The 104 Book Challenge - 2013 discussion

#1 This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It I've since found out this is the second book with these characters and everyone says I *need* to read that one. This combines creepy horror, vulgar humor and just general craziness in a quick read. 4/5

#2 Fantasy in Death Nothing really stood out about this one to me. 3/5

#3 Indulgence in Death Creepy rich people killing people they don't like. Meh. 3/5

#4 Treachery in Death Peabody gets to be primary investigator. Go Peabody! 3/5

#5 New York to Dallas Dallas has to confront her past when she travels to Dallas, Tx on a case. I still want my own Roarke. 4/5

#6 Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness I like medical mysteries, but this just didn't click with me. Maybe because she's narrating stuff she didn't remember based on other people's memories - I don't know. Really short chapters make it easy to read in short bits. 2.5/5

#7 Celebrity in Death One more to go! One more to go! As much as I like the characters, I just wish that in one book, the murderer doesn't confess to Eve while she's interrogating him - just sits there and lets the jury convict him later. 3.5/5

#8 Shiver Figured I'd give this a try since I liked The Scorpio Races, but not so much luck with this one. Too similar to 'Twilght' for my taste. 2/5

#9 Delusion in Death I think I've finally finished! Whoa! Whatever will I do with my time?? I only have two shelves of to-be-reads and a nook? Oh, I'm sorry, did the snark show? :) It's weird to think that I'll have to wait for the next book to be published like every other Roarke fangirl.

Hey guess what? The bad guy confessed while Eve was interrogating him - never saw that coming. I'm going to stick with what I said before in that I like Eve's developing relationships and back and forth with everybody over the mysteries.

Informal poll: If there were a movie done, who should play Roarke? I can think of a few sexy types, but don't know if they could get the accent right. Thoughts?

Gabriel Byrne. Maybe Gabriel Byrne 20 years ago.... but he'd definitely nail the accent!

Definitely a younger Gabriel. Turns out Jonathan Rhys Meyers is Irish... And after "The Tudors" we know he can act the sexytimes. :)

#10 Carnival of Souls Had to remind myself that this was a YA book - yeesh. There is fighting and brief mentions of sex, so when the characters are described as teenagers walking around, my brain said "Wait..whaaat? Oh yeah, seventeen year olds." The cliffhanger at the end is obvious from a mile away (whatever happened to series books that could also stand alone?) but I *am* happy that there's not a love triangle (so far) that seem to be the standard for YA books these days.

Pretty short at under 300 pages and somewhat different than the Twilight and Hunger Games ripoffs that are everywhere. 3ish/5

#11 Chosen Nope... nopenopenopenope... just nope. Spoilers follow, so stop reading here if it's in your TBR pile. All of Emma's emotions are just extreme - super angry, super sad, super everything. And Will, yeah, I get it. He's got a mysterious past. Then Emma goes from in-your-face self-sufficient to crying for Will once they discuss the mysterious tattoos. And for someone who talks to her kid thru telepathy, she's Miss Denial when Will says her son did it with him, too. I finished it just to see what kind of messed up "cliffhanger" ending it had. 1.5/5

#12The Legacy One book, two stories (England and the Wild West). I had a hard time with the back and forth at first cos I'd forget what happened by the time it switched back from one to the other. Have to say that I didn't like Caroline,even if she was a product of her generation. 3/5

#13 I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High
I've always been interested in teaching as a "next" career, so thought this would be interesting. Some reviews complain that there should be more about the students;there really can't be because of privacy laws. Occasionally gets a little drawn out over his personal life vs actually writing about teaching, but still readable. He's up front about only having one (double) class per day and his earnestness about wanting to make a difference definitely comes across. 3/5

#14 Ash I want to like this book, but .... Too many sidetracks on "residents" at Comraich and what tertiary characters are doing for my taste. At almost 700 pages, those could have been edited out easily. It's got some gore, so one to pass if you're not into that kind of thing. 2/5

#15 Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend I love books that are told from a unique point of view, so when I heard this story is told by Budo, an imaginary friend, of course I had to read it. Max and Budo both change and grow, and there are plenty of insights into the world of imaginary friends. 4.5/5

#16 The Book Lover Another simultaneous but entwined storyline about Ruth and Lucy. Kind of hard to keep focused on this one - not sure if it's because of the story or because this seems to be a trend lately. Some romance,lots of behind the scenes of the publishing world. Felt like Colin's character was neglected. 2.5/5

#17 Yes, Chef: A Memoir Bourdain started my interest in cooking memoirs, and Samuelsson doesn't disappoint. His writing is straightforward and he doesn't leave out the difficult bits (absentee father, broken professional relationships, failed restaurants). The last 20-30 pages don't seem to fit the flow of the book, but don't take away from it either. 4.5/5

#18 Angels of Darkness Stayed up way too late last night reading this one. I'd already read the short story by Singh - not sure where- but didn't mind reading it again. Also familiar with Shinn and her Samaria novels, so enjoyed that one. The other two were new to me but also good. Don't know if I have the motivation to start two other series tho (In Death kinda burned me out on that for a while). A good intro to the respective worlds. An extra half for keeping me up past 1 a.m. :) 4.5/5

#The Gilly Salt Sisters The story hints at the Gilly sisters being witches and the salt their magic, but that plot just dances around the edges of the Gilly sister's story. The inner blurb says Claire has to move home to live with her sister and her husband's mistress. This doesn't happen til 200 pages in. This is definitely for folks who like a lot of backstory. 2.5/5

#20 Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life I thought it would be a little more memoir, but the personal bits are mixed in with the reporting on allergies. Still, not a bad book- good insight into life with multiple allergies if you don't know anyone with the problem. 3/5

#21 Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World: A Novel Told from the POV of Karen about her life, except that she was feral for the first 9 or so years and found to be autistic once her aunt began to care for her. Even the pacing and rhythm are different to this book as Karen's mind works so differently. 3/5

#22 Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom If you've read Jenny Lawson then you'll be comfortable with Bennisca's style of relating her history of anxiety, panic attacks and agoraphobia. She's a curser if you prefer to avoid things like that. Some parts were funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny for me, tho it's a quick enough read that I finished it in a few hours. 3.5/5

#23 American Ghost A southern gothic about a lynching in the past and how it still affects Jolie and Sam in today's world. Owens gets right into the backwoods, religious, private ways of the residents of Hendrix, FL and their reactions when Sam comes to town asking questions they don't want to answer. 3.5/ 5

#24 The Watery Part of the World The book has a beautiful cover (yes, covers factor into the book for me) and got some great reviews. That being said, I wasn't impressed. I seem to have read back-to-back two books about insular societies, this one being an island off the Carolinas with only three elderly holdouts. Each of them get a section of book to tell their story and in between those are chapters about their ancestor and how she came to be on the island.

I didn't get the same connection as I did to American Ghost. The speech didn't flow as well in 'World' and the characters didn't seem to have as much connection with each other. 2/ 5

#25 Man in the Empty Suit This book made my brain hurt. Time travel paradoxes galore. He sees a self that gets murdered, but there are still older versions of himself, and then he runs around trying to change it all and prevent the murder. I don't know if I'm confused or if I just think I am, but really understand it all. 3/5

#26 Sarah's Key Stayed up late reading, and picked it up first thing this morning to finish. There are no twists or surprises - everything happens the way you would expect it to, but that's okay, because it's about Julia's journey to find the answers.

Still not sure why her failing marriage related. I would think her relationship with her daughter and her pregnancy would have been more relevant to follow. 5/5

#27 Before I Go To Sleep Interesting concept (similar to the movie 'Memento') where Christine has to keep reading her journal every day to know what's happened the day before. Great, until it's revealed she's hiding the journal from her husband. Some plot points were easy to figure, others were harder, but kinda fun to keep reading and see if you're right. 3/5

#28 The Drought Ghosts and murder and voodoo, oh my. Something about it just gave me a "meh" reaction. 2/5

#29 Leaving Unknown: A Novel Maeve starts off the book as being unlikeably (for me, anyway) scatterbrained, then suddenly pulls it together long enough to undertake a crosscountry road trip. Big reveal didn't do enough to justify the flightiness tho it did explain some other things. 2.5/5

#30 The Raven Boys Loved The Scorpio Races, not so much love for Shiver, but since Stiefvater can pick the not-so-usual supernatural things to write about, I figured I'd give this a try.

I liked the characters, liked that the premise was ley lines, not so thrilled with the ever-present love triangle, loved Noah's character development, and was intrigued by the last line of the book. That being said, something didn't "click" for me. Wish I knew what it was, but I'll be giving The Dream Thievesa read when it comes out to see if things pick up. 3.5/5

#31 Little Star I haven't read his second and third books yet, but saw this at the library and grabbed it. Definitely creepy, but this one didn't grab me as much as Let the Right One In. Theres is a sociopath and Theresa is different from the beginning then becomes(??) sociopathic. The book follows the two girls growing up and meeting and what happens after. Comparisons have been made to Stephen King - and he's close- but King always went that little bit deeper into the psyche and the backstory.

Some gore if you try to avoid that in your horror. 3/5

#32 The Orchardist Beautifully written book, tho dark, and it doesn't shy away from the harder events in life. Written without punctuation around conversations, so there seems to be a distance between the reader and the story. While I did enjoy it, it just didn't grab me. 3.5/ 5

#33 Travel Unscripted I've never heard of this guy or his show before, but like travel books. I was a little iffy cos right off the bat he's compared to Bourdain. Nope, not even close. Written in vignettes- one for each country/topic - but repetition of the same stories in different vignettes. And no, no snark a la Bourdain, but Bourdain's in a class by himself. At least it only took a few hours to read. 2/5

#34 The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry It's gotten very good reviews, but I just can't like it that much and I don't know why. Too many teasers and then the "a-ha" moment. And while Harold embraces his ordinariness after a hard childhood, the ordinary starts to seep thru the whole book - enough that I wondered if I should keep reading. 3/5

#35 From Notting Hill with Love... Actually

Gotta be a movie lover to really appreciate this one. I found her constant search for movie moments in real life to get annoying after a while. Luckily, there's character development, so while the ending is "a movie moment", the book finished sweetly and not annoying. 3/5

#36 The Life of Objects Jewish aristocratic life narrated from the naive Irish perspective of Beatrice during the WWII. As other reviews have mentioned, everything is written in the same stark style from packing items, to nearly starving, thru rape and to leaving after it's all over. This creates a distance between the reader and the more horrible experiences Beatrice has. 2.5/5

#37 Death: A Life Loved the premise, but the book never quite lived up to it for me. The captioned pictures scattered throughout gave me more chuckles than most of the story. 2.5/5

#38 (38? Really? I haven't read this slow in a long time!) The Taken A new-ish take on the angel stories that seem to be the "thing" lately. Couldn't really find my footing with this one. As the first in a series, there's explanation and world building to be done, but this just didn't flow. The 50's PI - ok, I can deal with that. The rockabilly lifestyle of the main character just seemed gimmicky to me, like that's the only way the two would get together. Don't think I'll be reading #2 in the series. 2/5

Oh! Almost forgot one. #39 From Notting Hill with Love... Actually Scarlett is obsessed with movies and wants to prove to her family and friends that real-life movie moments do happen. Since she's out looking for them every second of the day, sure they do. Light, fluffy read with lots of movie references that make you think "I should watch that again." 3/5

#40 Watermark: A Novel of the Middle Ages Got to admit, the cover drew me to this one. I got drawn in faster than I expected, and while not overly accurate to the time period, there was enough detail that I never felt like it was a modern heroine in medieval times. As an albino mute, Auda is a different kind of main character. 3.5/5

#41 Calculated in Death Latest Eve and Roarke installment. I read the reviews after I read the book, and have to agree with the reviews that say the writing is flat in this one. The blurb made it sound more like Roarke was a big part of this investigation, but he wasn't really (any more so than usual). Considering I generally avoid mysteries, guess I must like these since I've read 36 of them now. :/ 3/5

#42 The Best of Us I enjoyed SP's other books, so moved on to this one when it came out. Although a *big* fan of the 'let's go on vacation and get spoiled' storyline, just not thrilled with the super stereotypes for the characters and the couples' refusal to speak with each other about matters important to their marriage (or separation as the case may be). 3/5

#43 The Storyteller What a great book, and what a difficult book to read. It's told from alternating perspectives, and the grandmother's story of survival during the Holocaust is rough to get through. 4.5/5

#44 Creating Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy Awesome organization. Similar to , but focusing on libraries. Also, Wood seems to make a point of his organization's transparency and audit controls after the scandal surrounding Mortenson. 3.5/5

#45 Occultation and Other Stories Definitely horror, and a lot creepy, but not a writing style that's easy to read. Plus, some of the stories take so long to get to the creepy that it's easy to get uninterested. 3/ 5

#46 Deadlocked Reread as a refresher before I start the last one. (The Last One!!)

#47 Dead Ever After Well, that's the end then..... Was I happy with the way things ended? No. Was I happy to see the end of a series that has dropped off in quality for the last few books? Hell yeah. If I re-read any of these, it will be from the first half of the series. 3/5

#48 Imperium Surprisingly good first foray into the world of the Caulborn (secret agency working with/for/against supernaturals as needed). Lots of world set up and lots of little things that seem to be future storylines in subsequent books.

Sometimes a little rushed, but overall a fun read. 4/5

#49 Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him Service dogs helping wounded soldiers is practically required reading in my house for many reasons. UT doesn't disappoint - it's inspiring and heartwarming to the nth degree even if it isn't *all* about the journey to bond with Tuesday. Montalvan's advocacy is important to him, and because of that his political views are featured throughout (some of his positions are very polarizing). 3/5

#50 Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal I love Mary Roach's writing style and wish she would have had some input on my high school and college texts. While not a topic of interest to many, I found myself reading about the digestive system and (mostly) enjoying it. If you're squeamish about poop, skip the last chapter. 4/5

#51 Life After Life A good book, if a bit unexplainable. 3.5/5

#52 Oleander Girl So this is about Korobi and the father she never knew. I still can't figure out why there are so many storylines about secondary characters. Some of them just seem to be put in there so the author can make something else happen. 3/5

#53 Trucking in English Steele decides at 50+ years of age that becoming a truck driver and writing a book about it is a good idea. Amusing in parts, tho worrisome when she talks about the "massaging" of the trucking logs that seemed to be expected by her employer. So unsafe! At least she had the guts to go thru with it so the rest of us can live vicariously thru her. 3/5

#54 Anathema Tucker just blows thru setting everything up, and after suspending common sense for a few more pages (and the standard human/vamp love triangle...*yawn*) the story picked up and kept me interested. Luckily, I noticed the "#1" in the title, so I wasn't thoroughly peeved when it ended on a cliffhanger.

#55 The Twelve Tribes of Hattie 12 chapters about the same person from different points of view; all of them with something unhappy. And some told their story, then just disappeared (no mention in any later chapters like they never contacted their family again). 2/5

#56 The Best of All Possible Worlds Wow. I really enjoyed this, but it was that weird moment somewhere in the middle of the book that I realized it. While some may call this a sci fi love story, sociology plays a large part as well. Other reviews have mentioned similarities to existing authors and worlds, and if pressed I would say Sheri Tepper because of her explorations of women and culture. I appreciated the way the attraction between the two main characters took time to develop and didn't fall into the "unavoidable passion" that seems to be the current standard. 4.5/5

#57 Asylum So I whipped thru this one in a day and a half.... even tho Evangeline's floundering around trying to "fix" things is annoying, it doesn't seem to be happening as often. Plus, there's lot of other action to get wrapped up in. I know there's a third book, but not if it finishes the series... 4/5

#58 Allegiance Of course there's another book after this one.... that's not published yet... grr. 4/5