The Perks Of Being A Book Addict discussion

Team Pluto

Team Members:
📓 Rachael H - Captain
📓 Raylene Green - Co-captain
📓 LaurLa - Co-captain
📓 Romina
📓 DoodlePanda
📓 Reese
📓 Denise
📓 Nichole
📓 Crumb

🃏 Team Spreadsheet

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We are up and running! :)

Hello everyone.

I'm Rachael and I'll be your team captain. This is my third year of being a team captain and think this is definitely the year we'll win ;)

I'm from Birmingham in the UK. I read about 4 books a month and one of those is for a book club I attend once a month.

As well as reading I am very into sports and usually swimming, running or jumping off something every day.

Looking forward to getting to know the rest of you :)

Hi all! My name is Reese and I’m from Chicago, IL but currently live in Phoenix, AZ. I read about 5 or more (usually more) books a month, of all genres. Also, I love hiking and other outdoor activities.

I’ve never been on a challenge like this but I’m really looking forward to it. Thanks!

Hi!! I’m so glad the thread is finally open!
This is my second year playing Uno, last year I had an amazing time and really enjoyed having conversations and getting to know my teammates during the challenge so I hope that happens again this year!


As for me, I’m Romina and I’m from Uruguay. I recently graduated so during the second half of last year I didn’t get to read as much as I would have liked but now I’m getting back to it and remembering why I love reading so much.
Plus it’s summer and nothing better for me than laying on the beach with a book so that helps!
I usually read at least 4-5 books per month, that number could be way higher some months as well. Depends on my mood and my work schedules!

What genres do you all enjoy reading?
I mostly love crime novels, serial killers, investigations all of that. And on the opposite end of the spectrum I also tend to enjoy reading easy to read chick lit novels to take my mind of all the gory stuff and they are perfect beach reads!
I don’t really shy away from any genre though, if the synopsis sounds like something I would enjoy then I will read it and see how I feel about it.

Hi! I'm a newbie to uno. I tend to finish a book a week, and sometimes more. I do several challenges at time and I can usually double dip. If not, those are weeks i read more than a book a week

I don't like crime and murder mystery books, but i read just about any other genre. I love my kindle and find free and cheap books for it constantly. Plus, the library is my second home.

Great to meet you all.

I'm jealous Romina, it's absolutely freezing here. Scrapping the ice off my car each morning.

I read all genres as well. The only one I avoid is sci-fi.

Denise, what other challenges do you do?

I do group and individual challenges. I am in a yearly individual one, with a new task given daily, if i finish one daily. One monthly, similar to that. Three group challenges, which usually overlap somehow. Each one is different.

Hello!
I'm Maggie (Doodles/Panda will work too though). I'm from Norway and I'm a newbie to the Uno challenge. I am really excited about it though, as I have become a challenge addict the last year :D

I read around 4 books in a month, maybe more if I'm in the mood :)
My favourite genres are fantasy/sci-fi/horror, but I read most things really (I do prefer fiction though)

I look forward to getting to know you all and starting the challenge! :D

Hi Team!

I didn't realize the thread was unlocked. This will be my 2nd Uno and I really enjoyed it the first time, so I'm sure I'll be playing every round from here on out :) I'm from Oklahoma. There's really not much else to say about that, lol. There's really not a whole lot here besides farm country. Oh, except Tornadoes and now earthquakes.

I read a whole lot of Romance and Fantasy and all their many subgenres. I'm also an audiobook junkie. I hardly ever "read" a book anymore because I'm too fidgety to sit still. I read about 2-4 books a week. Looking forward to getting to know y'all!

Rachael, Im jealous of all of you that get to spend december in winter! Something about the cold and decorations and lights just seems beautiful to me! I actually am planning a trip to Europe hopefully this december or the next.
We never really get super cold weather here(under 5C/41F) so it probably sounds crazy but its something Ive always wanted to experience.

Denise, I admire you for doing so many challenges at once! I would probably go crazy keeping track of everything haha so I stick to one at a time!

And Hi Maggie, welcome! Seems like theres a few of you new to UNO, I hope you guys enjoy it!

Edit: and welcome Nichole as well, did not see your post before!
Ive never really been able to listen to a whole aduiobook, I get way too distracted and dont remember what Ive heard haha

Hellooo

I listen to audiobooks on my drive to and from work (about an hour each way). At home I prefer to read though, mainly on my Kindle.

Hi team! Apparently I'm one of your co-captains! This is only my second Uno, so we could be on an adventure together if my captaining skills are actually needed!

I'm in Indiana. It's cold here right now. We finally got up above freezing yesterday. Sorry to those who like winter or don't get much of a winter... I can't sympathize - I AM OVER winter!!! And I've got a good 3 1/2 months until spring really hits. Probably closer to 4. Sigh.

I read mostly romance. Okay only romance but I do read all sub-genres, so I get some para-normal, sci-fi, fantasy, even some thriller, thrown in that mix. I like to say I read 4-5 books a week, but in all honesty, I read more than that. I can never decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm sure my family would have an opinion about that!

I am a challenge addict as well as a reading addict... one feeds the other, I'm sure. I can usually make a single book fit 3-4 challenges, though, so it's not all bad. At that in itself is a sort of challenge - seeing how many I can make a book fit. Yes, I'm weird that way.

I only listen to books in the car and it's not real audio books - it's the text to speech feature on my reader app. Not great, but I just don't feel like I can justify the expense of buying audio books when I already have a blue million ebooks. I can't listen and do other tasks, especially at work, anyway. I lose the thread of the story or I stop doing whatever I'm supposed to be doing to listen. So the car while driving to and from work is about all I do (I only go into the office 2 times a week, or so).

Looks like we a a great team! I'm looking forward to getting started!

Eldarwen wrote: "Hellooo"

Hi Friend!

And Hiiiii LaurLa!!

Has anyone looked at the hands for February yet? We have some colored cards already :) I'm going to start a list for some of them because yellow is not my friend, lol. Those were always the hardest for me before and we have 2 of them >.< Looks like I need to bookmark TinEye too.

Audios definitely take some getting used to! But now I'm spoiled and want people to read to me, lol. Especially if they have accents! I just can't do an accent other than okie :)

Do i remember right, the cover has to be at least 50% of the colour? That seems really tricky if its combined with a number too!
TinEye, is that what we use to check how much of the colour is on the cover?

Hi LaurLa! It does seem like we have a great team :D

I really should give audiobooks another try, I just need to figure out when to do it. I only have a 5 minute drive to work so listening then wouldnt really work for me haha

I just checked out the cards! I cant wait to get started! Im going to follow your lead Nichole and start seeing which books I have that could fit the cards.

The colors have always been the hardest for me as well.
Doodle, yes its 50%+ and we use TinEye to check. There is usually also a thread in the captains forums for any doubts about if the cover fits the color or not.

I am wondering, as a newbie, how are the cards divided between us?

In my team last year we basically just claimed cards as we started reading books and filled out the hand then moved on to the next the same way. We didn’t divide up the cards or anything, just whoever could read a book for a certain card would do it.

Not sure how other teams did it or if the captains have an idea of how they want it to go on this team?

Oh, we had a tracking sheet were we would add all books we read and what cards it could work for. That was helpful for when the captain switched some around to fit more cards as well.

Nichole, where do we look for the February hands? I looked around but didn’t see anything listed but granted I’m new to this whole thing.

On the Spreadsheet. The link is at the bottom of post #1. ☺

Thanks!

You bet!

It's really pretty easy. I've only played once before but I was Co-Captain and in charge of the Spreadsheet. We basically read whatever and just listed what cards it worked for. Then I just plugged them in where needed. I filled the hardest cards first and the rest always fell into place. I know some Captains do tracking sheets too and then fill in at the end of the month. It seems like the only time you really have to do any strategy for reading is with the colored cards and the mini challenges. That's why I really like Uno! The books I'm already reading will usually fit several cards so it's easy to fill the hands. That being said, I'm still browsing for some color options that fit :)

Hello, sorry been away with work.

The first year I played we assigned cards beforehand but then if some people were slower than others to do their cards, other team members got frustrated as it held up us gaining points.

In the two years I've captained my team has just read books, told me which card they could fit and I just slotted them in where I could. I also kept an active log to show how many of each card we had (i.e three 1's, 2 two's, six 3's) so people could see if there were particular cards we needed to get rid of.

Which way round would you prefer?

I prefer the second way for sure!

Definitely the second :)

I'm easy. Whatever works for everyone else is fine with me.

I’m ok with whatever the group prefers as well

I'm ok with what everyone else prefers too, being my first try at Uno I don't really have a clue :D

Haha ok we'll stick with the second.

We do have quite a few colours to collect so I wonder whether we should pick one each as our starting book and then read whatever you like from there.

We have:
9 Yellow
3 Blue
2 Blue
7 Green
8 Blue
4 Red
1 Yellow

Does anyone have a preference for which one?

I don't think I can pick one just yet. I'm too moody with my reading, lol. I did make a list though and have something for every color card. Of course, the only ones that I had marked for upcoming challenges are the easy ones- Blue... but I won't mind reading for whatever! I have a couple that I'll have to ask about because TinEye is really weird about the colors sometimes. It looks like a color to me and then I check and it's completely different!

We also have the Wild Draw 4 cards - I think we have 2.

Wild draw four
Read a book that can fit for any of the coloured cards you have that month (i.e. you are duplicating one of your coloured cards)

It's kind of hard to think what I might be reading come Feb 1, but I'm pretty sure I can cover

9 Yellow
2 or 3 Blue
4 Red

Can you use any cover for the book, or does it have to be the edition you are actually reading?

I should be able to cover:

1 yellow
2 blue
3 blue
4 red

I have a lot of green and blue books, but I can't see that they're fitting with the numbers

Hello everyone! I'm Raylene! I live in US, West Virginia. This is my first time doing this, but I read avidly so I'm excited! I'm also a co-captain so I'm looking forward to that as well! The past year or so, since I've started to review ARC's, I've opened up my mind a bit more and I've branched off to different genre's. I'm also a member of a blind book date group on Facebook! I read about 10,20 books a month. Looking forward to this! Let me know how I can help!

Hi Raylene!
What is the blind group date?? Never heard of that before.

As far as colors, I have books for these(adding names so I remember later)

3 Blue (Faithful)
2 Blue (The Girlffriend)
7 Green (Girl with the dragon tattoo)
8 Blue (All the light we cannot see)


Theres also some that I cant be sure if they fit or not until I find out the characters names!

That's my problem too, how can you know if the characters names or where it takes place unless you read it?

Romina wrote: "Hi Raylene!
What is the blind group date?? Never heard of that before.

As far as colors, I have books for these(adding names so I remember later)

3 Blue (Faithful)
2 Blue (The Girlffriend)
7 Gree..."

I love All the light we cannot see! You've picked a good one there.

Cool so it looks like we have a few options for the colours. Phew!

The characters is a tricky one. I kinda just go from the blurb for the main characters names. Books that have turned into films you can usually check on imdb but that's about it.

DoodlePanda wrote: "That's my problem too, how can you know if the characters names or where it takes place unless you read it?"

Well, mostly you don't. I mean, you can usually get the MCs' names from the book blurb, but other characters you might not know until you read it. In some ongoing series with recurring characters, you'd also know some.

For the most part, you want to read your book then post what it works for - all numbers, characters, settings, etc. and the captain(s) will place the book where it's most needed. For the color cards where the cover color has to work with the number, those are the ones you might have to know a bit about the book to know if it works ahead of time. Near the end of the hand/month, if we have specific spots that still need filling, again, that's when you might have to know a bit about your books and/or go looking for a book that would fill the spot.

It's usually not too hard to get everything filled. The mini challenges are definitely harder because you want your book to fit for both the hand and the mini challenge - although if I remember, a book can be used for one or the other and doesn't have to work for the Uno hand to be used for the mini-challenges (someone correct me if I'm wrong!)

mini-challenges?

They normally set a number of mini challenges throughout the months.

They have a different theme each year but it will have things like 'Read a book that has a saucepan on the cover'. They give us the chance to earn extra points to go to our overall score.

Rachael wrote: "They normally set a number of mini challenges throughout the months.

They have a different theme each year but it will have things like 'Read a book that has a saucepan on the cover'. They give u..."

Oh cool! I didn't know that, that sounds really fun though :D

Hi Raylene!

I wish it would get to February already, I want to start! :P

Well, now that I've got a starter list for colored cards, I think I'll start browsing y'alls shelves for some Reverse options! I should mention that I'm a compulsive list maker. Lists are my favorite thing in the world :)

What are some of your favorites? What about hidden gems? Or are you looking forward to reading something during this challenge?