The 104 Book Challenge - 2018 discussion

Got a few in before winter break ended:

#1 The Other Einstein Told from the POV of Einstein's first wife who was also a physicist. 3.5/ 5

#2 Ink and BoneReally drew me in more than I expected it would. As a book lover, some aspects make me "Yay!" really loudly in my head, and other aspects make me cringe. People who love books wouldn't do that, right? 4/5

#3 Paper and Fire 4/5

#4 Heartless So many people like this, but I felt like the build-up took took too long and the pertinent action was ,mashed into the last three chapters. 2.5/5

#5 All the Ugly and Wonderful Things 3.5/5

#6 City of Miracles Due to life, this took ages to get through! But so worth it. While it can be read as a standalone, things make more sense if you read the first two books in the series. I like how this book focused on Sigrud, and the conclusion wrapped up most storylines. Still an opening for another book though.... 4/5

#7 Leave Me: A Novel 3/5

#8 Ash and Quill Argh! Cliffhanger ending! Where's book 4?? 4/5

#9 Secrets in Death Different in that there was more procedural work and the killer was obvious. That made it seem to read slower and less interesting. Still... not bad for 45 books in one dang series! 3.5/5

#10 Wool Takes a while to read something at only a few chapters a week... yeesh. But worth it. I'm not usually a fan of dystopian/ end of the world fiction, but this struck me as not the usual telling (even tho some plotlines are pretty common) and kept me reading long past when I should have stopped for things like sleep or other obligations. 4/5

#11 The River at Night So the cover is pretty... Everything just seemed too much for me to really enjoy this. Rory is too reckless, Wini too scared, the challenges too extreme, etc. Then a wild left turn into girl power motivation that had appeared nowhere before. 2/5

#12 Small as an Elephant Oddly, the second book in a row to feature characters from Boston vacationing in Maine. Is that really a common thing?
Anyhow, not a bad book, just not challenging for me as it seems to be YA. 3/5

#13 Dark in Death 46th in the series - holy moly! A little taste of the meta as Eve keeps talking about writing herself into the killer's version of the story... and she's *in* the story already. 4/5

#14 Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory 3/5

#15 Lock In Had this on the TBR list for a while. Near future mystery about how to find a killer when people can "ride along" in other folks' bodies. Really quick read and kept me interested even when I'd figured out who it was. 4/5

#16 Sleeping Beauties Not a "typical" SK book, but he did write it with his son. First half took a looong time for me to get through; second half thankfully went quicker. 4/5

#17 The Atomic City Girls Rec'd a free copy from GR Giveaway. Probably would have enjoyed it more but kept waiting for the breach that the blurb mentions... doesnt happen til the end. So why did I just read all this other stuff if the breach isn't the big deal? They just managed to hit on one of my pet peeves about book blurbs. Story itself is fine, just needs to be marketed for what it is, not what it wants to be. 3/5

#18 Year One 3/5

#19 Etched in Bone So many chores ignored while I read this today... 4/5

#20 Marked in Flesh Gah! Somehow reversed these two and read them out of order. Didn't get too many spoilers, tho. 4/5

#21 The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit I'm still in awe that this guy was outside in the winter in Maine. Begs the question how *do* you deal with someone who doesn't
truly need society? 3.5/5

#22 I Shall Wear Midnight Been a while since I read the last Tiffany Aching book. Love the Nac Mac Feegles, and Tiffany is a great character, but this one felt like a lot of Tiffany going on about doing everything by herself. Also, the climactic fight with the big bad seemed over before it started. 3/5

#23 Scythe That was different.. and kept me wanting to read well past when I should have stopped. In a world where humans are immortal, scythes have the responsibility of gleaning (killing) people to make sure things stay sustainable. Lots of tidbits that can pop up in later books like: why do the amazonian scythes not like the midamerican scythes? Will the Thunderhead talk to Citra again? And other questions that may give away plot points. 4.5/5

#24 Artemis 4/5

#25 Strange the Dreamer 4/5

#26 Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology 3/5

#27 Throne of Glass This has been on my TBR bookshelf for a loooong time. Figured I have a 3 day weekend, so reading has commenced. Glad I missed the original hype - it's a quick read and kept me wanting to find out what happened next, but *another* love triangle?? Sigh. I'd forgotten those were all the rage a few years ago. Kinda bummed I'll have to slog thru that if I continue the series. 3.5/5

#28 Crown of Midnight 4/5

#29 Heir of Fire This one was so slow to read. Could have easily lost several chapters (out of 60+) and still moved the story forward. 3/5

#30 The Spy Who Couldn't Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI's Hunt for America's Stolen Secrets Based on the title, I thought the dyslexia would play a larger part than it does in the book. Some in depth parts about how Regan created codes were interesting. At times, it felt like there was more that was missing, but... this is about classified info and treason, so the whole story can't be told. 3.5/5

#31 Fierce Kingdom As a mom, I can't even imagine this. As a reader, this kept my interest and moved quickly. 3/5

#32 Reincarnation Blues Ultimately a warm and fuzzy ending, but some of Milo's lives were pretty ugly and violent and were jarring to the flow of the book... hey, kinda like life! I get it, so I'm moving closer to the Oversoul, right? 4/5

#33 The Reminders Sweet book about loss and memory. 3,5/5

#34 Head On 4/5

#35 The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter 4/5

#36 Seven Days of Us 3.5/5

#37 Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly Rereading all my Bourdain now.

#38 The Passenger 3/5

#39 A Court of Frost and Starlight Novella of filler until the next full length book comes out. 2.5/5

#40 The Life She Was Given 4/5

#41 Thunderhead Kept me reading well past my bedtime. And holy crap... that cliffhanger! I love and hate the author right now. A very rare ( for me) 5/5.

#42 My Real Children While in a nursing home, Pat/Trish remembers two distinct lives. Because of her Alzheimers, she doesn't know which is true. Interesting reading about the alternate histories for each timeline, but I was supremely underwhelmed by the ending. 3/5

#43 Dark Currents Fun, supernatural fantasy/mystery with only the beginnings of a love quadrangle so not too distracting from the main story. Since it's an older series, of course my library doesnt have the next two books. Figures. 4/5

#44 From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death 3.5/ 5

#45 Duskfall 3/5

#46 Victoria & Abdul (Movie Tie-In): The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant Well researched if a bit dry in places. There is a disconnect between the man so important to the queen and the man intensely disliked by others on her staff. The difference in perception isn't fully explored. 3/5

#47 Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto 3.5/5

#48 Goodbye for Now Great premise, but something happened in the middle after the required plot twist. Things just got slow. Honestly, I almost quit reading after the twist cos it seemed like that could be the end of the book; I knew what would happen after. I didn't *not* enjoy the book, but it just fell too far into the "predictable" column. 2.5/5

#49 She Rides Shotgun So fun reading a book about an area I'm familiar with. Never seen Slabtown, but I'm sure its around here somewhere. Some of Polly's character development veered into the unbelievable for me, and more violent than I was in the mood to process. 3.5/5

#50 Grief Cottage My favorite characters were Lachicotte and Mrs. Upchurch. Unfortunately, the book wasn't about them. Thought the mystery of the ghost boy had just the right smidge of dread. 3/5

#51 Iron Gold Not really a continuation because of new characters, but not really a new start because of the amount of time spent on characters from the original series. 4/5

#52 Snowblind Slow build up to a faster end. Also, multiple POV, some only seen once, and a few that made me wonder why they were even necessary. 3/5

#53 Balm Slow pacing made it difficult for me to stay interested. Almost like 3 different stories happening at once, so the lack of cohesion didn't help my flagging attention. 2/5

#54 The Witchfinder's Sister 2/5