Gretchen’s Comments (group member since Feb 09, 2018)

Gretchen’s comments from the Return of the Rogue Readers group.

Hey! Don't know if anyone is still around but thought I'd check in and see how everyone is doing. How is pandemic life treating you? What have you been reading?

Ryan, I typically don't switch from paper to audio. When I do the reason I do is because I'm having a hard time connecting. So my imagination isn't engaging. No fault of the author, just usually whatever personal interference I have going on at the time.

So when I switch to audio, particularity with a good reader, it can actually pull me into the story more. The reader does a little bit of the heavy lifting for me sort of.

I prefer paper to audio and very much wanted to hunker down with this one but there were just too many distractions pulling me out of the story.

It looks like the movie might be available on Amazon Prime. If that's the case I plan to watch it this weekend.

Danielle, I kind of knew going in Strider might be a favorite of mine because I saw this movie in theaters way back and I recall him being one of my favorites in the movie as well.

I finally finished! Overall I enjoyed this. Loved the characters and the more character driven parts of the story.

I liked the story of how Bilbo found the ring. I watched the first movie in the Hobbit series (I thought I had The Fellowship of the Ring but I don't) and it has this scene in The Hobbit which made me like it even more.

I like the introduction to Strider, probably my favorite character. From that point in the book till Book II when they reach Elrond and Rivendell is probably the part I found most engaging.

Then there is is the whole world or Rivendell! I agree with Danielle I think I could read this again and discover something new or find a different part of the journey more fascinating than the time before.

So much to wrap my mind around.

I'm chugging along with this. I'm switching to the audio. I noticed it was available on Kindle Unlimited so I thought this might help get moving on this one. Not sure what my problem is trying to sit down and read this. Hopefully I'll finish this up in the next couple of days since it's a long weekend.

That's sounds good.

I have received my copy and will start today. I have a feeling this one will take me awhile. Unless I can get quarantined. Ha! No, not funny....

Looks like this is over 500 pages. Plus I'll have to get in the correct mindset for hobbits, dwarfs and elfs. Not to mention I'm trying to get my house in order for a visit from my sister. Who hopefully will be able to fly from Columbus, Ohio to Casper, Wyoming Easter weekend.

Hope you all are fairing well with all this mayhem.

I've never read Tolkien and would love to give this a try.

Let me know what time frame you thinking of.

Sure, I'm in.

I agree about the audio books. I still love the idea of curling up with an actual book and spending the day reading. However, life doesn't allow for that most of the time.

I'm interested in reading the sequel. The synopsis sounds intriguing and seems to take a different course all together.

Yes I did. It has Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Danny Glover and some others I recognized but not sure what their names are.

The movie was pretty good. Had the same dark feel. Moved a lot quicker and feel like I need to watch again because either I missed stuff or they left some stuff out. The just of it was the same though.

Danielle, I had to go back and listen to the last couple of minutes because I thought the same thing about the Doctor's wife.

She did not go blind. Paraphrasing... She looked up into the sky and saw white light. She looked down and the city was still there.

It was much easier to listen too than read. I was so glad I changed the format.

So Friday night I sat down to read a little before bed. I had briefly skimmed over Danielle's post and had seen she was listening to the audio version. After about 20 minutes of reading/re-reading I decided I was to tired to make sense of what I was reading. I felt defeated in that it was going to take me forever to finish. Not because I wasn't enjoying it but because I've been so busy and has been hard to find time to read for more than 20 minutes or so at a time. Then it dawned on me why not download the audio version. Which I did and I'm so glad!

Yesterday, while listening, got a deep clean on my kitchen done, cleaned out my garage and took my dogs for a long overdue long walk.

The writing style was challenging but compelling and well done. Here is the best description I've found of the writing style.

"It’s an omniscient narrator hopping between a lot of heads. The dialogue is run into the rest of the prose, with no punctuation to distinguish it from the rest of the prose. Yes, no quote marks. Not even a dash. Sometimes the dialogue has no tags to tell us who’s speaking – or indeed that it is speech. When the characters speak, it’s not even presented in separate sentences, let alone paragraphed."

This seemed kind of like a parable to me. What lessons are we suppose to learn? What does this tell us about humanity? How would one define them self? Etc.

Since I read the first half of the book it seemed to take forever to get to a defining moment where the internees decided to change the narrative of their lives in the institution. I was wondering if it was just going to continue to play out in the hospital which just seemed to depressing and drawn out. Which I guess is part of the point the characters either were going to run out of hope or redefine the situation.

Think I will watch the movie later today.

Ryan, so glad the writing style didn't bother you.

I'm so sorry I'm still working on this. Life has been unexpectedly hectic. Hopefully, I can find a nice quite and cool place to read and get this finished up. So far very intriguing.

I still have a little bit of reading to do. So will be back to discuss soon.

However, I really hope no one was put off by the writing style of this book.

July 28th should be good for me too.

Amy, I really do enjoy his funny movies but also like the more serious ones. Maybe even better.

I would like to have seen him more movies like Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society and The Birdcage.

I hope to get some time soon to watch The Fischer King.

Jordan I think What Dreams May Come is one of my favorites as well. Not only visually stunning but so many layers.

It frustrates me when the children aren't given the top consideration in these situations whether it involves divorce, blending families or death.

I listened to the audio version of this. I had other reading obligations and thought it would be a good way to squeeze it in while doing other things.

I am not a big reader of biographies either. I prefer a memoir. Anyway, I'm so glad I listened to this. Fred Berman was the narrator and he had a good voice for Robin Williams. I wouldn't say it was an impersonation but had the subtle nuances of his speaking patterns.

I enjoyed the subject matter as a whole but found I was most interested in the movies. Which I could go on and on about his movies.

I'm so old I remember when he appeared on Happy Days!! I wasn't really aloud to watch Happy Days, my mom thought it was too racy. Can't imagine what she'd think of shows like Game of Thrones and Veep. Ha!

I was kind of disappointed that a lot of the focus was on negative reviews and Robin's disappointment in not being more successful. Or is that just how the author chose to write it?

I've personally loved so much of his work and was terribly sadden by his death.

Speaking of Aladdin I'm very curious how Will Smith will portray the genie. I know my kids are very skeptical.

Jordan, if the audio version included the interview with author I turned it off before it started and I'm glad I missed it. I agree it made him more human and I can only imagine how exhausting it could be to be him and what expectations people must have had that he felt he needed to live up to.

If you haven't already there are some really good interviews on Youtube. There is one with Charlie Rose I really liked but I can't figure out which one it was now. I fell down the Youtube rabbit whole several times while reading this book.

I’m done and ready to discuss.