Nadine in NY’s
Comments
(group member since Jan 05, 2015)
Nadine in NY’s
comments
from the Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge group.
Showing 1-20 of 9,738
Bea wrote: "The trainer said that I talked too much to her and distracted her by my words from my behaviour! Imagine that!..."LOL that's funny!! They always say: obedience class is about training the owner, not the dog! With my last two dogs, we attended weekly obedience classes, and the dogs really enjoyed it, and it forged a stronger bond between dog and human. They certainly did not emerge from their classes as perfectly trained dogs LOL
Erin wrote: "Nadine in NY wrote: "Yes I've been having trouble too, just with the posts I created this week. Glad it's not just me!!.."My notifications are back!"
Same!! :-)
Milena wrote: "6 of us played ping pong after work, an event that my manager set up. If you want people to come into the office these days, you have to entice them...."that sounds fun!!! I haven't played pingpong in ages. I'm sure I would suck at it, but have fun.
As You Wish wrote: "26th in a series is my guess"That would be difficult!!!
Sasha wrote: "I also DNF'd Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things because the sense of humour just wasn't for me...."You are the first reader I've "met" who feels the same way I do about that book!!!
I'll Find You Where the Timeline Ends - NetGalley. So far this is just okay, but I'm not very far in yet.
Ooh! having just finished Bat Eater, my reader-ears perked up when I saw she has another new book coming!! I've never read any of her YA novels. How is it?
I'm thinking plants or flowers on the cover, something historical fictiony that involves gardens, and a microhistory of a vegetable.It's been nine days now since the first tease, I wish they would come back and tell us SOMETHING already!
Erin wrote: "Happy Thursday! Is anyone else having trouble getting notifications on this page? On my break I tried to mark this to receive notifications so I'd be reminded to post, but it kept saying there was ..."Yes I've been having trouble too, just with the posts I created this week. Glad it's not just me!!
Megan wrote: "Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I used for "a highly anticipated read of 2025." It was a NetGalley backlist title, so I need to write up a review now...."I'm reading that right now!! (Literally "right now" - I'm taking a break from reading to come check GR.) What did you think of it?
I'm 30% done with it and so far it's been just "she dated this guy and then dated this guy and then dated this other guy and her bestie dated this guy and this guy and this guy" and holy cow is it about anything else??? Adichie is a great writer, so it's flowing right along, but I'm also bored out of my mind.
Dubhease wrote: "The kids always want to watch horror movies all October. We watched Jaws, which was more thriller than scary...."We've been doing a Spooktember/Spooktober movie theme too! We've cut back on TV time so we haven't seen much yet. All September we've been watching the kdrama Strangers From Hell, and I expect we can finish that tomorrow. Tonight we are watching the original Blair Witch. Next Friday we've got The Substance on deck, although there's been some discussion about whether that might be TOO disturbing.
We don't know anything about the 2026 Challenge ... yet. But soon we will!! PS has teased us with the hint of a garden theme, and the promise of some early reveals this October. Here's the place to speculate about what you think is coming, and to chat about how you feel about it once it arrives.
Brrrrr I barely noticed that light frost we had Wednesday night, but LAST night was a serious frost, still at 32F when I stepped outside at 7:30. I'm not sure if my old sheets saved my container plants - the basil might have made it, but the tomato and the coleus might be hurting. Two of the coleus leaves are frozen. Maybe the rest of the plant was protected. I was planning to take cuttings of the coleus to keep over the winter (the plant is FAR too large for me to bring inside - the thing is a monster). I hope I can still do that.
Happy Thursday!! Welcome to October! I can't believe it's Thursday again.The leaves are starting to fall fast enough that you can just sit out in the backyard and watch them (and hear them hit the ground, too, it's a constantly gentle rustle). My raspberries are still going, but they are slowing down. There was a frost warning for last night, so that might be the end of the raspberries, I haven't gone outside yet to check on them. I threw a sheet over my basil, and pulled it off this morning and I didn't feel any frost.
It's that time of year when we need to find space for all the houseplants indoors again!
***** Admin stuff *****
The October group read, which could fill "A book containing magical creatures that aren't dragons" is: The Fellowship of the Ring. You can join the discussion here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The November group read (which could fill "book about a food truck") will be A Psalm for the Wild-Built. That's a popular author in our group - let us know if you would like to lead the discussion!!
The December group read, which could fill Prompt #25, A book where the main character is an immigrant or refugee, will be: Everything I Never Told You. Let us know if you'd like to lead this discussion.
That's a wrap for our monthly group polls for 2025!!
On Oct 1st, Taylor teased us on Facebook about early reveals of the 2026 list, and it's been silence since then. She definitely succeeded in getting me (and probably a lot of other people) to check the PS FB group every day!!
This week I finished 3 books
The Five Wolves written & drawn by Peter McCarty - this graphic novel was from NetGalley, it publishes next week, and I absolutely LOVED it. I'm a long-time fan of McCarty's art in picture books, and I was thrilled to see an all-ages graphic novel from him, it's an ambiguous and ridiculous story that is more about the journey and not so much about the destination. (And it took him 30 years to finish it!!)
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir- this was on my list of books I must read in 2025, and I guess I'm glad I read it, but I doubt I'll continue the series, because reviews indicate that the next two books are even more confusing than this one was! This book took me over a month to listen to! I checked off "SFF novel written by a woman" in AtY with this book.
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker - this was NOT what I expected! It was a lot more terrifying and gory than I thought it would be. This was not just psychological horror, this was real horror, with both ghosts (who can eat people) and serial killers. All that said, I also thought it was very good, although I'm still feeling a bit shell-shocked by it. TW: most of the characters die. This book got me the "spine tingler" bookmark in the GR Fall Challenge.
I LOVE the cover but honestly I have no idea what it is I'm looking at. Is that a bat and some sort of flowering vine? Is that a real plant or just an artist's recreation of a vaguely plant-like thing? I tried googling to learn more about the art and I learned that the British cover is a bottle of cleaning spray, so boring (and there was another cover by Elena Masci showing a beautiful Asian woman in cleaning gloves holding a bat (which I think COMPLETELY misrepresents the book - Cora spends most of the book thinking about how NOT beautiful she is, and she's definitely not gazing prettily while holding a damned bat); the publishers decided not to use that one because it was too YA-coded). For once the US has the superior cover!! After much googling I finally found the designer's name for the gorgeous cover: Tara Scarcello. But even knowing her name, I was not able to find more information. Book covers are such amazing works of art, why is it so hard to find info on the artists?? (In fairness: the designer's name IS on the back leaf of the book's dust jacket, but my library put tape on the protective cover RIGHT where the name was, and it's in the tiniest print, my old eyes could not make it out through the tape.)
Popsugar 100% 50 /50
Must Reads 70% 7 /10
AtY 92% 48 /52
AtY bonus 100% 10 /10
2025 pub 100% 50 /50
NetGalley ratio 97 %
Question of the Week
Is there a genre you have discovered you enjoy but you always avoided in the past?
When I was a teen I used to read Stephen King, because that's what every teen read in the 70s & 80s, and then I got tired of it, it was too ... too something. Too sexist? ridiculous? boobilicious? in your face? idk. So I decided I didn't actually like horror.
Years go by. A few years back, I started noticing that A LOT of my favorite books were showing up on "horror" lists. What was going on??? I actually LIKE horror now?
As best as I can tell, the genre has changed and expanded. It went from over-the-top slashers and monsters, to some really thought-provoking and mind-twisting stuff that talks about our modern social issues and is not necessarily (although sometimes can be) terrifying or gory.
Bea wrote: "the number of books I finished, has lagged. I find that I do not have the time nor inclination to spend the time reading. And, yet, I will watch hours of TV while playing games on my phone. Such a waste of time!..."Sorry you're having a tough time. This will pass. If it makes you feel better, I'm stuck in a dumb cycle of excessive time wasting on my phone, too. It's especially difficult because my NetGalley books are ON my phone, and it's so hard for me to hold my phone and know I can do all sorts of other things. And when I go to bed, I should pick up my book right away, but instead I spend 30-60 minutes doom scrolling or playing dumb games. Why? I do not know.
Jennifer W wrote: "*Curmudgeon appearance*: I don't care for this bookmark game at all. Especially the books you have to pick from a list. I'm such a mood reader, that even if I wanted to read one of the books, I might not want to read it now. And even if I did want to read it now, I probably wouldn't get to it in the timeframe. It seems like monthly homework to me. I much prefer our yearlong timeframe. I checked once what was the monthly challenges, and got so irritated, I haven't been back! To those who like it, enjoy (but also, get off my lawn! ;)..."LOL because that's normally how I am!!! But it just so happens that the last few bookmarks have synched with books I want to read right at the moment, so I have had the books already borrowed from the library or on hold at my library before I even saw the list. (Or, in that one case, I finished the book the day before the list came out and then fudged my "read" date so I got the bookmark.)
Doni wrote: "Did you guys notice that on FB, PS said they will be releasing the 2026 list early?!."GASP! No I did not see that!! I rarely check FB these days ... [rushes off to FB ...]
Oh very exciting, it's a GARDENING THEME!! I am so here for this!! From Taylor:
Some of the best blooms come from early seeds, so we're giving you a head start for 2026. But gardens need tending, so watch this space this month as we sow even more exciting announcements coming soon.
Laura Z wrote: "and Solito is my choice for Memorable Memoirs...."oh I forgot about Solito! that's another one I'm curious about!
Happy Thursday!! Welcome to October! I can't believe it's Thursday again, I can't believe it's October already.The trees are getting ready to put on their big show, all the leaves are starting to turn gold and red, my raspberries are still over producing and I cannot keep up, and the evenings are crisp but still mild enough that I wear flip flops most nights when I walk the dogs.
Some people say the leaf color will be dull because of the drought we've had, and they might be right. Some of the gold does look dull. But maples and sumacs (and poison ivy LOL) are turning a brilliant red.
***** Admin stuff *****
The October group read, which could fill "A book containing magical creatures that aren't dragons" is: The Fellowship of the Ring. You can join the discussion here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The November group read (which could fill "book about a food truck") will be A Psalm for the Wild-Built. That's a popular author in our group - let us know if you would like to lead the discussion!!
The final poll for December is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...
December's group read will be for Prompt #25, A book where the main character is an immigrant or refugee, so think now about what you'd like to nominate. This will, of course, be our last series of polls until the new list comes out (which usually happens in early December).
This week I finished 4 books, one for this Challenge, and I am DONE! 50/50. I finished the Popsugar Challenge!
Fan Service by Rosie Danan - this is not the sort of romance I usually read, I tend to avoid werewolves because of all the alpha-mated stuff, but someone said this was fun so I borrowed it from the library. And it WAS fun! It was fantastic!! I'll read more from this author, she writes great characters and she has a knack for making a ridiculous premise feel very believable.
Love Is a War Song by Danica Nava - this NetGalley book is the second I've read by Nava, and I think maybe she's just not an author for me. Her characters feel like dumbasses, her dialogue feels clunky and fake, and the situations are ridiculous (far less believable than the werewolf romance I just finished). There's nothing particularly wrong with this book, so if you're looking for a fun rom com with Native protagonists, and you don't mind some poorly-written sex scenes ((view spoiler)), by all means pick this up!! I'm late reviewing it, it was published in July, so it's available now!
Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times by Tracy K. Smith - this NetGalley book publishes in November, it's a collection of essays by a former USA Poet Laureate on how to approach poetry. The opening essay felt powerful and uplifting, but then the rest of the collection felt like an awesome school textbook: useful, but not what I wanted.
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick - that was short and sharp and clever, I would have given it five stars except for all the sexism (one of the only female characters was topless the entire time, and bounced boobily); it was a lot shorter than I expected, so I feel a bit "cheaty" using it for the Challenge, but this is the FOURTH book I've tried to read for "space tourism" so I'm counting it, and I'm DONE!! That was my final Challenge read of 2025!!
Popsugar 100% 50 /50
Must Reads 60% 6 /10
AtY 90% 47 /52
AtY bonus 100% 10 /10
2025 pub 98% 49 /50
NetGalley ratio 97%
I've made excellent progress on my NetGalley backlog!! I only have two books left! One I'm currently reading, and one that doesn't publish until January so I feel sure I'll get to it before publication. I celebrated by allowing myself to request a 2026 publication. Only one!
Question of the Week
Has anyone taken a look at the new lists GR just published for the Fall Challenges?
Horror fans, which books do you recommend for "Spine Tinglers" (https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/3...)
Cozy fans, what stands out to you in these 117 choices:https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/3...
Best seller fans, what would you recommend from this list of favorites:https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2...
Memoir fans, which books do you recommend from these memoirs (https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2...)
Now that I see the light at the end of my various Challenge tunnels, I'm more interested in other mini Challenges, and I started paying attention to the GR seasonal Challenges. I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised by these lists, I see some great books I've loved, and several books I'm very eager to read. Quite a few of these have been our monthly reads, too!
Don't feel like you have to go through EVERY list like I did! I just got too excited because I was so surprised to find so many books I've loved. Choose the list (or lists) that calls to you!!
In horror, some of my favorites (all very thought provoking novels that have stayed in my head) are:
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Lone Women
Our Wives Under the Sea
Mapping the Interior
And I'm planning to read (I actually just started it last night): Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
In cozy (a subgenre I didn't think I liked much, but I guess I do!) some of my favorites are:
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Murder Takes a Vacation
Here Beside the Rising Tide
And I'm planning to read: Run for the Hills
In popular books, some of my favorites are:
The Wedding People
The Vanishing Half
Nothing to See Here
And I'm planning to read: maybe Writers & Lovers or The Great Believers
And in memoirs I absolutely LOVED The Best We Could Do
And there are several I'm curious about, not sure if I will read one this fall or not:
Sociopath
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
Crying in H Mart
Know My Name
Taste: My Life Through Food
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
Date you finished: 9/30/25Message number of your list post (if you've got one): 6
Favorite prompt (and what book did you read for it?): "A book set in or around a body of water" - the idea of being near a body of water just feels so soothing and appealing. I read The Blue Hour, a mystery set on an island, and it was just okay.
Favorite book (and what prompt was it for?): If I have to choose just one, I'll choose:All Fours (July) It was quite unlike anything I'd read before, I almost DNFed it at one point, and I ended up loving it and thinking of it often. I started reading it because it was in the Tournament of Books, and when I discovered it filled a difficult category (menopause) I prioritized it for 2025 reading. If not for the Challenge, I probably would have given up on it. It may turn out to be my favorite book I read this year.
Was there a book you especially enjoyed that you never would have read if not for the Challenge? (and what prompt was it for?) : Not this year. There was All Fours, but really I read that because of ToB, not Popsugar. There were a lot of books that had been lingering on my TBR for a while and the Challenge finally gave me the push to read them, but there were no books that I loved that I never would have read if not for the Challenge. Unfortunately, all of the books that I read solely for this Challenge ended up being mid at best.
Least favorite prompt: The less than 3 stars rating; I ended up reading a short story, and I gave it 2 stars, so I thought it deserved its low rating.
Last prompt you finished: A book about space tourism. I had the hardest time with this prompt! I like sci-fi in general, but "space tourism" is so specific, there were only a few books that really worked (that I hadn't already read) and every book I tried, I did not like. Finally I read a Philip Dick short story, Remember Wholesale, which was more political intrigue and virtual tourism than actual tourism, but at this point, good enough.
Prompt you hope to see next year: I always like the prompt about a newly published book from that year.
Did you like the three different sections of "Advanced" categories this year? No I though the distinctions were stupid! The "easy" categories were not easier than the "medium" or "hard" categories. If they are going to break out "advanced" categories from "regular" categories, I'd like them to truly feel "advanced."
Did you think this year's list was more difficult than usual? At first I thought it was, yes. There were a lot of really specific categories (food truck, menopause, run club, space tourism, etc) but I was able to easily find books for MOST of those thanks to help from this group!!
Finally, are you in for 2026? Yes, of course! Always! :-)
Do any GR librarians know why the blurb for Dream Count is in what I think is Catalan? I tried switching to a few different editions, but they all have this blurb.
