is only 276 pages and I think they could have added another 100 or so and had a more completed story. The story was okay except for being like a zombie version of the movie Gamer. Because it was so short, you never really were made to feel for the hero. It was a decent idea in general but poorly executed.
53. Girl in the Arena
I did not care for this book. For starters, the writer uses some gimmick (a -- ) as opposed to quotations to identify when someone is speaking. From the beginning of the book, this gave me the feeling that I was listening the characters thoughts as opposed to their voices. It became a distraction. This was especially noticeable when a character started saying something, followed by Lyn said, followed by another -- and more dialogue. It became disruptive and at times difficult to identify when a person had stopped speaking.
Beyond the mechanics of the writing, the book was not overly impressionable. It seemed like a quick knock-off to cash in on the Hunger Games craze without really developing the story properly. At one point, there is a death of a major character that seems random and poorly thought out. As for the climax, it is weak and anticlimatic given the title and story synopsis. I was severely disappointed in how the book ended. The book suggests a girl battling in the arena which amounts to about 15 of the 320 pages and the action is mediocre at best. The ending is also a bit random.
54. Allison Hewitt is Trapped
This was a very good zombie novel. It focused very well on the characters and used the zombies as props to advance the story line rather than going for gore and bloodshed in lue of a plot. The story starts with Allison Hewitt trapped in a bookstore break room with 5 other people. She is able to access a government wireless signal and the entire book is her blogging her "adventures" over the course of several months. The book is very well written and interesting and I found myself pulling for Allison and hoping she made it through to the end.
55. Dead Inside
This book was okay. It had an interesting way of documenting the zombie outbreak showing just scraps of paper and letters people left throughout the apocalypse that were collected by someone. Nothing spectacular about this book. If you are a zombie enthusiast and can find this book at your library, check it out. I wouldn't waste the $20 on the price tag.
56. Star Wars: X-Wing- Mercy Kill
This was a pretty decent book. I was never a huge Wraith Sq fan, preferring Rogue squadron instead. I initially had trouble with the book because only about 2 of the original Wraiths return which is understandable because it takes place about 30 years after the previous book but still required you to get to know a whole new group of characters. A lot of the names/characters seemed familiar but I wasn't sure where I had seen them before. Several of the new Wraiths are children of the originals to provide a tie-in to the earlier series but a lot are new. I found myself enjoying Turman and Trey's characters and Voort in the later half of the novel. there were several points where I actually laughed out loud at the dialogue. I had trouble getting into the book at the beginning but the last 100 pages or so and the climax were good. Overall, a good book but not the best.
I have now officially reached my original goal for this year. My intent was to read 50 novels I had not read before. I am currently at 56 for the year with 6 of those being repeats making the book I just finished my 50th original title for the year. Yeah me!!Since there is still time in the year, I will now move on to my next goal. I like reading a lot of young adult titles so about half of those titles fall in that category. My goal for the rest of the year will be to try and reach 50 adult books in the year. I think I am currently at 23 adult books but I think all 6 of the re-reads fall under that category leaving me at 17. That is 33 books in the next two months. That will be a bit more of a challenge but let's see how I do.
57 (22 Adult). Day by Day Armaggedon
This book was mediocre. The format was similar to Allison Hewitt is Trapped only instead of using a blog to chronicle his adventures, our hero uses a simple journal. The start of the book actually threw me off because it was a navy officer stationed in San Antonio, Texas. Being military and having spent time stationed in San Antonio, I didn't recall any actual navy bases or navy flying units in the area. The other thing I can say about this book is "proofread". It was clearly low budget or bad editting because there were numerous grammer errors such as a correctly spelled but wrong word or spelling of a word used. For instance, he mentions there is a car that ran into a poll. By the context, I'm thinking he meant a telephone pole rather than a statistical analysis or possible a voting stand. There are a several times that "wrong word" event occurs in the book. At another point, our hero is searching for supplies with one character (William) but the author accidently refers to him as John (another character in the book) before switching back to the correct name. There is also a point where the author is refering to two female characters as "the girls" but then decides to call them by name (Jan and Tara) but apparently decided that after starting to type "the girls" so instead you got "The Jan and Tara". This is minor stuff buts shows the lack of effort on the writer and editor's parts to ensure a quality product is provided to the customer. As for the plot, it's nothing special but at least is is short (about 200 pages) and moves along at a decent pace. If you want to read a good zombie book written from a "journal" stand-point, stick with Allison Hewitt is Trapped.
58. (23 Adult) Dying to Live.
This book was nothing special. Typical zombie book. It's bills itself as being some sort of deep philosophical take on the zombie apocalypse but I don't think quoting Shakespear and Dante's Inferno a few times really counts as being deeply philosophical. At least it was short (less than 300 pages).
59. (24 Adult) Panic in Level 4.
I am still in the process of "reading" this book so the review is incomplete. I am listening to the audiobook version. I think the overall book is improved by the actor performing the book as his performance makes what would be dry material a little more interesting. The book is what is considered narrative non-fiction, non-fiction told by way of narrative like that in a fiction novel as opposed to a textbook/history style approach. The difference from fiction is that narrative non-fiction has been fact-checked and is verifiably true. The author spends the entire introduction, the entire disc 1, on his techniques for writing narrative non-fiction and such. Since his material is fact-checked and verifiable, I found it annoying that he continually used incorrect names for things in the introduction. He continuously refers to a "biohazard spacesuit" regarding his experiences with ebola while investigating his book Hot Spot. He does this rather than defining the proper term, Level A fully encapsulating protective suit with supplied breathing air, or "level A suit", instead refering to a more popular, if incorrect, name.
During the "mountains of pi", he gets very repetitive without adding to his overall narrative. He fails to provider the reader/listener with a good understanding of why someone would want to define the number pi to billions of digits. He also frequently gets off on tangents making the listener wonder if the story has changed or if everything before was just background info before he returns to original "plot".
This book was essentially a "selective" history book that told the history of 5 or 6 specific items of interest to the author. He made little attempt to add anything new to the stories, focusing on the facts. At the end of the book, I was largely left wondering why I would care about most of these stories.
60. Star Wars: Heir to the Empire
Far and away one of my most favorite star wars books/series. I recently "re-read" the book by listening to the 20th anniversary audiobook version which is awesome. The actor did such a good job with some of the voices, I thought they might have been using movie dialogue for several of them (Han, C3PO, Yoda, Obi-Wan). He got Luke's cadence down well (which is kind of annoying) but didn't do that great a job with Mara or Leia. I was a little annoyed that Talon Kardde sounded like Antonio Bandaras' version of Puss-in-Boots.
As for the story, I truly enjoy how Mara, Talon, and Thrawn are introduced and used in the story. It was cool to see an imperial leader that actually had a chance at overthrowing the New Republic. The story flows well and is a quick, enjoyable read.
61. (25 Adult). The Infection
This book was mediocre at best. I really struggled to get it finished. I think I may have been reading too many zombie novels and this was the third bland zombie novel in a row that I read. I might have been burnt out on poor zombie books by the time I got to this. This book uses the infected human version of zombies rather than the living dead variety and has the cause of the infection be rather unique though never fully explained. About halfway through the book, the author adds some sci-fi type elements to the book that seem a bit out of place and are never elaborated on as to how they occured. One of the characters briefly postulates that the "cause" might be associated with aliens but that isn't explored beyond a quick "what if" hypothesis for a page or two. I never found myself really connecting to or caring about the characters. Bland and incomplete. Read it only if you have nothing better to do, like clean the toilet.
62. (26 Adult) Star Wars: Essential Reader's Companion
This was a very good book. It provides a summary of all Star wars adult books, young adult books, junior novels, and short stories that appeared in Star Wars Gamer/Insider and buts them into the proper chronology. It departs from the official chronology in the front of the novels slightly as it accounts for the fact that Anakin Skywalker is made a Jedi Knight shortly into the clone wars (per the cartoon), thus books/stories in the clone war era that have Anakin as a padawan must take place during the first 4 weeks of the war.
The book also addresses important comic book events (Mara-Luke wedding, Dark Empire series) as well and explains how they fit into the series. For several books, especially the more recent series', development notes are included that explain how the stories came about.
I actually skipped a few of the summaries for those books that I haven't read before (just so I don't spoil it for myself) but the book was good. Even though I had just read the Legacy of the Force series a few years ago, I didn't realize how little I remembered it. Plus, reading the summaries one after the other provides a better overview of the entire arc of a series like LOTF or FOTJ because then you can see how different events connect which might be missed when books are read at publication months apart.
One notable exception was Darth Plagius was not included even though Mercy Kill was despite Plagius being published first.
63. (27 Adult) Zombie Combat Manual.
I just completed the section on weapon selection and was rather disappointed. This books chooses to focus purely on the combat aspects leaving other details of zombie survival (transportation, fortification, etc) to other texts. As such, it would be expected that the weapon section would be rather expansive. The author states upfront that he is going to avoid range weapons such as firearms and bows, which is fine, but he still does a mediocre job covering weapons. He breaks the weapons down into several classes and for each class, evaluates several weapons. However, his weapon selections are incomplete and random. While he repeatedly mentions katana blades, there is no evaluation of them in the edged weapon section. There is only one sword, a random German design, included whereas others such as samurai, long, or shorts swords are neglected. Additionally, there is no mention of axes but tomahawks are included. For a book purely about zombie combat, I expected there to be more detail and analysis of weapons compared to a more general book like the zombie survival guide. However, there is better analysis and details of weapons in the survival guide compared to the combat manual.
Overall the book was decent but it didn't add much not already covered in books like the zombie survival guide other than some specific hand to hand techniques for fighting zombies.
64. TimeRiders: Doomsday Code
This was a good book. It was enjoyable and fun and I found myself staying up late to finish it (despite getting up at 4 am for a flight). I'm a little disappointed with the cliffhanger at the end but at least they wrapped up the main storyline of the book and the cliffhanger was part of the series storyline rather than the book storyline. I hate books that don't resolve their internal plot within the book. I also like how since the books deal with time travel, they help teach some aspects of history which I'm trusting are mostly true since the team has to make sure history sets itself right at the end. This book takes the timeriders back to the time of King Richard the Lionhearted, "robin hood", and the sheriff of nottingham. It was a good, fun read.
65. (28 Adult). The First Days
The book was okay. There were several mechanical writing errors that made the book less enjoyable. For starters, there are two main characters, both female, Jenni and Katie. While they are described differently, I found it frequently difficult to tell the two characters apart. I continually had to stop reading early in the book and remember which character was which. I think the reasons for this were two-fold. First, while they have completely different backgrounds, dialogue and internal monologues were overly similar and did not differentiate enough. Sort of one character with two mouths. Second, while each chapter is split up into sub-chapters, the author is not consistent about telling each subchapter from only one point of view. The POV would shift between paragraphs from one characters head to anothers. When this happened with Jenni and Katie, it made it harder to tell them apart. As for the plot, it was okay and I particularly enjoyed Nirit and hope she has a larger role in the second book. I don't felt this book had a climax. The later half of the book builds towards a major event the characters know they will have to go through but it never occurs in this book, apparently being saved for the sequel. As such, the last significant event takes place about 75-100 pages from the end and the rest is all clean-up/side plots that help set up the second book. I will probably read the rest of the series just because I don't like not finishing something once I've started but I won't be running straight out to get the second book.
66. (29 Adult) Monster Island
I did not care for this novel. The first thing about it that I didn't like was written too "literary". I didn't care for the writing style. Second, this book had smart zombies, which was a rather unique approach (or at least rare) but it didn't make the book more entertaining. Instead, the book just got weird. I also didn't care for the factually errors. At one point the characters put on full-encapsulating level A hazmat suits with a self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA- kinda like a scuba tank but not for underwater). The writer says that the SCBA will provide them with 12 hours of breathing air. I almost laughed when I read that. Considering I receive annual level A training, I know those tanks last only about 1 hour or so. Some may consider it dramatic license but if you are going to stretch the truth, still keep it plausible rather than ridiculus. Either way, I don't think I'll be trying to read the sequel. I didn't care for the story and wasn't especially invested in any of the characters to care what happens next. Most of the characters were surface only and undeveloped. I guess that is what you get when you write a book under 300 pages.
67. (30 Adult) Patient Zero
This book was rather good though it was not what I expected. I had thought this was a zombie book. While zombies are part of the plot, this is really a cop/action novel. It was a good story to read and was a nice break from a lot of the poor/mediocre zombie novels I had been reading. The pace was rather quick, sometimes to the point of being a bit unrealistic. A good action novel. I'll be adding the rest of the Joe Ledger series to my "to read" pile.
68. Escape from Furnace 5: Execution
I think I only read this book because I had started the series and wanted to see it through to the finish. The book (and series) was not all that good. In this book, Alex spends much of the time either unconscious or locked up. As a result, about 75% of the novel takes place in his head which is really lacking for an action/horror/thriller. As a result, dialogue is virtually non-existent and you learn virtually nothing about any of the other characters. I found Zee and Simon much more enjoyable but they had so few opportunities for development, it was a disappointment. Lucy was undeveloped completely and I'm not fully sure of her reasons. The book attempted to explain the background of Alfred Furnace but did so unsatisfactorly. Overall, I felt the series could have been done better as two books rather than five as the author never completed a full part of story in any novel. I suggest making sure you read books 1-3 back to back (First story arc: breaking out of furnace) as they make one part of the story and 4-5 together as they complete a second arc (broke out/on the run). I don't think I would recommend this series to anyone, even my teenage son who would be the target audience.
Just an observation but I've been readin a fair number of books lately that started out as a story on someone's blog and they later decided to have it published as a book. I don't think I care for that too much. Most of the books I've read recently that started that way (except Alison Hewitt is Trapped0 have turned out to be rather mediocre at best. It feels like when someone starts the story as a blog, they don't have the full story (or major plot moments) plotted out beforehand and the story's direction doesn't stay consistent. Also, since they are written as blogs, the writing is done linearly. I know several major authors like to write their main scenes first, then go back and connect them as opposed to starting at the beginning and writing to the end. JK Rowling actually had the end of Harry Potter written first (or near so). I personnally prefer to write a bit more linearly but when I wrote, I outlined my book from beginning to end and wrote more detailed sections for the major plot moments as opposed to the entire scene. Another problem with the blog format is that some of the blog stories become very big; too much for one novel, so they are split up. Since the blogs were written as a trilogy or sequel, the author now has to find a good breaking point to end the first novel. That doesn't always work well because the blog was written as a novel but as one story. The As the World Dies series is a good example because the first novel stops at a reasonable point except that the climax of the novel came about 80 pages prior to the end of the book. As a result, you had a lot of filler to get to a decent stopping point but then no strong climax to the book. I also think there is a lot of the editing process being missed because some of these novels are poorly spell-checked, have inconsistent references to character names or dates/times, and poor story development. Maybe it's just me but this is a trend I've been noticing with blog developed novels.
69. (31 Adult) Rise Again
This book was better than most of the zombie books I've read in the last month or two but that is not saying a whole lot. This book adds a bit of a twist to the zombie story, at least enough that I will attempt to read the sequel when it comes out. As a whole, the book isn't especially spectacular but nor is it poorly done. Just a run of the mill zombie/horror. Not bad, but not great.
70. (32 Adult) Thirteen Hallows
This was an interesting book. For some reason, I had thought this was a young adult book. Probably because Michael Scott was one of the writers (Secrets of Nicholas Flamel series). However, this is definately not for children. There are a lot of sexual themes to this book. Some are relevant to the storyline while several, especially the homosexual ones, don't seem to add anything to the plot and had me wondering why an individual's sexual preferences were even mentioned. The sexual tones are not graphic but they make up a significant part of the novel. The plot itself is rather interesting as the thirteen hallows are thirteen ordinary objects that were blessed thousands of years ago in order to create a barrier between our world, specifically England, and a demon realm. As the story reveals itself, the historically and biblical references become rather interesting in how they are tied to the plot and the hallows. The novel moves at a very fast pace as one the main characters comes into possession of one of the hallows, which should never be brought together, and commences a chance where our villians seek to collect all the hallows together. The climax of the book was a bit lacking for my taste as I was expecting something more challenging at it was rather bland. The book sets itself up for a sequel though I'm curious how that will turn out considering the end of this book.
Well, I managed to get through 70 books last year with 32 of them being adult and most of the rest being young adult. The best books (that weren't rereads) I read for the year were the Hunger Games Series (Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay). Those were so good I actually read them twice just last year. That was followed by the Maze Runner (though the rest of the series didn't live up to the first's standards), Virals (mainly because of the audiobook performance), and Allison Hewitt is Trapped. The worst books were Monster Island and Girl in the Arena. Most books fell in the area of three stars. I know when I've identified a 4 or 5 star book because I find my daydreams venturing into the environment of the book. The Hunger Games was the only one that really did that.
Challenge: 50 Books
Books mentioned in this topic
The Thirteen Hallows (other topics)Rise Again (other topics)
Execution (other topics)
Patient Zero (other topics)
Monster Island (other topics)
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This book had an interesting premise with atlantians recurring in global warming ravaged future. Since a lot of the book is set at a summer camp it did have a Percy Jackson-esqe feel to a lot of it. Clearly part of a series but I don't feel the book had a large enough plot for the initial story. It reads over 400 pages but I don't think it developed things are far as it could have. A far amount of the action was repetitive and added little to the overall development of the plot. I also thought the evil mastermind's monologue near the end explaining everything was a bit cliche. A decent book. I'll read the second one.