Frayda’s Comments (group member since Dec 13, 2021)

Frayda’s comments from the Around the World in 80 Books group.

Additional reads that were not on my December tbr:


Georgia: The Pear Field
Sierra Leone: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Senegal: At Night All Blood Is Black
Tunisia: The Ardent Swarm
Ethiopia: Finding Joy
Cambodia: First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

Status end of December: 77/80

Challenge not completed in 2022. But I will read three additional books in the beginning of 2023.

December tbr:

✅Palistine: Minor Detail
❌Thailand: The Windup Girl
✅Singapore: Last Tang Standing
❌Luxembourg: Teufelsfrucht
✅Belgium: Villete
✅Barbados: A Caribbean Mystery
❌Sierra Leone: The Memory of Love
✅Oman: Celestial Bodies
✅Switzerland: Blutbuch
❌Burma: Miss Burma
❌Moldova: The Power
❌Uganda: The First Woman
❌Panama: The Three-Body Problem
❌Jamaica: A Brief History of Seven Killings
❌Ethiopia: My Soul to Keep

Status end of November: 65/80 (8 books behind schedule)

November tbr:

❌Ethiopia: My Soul to Keep
✅Venezuela: It Would Be Night in Caracas
❌Switzerland: Blutbuch
✅Cuba: Your Heart My Sky
✅Malaysia: Queen of the Tiles
✅Saudi Arabia: Love from Mecca to Medina
✅Burundi: Small Country
✅Syria: Refugee
✅Fiji: The Honeymoon Prize
✅Haiti: The Salt Roads
✅Hong Kong: Second Sister

Additional read that was not on my Octber tbr for this challenge:

Israel: Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix

Status end of October: 56/80 (10 books behind schedule)

October tbr:

❌Ethiopia: My Soul to Keep
✅Egypt: The City of Brass
✅Austria: Carmilla
✅Antigua and Barbuda: Little Eyes
✅Argentinia: Fever Dream
✅Russia: Metro 2033
✅Nigeria: Lightseekers
✅Australia: Horribly Harry
✅Serbia: Pink Slip

Additional reads that were not on my September tbr for this challenge:

Antarctica: Champion
Romania: A Dowry of Blood
Spain: All the Feels
China: Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution

Status after September: 47/80 (12 books behind schedule)

September tbr:

Lithuania: Spinning Silver - this is not actually set in Lithuania
China: These Violent Delights - dnfed
✅Ireland: The Henna Wars
✅Greece: Circe
❌Philippines: The Sympathizer
❌Egypt: The City of Brass

Additional reads that were not on my August tbr for this challenge:

Mexico: If the Shoe Fits

Status after August: 41/80 (11 books behind schedule)

August tbr:

✅Botswana: Empire of Ivory
✅Algeria: A Bookshop in Algiers
✅Morocco: Horses of God
❌Ethiopia: The Shadow King
✅Bulgaria: What Belongs to You

Read in June:

Pakistan: We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir
France: Keeper of the Lost Cities Illustrated & Annotated Edition: Book One
Turkey: Black Powder War

Read in July:

Poland: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Costa Rica: Twisted Games
Liberia: She Would Be King

Status July: 36/80 (10 books behind schedule :/)

June tbr:

❌ Libera: She Would Be King

Additional reads that were not on my May tbr for this challenge:

Korea: The Vegetarian
Iraq: Frankenstein in Baghdad
Sweden: Anxious People

Status after May: 30/80

May tbr:

Iraq: Frankenstein in Baghdad
✅ Afghanistan: Wir sind noch da! Mutige Frauen aus Afghanistan
✅ Ukraine: The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine
✅ Equatorial Guinea: By Night the Mountain Burns
❌ Saudi Arabia or Nigeria or Moldova: The Power
❌ Hungary: The Bone Fire
✅ India: Blue-Skinned Gods
✅ Vietnam: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Additional reads that were not on my April tbr for this challenge:

Chile: E. Aster Bunnymund and the Warrior Eggs at the Earth's Core!

Status after April: 22/80

April tbr:

❌Liberia: She Would Be King
✅Ghana: Remote Control
✅Denmark: The Chestnut Man
✅Lebanon: The Wild Ones

Additional reads that were not on my March tbr for this challenge:

Italy: Lore & Lust
Yemen: The Vanishing

Status after March: 18/80

I started reading it and loved the writing right from the beginning. Just the first chapter made me read up on Kuwait, the Gulf War and the Palestinian exodus from Kuwait.

1) a selection set in Equatorial Guinea: By Night the Mountain Burns

2) an award-winning book set in Central or South America: Fever Dream (Argentinia; Shirley Jackson Award for Novella 2017 and others)

3) a winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction or Orange Prize, set outside of the US or the UK: The Power (different countries, e.g. Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, India)

March tbr for the challenge:

✅Iran: The Stationery Shop
❌France: The Gilded Wolves
✅Taiwan: The Membranes
✅Kuwait: Against the Loveless World
❌China: Dream of Ding Village