Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

We are nearing the midpoint of 2018! Are you progressing as you thought you would in your reading life? I had a really slow couple of months this spring, but I’ve picked up the pace since then and have read 43 books so far this year!

**Admin note – Nomination threads are open for the final 3 months of 2018. They will close on Friday. If you would like to post a nomination for one or all three of those months you can find them here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group... **

Books finished:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone – finished a reread on audio

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen – after reading one of her other books last week I wanted to revisit her other magical stories. This one is her first, and probably still my favorite. I indulged in the audiobook.

Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – I was going to use this for my feminist read, but the next book also fits the bill and I’d rather use a book than an essay (just personal preference).

Dietland by Sarai Walker – I keep saying this to people, but it’s true. This book was like a big middle finger (or FU) to the dieting, fashion and beauty industry. The main character is more confrontational than I am, but the transformation she makes is powerful.

Currently reading:

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang– just started this as a buddy read. It’s off to a great start!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – I am FINALLY reading this! Epistolary novels are hit or miss with me. When I found the audio for this on Scribd I jumped at it, and it has been fantastic!

23/50 (I may need to reconsider my position on the use of rereads for the challenge. I’ve done a lot of rereading this year).

Question of the week:

We gave mothers their turn last month. Now, in honor of fathers everywhere (US – Father’s Day is this Sunday!), who are the best and worst fathers in literature?

Bob Cratchit from A Christmas Carol gets my vote for one of the best fathers in literature. He works for an incredibly difficult boss, but he still teaches his children to be thankful for what they are given. Hard work and good values make an excellent father!

Honorable mention goes to Sirius Black. He’s a substitute father figure for Harry Potter. He may not always lead Harry along the “right” path, but he fills a gaping hole in Harry and couldn’t love the boy any more if he was Harry's true father!

Worst father – I immediately think of Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

42/50

Finished:
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell for favorite prompt from the previous challenges. I chose the 2015 prompt - antonyms in the title. After finishing the book, I watched the 2004 BBC miniseries. Loved it, more so than the book. Thanks again for recommending it, Sara. That ending was beautiful.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding for allegory.

Currently reading:
Fangirl

QOTW:
Best fathers: Mr. Weasley from Harry Potter, Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird and Rose's Uncle Alec from Eight Cousins is a wonderful substitute father to her.

Worst fathers: Not many come to mind. Only one I can think of is Matilda's father from Matilda.

El wrote: "After finishing the book, I watched the 2004 BBC miniseries. Loved it, more so than the book. Thanks again for recommending it, Sara. That ending was beautiful."

I'm so glad you liked the mini series! It is one of my favorites, and I enjoyed it more than the book as well. Sometimes I watch just the ending because it is so fantastic!

I finished another book this week which takes me to 24/50 one more until halfway!

The book I finished was Brick Lane which I read for a feminist book club. The book club haven't had their discussion yet so I'm interested to hear why this book was picked as it didn't really feel particularly 'feminist' other than being about a woman in a patriarchal culture who somewhat overcomes this by the end.

I like reading about other cultures and the topic of the Bengali community in East London was an interesting one but I don't think this book is really anything special. It was quite a slow read and the protagonist was infuriatingly passive for most of the book but had random assertive moments that didn't feel earned. Some of the supporting characters were great but overall I feel like it was one of those books that was 'timely' (published in 2003 in the height of Islamophobia following 9/11) but doesn't really hold up.

In terms of prompts, this was an unplanned read so I'm going to have to 'bump' a planned read to fit this to a prompt. I think I will have it as a 'local author' as Monica Ali lives in South London and I will leave George Eliot for another year.

I am currently reading Middlesex for the group read and it is shaping up to be one of my favourite books of the year.

I also started The Cartel today. I was debating whether to leave this book for next year as it's another big'un (600 pages) and an unplanned one at that. But I am still on a high from The Power of the Dog and don't want to lose that adrenaline before tackling it's sequel. So this will need another 'bump' which I think will be Dracula for the villian/antihero prompt.

Did anyone else make a list at the beginning of the year and is now sadly replacing books on the list. Too many books, too little time!

QOTW

One that immediately comes to mind is the dad from Danny the Champion of the World It's one of my favourite childhood books because of the strong father/son bond and I used to picture Danny's dad as looking exactly like my own Dad.

I also love Matthew from Anne of Green Gables. It's amazing how a character who was known for not saying much had some of the best lines of the book (view spoiler)[ and I cried so much when he died (hide spoiler)]

Another shout out for Tom from Goodnight Mister Tom. I just love adoptive parents!

I had a lovely extra few days off this weekend, had some meals out, visited a new part of the New Forest and went strawberry picking in the blazing sun. It was almost like a proper holiday.

I'm on track to complete by the end of the year. If I had read nothing but Popsugar books I would have finished by now.

I was going to use Paper Girls, Vol. 1 for Halloween, however it's set the day after so I'm going to use it for set in the decade I was born (80s) instead. I'm not entirely sure what is going on but I am open to reading another volume.

I read Legendary which was nowhere near as good as Caraval. It's enjoyable enough though and there are things left open that make me want to read the final book still.

I also read Binti: Home as a short lunch breaks book. I don't think it was as good as the first and it felt like it ended in the middle of a scene.

I listened to Red Clocks for favourite colour in the title. I wish people would stop saying every book about reproductive rights is like Handmaid's Tale. I liked three of the women's stories and how they intertwined but the wife was a bit boring and the arctic explorer only had tiny snippets because they were supposed to be extracts from the biographer's unfinished book. Also don't read this book if you don't want to read about vaginas.

Currently reading The Surface Breaks which I don't think will fit any prompts. It's a Little Mermaid retelling and I'm starting to think Louise O'Neill only wants to write about how terrible society and men can be to women. Where's all the positive feminist fiction? It's short enough to carry on with to find out if she can write a happy ending...

Also started listening to Turtles All the Way Down for mental health. Despite the missing person hunt being very John Green I'm actually enjoying this more than I expected.

27/50 | 51/100

QOTW:

I loved the dad in The Tidal Zone, it's pretty rare to find a main male character being the main carer of his children and doing a good job.

There are probably too many terrible fictional fathers to name, any sexual abusers or those who cannot accept their children for who they are. I hated Nassun's dad in the Broken Earth trilogy for caring more about what she was that who she was.

Hi All,

So last week I only had 3 more prompts until I finish the challenge...and this week I still have 3 prompts. Man, these last 3 are really a challenge for me. I've been reading one book and just slogging through it and it's very much my kind of book so not sure what's up there.

This week I went to my first book club! I really loved it. I've been trying to find more social activities and finally decided to try one of these out. We read Camino Island by John Grisham. I don't normally seek out Grisham books and this one was just ok. Lots of unusual choices in the plot and as one person in the group said, it doesn't feel like it was written by Grisham but more like several people. Would work for a book about a heist though.

The book I've been struggling through is the book given to me as a gift which is Death of an Expert Witness. Honestly, most mystery/detective books I can get through quickly. I'm thinking it might be because it's one of those very small paperback books where the text is super small and crammed together. So while it's 344 pages in paperback it would really be somewhere around 500 if they used a more legible font size/spacing.

Then on a whim, I started the Graphic Novel series Saga, Vol. 1 and read volumes 1-7. Loved the artwork and the story and definitely recommend it.

I finally tracked down the audiobook of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and loved it. My favorite work of his yet. Something about it was so charming. I really enjoyed all of the characters and the main premise (a boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard).

And finally, after the success of my last book club, I joined a different one and read That Month in Tuscany. The meeting was last night and I finally decided to read the book on Tuesday. I managed to finish in time and headed out to the meeting an hour and 15 mins before it started (it takes like 40-45 mins to get there). I live on an island which is awesome most of the times...except when you finally decide to drive off the island and there is a massive crash on the only bridge off of it and you're stuck in traffic. It took me an entire hour before I managed to get over to the one exit so I could head back home. So I never made it to my book club. :(

But, since you guys are basically my book club I'll tell you the one thing that drove me nuts about this book. She writes it from the POV of 4 different characters, which was fine but the two main characters are written in first person, the daughters POV is in third and the husbands is in second person. So weird! I have never read a book with so many POV styles. The second person was awful since the husband was the 'evil' character. I found it really awkward to read his sections.

QOTW:

Going to have to think on this one! Drawing a blank this morning. Need to have tea first apparently. :)

I finished Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World by Alison Weir. This was my book that I meant to read in 2017. I found it very interesting.

I am now starting The Snowman by Jo Nesbo for my Nordic Noir book. Not my favorite genre, but we'll see how it goes.

QOTW: I think Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird was a good dad.

Bad fathers; Henry VII in The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George. Woodrow Call in Lonesome Dove. Amy's father in Gone Girl.

I'm sure there are more good dads, but bad always seems to stick in my mind more.

Happy Thursday! 40 of 50 down; 10 left and interlibrary loan needs to step it up! Not bad for approaching the half way point of the year!

Completed:
Bimbos of the Death Sun for another challenge – I kind of wish this could work for cyberpunk, but that would be a very big stretch. It’s hysterical! Set in the mid90s, it’s a spoof of sci fi conventions. As someone who has worked in IT for 20 years, it is a caricature of EVERY employee I’ve ever had – those who needed the same week off every summer for SCA; those who participated in sword battles and made their own armor; those who would come in complaining that their sewing machine ate their corset; those that needed a day off to see the new release of because they were going at midnight and again to the first matinee to make sure they didn’t miss anything; and those that threatened coworkers within an inch of their life is they spoiled the latest Harry Potter/Game of Thrones/Etc….

Banana Cream Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke, because I needed something while I was waiting at the Dr.’s office and it was available for download. I really am done with that series....

37.) Book I meant to read last year. I wanted to reread Murder on the Orient Express last year prior to the movie coming out. Since I last read it in high school, back in the Affluent 80s, I figured I could use it for this challenge, 30 years later. Hercule Poirot is still kind of a jerk – hope that comes across when I rent the movie!

Currently reading:
15.) Feminism – Mrs. Sherlock Holmes by Brad Ricca is the biography of the first female DA in New York and a missing persons case she solved. She worked as a special liaison for Teddy Roosevelt’s Attorney General, Charles Bonaparte (yes a relation to Napolean) investigating peonage. It could be a livelier read….

50) Recommendation. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz seems to have gotten rave reviews from many.

Since my feminism book is a bit dark, I picked up Laurie Gelman’s Class Mom for my Kansas read in my 50 states challenge. It’s pretty funny and relatable, which is hysterical, since I don't have kids!

QOTW - Good and bad fathers
My top three are Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird (plus it never hurts to have Gregory Peck play you in a movie!) ; Mr. Bennett of Longbourn, Pride and Prejudice; and Arthur Weasley of the Harry Potter series. (Dad can I borrow the car?)
Worst three – Sir Walter Elliot in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Rex Walls of The Glass Castle, and the one I consider the worst of present, non-sexually abusive parents is Tara’s dad in Educated: A Memoir
I tried to answer without looking at others answers, but love the nods to Bob Cratchit, as a positive, and the dad in Matilda as a negative.

Good morning!

Currently:
Regular: 27/40
Advanced: 2/10

Finished this week:

#5 Nordic noir
The Girl in the Spider's Web
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. On the one hand, it's disappointing that it's not what Stieg Larsson had planned. Mikael Blomkvist was not even supposed to be in this book and it focused more on him than on Lisbeth Salander. On the other hand, even though it was violent, it didn't seem as graphic as Stieg Larsson would write and I liked that. It also seemed more streamlined; the plot was complex; and it was very suspenseful.

Still Currently Reading:

#37 A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn't get toDog Whisperer
Getting another lab puppy tomorrow!! :)

Advanced #5 A book with a fruit or vegetable in the title
Cherry
Reading this for a RL book club

QOTW:
Good RL Father: Sandra Uwiringiyimana's father, described in How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child I agree with the choices above too. I just wanted to add someone who hadn't been added yet--especially since he is a real life father.


Bad Father: Raymond in I Know This Much Is True
I haven't read any of the books mentioned above for bad father choices.

Jess wrote: "I finished another book this week which takes me to 24/50 one more until halfway!

The book I finished was Brick Lane which I read for a feminist book club. The book club haven't had t..."

Hi, Jess,

I made a list at the beginning of the year and am now starting to replace books with other books. Otherwise, I won't get done with the challenge and I figure there is always next year. :) I was in two RL book clubs and just joined two more, so when I can, I substitute the books for my clubs for the books I had hoped to read. :( As you said, "So many books...so little time."

I didn’t read any books this week that tick off prompts.

Ones that don’t tick off prompts:

Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano. It’s a YA novel about a girl with special powers of touch (she can feel people’s emotions through touch) and then there was a serial killer targeting her. I didn’t really enjoy this because the main character made so many stupid decisions and her special power was mentioned a couple of times especially at the beginning and why she doesn’t touch people. But then it’s pretty well ignored and she touches a lot of people with no mention of their emotions.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. Another YA but I like this series so far. There are cyborgs and moon people and fairy tales and it works for me.

About That Kiss by Jill Shalvis. Contemporary romance and I like Jill Shalvis. I’ve never been irritated by her books or main characters and her books are always enjoyable.

QOTW:
Worst Dads: Lucius Malfoy (obvious reasons), Juliet’s dad (he does a 180 when she says no to marriage) and Mr. Wormwood from Matilda, I probably hate him the most.

Good morning! I'm traveling for work this week so I've gotten some audiobook time in on the drive but anticipate a bit of a dip in reading overall. Oh well.

Finished:
Always and Forever, Lara Jean. What a sweet ending to a lovely little trilogy of YA books. Cannot wait for the Amazon adaptation!

Too Wilde to Wed. Finally got to this one which came out several weeks ago! This series is lovely and I LOVED how different this story was... the couple has to make some serious compromises to be happy together and respect each others' agency.

Making Up. It's been a fluffy reads week! Knocked this one out in about a day after highly anticipating it for months because I adore this series as well. Lucy Parker writes great contemporaries!

Currently Reading:
The Button War, my first Avi book since I was roughly 12. I haven't really gotten too far into it but I know it will be a quick one once I settle in to read.

When Beauty Tamed the Beast, MORE ELOISA JAMES. Listened to the audiobook on the drive but had the paperback in my bag as well to pick up where I left off.

QOTW: Best father might be Arthur Weasley, right? Strong contender? Or the father in This is How It Always Is. He was so wonderful even when he might be wrong.

I finished two and started one. I'm on a good pace right now and next week I'm on vacation so hopefully I can read more then!

Finished Love & Luck. I really enjoyed this one. This is the second book of her's that I've read and I'll continue to pick her work up. I get to use this for Song lyrics.

Finished One Good Dog. Around the 10% mark of this book I was going to DNF it. But I continued and I'm glad I did. I pretty sure there are other ways to have character development rather than have him be soooooo unlikable just to have him change throughout the book. That's just my opinion. Using for an animal in the title.

Started The Coincidence of Coconut Cake. I picked this for the fruit or veggie in title and that the description referenced "You've Got Mail." That's my all time favorite movie so I'm giving this a go. I'm half-way through and there's nothing special about this book. Its a cute, light read.

So I'm at 20 regular, 5 for the advanced and 4 non challenge. My kindle is loaded for vacation with a nice mix of challenge and non-challenge books.

Carol wrote: "#37 A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn't get to Dog Whisperer
Getting another lab puppy tomorrow!! :)..."

Good luck! Scully was a nightmare her first few weeks with us, she did not want to spend time apart from us and pretended she needed a wee every hour at night (we know she really didn't need to go because my partner gave in a few times and let her sleep on him and she slept all night). She still pretends to go have wees now she's two if she thinks there might be a treat in it for her!

Happy Thursday! I've been doing some prompt juggling this week. It's always fun to see where else a book could fit and to squeeze in a book I didn't think could fit anywhere.

Finished
The Good People (an ugly cover) - Hannah Kent is a phenomenal writer. I think she's one writer I'll follow her whole career. Her writing has an incredible sense of place and her characters are so vivid. This book made me sad, though. So much harm is done in the world because of ignorance and prejudice and the desperation those things cause in people.

Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are (problem facing society today) - This was an interesting book about Google search trends and how they correlate to cultural and political events. But ... the author never considers that sometimes we use Google when we're just plain curious. The things we search for are sometimes random and say nothing about who we are or what we believe.

Good in Bed (a local author) - Everything was great until Cannie went to Hollywood, then things got so deep into wish fulfillment territory that it became unbelievable. And then it got melodramatic. My head is still spinning from the rushed ending.

Reading
I'm going to start Middlesex for the group read tonight.

QOTW
Apparently I don't read a lot of fiction about parents. This one and the questions about mothers both had me scratching my head.

I can't believe it's the halfway point already. I finished two books this week:

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics for ATY narrative nonfiction. The audiobook was great. The book was full of great detail and well written, the balance of that is that it felt so much longer than it needed to be.

Map of Bones also for ATY.

I am currently reading so many books because I will be in the middle of a book and a library hold comes in.

Murder on the Orient Express for Book Riot Read Harder. Listening to the audiobook narrated by cousin Matthew. He is very talented at voices. This book has a lot of characters, I am amazed how he keeps them all straight. I read this book as a teenager, but I don't remember a thing.

I was listening to the audiobook of Salt to the Sea, finally something for Popsugar, but the hold for Murder on the Orient Express came in.

I started reading Sharp Objects so I can be done with it before the HBO series. I had also read this before and don't remember a thing. I will have to find a prompt to fit this, something from a previous year.

Shake It Up: Great American Writing on Rock and Pop from Elvis to Jay Z: A Library of America Special Publication also for Read Harder. I am reading an essay here or there in between other things.

QOTW:
When the mother question came up, I was sure there were more good fathers in literature than good mothers. Of course, when the time comes I can never think of any. Atticus Finch and Arthur Weasley have been mentioned, and those are great choices.
For bad fathers from recent reads, Ernt from The Great Alone and Joe's father from The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics come to mind. Maybe those are just fresh in my mind.

I was thinking that I kind of want to go totally controversial with the good father question. The father in My Sister's Keeper. He actually tries to do the best he can for all his kids instead of being hyper-focused on Kate. And even protects, or tries to, Anna from her mom in a couple of instances. Now, going to slink off to hide so I won't get pelted by rocks.

Good morning from Columbus! Not much to report here, enjoying a lazy summer week.

Neverworld Wake I couldn’t really fit this in to any of the challenges I’m doing but I had to read this the second I got it. Marisha Pessl is probably my favorite modern author so of course I had this on preorder. I most definitely liked her first two books better, but this one was still a very good read. My 12 year old is reading it now and she’s enjoying it too. Time travel, time loops, interpersonal drama, mystery, heartbreak... there’s a lot going on.

The Great American Novel this was for the goodreads summer challenge sports prompt. Idk, I love his work and this was really funny but I just couldn’t pay attention to it so I feel like I didn’t really retain much of what I read. Sports books are just not my thing, but to be fair the parts I did absorb were really amusing and well-written. I’ve been trying to revisit his work since his death, I feel like a lot of people have kind of forgotten him and it’s a shame.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly a revisit, for obvious reasons. Of all the people I’ve ever met, he was the most memorable and shining example of what it means to be spectacular. What a loss. I hope that others pick up where he left off and show the world the beauty and humanity in places most of us would never consider.

A River Runs Through It for the summer challenge. This was mercifully short, not because it wasn’t well written but I can only cope with so much sports and fishing talk in a week. Sad and sweet, beautiful imagery.

QOTW: maybe I’ll revist this later my kids are shoving me out the door lol

Comic Con is this weekend!!! I tend to spend most of my time in the book areas and in trying to read some of the authors in advance I’ve already found a few I really like.

In my rereading of the Little House series, I just hit The Long Winter, where the family spends 400 or so pages nearly freezing and starving to death while Laura’s future husband eats a million pancakes next door. This has so far been the best of the books, because it’s really the first that evoked a spooky sense of being confined as I listened to it.

Fathers and Sons - I am leading the discussion (aka posting some questions) on this one in my 1001 group. I was surprised at how modern this read. It was quite good. There are some bits where everyone spouts off about their philosophies too much but it was interesting enough that I stayed up quite late reading it.

Dread Nation - this is a contender for the best book I’ll read all year, for sure. I loved Jane and Kate so much, I loved how Ireland manages to cover colourism, passing and racism all while telling an amazing zombie story. I came across an interesting thread of comments about how wrong this book gets the portrayal of the Native characters/situation - I can see the point made and actually hearing a good critique of one aspect of the book almost made it better for me. I used this for the own voices prompt for ATY.

Open Earth - this was a Netgalley read and it’s a decent graphic novel, if you’re okay with sex scenes, of which there are (too) many. It’s good timing, month wise, because it portrays polyamory, someone using they as a pronoun, bisexuality/pansexuality. And most interesting to me is that this openness of sexual relationships is shown as a survival strategy, as the characters have fled Earth in a spaceship clearly lacking in enough space or many people in the community. I thought the plot and the background of what happened on Earth was sacrificed a bit much to the sex parts, but I’d read the next one to see where they are going to go with this.

I decided to give the Goodreads Summer Reading Challenge a go, since I’m ahead in Pop Sugar, at the right place in Book Riot and only behind in ATY, but I’m getting a bit speedier at reading to prompt there too. I’ve read a ton of books this year, enough to have finished those three challenges, in fact, had all my books been for prompts. So why not. For me to read on prompt 10-11 Books a month will be a challenge indeed, so we shall see. This will also make finishing my big three challenges a bit more challenging as well, since I’m sure I won’t read much for them over the next three months.

Right now, I’m mostly reading Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (ugly cover), The Bear and the Nightingale and probably I’ll throw in some graphic novels over the weekend because Con will take up all my time and I doubt I’ll read that much, since I usually collapse into bed in exhaustion at the end of each day.

QOTW: Matthew from Anne of Green Gables and Atticus Finch first came to mind for good fathers. For bad, Jane’s father and the preacher in Dread Nation are both terrible. And I wouldnt have thought of The Broken Earth trilogy but those are some horrible fathers too.

Hi everyone! This has been a quiet work week for a change, so I'm enjoying the less hectic days. My brother & my 8-mo-old niece visited earlier this week, so I got to play auntie for a night. Her personality is really coming out now; she is a happy baby with a huge smile that lights up the room.

I read 2 books for Popsugar this week, so I’m at 37/52 for this challenge.

Books I finished:
For Popsugar
Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris for a book with a time of day in the title (8). This started slow, but it ended strong. There is quite a cast of characters in the small town of Midnight, Texas. I’ll probably read the next in the trilogy as it is about one of the characters I wanted to know more about.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline for a cyberpunk book (A2). I have mixed feelings on this one. It was well-written, entertaining, and made me feel nostalgic since I grew up in the 80’s. Those are all positives and are why I gave the book 4 stars. But the corporate greed and uber obsession with all things OASIS and Halliday were over the top and turned me off. I can’t imagine idolizing someone so much that I memorize every song he liked, every line of every movie he watched, etc. Just plain creepy.

For other challenges
Summer Knight by Jim Butcher. Chugging along with the Harry Dresden series (this is #4). This was even more action-packed than the last installment, with this feeling like it picked up minutes after the last one even though in the book timeline it was a year later. A war with the fae is brewing, and Dresden is, of course, the only one who can prevent it from happening.

The Perfect Mother by Aimee Malloy. This was Malloy’s debut novel, although by reading it you would never guess. I really liked this one; the characters were all unique and interesting and the plot kept me guessing.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen. This was just okay. The story was about 2 women, one in high school and one in her 30’s who return to a small town with magical elements. Two families in the town have a multi-generational feud going on, but other than that not much happens.

I am currently reading:
Who Asked You? By Terry McMillan
Killman Creek by Rachel Caine

QOTW: I am going to have to think about this one! The first awful father that comes to mind is the dad in Stillhouse Lake and Killman Creek since I am reading the latter now. Serial killers never make great dads.

Hello everyone! It's been a few weeks since I've checked in, and since I was on vacation for two glorious weeks of that time, I've read quite a bit.

FINISHED

I finished 5 books for the Popsugar Challenge, bringing me to 26/50.

The Light of the World - I adored this memoir. Beautiful writing and an incredible depth of feeling throughout. I used this book for the prompt of "a book that involves a bookstore or library."
The Buried Giant - A fascinating read. Not at all a typical page-turner, but I didn't want to put it down - and as an Arthurian geek, I loved seeing Ishiguro's take on the post-Arthurian world. I used this book for the prompt of "a book you meant to read in 2017."
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps - Such imaginative world-building and such careful, thoughtful writing! Really enjoyed this, though it's quite sad. I used this book for the prompt of "a book set on a different planet."
Moth Smoke - Not my favorite of Hamid's works, but a dense, intriguing, smart book. He's one of the only male writers I can think of who I really trust with female characters. I used this book for the prompt of "a book involving a heist."
Rebound - I was so excited to read this since I love The Crossover, but unfortunately, it fell a little flat for me. Certainly worth reading if you like Kwame Alexander's works, but this is probably my least favorite so far. I used this book for the prompt of "a book set in the decade you were born."

I also finished several books that weren't for any challenge.

Briarley - Oh my gosh, SO wonderful! A perfect novella-length retelling of Beauty and the Beast set in WW2 England. RUN, do not walk, to this lovely, lovely book.
For Everyone - A lovely long-form poem book.
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing - Meh.
Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship - Double meh.
Frederica - Great fun!
Unmasked by the Marquess - Also great fun! (And, quite unexpectedly to me, basically a queer retelling of Frederica!)

IN PROGRESS

Slowly reading The Wind Done Gone, which is very good so far.

DNF

I quit The Tempest Tales (fine, but wasn't really holding my interest), Far from Home (strong overall, but the heroine was so down on herself that it was too painful to read), and Hadriana in All My Dreams (just a little too out-there for me).

Hello. Summer is in full force in Las Vegas. We are officially triple digits. Oh joy..

25/52

Currently Reading





Finished

10. Death or Grief

QotW
Best and worst fathers in literature?
I'm noticing I must read a lot of books where the parents aren't present or just exist outside of the world of the characters I read.
BEST
Mr. Weasley from the Harry Potter Boxset
A.J. Fikry from The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Mary's Dad from Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
WORST
Rex Yanakakis from The Compound
Sir Walter Elliot from Persuasion

Anne wrote: "Worst three – Sir Walter Elliot in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Rex Walls of The Glass Castle, and the one I consider the worst of present, non-sexually abusive parents is Tara’s dad in Educated: A Memoir."

Great choices! Sir Walter Elliot ALWAYS bothers me with the dismissive way he treats Anne (who is the Austen heroine I most closely identify with). And Tara's dad in Educated is definitely on the list. I haven't gotten around to reading The Glass Castle yet, but from what I know I that's spot on as well.

I'm at 35/50 in the challenge overall, and about to make a big push to focus on the rest of the prompts that haven't been naturally filled through my reading of choice. If I'd been focusing on the prompts I could have finished long ago, but then, I'm not sure I could have kept up this reading pace if I'd forced myself to read specific books.

Finished Reading:
Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen I ended up reading yet another book that would fit the 'villian or antihero' prompt, and felt just as meh about it as I did the others. Maybe I should stay away from this category.

Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 14, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 15, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 16
That last one took quite a twist. Wating for interlibrary loan to come through and see if the series is going to get darker or stay lighthearted.

Sir Knight of the Splendid Way I managed to check off 'book a stranger was reading in public' and I didn't even hate the book! It was basically a shorter version of The Pilgrim's Progress with more sword fighting.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time I wasn't even going to read this book because of all the mixed reviews, but then I saw it for 50 cents in my library's book sale area, and I'm so glad I decided to read it. There were some really sad and frustrating parts, but I just enjoyed the experience of being inside Christopher's head. I know that sounds weird, but I enjoyed the simple logic of everything, and tend to be frustrated by the same kinds of things about the world that he is.

Currently Reading:
Here's Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math I refuse to stall out on this book again! It's really interesting, and I need to just resign myself to not retaining some of the fascinating details so I can just finish the thing.

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity Still a slow but interesting audiobook.

Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, Stems, and Other Odds and Ends into Delicious Meals Another Netgalley cookbook. I like the practical approach so far.

I don't have a fiction book going currently. Not sure if I'll start one of the classics I have left for challenge prompts, or just pick up one of the books I own that I've been wanting to read.

QOTW:
I know I though of fathers during the mothers questions, but it's hard to remember now.

I agree with Uncle Alec being a good father figure to Rose, and though he doesn't have a lot of 'screen time' (page time?) in the book, Sara's father in A Little Princess is also really good. Oh, and I've always loved the dad in The Castle in the Attic and The Battle for the Castle!

Worst dads... I know I've read some terrible ones, but I might be blocking them out at the moment. The father in Educated: A Memoir ends up being pretty terrible, despite no malevolent motives.

Brooke wrote: "Ready Player One by Ernest Cline for a cyberpunk book (A2). I have mixed feelings on this one. It was well-written, entertaining, and made me feel nostalgic since I grew up in the 80’s. Those are all positives and are why I gave the book 4 stars. But the corporate greed and uber obsession with all things OASIS and Halliday were over the top and turned me off. I can’t imagine idolizing someone so much that I memorize every song he liked, every line of every movie he watched, etc. Just plain creepy.."

For what it's worth, I never took it as obsession with Halliday himself, but just determination to find every possible clue to solve the puzzle.

Carol wrote: "Jess wrote: "I finished another book this week which takes me to 24/50 one more until halfway!

The book I finished was Brick Lane which I read for a feminist book club. The book club ..."

I'm replacing books on the list also, though I never though I was going to stick to my list perfectly. It was mostly for ideas.

Though, there are a couple of books I'm hanging on to that I really want to read for the challenge, and I'm trying hard not to displace.

Hi everyone!

I was on vacation this past weekend, and it's thrown off my sense of day. I almost forgot it was Thursday!

This week I finished:

The Gate to Women's Country - book with author having same name as you. I was pleased to find a Sheri that spelled it the right way! And that it was sort of sci-fi was even better. I didn't LOVE the book, but it was pretty interesting. I'm not really a fan of the feminist stuff that somehow posits that women are inherently better than men, I'm about equality not superiority. But it was still good enough to get through.

Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World - Counting this as my book about feminism. I read plenty of feminist literature, and books about feminism. I've been wanting to check this book out for a while, so I'm counting it for the prompt. It was fun, and gave just enough on each woman to give a good grounding and inspire kids to go find out more.

I then spent the rest of the trip catching up on various comics.

I'm currently working through Too Like the Lightning which won't count for a challenge. I like it ok but the writing style is kind of frustrating, it's not going as quick as I'd like.

I'm well ahead on all my challenges, but I keep reading off challenge haha. I've read 75 books this year so I could easily be done with popsugar if i'd been more focused, but I keep reading books for the other ones, or just because. I'm at 41/50, hoping I can finish up soon! Then I can put more focus on the other two (ATY and Read Harder).

QOTW:

I think the dad in The Hate U Give was really good, he encouraged Starr even when he'd rather just keep her safe and hidden, and had serious discussions with her about important issues.

For worst fathers, I feel like Mercedes Lackey has a number of poor ones. Baron von Rothbart in Black Swan is horrible. The father in Unnatural Issue is just straight up gross. Although I suppose she also has a counter example with Thomas in Reserved for the Cat.

This has been a good reading week for me. The weather has been perfect so I have spent a lot of time sitting outside in the sun reading.

I read:
Before We Were Yours- this was my Goodreads Award winner. I liked it very much.
Einstein's Dreams- my son recommended this book to me and it was strange. It was essays of theories of time and what time was and could be. I think I just wasn't smart enough for the deeper meaning that must have been there.
Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions- I enjoy the Kopp sisters books and this was no exception. I think this one is my favorite so far.
A Deadly Affection- this was not my favorite mystery and I probably won't read the rest in the series.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking- this was a great book and I appreciated all the scientific information about introverts as I am an introvert.
Everyone Brave is Forgiven- this book was given to me. I really liked it up until the ending which went on forever. The last third could have been condensed and I would have been happy with the book.

QOTW: I agree with Jessica.

Happy Reading!

Raquel wrote: "For what it's worth, I never took it as obsession with Halliday himself..."

A fair point. It is just weird, depressing and creepy to see a bunch of young adults not entertaining a single interest of their own and obsessing about all things Halliday/OASIS to the point of losing sleep and cutting off other human contact (in some extreme cases).

I think I am on track to hit the half-way point of all my challenges by the end of the month, but it's starting to get real - I need to be sure to mix in the categories I am less excited about so that I don't end the year with a bunch of books I feel like avoiding!

June has been good to me so far - I'm only working half days now, so I'm getting a lot of reading done.

The first 2 of the week I chose in honor of Pride month -
Brokeback Mountain on audio - great narration, and the short story was very closely followed for the movie. Great writing, great characters!
Peter Darling was so great - I had read the original Peter Pan the week before and felt underwhelmed by it, but this was a beautiful riff from an "OwnVoices" perspective.
I finally finished North and South, and it was good but not great. I do look forward to watching the series, which I hear is good.
My school's summer reading assignment is "Read Local" while learning about someone different from yourself. I chose Pac Heights which was billed as a dot.com era Tales from the City. I mean, I get where that came from, but it was not as charming nor the characters as interesting or engaging.
And finally, for "a book about mental health" I listened to Challenger Deep. It took me a while to get into it - but by the end I really appreciated how the experience of reading it is meant to mirror the experience of the main character going through his illness. I feel like both this one and Peter Darling helped me better understand the nuances of experiences I was previously trying to fit into boxes that don't always fit.

QOTW:
I just scrolled back through my last 2 months of books, and not a single good father came to mind! The worst father I've read in recent memory was in The Great Alone - never before have I felt such a visceral need to punch a fictional person in the face!

Urgh, no books finished this week. I just had no motivation to read this week...barely any motivation for life, full stop. But the World Cup kicks off today, so hopefully my husband will be hogging the telly and I can use my zero interest in sport as an excuse to get lost in a book.

Still at 25/50 (23/40, 2/10)


We gave mothers their turn last month. Now, in honor of fathers everywhere (US – Father’s Day is this Sunday!), who are the best and worst fathers in literature?

I have the worst memory in the entire world. Even for books I loved, I often couldn't tell you the plot, character names etc. So no dads are jumping out at me. Glancing at my bookshelf I can see that there were some dads of varying degrees of shite in Our Endless Numbered Days, Night Song of the Last Tram - A Glasgow Childhood, I Capture the Castle, Big Fish and Purple Hibiscus. In fact the only decent father I can think of was Atticus Finch (but even then it depends which Atticus, Mockingbird or Watchman).

Finished Reading
Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family - since June is LGBT Pride Month, I wanted to read some books related to that.

To start later today
Monday's Not Coming - I liked the author's first book, but was a little disappointed in the ending. I've read mixed reviews about this one, but I guess all that matters is if I like it.

Only read 2 books this week.

The Song of Achilles - prompts: "Sand Between My Toes" (Summer Reading Challenge), Red book (Colour Challenge) - Reread this post-Circe, had retained almost nothing from reading it a couple of years ago. Bloody loved it! I definitely plan to read everything Madeline Miller writes in future. She's almost singlehandedly sucking me back in to the world of myth/ancient-history retellings.
Currently organizing a buddy read of the Iliad and Odyssey over in the 2018 Reading Challenge group, likely to take place in August. If anyone wants in on that, LMK. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The Call of the Wild - prompts: "Into the Great Wide Open" (Summer Reading Challenge) - This was... hmmm. Okay, so Jack London is an amazing writer, and I loved how well he got into the dog's POV and how the Alaskan setting came across so vividly. On the other hand, the tone is so unrelentingly brutal and cruel. Definitely avoid if you can't read about animals being injured/killed/abused.
The Penguin English Library edition also contained three of Jack London's short stories, and I really didn't enjoy those. One was nothing but more animal cruelty and the other two were agonizingly prolonged descriptions of men dying in the Alaskan wilderness. Again great writing but the content was not for me.

Currently reading:
Still technically inching through Like Water for Chocolate, but I haven't touched it since Saturday and I'm only 40 pages in. It really isn't grabbing me.

QOTW: I really loved Ben from The Knife of Never Letting Go.
Agree with the mentions above of Matthew from Green Gables, Tom from Goodnight Mister Tom, Adam from The Tidal Zone and of course Atticus Finch.

Worst dads I can think of at the moment: Leontes from The Winter's Tale, King Saran from Children of Blood and Bone and Rochester from Jane Eyre (I don't care how "swoonworthy" he is, he obviously did not give one single microscopic sh*t about Adele and actively endangered her life by putting her in that house). Michael from Sing, Unburied, Sing is quite awful too.

Happy Thursday all! I can't believe we're almost at the midpoint of this year. Also the North & South miniseries is SO GOOD. If you haven't watched it, do so now!

I finished 3 books this week, only none of which counted for the challenge. I'm also trying to read only LBTQ+ authors and stories for the remainder of the month.

First was Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit. This was fine, really short and a lot of essays were kind of skimmable. Honestly this read more of an intro to feminism because it didn't really delve that deeply.

Next was A Most Unlikely Duke by Sophie Barnes. It started out great, but the last third of the book was so rushed and ended really quickly, so I liked but didn't love.

Last was George by Alex Gino which was incredible. It's the story of a trans girl and written by a trans woman! George wants to be Charlotte in her school's production of Charlotte's Web, but isn't allow because the world sees her as a boy. This story was so sweet, and I think it's a great resource for young kids to start explaining to them what being trans means. It's middle grade which isn't really my style, but I still found the writing very enjoyable. Highly recommend this!

Right now I'm currently reading Release by Patrick Ness and The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie Mclemore, who are gay and bisexual respectively. I have a lot checked out from the library, so hopefully some of those books will end up checking off more on the challenge list.

QOTW: Oh whoever said Matthew from Anne of Green Gables is SPOT ON. What a perfect father figure! There's been a slew of great father figures in YA I've read recently, I Believe in a Thing Called Love for one!

For worst fathers, Denethor from The Return of the King comes to mind. I mean he refuses to believe his son isn't dead and tries to burn him alive. He's..... not great.

I finished some wonderful books this week - yay!

I loved The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row so so much. His writing is excellent and it's a perfect balance of all the things a book like this should have. Ray is such an inspiration. <3

They Both Die at the End was also awesome! It gets you thinking about the philosophical issues it deals with, and I was impressed by the writing here too.

Unfortunately I couldn't connect with Lincoln in the Bardo. I could tell it was high quality, but it was hard to keep up with (on audio) and had a theatrical feeling, which is not my style. Oh well.

I'm currently listening to Britt-Marie Was Here since I'm now a fan of this author after Beartown and A Man Called Ove. It's very similar to the latter.

I just started When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir on my kindle, and The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups is on my nightstand.

I've read 83 books this year so far, and I'm at 41/50 for the challenge. I have three challenge reads on my library waitlist though.

QOTW:
I agree with some of the previous posts... We find good dads in To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hate U Give, The Shadow of the Wind, How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child, Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, and not-so-good dads in Educated: A Memoir, The Virgin Suicides, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, The Glass Castle, and Big Little Lies.

Popping back in on the Question of the Week. I gave my top three, but over lunch I was mulling it over more. (Mrs. Sherlock Holmes by Brad Ricca just isn't holding my attention -- such a shame, cause she was amazing!)

So, I started thinking about Pa Charles Ingalls. When you read the Little House books (or watching the series with Michael Landon), he seemed amazing. However, I read Caroline: Little House, Revisited last year and I started thinking about LHOTP as an adult. He was pretty reckless! His wife was pregnant when they did the winter crossing from Minnesota to Indian territory. They moved into areas that weren't to be settled yet. It's pretty much a miracle that they didn't lose more children than Freddy.

Katy wrote: "I was thinking that I kind of want to go totally controversial with the good father question. The father in My Sister's Keeper. He actually tries to do the best he can for all his kids instead of b..."

I was going to say him too. No rock pelting here!

Hey from Germany,

it feels like I haven't read much this week and am afraid won't read much more the following weeks until the end of the school year in about 4 weeks. Ugh!
When I look through the list of books read, though, I finished a few (somehow it felt like I didn't - weird)
Managed to finish One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia for Book Riot (middle grade) and actually quite liked it once I got used to the Intonation.
Doch jeder tötet, was er liebt by Faye Kellerman which I might use for the next in a series prompt or not (don't know yet), this was good in the second half.
Exit West, which I really liked.

got the Manga Food Wars!, Vol. 1 today so might give it a try this week.

Also currently reading Wie der Vater so der Sohn, newest installment in the Danish crime series around Dan Sommerdahl, which is good so far (don't know where I might slot it, yet)

QOTW:
I am agreeing with quite some dads mentioned and can't seem to think of any more good ones.
Agreeing with Ernt from The Great Alone as a bad one, though.

Hi everyone. The sun is shining today although the wind is blowing like crazy!

This week I was on a roll and finished three books. First up was A Closed and Common Orbit. I love this.. I was going to say world but I guess galaxy is more appropriate. I can't wait for Record of a Spaceborn Few to come out.

I also finished The Princess and the Suffragette. I have conflicted feelings about this book. I find it hard to match up this Lottie to the original Lottie from A Little Princess. I know she's supposed to have grown up a bit since then but it seems a bit of a stretch. I wish there's been more Sara in it (and Becky and Ermenguarde).

Finally I finished Down the Amazon: Part One of the Giant Raft. I didn't realise it was "part one" when I got it from the library. I just thought it was an alternate name for 800 Leagues on the Amazon. Now I have to try and find part two so I can count it as properly finished!

Currently reading: Children of Blood and Bone. I can't for the life of me remember which prompt I was going to use it for.

QOTW: Most of the one's that sprung to mind have already been said.

Colin's father from The Secret Garden is pretty terrible.

On the flip side, Heidi's grandfather does a great job of bringing her up, (view spoiler)[ even sending her away when he thinks it would be better for her although it breaks his heart (hide spoiler)]

Anne wrote: "Popping back in on the Question of the Week. I gave my top three, but over lunch I was mulling it over more. (Mrs. Sherlock Holmes by Brad Ricca just isn't hholding my attention -- s..."

Oh, I hate Pa Ingalls. As a child I didn’t see it, but I’m rereading them as an adult and he’s horrible. He keeps taking them into dangerous situations because he’s got some sort of issue with civilization. And I really think he treats Ma so badly and does not care about her happiness.

Margaret wrote: "and because it has a terrific map in the front. That's one of my favorite features in a book!..."

Mine too! I'm a sucker for a book with a good map...and get really ticked off when there is a poor map - i.e. the map in The Name of the Wind, although I hear he's got an improved map somewhere.

Jess wrote: "Did anyone else make a list at the beginning of the year and is now sadly replacing books on the list. Too many books, too little time!.."

Not as much as I did last year - when I learned my lesson! This year I had a few planned reads, most of which have at this point been bumped. I took a different route this time: whatever I was reading, if it fit, I used it. If not, that is ok too as long as I kept to my rough schedule of 11-12 books a quarter for challenge. I had a lot of library holds coming up, all books that I just wanted to read. Well, all of them ended up fitting prompts and I'm 10 books ahead of where I wanted to be by end of June!

Sarah wrote: "On the flip side, Heidi's grandfather does a great job of bringing her up."

Yes! I thought of him as well! I need to reread Heidi this year!

Hello from Chicago,

Wish we could just move into real summer weather already. Tomorrow I leave for a long weekend in South Carolina at the beach so I will get some proper sunshine there!

I only got one book done last week, Holy Terror In The Hebrides, another cozy mystery from one of my new favorite series. Enjoyable but nothing particularly special. I've read more of the middle books, and I've noticed with both this one and another early-series book that this author struggles with coming up with legitimate reasons to get her amateur detective involved. That problem goes away in later books once Dorothy has a rapport with the police. (view spoiler)[I think that's why the author marries her off to a police chief so quickly! (hide spoiler)]

I've started Tangerine which doesn't really fit anything for any of my challenges, but I've been wanting to read it and I saw it on the 'Most Wanted' shelf at the library so...home it came. It jumped into my hands, I had no choice, it's not my fault...

QOTW: The only people less memorable to me than literature moms are literature dads. It took me forever to think of any at all that had any meaningful part of the story. Bad Dads: Mr. Dursley, Dr. Frankenstein, Huckleberry Finn's dad, the dad in Ella Enchanted. Good Dads: Mr. Drew (Nancy Drew's dad), Mr. Bennet (of Pride and Prejudice), Mr. Weasley. Most of the books I read just don't really seem to involve parents to be honest.

Hello from Brisbane Australia.

I am finished!!!!! I had some minor surgery this week and the convalescence allowed me to knock off the final few books for this challenge. Happy I am finally done!

This week I finished:
Birdman (male psydonym). This was a debut novel by this author and I was quite impressed. I was about half way in and I had no idea what was going on but the end of the book was an absolute page turner.

The Zookeeper's Wife (A book about a real person). This was not at all what I thought this book was going to be. I expected more of a personal account but it was more of a historical view about what was going on in Poland at that time. It was also a bit hard to follow as there are a cast of characters (including animals) that I found hard to keep a track of.

Mr. Murder (a best seller the year I graduated high school). I thought this was ok but not as good as some of his others.

My Cousin Rachel (Not for the challenge). I liked this book but found the main character more annoying than a toddler throwing a tantrum.

The Werewolf's Guide to Life: A Manual for the Newly Bitten (Not for challenge although would be good for a book with two authors). This was a fun and quick read.

The Snowman (Nordic Noir) This is my last book for this challenge. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it.

Looking forward to reading what I like now, but I also a bit lost as I do find the challenge directs my reading a bit. Definitely in for next year :-)


QOTW: Most of the ones that came to mind are reflected here.

I finished 2 books since my last check-in - we were on vacation and even though I took 3 books thinking I would read in my down time, there simply wasn't as much of that as I expected, lol.

Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones - I chose this one because it was set in Barcelona, which is where we were headed on vacation. Great book, beautiful city, awesome vacation - win/win/win

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein - this was my book about a library, and it was so much fun. Geared towards middle school kids but I think good for all ages. I didn't even make the connection until I finished the book that he is also the author of the John Ceepak Mystery Series (for adults) which I love as well.

QOTW:
Best father - Rand Jefferson from A Horse Called Bonnie, Mr. Ramsay in The Black Stallion series
Worst father - V.C. Andrew was always really good at writing terrible parents, like Thomas Casteel in Heaven

Brittany wrote: "She writes it from the POV of 4 different characters, which was fine but the two main characters are written in first person, the daughters POV is in third and the husbands is in second person. So weird! I have never read a book with so many POV styles. The second person was awful since the husband was the 'evil' character. I found it really awkward to read his sections. ..."

I've read some books where that POV from differing POV so to speak has worked really well - i.e. The Tenderness of Wolves -- and others where I thought it was so poorly handled as to really affect my enjoyment of the book -- i.e. Wolf Hall. IMHO it comes down to the writing skill of the author.

I'm also reading books and filling in the prompts based on my reads. Some of them get shifted as I stumble upon something better...

Anyway, this week had a lot of work, and being in the middle of way too many books (how did I get from reading one book at a time to being in the middle of six books?!?) means that I didn't finish as much as usual.

Finished only three books this week, but I think that only one fits the challenge.
1) The Stranger from the Sea Continuing with the Poldark series. Like all the books in the series, the sea seems to be like another character in the book, and yet, don't think I can really use it for taking place on water. Of course sailing and swimming appear in the book, but while they're both sports, they're not really in the book as sports, so I guess this is a no prompt book.
2) Finished The Tears of Dark Water which I read on my kindle. It took me a while to get into, but the end went quicker. The first half of the book takes place on water, so this is the prompt I'll use it for, unless I decide to use it for social issue as it deals with problems of piracy, radical Islam (and also the position of women within it) and several other issues. The book also has a set of twins... Worth the read, I recommend it.
3) Last but not least, I just pushed myself to finish today an advance copy of A Premature Apocalypse, which is due for release soon. I loved the first two books in the series, and while the final book was fun and did wrap things up nicely, I wouldn't give it the 5 stars I gave the first 2. This will fill a prompt for the ATY (I was expecting to laugh with this one, I laughed more with the first 2, but I did smile a lot).

I'm in the middle of:
1. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, which I'm enjoying so far (recommended by others, and ATY title that's a full sentence),

2. Cinnamon and Gunpowder: A Novel (sea)
3. Her Last Goodbye bought this by accident on my kindle, but since I enjoyed the first mystery, just continued with the second. It's on audible, but I didn't do much driving this week...
4. The Song of Achilles kindle
and 2 others which I'm not bothering to list, because I'm waiting to finish the prompts before I finish them.

In all: 38/40; 6/10 for PopSugar, 51/54 for ATY

When the QOTW was about mothers, only fathers came to mind. And now I can't remember who I thought of then... :-(

Greetings all! I'm well ahead of schedule in my reading for Pop Sugar - 28/40 & 7/12 = 35/50: 10 books ahead of my self-imposed schedule of 25 by June 30th - and I'll likely read 4 or 5 more by that date! I'm sort of shocked at how quickly I'm completing the challenge this year, actually, and doing so with books that for the most part I just want to read. I do have some harder categories to tackle, like mental health and true crime, but it won't be a rush at the end.

I'm also ahead in my 2018 Reading Challenge - 81/150 books. There's quite a bit of fluff in there, but lots of really good reads too.

Challenge finishes this week:

The Milk Lady of Bangalore: An Unexpected Adventure - Absolutely delightful microhistory of an urban dairy farmer in contemporary Southern India! I loved this! It opens with the author meeting in the elevator of her new apartment building a cow and her owner, Sarala, the local milk lady, and it just keeps entertaining to the last page. I did not want it to end. Along the way, you learn a lot about the complex relationship of cows to Indian culture, religion, food. This was my microhistory. [Note: if you are even mildly interested in reading this, it's currently available from Amazon Kindle for $1.20 and from Barnes & Noble in ebook for $1.99].

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo - I told a bit about this one last week as a current read. Ended loving it as much as at the start. I gave it a 5 star rating. In fact, the end of the story had an absolutely wonderful twist that turned on its head several assumptions I held while reading the book - in a good way! I nearly started it again, to see how it reads after this revelation, but decided not to do so just yet. This would fit a number of different prompts, but I slotted it as my book about twins (one of the 3 simultaneous story lines involves real life twin sisters in Cairo in 1896), replacing the book I had slotted there already because I just wanted this one to be part of challenge.

Other reads this week - I caught up on Marie Force's Gansett Island and Green Mountain series - ok not great entries in each series. Might be time she 'retired' these series. Or took more time developing the plots.

Currently reading:

Midnight Rain - my book with a weather element in title - suspense - just started and like so far. I pulled this from my ebook library. I had to laugh - I read a lot of books set in winter, it seems, as I had a LOT of titles with 'snow' in them! Decided I wanted something other than a winter weather element!

Up next: Invisible Murder - would fit a couple of prompts like next in series, but will probably use as my Nordic Noir unless I can fit it in somehow as mental health as Nordic Noir
and Next in Series are easy categories for me to fill.

QOTW: Really no new ones to add. I would say that Denethor from LOTR is probably my top-ranking bad dad!

I went to an reading last night for local author Ann Edwards Cannon for her new book I'll Tell You What.... I wish I would have known earlier and could have read her new book for the local author prompt. It was a lot of fun to meet her. I find authors fascinating, probably because I wish I could be one, but lack of talent (or laziness) keeps getting in the way.

I only finished one book this week:

9. Antihero/villain: The Catcher in the Rye
I have meant to read this book for at least the last 35 years, and I finally got around to it. Glad it is over since I will now know what people are talking about, but I did not enjoy this book. Maybe I'm too old to get it, but I'm pretty sure that there is no point in my entire life that I would have related to Holden Caulfield and his miserable life.

29/42 regular, 5/10 advanced

QOFW:
Best Fathers: Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird; Hans Hubermann in The Book Thief are a couple of favorites.

Worst Fathers: Alexander Zalachenko in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest; Harry Wormwood in Matilda; Mr. Westover in Educated: A Memoir; stepfather Mr. Murdoch in David Copperfield are the ones that came to mind from books I've read recently.