Chapter Adventure Reading Challenges discussion

The Motif (theme) for March is ...

“Spring Cleaning”

(Read a book that’s been on your TBR (to be read) list for two or more years.)

Share with us! Which book did you read and what did you think of it?

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
on my TBR since 2016

Have been trying to get into this series for a while - finally finished this (even though it is so short) and loved it! Can't wait to read the rest (has been on TBR since 2017)

• Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
- Historical/Contemporary/Romance
- Finished: April 6th
- 5 stars on Goodreads
Fantastic! I saw the movie years and years ago, and I’ve had the book sitting on my shelf for an embarrassingly long 9 years. From what I recall the movie is pretty faithful to the book, but now I want to do a rewatch.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, on my TBR since April 2016. 🫣 This is a great prompt!

Challenge complete!
I loved this prompt, as it gave me a reason to dive into my backlog of older books that have been on my TBR for a while. For this challenge, I read The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Chol-Hwan Kang, which has been on my TBR since 2016 - tough to stomach in places, but also eye-opening.

Challenge Complete: “Spring Cleaning”
(Read a book that’s been on your TBR (to be read) list for two or more years.)

Blood of the Children by Alan Rodgers

Maybe not the worst horror story I’ve read, but it comes pretty close. I really could have done without the explicit torture. He especially seemed to have a thing about torturing animals, though the main character goes through so much I don’t really see how he could have survived. I had to skim a lot of that.

All that is too bad, because the premise showed promise. But much of it went unexplained, so the reader is left with some basic questions unanswered. Plus, the characters, the children especially, were pretty two dimensional.

I’ve read other books by this author and enjoyed them. So maybe this being his first novel has something to do with it not being up to par. Fortunately, it’s a fast read. Still, maybe it should have stayed in my TBR pile.

I read The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson.
It's been on my TBR list (and bookshelf) since 2015! Didn't lose any of it's quality over time, still was a twisty version of "Strangers on a Train", only this time in a airport bar and on a plane. Changing perspective was good, enjoyed the ride!

I chose Promise Me Forever by Debbie Macomber. Purchased June 2017. It was hard to get into. The first half-ish of the book is difficult to get through because of all the negativity. I would call it mediocre at best.

Challenge complete!

Read Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done by Charlie Gilkey. This book was published in 2019, but I don't know exactly how long I've had it. Ironically, I've been making a concerted effort to read a lot of books from my TBR piles (physical and electronic), but April wasn't a big month for that, for some reason. This was the oldest one on my list that month (but I read a physical book I'd had for 20-25 years in January!).