The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

Here is the Review Raffle thread for Fall 2024.

We will draw a random name from anyone who posts a review in this thread and they will be given the opportunity to create a task in the Winter 2024 season - the more reviews that you post, the more chance of being drawn!

Reviews must be for books read within the current challenge period. You may link to your review on Goodreads, or type the review in the thread. (Please do not link to a review on a site outside of Goodreads).

Your review does not have to be positive but it should be at least a couple of sentences long - "loved it" or "not for me" is not helpful to other readers!

Please remember to include your Readerboard name when posting your review.

Readerboard Name: Michelle in Alaska

Review for Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

There studious let me sit and hold high converse with the mighty dead.

Five easy, glorious stars. I'm having a crisis. I have been confidently standing on business about The Atlas Six and how it would undoubtedly be my top book of the year... Until I read this one. And now I have the best problem a bookworm can have: I have here two beloved books that have found me within six months of each other. Can you say an embarrassment of bookish riches? Shout out to my bookish bestie Ellie for BOTH of these recommendations.

"Just remember Lethe doesn’t care about people like you and me. No one is looking out for us but us.”

Alex Stern is back, and she is HELL BENT on righting wrongs. Hell Bent basically picks up where Ninth House left off. Alex is back for another school year at Yale and as a member of Lethe, the shadowy organization that oversees the magical and ritualistic happenings of the eight secret societies of Yale. New characters are introduced, and old faces return.

While certain plot points of Ninth House echo through the plot of Hell Bent (especially around the murder mystery, which felt, in some ways, familiar), I enjoyed Hell Bent even more than Ninth House. Hell Bent offers a genuinely compelling blend of both the 'dark' and the 'academia' that had me picking up the series to begin with. The way the academia piece is used to both build intrigue and fuel the rituals that are central to the plots of both books is gripping and fun to read. The 'dark' comes in the form of paranormal and devilishly delightful powers that serve as both antagonists and resources for Alex.

Without being too specific, the next writing project I've been thinking about is inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice, and let's just say I was greatly inspired by Hell Bent.

“You taste like the grave.”

Alex, the main character, was a bit of an acquired taste for me in Ninth House, but I am fully on board the Galaxy Stern Express - choo choo. I have greatly enjoyed her character development, going from a scrappy ex-drug addict swinging at shadows to a haunted, but confident quoter of Milton who holds her own as a leader of Lethe but with her own flair for violence and law-breaking. The side characters here are all wonderful, too.

"When did you get so wise, Stern?"

Lastly, is it too early to predict that Daniel Tabor Arlington V will be my next great book boyfriend?

Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This Review is about The Diving Pool: Three Novellas

There is something that I can't quite put my finger on about contemporary Japanese tranlated novels, and this book is no exception. There is a conveyance of emotion in a detached impersonal way that is fascinating. These three novellas are no exception. The Diving Pool and The Pregnancy were both solid stories, but it is the third one, Dormitory that I found riveting. I was sure I had it all figured out, and then I was slapped in the face with the ending.

The characters are not likeable people, yet the reader is drawn into their lives and can relate to some of their situations with uncomfortable familiarity. These characters do the things we only think aobut in our blackest moments.

This was the third book I have read by this author and will definitley be seeking out more.

Readerboard Name: Michelle in Alaska

Review for I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

"It's unsolvable, and it's dark," I say, "but not entirely."

A literary psychological suspense unlike anything I've ever read. Metaphysical. Solitude on paper. The ending absolutely took me out. There's a strange hollowness that exists in me in the wake of this book. I thought I knew exactly where it was going, and I was so wrong.

Brilliant. And I'm unwell.

Hey Siri -- play "In the Androgynous Dark" by Brambles.


⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

trishhartuk

The Kamogawa Food Detectives, Hisashi Kashiwai
Read the kindle edition. 5*.

The Kindle monthly deals, at least here in the UK, have started including quite a few Japanese books in translation this last year or so, which is how I came across this one. The premise is an interesting one - a small restaurant in Kyoto guarantees to try to find that one dish that a customer remembers and wants to recreate, hence "food detectives". Split into several parts/chapters, each is about one customer and how the restaurant's owner found their dish and what the ingredients were.

It was a lovely, gentle book, about food and memories, and the better side of human nature. In a world that's getting more and more divided, we need more of these!

trishhartuk

The Lost Bookshop, Evie Woods
Read the kindle edition. 5*.

This was my second 5* book of September. It's split into two timelines, with three points of view, and falls into the magical realism genre.

Opaline's story starts back in 1921, when she runs away from an arranged marriage, first to Paris and then to Dublin, where she takes over a books and curios shop.

Martha's and Henry's stories are contemporary. She is running away from an abusive marriage while he is trying to find Opaline's bookshop, which has literally disappeared, hence the MR elements. Martha decides to help him solve the puzzle, and a romance eventually blossoms between them.

It's definitely not all sweetness and light. Both Opaline and Martha have to go through some really bad stuff - although it's written carefully, rather than sensationally - but in the end, they find the light at the end of the tunnel, and you discover how their stories connect.

Recommended for anyone who likes books, romance and magical realism.

Sorry. Me again. trishhartuk

True Grit, Charles Portis
Read the kindle edition. 5*.

This was an unxepected pleasure. I needed at third "Charles" to go with Charles Dickens and Charles Stross for 50.1, and this was on my TBR from 2020, when I think I must have seen it recommended by someone.

I wasn't sure what to expect from it at all. I'm not sure I've even seen the John Wayne movie, let alone the modern remake. However, I devoured it! It's a really enjoyable Western (speaking as someone who rarely reads Westerns, unless it's something like Longmire or Leaphorn and Chee), although not of the "Cowboys and Indians" school. It's also written with a distinct undercurrent of dry humour that I wasn't expecting.

The POV character is very sharp and takes no nonsense from anyone: she reminds me a bit of Flavia de Luce, or one of the strong female teen characters that are common in YA nowadays, even though the book was published in 1968. Rooster Cogburn and "Le Beouf" are much more traditional macho male Western characters, but the rough edges get worn down, especially for Cogburn, as the book goes on. .

Recommended for anyone who likes sassy young POV characters and adventure stories.