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*This post is subject to change*

Welcome to the Get To Know You Challenge!

The idea is simple. Read a book rated 5 stars by someone you follow on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to figure out what they love. And then read a book that they rated 2 stars or less to get an idea for what they dislike. It's a great excuse to talk to people about something they feel or felt passionately about.

To help out others who may want to get to know you better you can recommend the books from your shelf in a post below.

Do this for as many fellow book lovers as you are comfortable with.

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This could be fun!

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I will be doing this . . .

Great idea.

Ryan wrote: "someone you follow on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ"

Is this a requirement, or can it just be someone you interact with on GR?

Sounds intriguing

Anna wrote: "Ryan wrote: "someone you follow on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ"

Is this a requirement, or can it just be someone you interact with on GR?"

Nope. I did have an 'or' in there to include people you interact with but it looked really messy even by my standards.

I should add something about no kink subgenre shaming, at least not in this thread. If people want to bond over their shared hatred of space operas then they should take the conversation somewhere more private. No need for passersby to see that.

I may amend the wording of the challenge so people don't feel like they have to read a bad book. The 2 star book isn't meant to be a chore, but some may see it as such. I know I've rated many books 2 stars that have average ratings above 4. If you read one of them we can talk about why I did, which is the point of the challenge.

(I'm writing to get a clearer idea in my head of what I'm trying to do with this)

Anyone whose bookshelves are behind a cloak of secrecy will have to post some options in this thread if they want to participate.

Anyone that uses a personal challenge thread to keep track of their reading may want to consider using it for these G2KY2022 conversations.

Sounds like fun!

You're welcome to pick any of the books on my shelf to read and talk with me about. Looking at my read shelf and there are books I rated 4 stars that do a better job of highlighting what I love than some of the books I rated 5 stars. :/

Empire of the Ants, The Next Continent, The Breaking of Northwall, The Postman... That's not an amendment I thought I'd need to consider.

If you fancy reading any of those or one of my 5 star reads then let me know. You don't have to pick an SFF book either. I may well reread your selection with you.

The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story by Stephen R. Donaldson would be my recommendation for my 2 star rating, if you're okay with reading about (view spoiler)[sexual assault. It's the main reason I disliked this otherwise well written and interesting universe.
(hide spoiler)]

Fahrenheit 451, Imaro, and Infomocracy are decent options that I don't remember disliking for issues worthy of content warnings.

Ryan wrote: "G2KY2022 conversations"

Geeky Conversations ;)
I'm onboard. Is there someone who doesn't mind that I take 3 months to read your 2 books??

You can take all year with mine, Meanie.

I got Empire of Ants as a secret Santa gift this year!

I don't usually rate books, so I'm out

This is a really interesting idea, Ryan. I'm in!

I like this challenge, and it seems doable. This will be my first year participating in challenges. This one and one from another group will be perfect.

Question- Does the person we that we choose also have to participate in the challenge?

Their participation in the challenge can merely be to inspire you to read a book or two, Ann.

I'm in. I'd like to 'meet' some of you that I don't already know from other conversations (so that leaves out Ryan and DivaDiane ;).

I don't have multiple shelves for books I've read except for "to-enjoy-again" so those two shelves would be fair game for anyone.

Fascinating idea 😊

I am in, great idea. I am going to cheat a bit just to kick things off and see if this was what Ryan was thinking.

Cheryl, I have picked you! I think I have learned a bit about you just browsing your not inconsiderate read shelf. But, the way I am going to cheat is to ask you about a book that I have already read.

You gave Doomsday Book 2 stars. I gave it 4. What didn't you like about this book? I will ease the obvious confrontational nature of this question by saying, this is the only book of hers that I liked and I suspect if I read it again it would go down a notch but when I read it, I think I liked the slightly different way to time travel and the learning about about the black plague.

Also cheating, the 5 star book of yours I am planning on reading once my library gets it is Africa Amazing Africa: Country by Country I am a geography nut and am sure I will completely agree with your rating.

We could also chat about The Shadow of the Wind which you did not like for the very same reasons I docked it a star, the mysogeny just seemd to weigh on you more.

Nicol I am choosing you?

From your favorites list I'm picking 2666. It seems expansive and not the type of book I am generally inclined to pick.

from your 2 star read, I'm choosing One for the Money. It is on my TBR and a book I suspect I will like.

It's probably gonna take be a while to read them both, 2666 is kind of long, but I'll check back in when I'm done :)

Kirsi, we have 79% comparable taste in reading material according to the compare books function on GR. We have read a ton of the same books and rated them the same or close most of the time. There are only a couple that I saw that we rated disparately! Piranesi was one. You: 2 stars Me: 5 stars.

At any rate, when I have a moment I'll go through your 2 stars and your 5 stars that I haven't read and choose something. Although, maybe I should choose a 2 star rating from someone whose tastes differ drastically from mine. I may like it!

DivaDiane, omg we really do have similar preferences! I'll take a look at your 5- and 2-star books and see if I can find something that I want to try.

DivaDiane, turns out I have both Project Hail Mary (you gave it 5 stars) and Neuromancer (you gave it 2 stars) in my bookshelf and I haven't read either of them yet, so that was an easy choice!

I know Neuromancer is one of my husband's favourite books, so this should be interesting.

It’s like we’re book clones!

Melanie wrote: "Nicol I am choosing you?

From your favorites list I'm picking 2666. It seems expansive and not the type of book I am generally inclined to pick.

from your 2 star read, I'm choosing..."

2666 is such a great book, its actually I think 3 books in one but they flow right into each other, and now that I am thinking about I can't remember if I read it in Spanish or English? I can't wait to hear your thoughts!

The Plum series can be fun and quick reads but there are some things that really start to irk me and I think that's why my rating goes down.

So I've got a few books tagged with Get2KnowYou for me to read.

Persephone Station
The Isle of Glass
Life After Life
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife
Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories

There's still room for more (even though I'm pretty certain I forgot to add recs people made to me when I first suggested this challenge on discord).
I'll reach out to Leonie for a rec or two later. Possibly others as well but I don't want to over commit as I've also got a lot of reading to do for the group.

This sounds like a fun challenge, and perfect for a year in which I don't want to take on a 12-book-challenge. I'll participate in April or May, since I'll be very busy until March. But I'll be following your experiences with interest!

Ryan wrote: "I don't want to over commit as I've also got a lot of reading to do for the group."

That's right. Now that you're a mod aren't you obligated to "Read-All-the-Books"?

My remit is the future, not the past!

I have to read books that aren't on the shelf to weed out the bad poll options. I'm determined to differentiate our shelf from other (lesser) groups by not just going for award winners or new releases.

Not necessarily finding books that I love, but books I think others will. With any luck my efforts will see less instances of sexual assault appearing on the shelf. Although there's not much I can do about member noms.

Not that Anna and Allison have asked this of me or that they've picked poorly. It's just that I manage to read more than they do so should be able to vet books more thoroughly.

I'm not sure that you read more than me ?! but when I was still doing mod polls I deliberately chose to use books I hadn't read yet, and even though I did do research, sometimes there were nasty surprises. It can't be helped unless you do read all the books first, and like we talked about, I do love this group, but I also want to read other things, not only read books to see if they'd be good for a mod poll.

(I had an absolutely horrible reading year last year, and still read more than you did :P Not that I care who reads more or less or what number of books or pages anyone reads, but it caught my eye and sounded wrong. It's possible that you read more potential mod poll options though, I'm not going to dig into our stats to figure that out :D )

New old narrative: I'm here to normalise chaos.

You're here to be enthusiastic about (SFF) books and talk to people! :) You're already doing both! ^_^

Ryan wrote: "New old narrative: I'm here to normalise chaos."

That's almost a haiku ... I'll finish it for you:

New old narrative:
I'm here to norm'lise chaos.
Diversity hire.

Chaos Equalizer is good, as I think it encapsulates the tapircide, kraken-rearing and diversity element while also coming across quite positive.

I look forward to you enjoying how much f***ing work it is to find books that we can, beyond a reasonable doubt, declare worth everyone's time. 'Cause honey, we've tried it now a couple times and it's been HELL.

Err...I mean hella fun. For everyone. We absolutely love the grueling search for new, exciting, quality books in each of the tumult of sub and co genres.

What were we talking about again?

Ah yes. getting to know people! I have now probably overshared. But once the first of the year stuff is sorted, I will come back and pounce upon an unsuspecting soon-to-be-friend!

I'm not going through all the subgenres. We don't have to be that diverse.

There's nothing in the rules of this challenge against independent authors. So long as a book speaks to more than their need to increase their back balance.

I don't really want to see unabashed and unprompted self promotion, BUT if someone reaches out to a self pub'd author and said self pub'd author feels that their own work speaks better of their loves and/or hates then I don't think many people will be upset.

Emphasis on someone reaching out to an author/member in regards to this challenge. It's annoying and offputting otherwise.

Hank wrote: "I am in, great idea. I am going to cheat a bit just to kick things off and see if this was what Ryan was thinking.

Cheryl, I have picked you! I think I have learned a bit about you just browsing y..."

I read Doomsday Book so long ago that I don't remember anything. I did find a four star review that I'd written on librarything:
"Good story, adventurous and thought-provoking. Though too long for my taste and not my favorite genre, I had trouble putting it down. Recommended." I guess I have to fix my rating and review.

I'll read, or at least attempt, A Wizard of Earthsea as you gave it four stars and everyone else loves it too, it seems. But Le Guin doesn't usually work for me, so wish me luck!

Kirsi wrote: "DivaDiane, turns out I have both Project Hail Mary (you gave it 5 stars) and Neuromancer (you gave it 2 stars) in my bookshelf and I haven't read either of them yet, so that was an easy choice!"

So I foundThe Screaming Staircase, which you gave 5 stars to that I haven't read. It was hard to find a 5 star book that I hadn't already read!

edit: But I just realized it seems like a type of horror that I don't think I would enjoy right now, so I've had another look.

I will read The Golem and the Jinni, which I haven't read. Is this one on the SFFBC bookshelf too?

And I think I'll read The Binding, which you gave 2 stars. I was thinking about reading it for another challenge and it sounds right up my alley, so it'll be interesting to find out why you only gave it 2 stars.

I saw that you gave each individual book in the Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas 2 stars. At least 5 or 6 of them. I'm wondering why you kept reading the series? Ever hopeful?

Good luck Cheryl!

Done. I see the appeal, and the brilliance, but I didn't particularly enjoy Wizard of Earthsea, and gave it three stars.

I look forward, Hank, to seeing what an adult reading for himself thinks of Amazing Africa.

Ryan, now what?

What's next? Conversation!

Where's the brilliance in Wizard of Earthsea?
Was it just a bit of escapism for Hank or does it have deeper meaning to him?
What makes it a 5 star read for him? What does a 5 star rating signify if, in cases like yours, there's little joy to be had from reading it?
Are his other 5 star reads as enjoyable as WoE? Do you not think WoE is an apt initialism for such a brooding tale?
What ingredients are required for the potion that wards off Hanks bad reading opinions?

How does WoE compare to the book of yours that he's going to read? Do they cover similar topics? If so, what does it do well that the other doesn't in your opinion?
Tell Hank about what you love(d) about the book he's going to read from your shelf.

Or you can decide to move on and pick someone else to get to know through this challenge. Assuming you want to continue at all.

I had it in mind that a 5 star read and a 2 star read are books that caused a tumult of emotions that could be discussed long after you last read them. Maybe I was wrong.

All this and more can be said here or elsewhere. I'm going to use my challenge tracker thread or DMs for my G2KY convos.

(Don’t forget potential BOTM and BR threads when discussing a specific book!)

Ryan wrote: "What's next? Conversation!

Where's the brilliance in Wizard of Earthsea?
Was it just a bit of escapism for Hank or does it have deeper meaning to him?
What makes it a 5 star read for him? What d..."

Great questions!
Some I answered in my review; some don't apply. I think I'll just move on to another participant. Hank, we can certainly converse further in reviews. :)

Who is still waiting for someone to pick them? Melanie? If you're ready, I'll go look at your shelves!

Woo hoo! Let me know if you want help narrowing your choices.

*side note to all, you and the person you are book stalking ... um getting to know better ... can do a buddy chat in the 'Virtual Clubhouse' (Discord).

Ok Melanie, I see you rate Get Fuzzy collections highly, and I have never 'gotten' any of the strips I've read in newspapers, so I'll have to see if I can find a collection to read myself, and then you can enlighten me if I need help appreciating them. I rated Jane Eyre four stars, lower than community average, but still significantly higher than your two star rating. I'd love to know what you didn't like about it, if you remember.

I'd be glad to discuss these in PMs or on either of our review comments' space, but I'd rather not go offsite to Discord or anywhere.

Feel free to do a shelf comparison with me and to question my judgement, too!