sistv bookworms discussion
Lee's book list for 2009.
OK here we go. BOOK 1: Thirty-Nothing by Lisa Jewell.
Started: 27-Dec-2009
Review: OK at the start of the book, I found it a dodgy chick lit read, I wouldn't recommend it unless you find it for free somewhere and had nothing else to do...! By the end however I had warmed to it more, especially after the characters of Phil and Delilah came into the story. I did still however skim pages. It is an easy summer read, a good one if a friend gives you a copy or you find it at the library.
Finished: 08-Jan-2009
No of Pages: 436
Mod
that is one of my favorite chick lits.
LOL.
seriously. i really love lisa jewell.
but my mum didn't enjoy it either, so i think its just my bad taste ;)
Hehee - OK that is funny! I am only part way in so far so it might pick up - was the Ralph's Party book any better?? I think I have chick-litted myself out lately as the last few I have read have all been that genre!
BOOK 2 - Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.DATE STARTED: 10-January-2009
REVIEW: See my bookshelf for the review!
Finished: 19-January-2009
No of Pages: 434
Mod
DATE STARTED: 10-January-2009
REVIEW: Just saw the movie, I am secretly hoping the books dialogue is not quite so cheesy...*ha*
Finished:
No of Pages:"
i thought the film was actually really good. the book is way better - but i'm glad they took actual lines out of the book for the film.
oh i freakin' love edward.
we must email about him, lee.
BOOK 3 - New Moon by Stephanie Meyer. DATE STARTED: 19-January-2009
REVIEW: LOVED this book - it trumps Twilight, and I am beside myself with anticipation for Eclipse which is on its way to me now!!
Finished: 23-January-2009
No of Pages: 563
BOOK 4 - Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. DATE STARTED: 25-January-2009 (then stopped on 30th Jan, restarted 18th-February-2009)
REVIEW: I admit I find reading older classics hard trying to get my head around the dialogue etc. I enjoyed P&P, even if it seems like Austen got to the where she finally had Elizabeth & Darcy hook up and seemed to get sick of the whole thing and wrapped it up in 3 pages after taking 320 to tell the rest of the story...! I love how annoying she made Lydia, Collins and Mrs Bennett, she wrote them so well! Even though there are a few things that let the book down in my opinion - for example why bother with the character of Mary when she is barely in it and doesn't contribute any real oomph to the story! ON the whole though I am glad I finally got to finish reading it after about 20 false starts!
Finished: 9-March 2009
No of Pages: 329 (of teeeennny tiny writing that nearly did my head in - totally picked the wrong book to have in a small paperback version!).
BOOK 5 - Eclipse by Stephanie MeyerDATE STARTED: 30-January-2009
REVIEW: VERY cool follow on to New Moon - enjoyed reading it, even if I had to ditch Pride & Prejudice to do so...(lol).
FINISHED: 02-Februay-2009
No of Pages: (will add them in when I remember to!)
BOOK 6 - Breaking Dawn by Stephanie MeyerDATE STARTED: 02-Februay-2009
REVIEW: Quite a good wrap up to the four books - it was a page tuner for me as I really wanted to see what happened, even though my curiosity got the better of me and i skimmed ahead (I had to know if Jacob or Alice died!!). There some things annoyed me (I found the name of the child ridiculous and it just irritated me whenever I read it!), but overall a fine finish to the book series, I love that Bella finally came to the fore with her belief in herself and stopped being such a painful damsel in distress!
FINISHED: 05-Februay-2009
No of Pages: 700 and something...!
BOOK 7 - Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs DATE STARTED: 05-Februay-2009
REVIEW: I really didn't get into this story much (hence taking a while to read it) until around the last quarter of the book which I polished off quite quickly. I am glad I didn't bother buying it and was able to borrow it from the Library! Now back to Pride & Prejudice
FINISHED: 18-February 2009
No of Pages: 422
Mod
Yeah, not really that into it myself, I think it will be a struggle!
about Breaking Dawn - I had a hard time with the child's name, too. The sentiment was nice, but it's no wonder everyone else started calling her by a nickname.I know I liked Thirtynothing a lot more than Ralph's party, but I can't remember why. It's been quite a while since I read it.
BOOK 8 - Knit Two by Kate Jacobs DATE STARTED: 11-March-2009
REVIEW: This was a book I picked up at the library on the way to the airport last week when I realised I had left my intended read (Water for Elephants) at home before my work trip to Sydney! I actually liked this better than Friday Night Knitting Club, but it is still just a fluff chick lit read - no hard work, predictable.
Finished: 15-March-2009
No of Pages: 318
BOOK 9 - Water for Elephants by Sara GruenDATE STARTED: 16-March-2009
REVIEW: This was a REALLY enjoyable book, I loved the writing style (the wry comments totally had me hooked, especailly when she was writing from Jacob's perspective as the elderly man). There wasn't much that I didn't like actually - and only one comment that made me roll my eyes as being too calculated or something, but I am adding this one to my fave reads!
Finished: 24-March-2009
No of Pages: 335
BOOK 10 - (YAY - I am 1/2 way to my goal for this year!!) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann ShafferDATE STARTED: 25-March-2009
REVIEW: This book is just wonderful. I love the witty dialogue, love how it is written in letter format, and the characters are great - Juliet is totally rad, love how she is sassy and doesn't take crap from people. Such a pity the author passed away before it went to print - until I read that after finishing the story, I was looking forward to finding more stuff she had written to read!
Finished: 28-March-2009
No of Pages:268
BOOK 11 - The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey NiffeneggerDATE STARTED: 28-March-2009
Review: didn't like it - the overtones of middle aged guy/young girl love were too creepy. the story just got tired and I lost interest part way through and I ended up skim reading the last 150 pages just to get to the point where henry "dies" and then read the last few pages just so I could get the book finished. So I probably missed something vital. But I don't care!
Finished: 7-April-2009
No of Pages: 518
Mod
you are a reading machine! this is what happens when we don't email for a month or so ;)
Didn't like it that much at all Rhi!! I put my reveiw on my bookshelf.
I am now eagerly awaiting the Great Gatsby (hopefully arriving tomorrow).
BOOK 12 - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott FitzgeraldDATE STARTED: 8th-April-2009
REVIEW: Glad I have read this book. Enjoyed it for the most part, and I like that it was written in the time it is set if that makes sense - you get a feeling for what the roaring 20's was like. I was a bit disappointed in some of the characters and the lack of exploration into them a bit more, and I was looking forward to seeing how Daisy reacted to the news about Gatsby at the end but it didn't happen. And I felt the ending was a bit flat somehow, but overall I enjoyed it.
FINISHED: 15-April-2009
No of Pages: 188
BOOK 13 - Living Simply with Children by Marie Sherlock DATE STARTED: 15-th-April-2009
REVIEW: Not an overly preachy earth first/family values book which I had been expecting. Although I did roll my eyes a few times at certain statements, and some of the stuff in there is just plain OBVIOUS, but then it might be I think that because we already do some of the stuff. It is a good concept about getting back to basics and not letting the commercialisation of EVERYTHING to spend more and living to excess rule the day. It has some good food-for-thought, and while I won't be locking away my love of certain things (for example, I love my TV..*ha*) it has some great reminders about keeping it simple and enjoying things together as a family. It actually prompted me to do a goals list of things I want to do with the family. ANyway, worth a read if you are looking to downscale/downsize or just get back to the simpler things.
FINISHED: 22-April-2009
No of Pages: 278
BOOK 14 - The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule DATE STARTED: 22-April-2009
REVIEW: A nice read, ABS has some nice ideas and thoughtful commentary, it is in a similar vein to Living Simply with Children, but focusing on the creative side of family life and nurturing kids development in that area.
FINISHED: 28-April-2009
No of Pages: 204
BOOK 15 - Sarah's Key by Tatiana de RosnayDATE STARTED: 29-April-2009
REVIEW: I didn't like the flipping between Sarahs and Julia's stories. But there was some good reading in this book, predominantly the discovering of Sarah's story and further information about the horror of the time. Julia annoyed me though, and I really didn't care much for what was happening to her or in her life.
I think it would have been much better to have had Sarah's story complete first, then go into Julias storyline. It is probably why it took me so long to finish reading it, even though it only took me a couple of hours when I sat down today to read from where Sarahs story finished to the end.
FINISHED: 26-May-2009
No of Pages: 293
Mod
i havn't even got sarah's key yet!
*ha* - I actually want to try and read both books this month, so here's hoping!
BOOK 16 - Pillars of the Earth by Ken FollettDATE STARTED: 26-May-2009
REVIEW: I had read this book before years ago (long enough that I couldn't quite remember what would happen), and I would have said it was one of my faves, but I really didn't enjoy it as much this time round, even though I obsessively read it in a few days. The basic story is cool (I like historical fiction though), but I think it ended up dragging on too long. I found that this time I looked at it more critically, and found there were times I was like "not another drama" - I think follett could have ditched a few hundred pages and not made much difference. I really disliked how some characters just "stopped" - like martha and ellen (I would have liked their stories wrapped up more) - or a character was introduced but you never found out too much about them (Like Walter or Elizabeth). The time jumps got tiresome as well, and then there would be a flippant remark about a particular event or character to "fill in the gap" with what had happened later. This time reading it I found I was super annoyed with Aliena marrying Alfred just because of her brother needing some money to be a knight - whereas first time round I think I felt for her a bit more. Looking at it again I was annoyed that Ellen wasn't more forceful or something in making Aliena see that she really didn't need to marry him, and that Richard could have gotten of his arse and looked after himself instead. Ellen is rad though - I would have loved to have her in the book more.
FINISHED: 01-June-2009
No of Pages: 1075 (or something like that).
BOOK 17 - The Holy City by Meg HendersonDATE STARTED: 02-June-2009
REVIEW: not a bad read - based around events in WWII with bombing in clydebank near glasgow in scotland. Some of the story was a bit patchy, and I was annoyed with characters at times, but it was ok.
FINISHED: 06-June-2009
No of Pages: 310
BOOK 18 - The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (special illustrated edition)DATE STARTED: 07-June-2009
REVIEW: Sooooo Dan Brown is a pretty dodgy writer hey. He had me interested with some of the ideas he puts up but bloody hell he is crap at putting the actual story together! There were so many times I wanted to smack him and the way he wrote. Is it weird that I can enjoy the general storyline but really dislike the way he wrote the book as a whole?? I quite like a religous conspiracy theory - so the priory/opus dei/catholic coverup/templar/Jesus&Mary Magdalene hooking up and breeding story/etc etc stuff he used appealed ot me, and there were some interesting things raised at times, and loving art and architecture having the illustrated version I really liked having the images of the paintings and settings to look at as they were being discussed in the book. But I don't know if that makes up for the shit writing.
If anyone has a good recommendation of something along the lines of the Da Vinci code, but better written, please share!!
FINISHED: 11-June-2009
No of Pages:456
BOOK 19 - Wuthering Heights by Emily BronteDATE STARTED: 12-June-2009
REVIEW: So I probably should have read this book in a few days but my reading time was greatly diminished this month, so it took me absolutely ages. I mostly liked Bontes style of writing and some of the passages totally had me hooked, and her writing feels quite contemporary even though it was written so long ago. But, it annoyed me with the tale being told as split between Mrs Dean and Whatshisname (I would rather it have been written straight up and not from their perspective if that makes sense). The story ebbed and flowed for me as a result of the clunky way it was told at times (I could not bring myself to read any of Josephs dialogue after while - the phonetic spelling just gave me the total shits), and there were times I was wondering weather I wanted to keep reading such a miserable tale full of many quite unlikeable characters (I was having a rather annoying time with other tings going on in my life, so maybe a light and fluffy happy ending book would have been better for me to read at that time instead!!), but as I got to the last few chapters I realised that is why I should have read it quickly - the small depressing chunks I plugged away at just got me cranky with the characters, whereas reading it over the course of say a week I think I would have enjoyed parts of the story and felt more for them.
So at this point I an rather undecided about the book as a whole - I think I'll need to read it again when I can spare the time over a week or so.
FINISHED: 27-July-2009
No of Pages: 357
BOOK 20 *DUDE - MY GOAL IS REACHED* - Looking for Alaska by John GreenDATE STARTED: 27-July-2009
REVIEW: Nice work for some YA fiction. I am a sucker for boarding school storylines anyway, so this was cool - there were a few times I felt it was lacking some guts, but then I rememberd it was being aimed at the YA market so I cut the story some slack there. Some excellent and awesomely descriptive paragraphs, and others had me laughing at how cheeky it was, and I really had a feel for most of the characters. I enjoyed Greens general writing style. If however he could have laid off on the continuous smoking references (which seemed quite OTT and somewhat irrevelant to the story in the end, and just peeved me instead) I would have quite loved this book! All in all 4 stars.
FINISHED: 30-July-2009
NO of Pages:263
BOOK 21 - Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth GilbertDATE STARTED: 30-July-2009
REVIEW: lets just say this book sucked arse at the start - she has to be one of the most annoying women I have ever had the misfortune of reading about. I really could not have cared less about her for 2/3 of the book. But I grew to like her a bit by the time she was talking about Bali - but it may just be that I have such good memories of going to bali myself which might have contributed to me liking her more, even though I found her to still be condecending and painful, but less so.
FINISHED: 12-August-2009
No Of Pages: 346
BOOK 22 - Looking for Alibrandi Melina MarchettaDATE STARTED: 13-August-2009
REVIEW: this is one of the best YA books I have EVER READ. I can't beleive it has taken me so long to get to it seeing as it was published in 1992. The movie is still one of my alltime faves and it came out in 2000 and yet I still hadn't read the book. Actually I was scared the book would either suck or wreck the movie for me as is the case many times when I end up seeing the movie first.
Anyway, even allowing for a few cringey moments, I absolutey LOVED IT - loved it LOVED IT! Even reading it nearly 20 years later the book still felt really fresh, and there were only a few times that I was pulled up short in 1992 by her references.
I really did not want to put this book down at all.
FINISHED: 13-August-2009
No Of Pages: 270
BOOK 23 - Travelers'Tales Gides ITALY - true stories of life on the road - Edited by Anne CalcagnoDATE STARTED: 13-August-2009
REVIEW: Lots of different short travellers tales. Some were not very interesting, some were great.
FINISHED: still going actually, but I am reading it in stops and starts between other books.
No Of Pages: 403 (with teeny tiny writing....) I think this book might be read in spurts - it contacins lots of short stories on peoples travels to Italy.
BOOK 24 - Dead Until Dark - Sookie Stackhouse series - Charlaine HarrisDATE STARTED: 19-August-2009
REVIEW: Rather crap writing all together, but it is a quick light read. And I will probably end up reading them all, they were just interensting enough to have me wondering how the stories all finish up. That said, the TV show absolutely runs rings about the books.
FINISHED: 25-August-2009
No Of Pages: 326
BOOK 25 - Living Dead in Dallas - Sookie Stackhouse series - Charlaine HarrisDATE STARTED: 26-August-2009
REVIEW: See above.
FINISHED: 30-August-2009
No Of Pages: 277
BOOK 26 - See Naples and Die - Penelope GreenDATE STARTED: 31-August-2009
REVIEW: OK - but not as good as her When in Rome book - this one kept switching to be her investigative report on the Camorra crime, and then jumped back to what she was doing/feeling about Naples - it was a bit all over the place. It made the book hard reading as I basically didn't really care about her opinions on the mafia-esque situation.
FINISHED: 14-September-2009
No Of Pages: 281
BOOK 27 - About a Boy - Nick HornbyDATE STARTED - 14-September-2009
REVIEW: enjoyable.
FINISHED: 28-September-2009
PAGES: 278
BOOK 28 - The Ship of Brides - JoJo MoyesDATE STARTED - 29-September-2009
REVIEW: Book following a few different peoples tales as they travel to the UK after WW2 on a converted air craft carrier. I liked this, the historical viewpoint was interesting. SOme of the characters totally annoyed me but the story was rather cool.
FINISHED: 14-Octobber-2009
PAGES: TBA
BOOK 29 - Dracula - Bram StokerDATE STARTED - 17-October-2009
REVIEW: loooooved it! I have a crush on Quincey!
FINISHED: - 12-November-2009
PAGES: 315 (in that teeennnyy tiny writing - I am going to have to crack into a sookie after this!!!)
BOOK 30 (YAY - GO ME!) - Angus,Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging - Louise RennisonDATE STARTED - 12-November-2009
REVIEW: funny quick (lightning quick) entertaining read.
FINISHED: 14-November-2009
PAGES: 237
BOOK 31 - "It's Ok, I'm wearing big knickers" - Louise RennisonDATE STARTED - 14-November-2009
REVIEW: see above
FINISHED: 16-November-2009
PAGES: 236
BOOK 32: Unclutter your life in one week - Erin Rooney Doland (this book took the place of Boleyn when it arrived...LOL!)DATE STARTED: 16-November-2009
REVIEW: good reading for those who like organisation and less cluttering crap in their lives. a bit overly prescriptive, and probably less useful to someone like me who does a lot of what is described. But then again I like those sorts of books.
FINISHED: 26-November-2009
PAGES: 227
BOOK 33: Club Dead - Charlaine HarrisDATE STARTED:26-November-2009
REVIEW: she is improving, this book was better than the last two.
FINISHED: 28-November-2009
PAGES: 290
BOOK 34: Dead to the World - Charlaine HarrisDATE STARTED:28-November-2009
REVIEW: holy shit. this book is fantastic (for this particular author anyway). I have a fictional character crush on Eric...!
FINISHED: 30-November-2009
PAGES: 321
BOOK 35: Dead as a Doornail - Charlaine HarrisDATE STARTED:30-November-2009
REVIEW: I think this series is getting better as it goes on.
FINISHED: 3-December-2009
PAGES: 295
BOOK 36: Definitely Dead - Charlaine HarrisDATE STARTED: 4th-December-2009
REVIEW: I also have a fictional character crush on Quinn.
FINISHED: 10-December-2009
PAGES: 324
BOOK 37: All Together Dead - Charlaine HarrisDATE STARTED: 15th-December-2009
REVIEW: Still interesting enough to keep me wanting to read more!
FINISHED: 21-December-2009
PAGES: 323
BOOK 38: Handmade Home - Amanda Blake SouleDATE STARTED: I read this back in October but forgot to note it here.
REVIEW: Very visually pretty with some lovely sentiment and projects in there.
PAGES: 194
BOOK 39 (Ok I am so excited, I'll end up cracking double my reading goal for the year with the next book - YAY!): From Dead to Worse - Charlaine HarrisDATE STARTED: 21st-December-2009
REVIEW: I really am quite liking these books the more of them I read, but book four still tops it so far!
FINISHED: 25th-December-2009
PAGES: 359
sistv bookworms
Books mentioned in this topic
New Moon (other topics)Breaking Dawn (other topics)
GOALS for 2009:
Read 20 books.
Read all the books I have on had (I think there are about 10 or 15 - I'll have to get them all out and list them down).
Read the books on hand even if I am "just not that in to them"....
No buying new books until books on hand are read
Borrowing from the Library is accepted, as are reading books that are given to me.
Try and read each night before bed.