Reading with Style discussion
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SU 2016 Completed Tasks
10.1 Square PegThe Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
I remember reading some of the Jeeves stories many many years ago and enjoying them. Now, my enjoyment was more muted. Jeeves is the best valet ever.... apparently able to predict every thought and action by his employer Bertie Wooster. Bertie is constantly getting himself...usually with the help of his buddy Bingo and various women... into difficult situations which Jeeves is able to flawlessly resolve. I think the resolutions all worked out too easily. I recently finished the Mapp & Lucia series.... and those books which have their dueling protagonists in constant struggles and twists have more delicious denouements than the Jeeves stories. Still worth a read... I've just been spoiled I think.
task +10
review +10
total =20
grand total = 115
15.1 FYTS 1965-20152015
Where My Heart Used to Beat by Sebastian Faulks
+15 Task
(no bonuses, but this was a 5-star read for me. )
Task Total = 15
Grand Total = 55
15.1 5 Years Time Traveler2015 and counting down...
Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman
+5 bonus for non-fiction
Task total: 20
Grand total: 130
10.8 Come to the Fair (Karen Michele's Task)Girl on a Wire by Gwenda Bond
No style points - YA with lexile 700
Well done coming of age story of a girl trying to both honor and overcome her family's history, which she doesn't entirely understand, and move forward as her own self. Somewhat of a mystery with a touch of first forbidden romance. The author apparently couldn't resist naming the main couple Julieta and Romeo even though they go by nicknames...
Task total: 10
Grand total: 140
10.4 Opposite ListsSharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 15
10.3 HolidaySula by Toni Morrison
Lexile 1050
+10 Task (#61 on first list)
+10 Combo (10.7, 10.9)
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 110
10.6 Traveling the DDC WayDispatches by Michael Herr
+10 Task: 959.7043 H BPL
+10 Combo: 10.2 Picador/Virago / 10.10 Group Reads
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 55
20.4 Go for the Gold!Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden 850 Lexile
+20 Task: Australia
+10 Combo: 10.5 Mod Task / 20.3 Winners!
(Canberra's Own Outstanding List (COOL) Awards for Section 3 Fiction for Older Readers - Joint Winner (1996))
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 95
20.7 U.S.The Children by Ann Leary
Blended families often have hidden secrets and resentments, and the adult Maynard and Whitman children are no exception. When Whit Whitman died, his widow (from his second marriage) and her two daughters were living in the shabby family mansion on a Connecticut lake. But the two Whitman brothers (from Whit's first marriage) now own the home. When Spin Whitman brings his fiancee to the historic lakeside home for a few weeks, buried feelings from the past come to the surface.
While some of the characters are not likable, they are interesting. We see the divide between the middle-class, and the "old money" residents of Litchfield County that send their children to private school and vacation in the Hamptons. Social media, where a person can take on a new personna or destroy lives, has an important part in this book. Ann Leary has a dark, quirky sense of humor, and she populated her book with unreliable narrators and eccentric, flawed individuals. Will this family survive when truths are revealed?
+20 task (AL=Alabama)
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 120
20.5 London CallingUnnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers
I have to mention, the edition I borrowed from the library of this was a fairly ugly book, but it was an old edition, and the library that had sent it across (one out in the country somewhere) had a slip in it asking that I please take special care of their treasure :)
This may just be my favourite Sayers yet. I don't think it was any better written than the other two I have finished so far, but it was so clever! The murderer is known quite early on, the motive is a foregone conclusion, but the method ? The method keeps everyone guessing right up until the end, and when it is revealed you slap your forehead and can say "I knew that!", but it doesn't occur to you until its spelt out on the page.
This is only the third book in the Lord Peter Wimsey series ( I'm not reading them in order), and perhaps Wimsey is not as fleshed out as he later becomes, but there were moments he made me giggle (like when he asks Bunter, his man-servant, what clothing an expectant father might wear. Good old Bunter comes through! I suspect he is good friends with Wooster's Jeeves), and he is a very enjoyable character.
Sayers is fast becoming one of my favourite writers, and I will be adding another couple of her books to my Read list this season.
+20 task
+10 review
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 85
20.7 U.S.Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster
Pennsylvania - PA
I remembered seeing this on GR, perhaps as a recommendation, I'm not really sure, and thinking it sounded intriguing. At that point i hadn't read any Auster, so it would have been walking in blind. Then, last week I happened to see it winking at me on the shelf of a secondhand book store and knew that I had to have it, and then make my husband read it when I had finished my turn.
I am so glad that i took notice and picked it up, it was such a pleasure to read. It's a bit hard to discuss too much without giving anything away that isn't already stated in the synopsis on the book page - we are faced with a character who does not know who he is, where he is or what is going on around him. Various people visit him, and he slowly remembers some, but not all details about them.
The astute reader will get a feeling for who this people might be, although not necessarily what is going on. There is a little frustration with the reveal, but if you have already worked it out, then you saw it coming. If not, well, it may turn you off completely (I've seen this kind of thing elsewhere and it has very much annoyed me).
It may be early, but I am thinking this may be my read of the season.
+20 task
+10 review
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 115
20.2 The Gods!Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
This novel is about the Greek Gods living in present day London, down on their luck with their power waning. Aphrodite becomes annoyed at her lover, Apollo, and enlists Eros to help her take revenge. Two very ordinary mortals end up in the middle and (as they say) hi-jinks ensue. I did feel the ending was a bit rushed. However, that said I’m not sure whether that is good or bad since you basically know how it will end. I found the book to be amusing, funny, light and not particularly politically correct (which is probably why I enjoyed it). Overall, it was a fun, quick read that made me laugh. If you have a genre that is your ‘guilty pleasure� for escapist reading (for me it’s mysteries) this could a nice addition to that list.
20 task
10 review
___
30
Running total: 100
10.7 First LetterSpeaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 120
15.1 5 Years Time Traveler2014 and counting down
Death in Venice, California by Vinton Rafe McCabe
task +15
grand total = 130
Task 20.6 WarWorld War One Literature
#44 on June 09, 2016
Generals Die in Bed: 100th Anniversary of World War I Special Edition (1930) by Charles Yale Harrison (Young Adult) (Paperback, 168 pages)
I don’t think this one is eligible for style points.
+20 Task
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 50 + 20 = 70
20.4 Go for the Gold!Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty
I'm continually surprised by how much I enjoy Liane Moriarty's work. To me, her plots never sound enthralling on the surface (moms, secrets, suburbia) but are always well told, and the characters draw me in without my even realizing it. This book was no exception. Three Wishes is about a year or so in the life of a set of triplets. Without giving too much away, there's pregnancy, some light violence, affairs, missed connections, and general shenanigans. At the same time, there are some moments where the depth of the characters' emotional reactions to events, and the depth of some of the events themselves, are breathtaking. A light-ish read, well worth it.
+20 task (set entirely in Australia)
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand Total: 30
15.2 5YTSTime Traveler - 2016-1966
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
+15 Task (pub. 2011)
+5 Nonfiction
Task total: 20
Grand total: 110
20.1 South AmericaTaratuta and Still Life with Pipe: Two Novellas by José Donoso (Chile)
review: /review/show... (will copy review at bottom of page)
+20 Task (South America)
+10 Lost in Translation
+10 Review
Post Total: 40
Season Total: 40
Full Review:
This was my first exposure to Jose Donoso, and it will not be my last. I learned of Donoso through reading the Letters of Kurt Vonnegut. As it turns out, the two met while teaching at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and became life-long friends thereafter. As a devotee of Vonnegut, I felt duty-bound to inquire. When I learned of Donoso being Chilean and the influence he had on "The Boom," I felt like an inadequate former Latin American Studies major (who has many cousins in Santiago!). Needless to say, I had to get on this and this set of two novellas was available at a local library!
The writing is excellent in both and I am incredibly happy to have made my introduction to Donoso. Selfishly, I hope that the epublishers put his translated works into eformat...but...we'll get there and luckily I still remember how to operate one of those paper dealies. I know that Vonnegut loved to discuss the shape of a story, usually employing a bent/crooked line or arch to do the trick (as was also done by Lawrence Sterne a few hundred years before)...and that is what I kept returning to while reading Taratuta. Other commentators have done a great job capturing the theme, but the story's arch is really was got me. At first reading, you think the line is doing one way. But then a twist comes along and you realize that the original line had merely been a tangent. Without being obnoxious, this happens a couple more times until you realize the true path the story was taking and the dips you took along the way. The structure itself plays into the theme of historical knowledge and the value of identity very well.
SLwP was more straight-forward and less subtle in its commentary (perhaps by choice). I enjoyed it immensely, but there was nothing to "figure out," as in Taratuta. The plot is a little thicker and easier in that it is more linear. I enjoyed it as well, just not as much.
10.1 - Square PegA Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
When Dr Diana Bishop discovers a bewitched volume in Oxford's Bodleian Library, she wants nothing to do with it, or with her own magical heritage. But the discovery draws other magical creatures to her, not least of whom is the devastatingly attractive Matthew Clairmont. 'Tis pity he's a vampire, a sworn enemy of witches...
I enjoyed this book and I would read the next one if it fell into my hands just because of the time setting that I know it’s going to have, but I wasn’t completely wowed. I didn’t rush through it. There are points where it becomes a little bit Mary Sue-ish - is there any magical ability that the perfect Diana doesn’t possess? Is there any famous person in history who wasn’t best friends with Matthew? � and the relationship of the two of them didn’t fizz for me. But I found it entertaining and enjoyable.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Jumbo (579 pages)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 125
15.2 - FYTS Time Traveler1968 - 2013
The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker
+15 task
Task total: 15
Grand total: 30
10.9 It's Personal (Rosemary's Task)Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz
I really enjoyed the read, although I admit I got antsy near the beginning and flipped ahead at one point and found the key mystery element. Oops. So I don't know how obvious if would be if you were reading it otherwise. But I enjoyed the story even knowing.
It was a convoluted hunt for an American criminal mastermind in London. There's some deliberate mirroring of the Sherlock Holmes stories, including a Scotland Yard detective who'd been mentioned by Doyle and studied Holmes' methods enough to attempt to imitate him, sometimes successfully.
The first person narrator is well-spoken and describes the events and circumstances well and deliberately, telling the story the way he wants to. The ending is quirky and satisfactory in a way I wasn't expecting after I found out the key element mentioned above.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 combo (10.7)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 180
15.1 FYTS: Time TravelerPlanned for: 2014 -1964 (1979 skipped)
Gallipoli by Peter FitzSimons
Published 2014
+15 TaskÂ
+5 Bonus (Non-Fiction)
+5 Bonus (824 pages)
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 65
10.5 Mod TaskMy Career Goes Bung by Miles Franklin
#64 on the list: Best Modern Australian Literature
shown as My Brilliant Career / My Career Goes Bung (2 books in 1)
Review
I read My Brilliant Career a while ago and was happy to leave Sybylla Melvyn where she was (though I was informed the movie ending differs! I’ve still yet to watch it). There has not been many encouraging reviews for My Career Goes Bung either so I did not actually put the book on my tbr list. However, I’ve recently read Miles Franklin biography, Stella Miles Fraklin: A Biography and my curiosity was piqued. Both books were meant to be fiction but were apparently close enough to her own life that it was rather like an autobiography though it was denied as such by the author herself. From, her biography, I found that Miles Franklin to be an admirable woman of strength who formed her own opinions and stuck true to herself. There were, of course, some decisions which sounded strange but she was a rather unique personality.
Despite the not-so-good reviews for this particular book, I have actually enjoyed it. I had to keep in mind that this book was written immediately after My Brilliant Career was published though it was not published until 1946 (the foreword in my edition noted; “The spectre of libel actions loomed too large and Robertson [publisher] at that time had no choice but to refuse publication.�) so it was still a very young Miles Franklin who wrote this book. The thoughts on women and their places in society were the reflection of a young intelligent woman rather than a bitter unmarried lady (she seemed a little bitter later on in her biography). It was glaringly obvious that Sybylla was seeking to be her own self and to enjoy her writing without having to oblige to society’s demand of marriage. She was also capably independent though somewhat naive so there were some chuckles over her encounters with men.
I don’t particularly understand any woman’s wish to stay unmarried but that is a matter of personal preferences and we each differ in so many ways. I do, however, understand that repressiveness portrayed by Sybylla Melvyn of being shackled by society’s expectation of a woman and her wish to dislodge these old conceptions. She, like Miles Franklin herself, is a modern woman alive in the cusp of old-to-new age and was born to fight so we women can be where we are today.
+10 Task
+10 Combo (10.7 - title starts with M; 20.4 - 100% set in Australia)
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 95
10.7 First LetterI Always Loved You by Robin Oliveira
"I Always Loved You" transports us to La Belle Epoque when the American artist Mary Cassatt was painting in Paris. While the story also involves the other Impressionists, it centers on the interactions between Cassatt and her mentor, Edgar Degas. Although Degas helped her realize her potential as an artist, he could also be thoughtless and stubborn, so their relationship was very complicated and stormy. Cassatt burned their letters before she died so this story is an imaginative look at their relationship.
Cassatt's family also moved to Paris, and she was very close to her ailing sister. Her father was very concerned with finances, but her cheerful mother held the family together. The Impressionists were often criticized as being too modern and different, so they often had to supplement their more creative work by painting fans or commissioned portraits. Cassatt was most famous for her tender paintings of mothers and children.
Berthe Morisot and Edouard Manet, two artists who passionately loved each other but were married to other people, also played a prominent spot in this book. The title, "I Always Loved You" , seems appropriate for these artists as well.
There were several Impressionist art colonies in my home state of Connecticut in the late 19th Century. So museums in this area often have exhibits of European Impressionists as well as New England Impressionists. It was fun to read about Cassatt or Degas creating their art, and then remembering viewing that particular work at an exhibition. Although the book started a little slowly, the artists soon "came alive" for me in this enjoyable book.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 140
10.1 Square PegThe Drifter by Nicholas Petrie
Ex-Marine Peter Ash had to search buildings full of danger during his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, the war veteran cannot stay indoors without feeling a "white static", a feeling of panic and claustrophobia. When he hears that his war buddy, Jimmy, has committed suicide, he leaves the great outdoors to come help his widow, Dinah. While doing repairs on Dinah's house, he finds Mingus, a large, mean, snarling, smelly dog, under her porch as well as a suitcase of money. He sees that an armed man is watching Dinah's house, and tries to unearth the story behind the money and Jimmy's death. The suitcase full of cash is only the tip of the iceberg in a sinister plot.
This is a riveting, fast-paced thriller with a complex main character. Peter Ash has the skills of an accomplished Marine, someone you would want on your side in a fight. He also has a big heart and a sense of honor. His sidekick Mingus is unforgettable! Nicholas Petrie has created some engaging characters, and writes snappy dialogue well. His incorporation of several characters with PTSD added a lot to the book. I liked this book so much that I'll be sure to look for his next Peter Ash thriller.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 160
Post 57 Karen Michele wrote: "10.4 Opposite ListsSharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo: 10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 15"
Shelved as YA Fiction at , with a Lexile of 770. Task, but no styles.
15.2 - 5 Years Time Traveler2009
In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir: One Family in a Changing World by Justine Hardy
task +15
non-fiction +5
grand total= 150
20.7 U.S.¹ó²¹²Ô³Ùô³¾²¹²õ by Marcel Allain
This is a work of French crime fiction from a century ago. Barely into it, I realized that ¹ó²¹²Ô³Ùô³¾²¹²õ is the name the newspapers and detectives have given to the perpetrator of a number of gruesome crimes.
I am frightened, because ¹ó²¹²Ô³Ùô³¾²¹²õ is a being against whom it is idle to use ordinary weapons; because he has been able to hide his identity and elude all pursuit for years; because his daring is boundless and his power unmeasureable; because he is everywhere and nowhere at once and, if he has had a hand in this affair, I am not even sure that he is not listening to me now! And finally, M. de Presles, because every one whom I have known to attack ¹ó²¹²Ô³Ùô³¾²¹²õ, my friends, my colleagues, my superior officers, have one and all, one and all, sir, been beaten in the fight! ¹ó²¹²Ô³Ùô³¾²¹²õ does exist, I know, but who is he?There is a detective, Juve. It is just possible he was the inspiration for Hercule Poirot, although there are many dissimilarities. But Juve is the brightest of them, and solves many cases. The question is, of course, will he solve this one? And, if he does, will he be right? And then, even, will he have the man in jail and convicted?
Deceit, disguise, duplicity - you'll find them all in this. It was more fun than I anticipated. I thought I might leave my pursuit of ¹ó²¹²Ô³Ùô³¾²¹²õ with this one novel, but now I am enticed to read more. I don't know how many of the series has been translated, but be assured I will be investigating.
+20 Task (MA - Massachusetts)
+ 5 Combo (10.9)
+10 LiT
+10 Review
Task Total = 45
Grand Total = 100
10.7 First LetterMiracle on the 17th Green: A Novel about Life, Love, Family, Miracles ... and Golf by James Patterson
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 10
15.1 FYTS2015-1970
God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
+15 Task (starting with 2015)
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 25
20.5 London Calling (#23)Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
This is George Orwell’s first novel. It is (apparently) fairly autobiographical; and so, reads like a memoir. The anonymous narrator writes about his time in Paris, in the late 1920s, living in (extreme) poverty and his time tramping in and around London. Both France and Great Britain were struggling economically after WW1; and as a result a lot of men were out of work.
I’m a fan of Orwell’s writing, and this book really highlights what he did best. His descriptions are very vivid (and include every sense), of both the people, the conditions, and the situations. The more major characters in this book are so well drawn, I wish they had novels to themselves (esp. Boris)! There is some humor, but along the way you certainly will be disgusted and sad. Somehow, though, it isn’t a depressing book. He ends the novel with a few short ‘call to action� chapters.
This novel is a quick and easy read, and an interesting glimpse into that time period from the perspective of the poor.
20 task
10 review
____
30
Running total 130
20.1 South AmericaCity of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
Lexile: 1030
Review:
Engaging, but not as good as I was hoping. The author had some cool ideas for this story, but the characters were largely two-dimensional and the descriptions of the fantasy elements often felt rushed. Still, I stayed up extra late last night to finish it. I wonder if something was lost in translation here. I've been wanting to read something by this author, but I probably should have just gone forward with one of her adult books rather than looking at this one. I'd hoped this might be one that I could read with my son, but I think it's a bit too mature for a seven year old, even one who enjoyed Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I don't own a copy of the second book of the series, but I might pick it up if I happen to see it at the library some time.
+20 Task (b. Peru)
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.7 - C; 20.7 - IA; 20.10)
+10 Lost in translation
Task total: 55
Grand total: 165
10.10 Group ReadsDispatches by Michael Herr
Review:
I don't know how I managed not to hear about this book sooner. It's not as though it isn't famous, but it had never caught my attention until it was picked as a group read for Reading With Style. I loved the writing style here. This was honest reporting and war journalism of a kind that I haven't read much before. Like The Things They Carried, the book describes real experiences in heartbreaking detail. Unlike that book, the author here relays his own story of the effect that being in Vietnam had on him and the story of how journalists were perceived. Very interesting book and I'm really glad that someone picked it.
The narrator of the audiobook did an excellent job with this.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.6)
Task total: 25
Grand total: 190
15.3 FYTS: Time Traveller1963-2008
Crash by J.G. Ballard
+15 Task (1973)
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 140
10.3 HolidayHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
+10 Task
+5 Combo (10.4)
Task Total: 15
Grand Total: 15
10.7 Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War IIby Mitchell Zuckoffthe L in Olympics with the word Lost
Task + 10
Grand Total: 30
10.7 First Letter (Tien's Task)Serpent's Delight by Ruth Park
Review
Geraldine, the youngest of the sisters and her parents� pet (being born a lot later than her sisters), has led a very sheltered life. It has been decided that she needed to go out into the world a little bit. Plans were made awry when she said she was seeing visions of the Blessed Virgin. The whole family was thrown into an uproar; a tension of unbelief and love were strung tighter by the attention of the public. The title, Serpent’s Delight, is truly intriguing though I really didn’t catch on until the very end of the book. And what an ending! Broke my heart whilst at the same time angers me so. There was no one to blame and at the same time, everyone has their own contributory part but that is what makes all of us. In the end, your responsibility is your own.
+10 Task
+5 Combo (20.4 - 100% in Australia)
+10 Review
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 120
Task 20.8 Kotick � The British RajOn June 11, 2016: #32 on Books about the British Raj List
The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1954) by Jim Corbett (Paperback, 182 pages)
Review: Jim Corbett was a British Game Hunter in the first half of the 20th Century. This book contains 5 chapters, each one focused on one tiger that he hunted in the of Kumaon area of India. (This area is in northern India, near Nepal, in the foothills of the Himalayas). Corbett begins each chapter with a quick but chilling description of some of the humans killed and eaten by the tiger he is planning to track and kill. Whenever possible, Corbett includes family members of tiger-killed humans along with him whilst hunting the tiger. As a reader, this made it possible for me to root for Corbett’s success in the Hunt and in the Kill. The tracking techniques Corbett describes were previously unknown by me and I found the descriptions interesting. My edition included numerous illustrations, which added understanding to the text. My edition also included a map, which was not as helpful as the author thought it would be. Corbett is respectful of the local Indians; they have their ‘superstitions� but then, Corbett notes, he has his own ‘superstitions�. Recommended.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 20 + 10 = 30
Grand Total: 70 + 30 = 100
10.8 Come to the FairCircus Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
+10 Task (features a circus)
+5 Combo (10.7)
Post Total: 15
Season Total: 135
10.7 - First LetterSisterland by Linda Newbery
Lexile 770 - no styles
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 150
20.6 WarFugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
Review:
Anne Michaels is a poet first and this shows in this novel. There are phrases, and sentences that reduce an idea to crystallized words--"we are lightening rods for time". There are descriptions that touch the senses--"the smell of rain filled the heat". The two main characters have been impacted by the holocaust, Athos escaped as a young boy and Ben was born to survivors. Both struggle to connect, to trust, to allow themselves to love. The reader aches for them as they come to terms with relationships.
The book is beautiful but the story arc had some bumps and disconnects.
+20 WWII list
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand Total: 30
10.7 First LetterLong Man by Amy Greene
It was 1936 in East Tennessee, and the Tennessee Valley Authority had completed the building of a dam to bring electricity to the area. The town of Yuneetah was being flooded, and the heavy rain was accelerating the rise of the water. The federal government had bought up the farms along the river, and almost everyone had been relocated except for Annie Clyde Dodson. She had Cherokee ancestors, and will not give up her strong ties to the land that she wants to pass down to her daughter. Her husband is tired of the backbreaking work of farming the depleted soil, and wants to move north to work in a steel mill. Then their three-year-old daughter, Gracie, and her dog vanish. Amos, a one-eyed hobo, had been seen in the area and is under suspicion in the disappearance. It's a race against time as they search for Gracie while the rain pours down, and the flood waters rise.
Yuneetah's residents are the working poor whose families had lived in the isolated mountains for generations. The rains washed away the soil in the higher land, and flooded the lower areas. Some people welcomed the chance to settle their debts, and move on during the hard Great Depression years. But their history was being taken away from them as their homes and farms were destroyed, and their families' graves were moved. Although economic progress was eventually made in the area because of the TVA, the holdouts did not trust the "men in suits" running the government project.
Amy Greene's writing is beautiful with a strong sense of place, and an Appalachian Gothic atmosphere. The plot moves slowly, but builds in suspense. Love of family, and mistrust founded on past events both are important elements. But this is very much a character-driven novel. I was very impressed with the well developed, unforgettable characters with interesting back stories. By the end of the book, they felt like real people, rather than characters in a novel.
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20
Grand total: 180
20.7 U.S.Stars & Stripes by Abigail Roux
Review: I’ve been pretty much reading this series non-stop for the last couple weeks, and was pleased to see that it would fit into this season’s challenge. That’s important, since I decided this time around that if I wanted to read a book I’d read it, regardless of whether or not I got points. The Cut and Run series is male-male romance, but since it’s between two FBI agents it’s like a fun procedural series with a bunch of sex. I have a weakness for intimate male relationships, whether they are lovers, friends, or brothers. This series has all of the above, with a healthy amount of banter. This installment also has cowboy hats, Ty making friends with a tiger, and coming out to family. I’m currently reading the last in the series, and I’ll be sad to see it go. I think I’ll probably eventually buy all the audiobooks so I can reread when I need some comfort food, so to speak.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.7)
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 35
20.7 U.S.Touch & Geaux by Abigail Roux
Review: Touch & Geaux is probably my favorite of the Cut & Run series, although it’s also probably the most convoluted plot and the hardest to read emotionally. I truly hope that the FBI, CIA, and whatever other alphabet agencies are out there aren’t really doing the kind of crap they do in these books, and if they do I don’t want to know about it. It’s a wonderful book though � the whole team gets together in what’s supposed to be a fun situation and gets into all kinds of dangerous shenanigans. My biggest complaint about Roux’s writing is that a lot of times she ends chapters (or books!) on climactic moments and doesn’t really follow through with them � you just find out later what happened, which really lessens the emotional wallop.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 65
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
My Name Is Red (other topics)Pop Goes the Weasel (other topics)
Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dream (other topics)
Signs of Attraction (other topics)
In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History, 1780�1970 (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Orhan Pamuk (other topics)James Patterson (other topics)
Karen Stabiner (other topics)
Laura Brown (other topics)
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Mother, Can You Not? by Kate Siegel
KS= Kansas
Review: As a big fan of her Instagram account, I expected to love this book, and while I liked it, it didn't quite live up to my expectations. After recently reading Jenny Lawson's first book, I felt like it was sort of an imitation that failed to be completely unique and laugh out loud funny. Siegel offers context to her mother's antics and it's enjoyable to read some of her life history. I think I would have preferred more text message snapshots, rather than just at the beginning of each chapter. I think Siegel has talent as a writer and I hope she continues to pursue writing. She is a brave writer who is very truthful and puts it on the table for all to see. She tackles the challenge of comedic essay writing well, it just doesn't quite measure up for me compared to Jenny Lawson or Tucker Max.
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo 10.7 (Olympics)
+10 Review
Task Total: 35 pts
Grand Total: 65 pts