The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

This is the thread where you can submit reviews for the Best Review contest. The thread is open for submissions and will close at Midnight EST on February 15, 2014. Voting will start the next day and run until the end of the GR day on February 28th. The person whose review gets the most votes will get to design a 20 point task for the Spring Challenge.

Just a reminder that each person can only submit one review - but you can make edits to your review up until the end. The review does not have to be any particular length and doesn't have to be a positive one (i.e. you can choose to review a book you didn't like).

PLEASE DO NOT comment on people's reviews in this thread - this is for submissions only - you will be able to comment when voting begins.

SPOILER ALERT!- These reviews may include spoilers.

No one? C'mon, folks!

Audition by Ryū Murakami

One of the creepiest books i have ever read and i have read a few!

Aoyama is a lonely widower a indie/doc producer who has just lost his wife.He has a son and a longtime friend, who both convince Aoyama that he needs to get back out into the dating scene. However, Aoyama is unsure and wary of the way young women "conduct" themselves. Aoyama is in his forties and he is looking for a young girl, yeah, typical male.Well, his friend Yoshikawa has the bright idea to put together a mock movie treatment and get girls to come and audition for the fake movie, in doing so they could interview the girls and while at it, pick one for Aoyama to date. Lo and behold, Aoyama becomes completely enamored with Yamasaki Asami, a mysterious and beautiful young girl. Aoyama begins to "court" her, however, his friend has a bad feeling about Asami and certain incidents occur that support Yoshikawa's misgivings.

Now you may think this is some weird love story, trust me it is not.One there is no happy ending, not in the way you might expect. Two, Yamasaki is extremely memorable and you will never forget this character. But you have to read it til the end, the end is the ultimate payoff and you will not be disappointed.It is a very short book but it packs a punch story-wise, the characters are very well developed for the length of the story but Yamasaki is the one to watch! However, if you are of the squeamish kind and do not care for horror, then this book may not be for you-- again i am referring to the ending, which i have to admit i had a bit of laugh, not because it wasn't a great ending but because when you find out the truth and you look back at the story all the hints were there. All the hints that there is definitely something not quite right with Yamasaki Asami.

PLEASE DO NOT comment on people's reviews in this thread - this is for submissions only - you will be able to comment when voting begins.

FANDURY

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

This book tells the story of the young girl Melanie, who is very smart, likes schooldays much more than the weekends and the best days are those when Mrs. Justineau teaches the class. This is also the story of the world after the Zombie-Apocalypse came and about a small military installation and the scientists who try to find the cure for the infection. And it also tells the story of a small band of survivors after the military base is overrun and their struggle to reach safety.

I likes this book very much. In some way it is a typical zombiebook, but the zombies are slightly different from the usual variety and the author tries to give the origin of the zombies a scientific explanation. Also the story is partly told out of the perspective of Melanie, who is a quite unsusual little girl, and her struggle with the truths she discovers about herself makes this an interesting reads.

Most of the other characters are too much stereotypes to work for me. We have the military man, whos heart is at the right place in the end. The inexperienced soldier, who joined the army to run away from home. The scientist who performs her experiments without any remorse in her search for the cure. And the slightly stupid female, who endangeres everyone in her love for a child. As this all plays out mostly over only a few days, there is not much space for development in this characters and even so we get to see parts of the story from their point of view, they never felt real to me.

The conclusion was slightly suprising for me, but felt like a real consequence of the story told and left me more satisfied than a lot of endings in other fiction, who often feels forced or spoil a good book with a unlogical and confusing end.

All in all a worthwhile read, with some interesting POV and a good (if not really happy) end. It definitly doesn't reinvents the zombie genre, but manages to bring some new ideas into it.

Chris MD

by Deanna Raybourn


OK, I'll admit it, it was the gorgeous cover of this book that caught my attention, but the story between the covers was what held it. This is one of those books that lifts you up from wherever you are and carries you far, far away.

Delilah Drummond starts off as a pretty, unlikeable character--that is, she is both pretty and unlikeable. She's been through at least three husbands and countless lovers. In 1920s Paris, where scandal is as common as bobbed haircuts, Delilah still manages to be a cause celèbre. But when her last husband commits suicide and she refuses to return his family's jewels, the furor is too much even for Delilah's scandal-hardened family. They decide to exile her to her stepfather's rundown villa in Kenya until the gossip columns can find fresh meat. Accompanied by her impoverished cousin as semi-maid, Delilah heads into the jungle. And it's here the story comes to life.

There is a small community of ex-pats with lots of secrets who regularly drink themselves silly and fall in and out of bed with one another. There are the various tribes, including Masai and Kikuyu, who turn to Delilah, as mistress of the plantation, for help. And then there's Ryder, man of the jungle. The sparks fly between Delilah and Ryder, but each wants to be the conqueror rather than the conquered, leaving them at a perpetual stalemate. A murder sets the stage for uncovering lies, jealousies, and prejudices, forcing Delilah to become an unlikely heroine.

It all sounds rather soap opera-ish, but I loved the characters (or hated them, where appropriate), and I loved seeing the depths in Delilah as it becomes plain she is a lot more than just a pretty face. We learn some interesting things about why she acts the way she does, and even though she seems resolved to leave Africa as soon as possible, we watch her fall in love with the beautiful but violent land. I actually wish the book had been longer because I wanted to spend more time with these people and view Africa through their eyes.

I was amazed to read in the acknowledgements that Raybourn did all of her research for the book in the U.S. and has apparently never been to Africa.

Director Kat
Breeding in Captivity: One Woman's Unusual Path to Motherhood

Stacy Bolt

Breeding in Captivity: One Woman's Unusual Path to Motherhood

Stacy Bolt’s story of how she becomes a mother in our modern world is witty and funny. She tells the story of how her and her husband deal with infertility and finally adoption on their pathway to becoming parents. We travel with her as she makes the decision to marry, then to become a mom. We learn how her “advanced maternal age” affects the ability to conceive and then finally we go through the ups and downs of adoption. Each step of the way we get a glimpse of the decision making process. We are told about how her and her husband feel about the next steps and what the many options are.

As a women who is currently dealing with some of these issues I was drawn to this book in hopes that the writer would help answer some questions and talk about the fears I was facing in my life. This book did address the thoughts that every one in the predicament of being an older mother share but not in a way that makes you feel sorry for the writer. She states her fears, i.e. an adoptive parent taking back the child, or being austraized for expressing a preference while adopting, with a gentle voice and quickly keeps going.

While I liked the fact that the author talks about subjects that are often not discussed in public, I think that she was holding back. The feelings are mentioned almost second handedly and don’t seem to be given as much strength as they had to be effecting them. The tough parts are talked about fast and quickly in an effort to get to the next witty or funny antidote. When the two of them slide from infertility treatments to adoption the event is just the next step and never addresses the loss that the author felt at not being able to have a child, with the exception of a off handed remark about how she doesn’t feel like a women because she can’t get pregnant. While this book is great for an introduction to the idea of what the modern society puts “older moms” through to have a family for anyone who has been there even just a little bit the story lacks depth.

I would also like to add that this story may seem unusual to some but it is becoming common in modern life. More and more couples are dealing with these issues and as a society we need to be more open and more supportive of these couples.

Over all I think this is a great light read that had me reading way past my bedtime because I wanted to know what was next for the couple. Often I wondered if this story was when they would become a family and kept reading. Stacy Bolt is entertaining and fun to read. This book would be great for anyone who wants to read a light audio biography or wants to take baby steps into learning about the modern world of becoming parents when the wife is over 35 or the couple has been trying over a year. It was a good read and I might visit it again someday.

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