2026 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss Candide by Voltaire.

Pages: 129 pages

Length: 1 month (May)

Participants: SarahKat, Missy

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?

Looking forward to reading with you again. I've heard of Voltaire before but never read anything of theirs. Got my copy from the library.

I own this one but it's also available on audio and ebook from the library, so I'm going to save it for a bit until I've finished a few others this month.

Got to page 50. I’m glad Voltaire doesn’t write like Charles Dickens. It’s not bad so might finish this weekend.

Did you end up finishing this Missy? I will probably start this weekend.

SarahKat wrote: "Did you end up finishing this Missy? I will probably start this weekend."

Just finished a couple minutes ago. It was interesting. One guy must be a cat with everything he went through. A lot better than Charles Dickens but it didn’t leave much of an impression. I think the last satire I read was way back in high school and any jokes went over my head for both. (view spoiler)[I liked the “noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles” line in the beginning. Main guy just goes through a lot (some of it his own fault) (hide spoiler)]. Faster read than Fifth Season so that’s nice. Good luck with your read!

How’s Firekeeper’s Daughter going for you? I haven’t been reading my prismatic Emperor book much yet

I'm about half way through and I was laughing for the first half hour or so. Like when (view spoiler)[his mentor or whatever has syphilis and he basically says "no it's fine, I'd rather have this AND chocolate because we wouldn't have that without this."
Also at the very beginning something like "whether the pope is the antichrist or not I'm still hungry!" And damn if that's not a commentary that still works today. (hide spoiler)]

I'm about halfway through Firekeeper's too. Carri and I are the only ones who signed up for that and are friends so we've just been texting about it.

Any guesses on the culprit(s) yet? Do you two plan on reading the sequel about the niece yet? I’m undecided

I finished this one and loved it. I hope to eventually re-read it physically so I don't miss out on some of the lines and humor like I'm sure I did this time. I was not expecting a book written in the 1700's to be so amusing.

I didn't even know there was a sequel to Firekeeper's. I guess I'll decide on whether to continue once I finish it. No guesses yet but (view spoiler)[she just found a bunch of money in the account she shares with her brother. I hope it's not him but things aren't looking great right now. (hide spoiler)]

That's good you enjoyed this one!

I think the twins are teens in the sequel so there's a time gap. Edit: just looked and apparently there's 3 books according to Goodreads. Daunis isn't the main character in the other 2 but they are connected.

(view spoiler)[I wasn't a big fan of Jamie once he reveals he's an agent and older. I like Ron though, he's cool. (hide spoiler)] A lot of twists in final half.