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Hi everyone!

This week I finished:

Norse Mythology - Book by person I admire, because Neil Gaiman is awesome. It was a fun, fast read.

Code Name Verity - Espionage thriller. I really liked this one. It was a great story about a woman pilot and woman spy who were best friends working during WW2. Fictional, but the author tried to make it authentic and as plausible as she could manage. There were some women spies, there were some women pilots etc.

Feed - author using pseudonym - Mira Grant is the pseudonym for Seanan MacGuire. It was a good book, but the library only had audiobook. It was hard to listen to in a lot of places, and I think if I continue I'll find it in print first. I like being able to skim if something is too gory or disturbing.

Currently reading: The Blind Assassin which will be my story within a story.

How's everyone's reading going?

Hi Sheri!

I really appreciate you leading the charge on these weekly check-ins, even if it's mostly just you and I chatting in here. :-)

I've got Norse Mythology on my challenge list, so I'm glad to hear that you liked it! I'm also glad to hear that it was a fast read. I seem to be averaging about a book a week, and so I could use some fast reads if I'm going to finish the challenge on time!

I finally finished Lemons to Lemonade: Resolving Problems in Meetings, Workshops, and Plcs for my book with career advice, right before I had to moderate a session that had the potential to turn into a complain-fest. I ran that session like a boss (heh), and I totally attribute it to this book. Some of the book was a bit too "new age" for my taste, but it was otherwise loaded with good advice and strategies, and it finally gave me the resolve to just cut off those people who were dominating conversations so that I could ensure everyone got a chance to be heard. I was also able to be a lot more assertive about keeping us on topic. I read this pretty quickly in the end, so I'll probably go back back and give it a second, deeper reading at another point.

I also read House Rules. What a stinker of a novel that was! I know there are a of people who love her, but I've avoided reading Jodi Picoult because her novels really aren't my thing. However, this book was repeatedly recommended for a book with a character with disabilities, so I gave it a try. I'm not even sure where to start with this book, but let's go with a character about whom we're repeatedly told can only process information literally but whose narrative voice uses metaphors all. the. time--or any of the other times that characters did things that were completely outside of their character (who edited this book????). It's also a mystery that doesn't need to be a mystery if any single one of the other characters had just asked Jacob what happened (he always tells the truth, the author goes on ad naseum about this). And the completely unnecessary romance that did nothing to further the plot. And the underlying narrative that yes, in the 1990s, vaccinations did cause autism. I honestly wanted to chuck this book across the room multiple times. Argh. There, thanks for letting me get that out!

I'm now reading A Journey of the Heart as my book involving travel, travel being both literally and metaphorical in this book. This is the second in a trilogy, and I read the first book last year and really liked it, so I was looking for ways to work the other two books into the challenge. Basically, these are beautiful novels (IMO) that focus on all sorts of relationships between women--Mother-dauther, platonic friends, lovers, women in service of other women--in all their various forms, but the books is about discovering one's own worth. Set in a fictional medieval-type Briton-like society, the books follow the journey of a young girl named Tamras and her apprenticeship to an outsider warrior named Maara. They don't even really have a plot (well, there are things for the characters to do): they just focus on character development. So, if you're a plot-driven reader, these aren't great books, but I love them because they're more character driven.

Glad you like the posts Stephanie! I admittedly do it for my own record, to keep me accountable. I also post on pop sugars group, but that one is big. It's easy to miss whether someone's checked in, or to really appreciate everyone's postings.

I'm glad I already have a disability boom picked out, that one sounds terrible! (I'm going to read the second Arcadia project book. The main character is a double amputee with borderline personality disorder, so I figure that counts )