Annual reading challenge 2018- Join in on the Fun

[Simba's Mom]

Finished a lot over the past two weeks!

#4/90:The Orphan's Train by Pam Jenoff (4/5) (historical fiction/ Holocaust)
European circus dealing with Nazis. Information on author's inspiration very interesting.

I LOVED that book. After I read that one, I read "We Were The Lucky Ones"-that was recommended by either amazon or goodreads for people who enjoyed "The Orphan's Train". And I did-highly recommended.

 

[disneychrista]

#4 - Remember When by JD Robb/Nora Roberts. This was a two part book with the first half a present day story written as Nora Roberts. The second half was written as JD Robb as part of the In Death (Eve Dallas) series.

 

[tiggrbaby]

I LOVED that book. After I read that one, I read "We Were The Lucky Ones"-that was recommended by either amazon or goodreads for people who enjoyed "The Orphan's Train". And I did-highly recommended.

Waiting for my hold to come through on that one! Just got Glory Over Everything - can't wait to start it!

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Book 2 of 20: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything - until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: 'I'd like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.' Yet in this exotic setting, nothing is ever quite what it seems...

This is only my second Christie novel, although I've watched several seasons of the Poirot series on Netflix. I felt like this story was in a way a response to Murder on the Orient Express where someone is murdered in an enclosed space (in this case a boat instead of a train), and there are a group of suspects, many of which have a secret. Now, this does not resolve the same way Orient did, and I feel like Christie did this on purpose to through off the reader. I had a hard time keeping track of all of the characters on the boat and felt that the subplots were extraneous.

3 out of 5 stars.

Up next: The Remains of the Day.

 

[NJlauren]

Book 3/40 Anna and the French Kids by Stephanie Perkins 3.5/5. I enjoyed this book, light and fluffy. It’s really what I needed to get back into reading this year. It was not a literary masterpiece but it was enjoyable and an easy read which is what I needed. It’s a young adult book and takes place at a boarding school, I still enjoy a good young adult book!

 

[tiggrbaby]

Book 3/40 Anna and the French Kids by Stephanie Perkins 3.5/5. I enjoyed this book, light and fluffy. It’s really what I needed to get back into reading this year. It was not a literary masterpiece but it was enjoyable and an easy read which is what I needed. It’s a young adult book and takes place at a boarding school, I still enjoy a good young adult book!

Then I would like to recommend that you read Ms. Bixby's Last Day by John David Anderson. You will laugh and cry!

 

[NJlauren]

Then I would like to recommend that you read Ms. Bixby's Last Day by John David Anderson. You will laugh and cry!

Added it to the list!

 

[kimblebee]

#5- Fifty Shades freed. Now I can say I read them lol

Honestly, about the second book I started skimming the sex scenes. Yes, we get it, you like when he goes in and out and in and out. It was ridiculous.

#6- Kathy Griffin’s celebrity run ins. Meh, it was trashy but I was curious.

By now, we can all see I won’t only be reading books that are movies LOL

#7- currently reading Whoopi Goldberg’s Is it just me.

I guess I’m in a celebrity book reading phase. My next book is a serious one.

 

[rigs32]

I think I'll report my books once a month or so, so here's what I've finished in 2018 so far. I pretty much stop reading books that I would otherwise rate 1 or 2 stars, so that's why my ratings might seem inflated.

1) Available: A Memoir of Heartbreak, Hookups, Love, and Brunch by Matteson Perry (4 stars)

2) Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan by Bill O'Reilly (4 stars)

Would have been 4.5 but for a really unnecessary political jab contained in the foreword as it makes me doubt the angle/perspective of his writing about historical matters.

3) Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977 - 2002 by David Sedaris (3.5 stars)

I really enjoy his writing and it was fascinating to realize he struggled so much before getting famous. Thought it was tough to read as a true book. I'd read a bit, read something else, then come back to it. Which is how he suggests reading the book, but I needed to return it to the library!

4) Drink Dat New Orleans: A Guide to the Best Cocktail Bars, Neighborhood Pubs, and All-Night Dives by Elizabeth Pearce (3 stars)

Used this to help narrow my choices on a recent trip to NOLA. I didn't like that the author seemed to be so positive about everyplace, which made it a bit harder to choose which to visit, but I realized how to look for what I would enjoy and the few places I went as a result were great.

5) Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick (4 stars)

6) Dead Girls Society by Michelle Krys (3 stars)

This quick read was great for vacation, but I didn't love how it ended.

7) Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (4.5 stars)

I wanted to read this in advance of the movie coming out and I couldn't put it down. I wish the ending had been.... cleaner, but I'm glad there are two more books in the series. I hope to read them soon.

 

[willowsnn3]

#7/50

In The Forest of Harm by Sallie Bissell

Mary 'Killer' Crow is going home to North Carolina. There the tough young Cherokee prosecutor and her two closest friends will hike a beautiful but demanding wilderness trail. They will be followed into the mountains by a man obsessed with revenge.


Very good. Looks like there are 6 more Mary Crow books so will probably try them.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

#3 The Dead Zone by Stephen King

I think I have updated everybody. If I missed anyone new or old just message me.


If anyone is interested, I would gladly send a kindle gift version of any of my works “Written for You”, “Three Twigs for the Campfire”, “Cemetery Girl” or “Reigning”. You can see them all reviewed at Goodreads. If you are interested in reading any just message me.

 

[Christine]

#5/20: In the Midst of Winter by Isabele Allende. This one wasn't bad. I generally like Allende's stories. She goes a little heavy on the Central American history/plight (specifically Guatemala in this story) that is sometimes more than I'm interested in, but overall it was a decent story. The story itself is a little thin and seems to be a device to tell the reader the issues in central America. She's a decent writer and I needed a book to read so..... Some of her other books are better.

 

[Tiggerish]

I got behind in my posting but I did squeeze in a trip to Disneyland. I have read three books of substance since I last posted.

Tips For Living by Renee Shaftansky - murder mystery. After a humiliating divorce precipitated by husband getting his mistress pregnant, Heather leaves NYC for a small town that is a summer retreat for New Yorkers. Her husband and his new wife and baby buy a summer home in the same town and the new wife seems to be stalking Heather. Then the ex and new wife are brutally murder in the summer home and Heather is the prime suspect. She works hard to find the real killer in a race to avert her own arrest. It actually surprised me with the ending.

The Boat Runner: A Novel by Devin Murphy - WWII fiction. The book follows the life of a Dutch boy starting with his being sent at age 14 to a summer camp in Germany for Hitler youth in hopes of increasing his father's business opportunities. He returns home just before war breaks out. The Netherland falls to Germany and members of his family start covertly working against Germany. After his brother and mother dies and his father disappears, he runs away from his uncle and joins the German navy. He becomes a naval hero but is rapidly disenchanted with Hitler and when his uncle tracks him down and provides him the means to escape he does. He makes his way from Germany through occupied Netherlands and is smuggled across the channel to England. In England, he meets up with a ship captain who smuggles refugees to Canada and the US. He signs on with the captain to earn passage to American but ends up staying with the smuggler. After the war he is reunited with his uncle and they continue making a living smuggling refugees from many of world's conflicts. This was an interesting read and not what I expected but reading how he got sucked into the Hitler mind set was eye opening.

White Rose, Black Forest by Eain Dempsey - WWII fiction. Fictional account of how the information from a German scientist working on the atomic bomb for Germany made its way out of Germany and to the US. Franka begins as an active member of Hitler's Girl Guides. While away at university studying to become a nurse, she becomes a member of the White Rose, a secret student organization which writes and distributes pamphlets against the Nazis. When her cell is arrested, she renounces them and is sentenced to a short prison term and the others are executed. Released from prison, she returns to her family's secluded cabin in the Black Forest. However, her entire family his dead. Her mother died of cancer, her brother who was developmentally disabled and in a wheelchair was exterminated when Hitler decreed that such persons were useless mouths to feed taking needed food from German soldiers. Her father dies as a result of an Allied air raid so she dislikes the Nazis and the Allies both. She is walking in the woods late at night intending to lay down in the snow and die when she stumbles across an unconscious paratrooper in a German uniform but who is muttering in English. He has two broken legs. She drags him back to her cabin, uses her nursing skills to tend to his wounds and eventually gains his confidence. He is an American soldier on a mission to met up with a German who is the leading scientist working on developing the atomic bomb for Germany. The scientist wants to defect with his information to the US. Franka goes in the soldier's place to meet the scientist and they get caught in an air raid and the scientist is killed but she gets a microfilm detailing his research. They then make a desperate attempt to escape through the forest to Switzerland. It took me a while to get into this book, and the underlying idea is a bit far fetched but it turned out to be a good read.

7/52

 

[tiggrbaby]

#10/90: Glory Over Everything by Kathleen Grissom (5/5) (historical fiction/pre Civil War)
Sequel to The Kitchen House. Fabulous read! I did not want the story to end!

 

[NJlauren]

I see a few of you have read glory over everything, the kitchen house sequel. I read the kitchen house a long time ago, so I need to reread it to ready the sequel?

@tiggrbaby @willowsnn3 ?

 

[K and K's Mommy]

I see a few of you have read glory over everything, the kitchen house sequel. I read the kitchen house a long time ago, so I need to reread it to ready the sequel?

@tiggrbaby @willowsnn3 ?

I was getting ready to ask the same question!! I actually just got Glory over Everything from Half Price books but was wondering if I should find a copy of Kitchen House because it has been so long since I read it.

 

[dolewhipdreams]

#3/30: A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught (3.5/5)
Historical romance set in late 1400s Scotland/England. For a romance novel, the plot didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out. I was pleasantly surprised with the read.

 

[tiggrbaby]

I see a few of you have read glory over everything, the kitchen house sequel. I read the kitchen house a long time ago, so I need to reread it to ready the sequel?

@tiggrbaby @willowsnn3 ?

I was getting ready to ask the same question!! I actually just got Glory over Everything from Half Price books but was wondering if I should find a copy of Kitchen House because it has been so long since I read it.

It has been a long time since I read The Kitchen House as well! I didn't feel as if I was missing anything by being fuzzy with the details. Some of what they mentioned in this book brought some of it back. I think that this would even be okay to read on its own.

 

[willowsnn3]

I see a few of you have read glory over everything, the kitchen house sequel. I read the kitchen house a long time ago, so I need to reread it to ready the sequel?

@tiggrbaby @willowsnn3 ?

No, I don't think you would need to reread The Kitchen House. The second book actually skips quite a few years and picks up with Jamie (Belle's son) & his life after escaping slavery. Very good book on its own.

 

[NJlauren]

Book 4/40 Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown 4/5 stars, I would have given it 5 but I hated the ending it’s a huge cliffhanger imo but I can’t find anything on if there will be a follow up. Normally I don’t mind a bit of a you decide what happens ending but in this case it really didn’t work for me. But I loved the story and most of the characters even if I didn’t love all their choices all the time.