2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker.

Pages: 188 pages

Length: 1 month (April)

Participants: M, Beth

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

Here are some questions to help get the conversation started! Feel free to look up discussion questions specific to this book or come up with your own. Just make sure any questions that contain spoilers are under spoiler tags.
Discussion questions are not required but may be a fun way to talk about the book and get to know each other!

Prior to starting:
What prompted you to join this buddy read?
Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?

Mid-read:
What character or ideas do you relate to the most and why?
Do you have any favorite quotes or scenes?

After reading:
What was enjoyable or not-so-enjoyable about this book?
Did this book change your perception about anything, either within the book (character development) or in real life?

I have a physical copy of this but my Libby hold should come through in the next week or two, so once I have that, I'll jump into this one.
I honestly don't really remember what this is supposed to be about but seeing historical fiction/gothic/set in Scotland with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell and that was all I needed to snag it off the shelf :)

My Libby hold just came through so I'm going to pop into this one tomorrow :)

I started this one a day or two ago, but I'm finding it a bit slow going. I've gotten the audiobook from the library, and I'm hoping that helps me make progress. I've found that I enjoy using an audiobook until the last two or three chapters, and then a digital book to finish.

Finished today. The audiobook definitely helped!

(view spoiler)[Wow, that ending! I mean we knew it was coming, but still. And Jim just went on with his life like nothing had happened. I think what helps make this book so disturbing is that Janet is only 16. And that a 16-year-old child was so poorly treated in her life (I realize she wasn't Miss Mary Sunshine!) and then murdered without much impact adds to the shock. (hide spoiler)]

Glad I read it. Glad I've finished it.

Oh nice, haha. You zipped right through it! :)
I've read a few chapters the other night and am enjoying how the atmosphere is building.

I finished this early this morning and have been sitting around, thinking of how best to rate it.
The longer I sit with it, the more I think I liked it.
Thick in atmosphere, the structure and writing style kept me from really falling into this one and it took me a little bit to settle into.
A solid 3.5 though.
(view spoiler)[I'm only disappointed in that we didn't get more development in Janet. So much of her I found myself relating too but it's like we never got close enough to her to really get me to care in the end. (hide spoiler)]

"She would live out her days at Auchnasaugh, a bookish spinster attended by cats and parrots, until that time when she might become ethereal, pure spirit untainted by the woes of flesh, a phantom drifting with the winds. What fun she would have as a ghost. She could hardly wait."