Lyssa’s Comments (group member since Jan 21, 2013)

Lyssa’s comments from the The 104 Book Challenge - 2013 group.

#100 Dangerous Women Great anthology! Stories from authors/worlds that most are familiar with, and some authors/ worlds I was unfamiliar with. Not all are equally great, but the variety makes up for it. 4/5

#98 Goldberg Variations Don't remember why this caught my attention in the first place. 2/5

#99 Snowblind Won an ARC from goodreads. Starts off at a go, has a little lag while backstories are set, then takes off again. Creepy without relying on gross. 4/5

#97 Valkyrie Rising 2.5/5

#96Cobweb Bride A new take on the myth of Persephone. I'm fond of the prose in this one. A little descriptive on the gore, but only as it ties into the absence of death. 3.5\5

#95 Forbidden Forest Not a bad book, but you should like predictable storylines and have a fondness for spelling errors. Really.... where are the editors, or do they just not care on e-books? 2.5/5

#94 Darkspire Reaches Fantasy in the vein of Anne McCaffrey (as mentioned by other reviewers) and there are some obvious similarities. First half of the book didn't do much for me even tho it set up the second half. Second half did much more to progress the plot for maybe a second book? 3/5

#93 Firebird Technically the third in a series after two novellas, but I had no problems following the story even not having read the first two. Although some depth may have been added by knowing more backstory, I still enjoyed the book. All set up for #4... 4/5

#92 The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai: A Novel Have been slogging thru this on weekends while doing laundry. It starts out interestingly enough - Li Jiang suffers a head injury and forgets how to speak Chinese. He only remembers his childhood English. Dr. Rosalyn Neal is brought in to treat him. It goes downhill from there as his marriage falls apart and she does the ugly American rampage thru Shanghai. Ugh.
2/5

#91 A World I Never Made Not normally a fan of thrillers, but this kept my attention. The story is told by shifting between Pat and his daughter Megan. Lots of action and intrigue jammed into 250 (ebook) pages. 3/5

#90 Dear Mr. Henshaw Read this for an online mentoring program. Written as a series of letters and journal entries, we hear from Leigh as he lives thru his parents' divorce, a new school, a lunchbox thief, and new friends. 2/5

#89 The Rosie Project Written from the perspective of Don, who has an autism spectrum disorder (Aspergers is implied) and doesn't know it; he refers to himself as "differently wired.". Don decides to find a wife and goes about implementing the Wife Project very logically. Enter Rosie. Don's voice is consistent throughout, and even the ending seemed to follow Don's way of making decisions. 4/5

#88 John Dies at the End Read the sequel to this first and was told that this was even better, really should read it, too. Nope, I like the second one better. This sets everything up and provides some background I was missing while reading the second, but is missing the sheer wackiness that I enjoyed in the sequel. 2/5

#87 The Ghost Bride Historical & supernatural fiction. Li Lan gets to solve a mystery by travelling thru the afterworld. As a main character, she is very reactive to things that happen versus making her own decisions. She's helped by several occupants of the spirit world and eventually finds her happy ending. 3/5

#86 Help for the Haunted Several genres in one: mystery (who killed Sylvie's parents), paranormal (is the stuff in the basement really haunted), and suspense (who keeps leaving food on the porch and why). Ok, the suspense is actually 'will Sylvie figure everything out?' The ending irritated a lot of GR reviewers, but for me the end was starting to slow down anyway, so it just seemed to fit. 3.5/5

#85 The Billionaire Wins the Game Why? Because it was free. And that's the only thing to recommend this. 1/5

#84 Damnation Marked Continuing James and Elise's story. Have to admit, wondering how this is going to end. 3/5

#83 County Line Very slow mystery. Not sure that I find the premise believable either. 2.5/ 5

Lindsay wrote: "Hi Guys,"

Hi Lindsay! The first year I participated, I found the group late, too. Just more incentive to read, right? :) Congrats on the new baby and the on-the-way baby!

#82 Cold Days Harry and his snark are back and keep getting into trouble. The plot seems recycled from previous books (find trouble, add more problems, fix, repeat) but there's enough action and sass to keep things interesting. 3.5/5

#81 Thankless in Death Ah, Eve and Roarke. While the 'mysteries' are becoming more rote and predictable, I'm enjoying the progression of Eve having/creating family. My brain is telling me that it's just a matter of time before that is used against her somehow. 4/5