The 104 Book Challenge - 2014 discussion

Numero Uno!! The Returned 3/5

They are turning that into a TV show called "Resurrection" this year, apparently.

Interesting! There is a show from France on Sundance Channel that I've been watching, with the same title. The premise is the same, but the characters are different. I like the series, even though it's subtitled (I don't speak French).

I'm putting this on my list to read.

What did you think of it, Lyssa?

Gonna combine two replies into one since they're related.... my understanding of the tv show is that already existed in France (and was being broadcast here) before this book, tho it *is* interesting that they mirror each other so closely.

As far as the book itself, it's really not bad, but my brain wanted a little more explanation about the Returned themselves, and the book is more about the effect on the living folk and society. I always like to read something that's unique like this whether or not it lives up to expectations.

***Update 1/5/14 - Just read a blurb that says the tv show 'Resurrection' *is* based on this book, and the French show (which is also 'The Returned') has nothing to do with either. How's that for making sense of things? :)

#2 The Kitchen Daughter Don't read this if you don't want to get hungry - cooking and recipes play a large part and it all sounds so good!! 4/5

#3 The Vale Girl Ok, I'm gonna go all unprofessional on this one: Look!! It's my kid on the cover!!

Oh yeah, that's my daughter who oh-so-nochalantly notifies the family last year that she's on the cover of a book, so of course I have to read it. Problem is, it's only being published in Australia. Best Aussie friend in the world finds me a copy, contacts the author and has it signed for me(!!!!) and sends it my direction. I love my friends.

And the book! It's good! I don't normally read mystery-ish stuff, but I really liked this. I grew up in a small town so was nodding my head at the descriptions of places and people and the way they look at each other. The prose is atmospheric without being pretentious and I understood what she was talking about even tho there are lots of Aussie-isms. :) I hope Ms. McDonald makes it into the U.S. market as I know a lot of people would enjoy this. 4/5

#4 Happy Now?: A Novel Thought I hadn't read it before, but too familiar, so I must have. 2/5

#5 Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality Behind the scenes of the hotel industry, although just from the lobby employees' perspective. Some amusing anecdotes, but basically boiled down to "Tip us if you want anything." 3/5

#6 The Story of Beautiful Girl The premise is good, I can (mostly) believe the characters, but the story just slows way down in the middle. 2.5/5

#7 The Salt God's Daughter There is a story in here somewhere, but the author's writing style is so wordy that I kept losing it. Just wasn't in the mindset to read something written like this. 2/5

#8 Sleepers Mediocre character development and world building. Semi interesting "twist" at the end. Might not be a twist since you don't get much background in the first place. At least it was short. 2/5

#9 Written in Red First, let me say I love me some good covers. I will pick up books because of covers. This is not a good cover!! The wolf looks....weird, and the girl? Huh. Anyway, I managed to push that aside to read the book cos I love me some Black Jewels by Anne Bishop and was interested in the new world she's created. Wasn't sure about the first third, but then found myself getting caught up and finished up today.

The monsters are monsters. They eat people and don't just mope around and sparkle. Yay! Bishop even brings in Elementals and vampires and it all works. Best of all, it may be the start to a series, but it wraps up plotlines nicely while still leaving enough "What about...?" for the next book. Too bad it's going to be another YEAR....:/ 4.5/5

Lyssa wrote: "#9 Written in Red First, let me say I love me some good covers. I will pick up books because of covers. This is not a good cover!! The wolf look..."

This one seem really good, I am adding it to my list of books to read :)

#10 The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling Not what I was hoping for. Started as a book about homeschooling her daughter, and there were even neurotic-funny bits. Then it turned into "How I crashed the (insert fringe homeschool group here) conference" for no other reason than to say she did. I don't agree with most of the fringe groups, but it still irritated me since it seemed like she was doing it just for book material. 2/5

# 11 Daughter of the Blood Reading the new Anne Bishop made me nostalgic for the first series of hers that I read. Glad there are more than three books in this "trilogy." :)

#12 Heir to the Shadows Re-read number 90 gajillion and one! :)

#13 Queen of the Darkness Moving on to the follow up stories.... I *am* reading other books, they're just going more slowly as they're not my usual type and it's harder to get into them. And I also just found out a new "In Death" will be coming out towards the end of the month, so have to make room for that one, too. I need a vacation so I can just have a few days of curl up and read instead of trying to fit it in between this work and chore stuff... :)

#14 Bellman & Black: A Ghost Story Tried this as the cover blurb sounded interesting and almost gave up on it halfway through. Turned into reading it just to see if anything would happen. Nope. And if anyone else has read it, would you mind pointing out the ghost mentioned in the title? It seems like it's supposed to be one of those "meaningful" books, but I'm not seeing it. 2/5

#15 Dreams Made Flesh

#16 The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating: A Novel Received this copy from Goodreads giveaways, and I'm glad it was free as I would have been upset if I'd spent money on this drivel. Claire is just not likeable for me. Vapid, flighty, whatever you want to call it. She's all over the map trying to figure out a way to lose her "widow virginity."

Lately it seems that all of the cover blurbs have collaborated to lie to me. 2/5

#17 The Shining Girls So it's not just me.... Stephen King (at least it's his avatar) also said this was a twisted version of the Time Traveler's Wife.

I like the novelty - can't think of another book offhand with time travelling serial killers - and I was ok with just accepting that there is time travel, and a House with a Room (author's caps). Don't question, just accept and it all makes twisty, time travel-y sense. My brain is telling me it's better than 3.5, but 4 isn't quite right, so for the sake of simplicity, I'm just rounding up. Easier than arguing with the brain right now..... 4/5

#18 Tangled Webs Not as much of the main characters in this one - more of a filling out of some of the other members of the SaDiablo family.

#19Child of the Ghosts For some reason, I thought this was geared YA, then I started reading it. More violence than I would expect from YA. Not being my usual genre, maybe this is typical? In general, the book was interesting, but some editing errors (grapnel for grapple). 3/5

#20 The Shadow Queen Two more to go!

#21 Concealed in Death 38? Ye gods, I've read 38 of these books?? This one seems like a filler entry in the series - kind of a non-mystery. And while the blurb gets excited about a "connection with someone Eve knows(!!)", that lasts all of a couple pages, then poofs out of existence.

Just seems like this series is running out of steam and REALLY hoping it doesn't go the way of the Sookie Stackhouse books. 3/5

#22 An Unexpected Guest The whole book takes place in one day, so expect for *slow* progress. Clare is.... self involved. Sure, some is required for the wife of a diplomat, but stop looking at your damn hands! Sheesh! The kid is an overly indulged brat and the possible terrorist just seems like an afterthought. At least I got to use some of my high school French.... 2/5

#23 Shadowborn Another 'young girl becomes assassin' novel. I liked this one better than most others because it wasn't all non-stop action. Sure, it reads slow in some parts, but it still moves forward. Can't stand it when a newbie assassin becomes an instant expert and that doesn't happen here. 3.5/ 5

#24 Across Many Mountains: A Tibetan Family's Epic Journey from Oppression to Freedom Not knowing much about Tibet's occupation, figured this might be a good intro. Reading about her grandmother's life before and during the occupation is enightening. As it's a personal story, not overfilled with detail, but enough that it's educational as well as being an easy read. 3.5/5

#25 Shalador's Lady

#26 Twilight's Dawn Boo.. lots of folk were unhappy with this book as a finish to the series, but it always makes me weepy. And now, on to Hollow City.

#27 Ghost Month First time reading this author for me. Seemed like the book was more about life in Taiwan rather than the mystery- lots of descriptions of neighborhoods and the Night Market. 3/5

#28 The Weight of Blood Well if I ever wanted to go to the Ozarks before I don't now! :) The story switches well between differing viewpoints to tell the stories of the disappearance of Lucy's mom, and the unsolved murder of Lucy's friend. The final confrontation just didn't do it for me ~ just wrapped up too quickly to feel satisfying. 3.5/5

#29 Secret Keepers Great cover and.... yeah, great cover. I liked Emma, Kyle and Bobby. Dora, not so much. Trying books from different genres, and still waiting for one to wow me. 2/5

#30 Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal Really enjoyed this book even tho it's not generally "happy" reading material. A little glossed over as to the details of starting his NGO, how he financed operations and I'm pretty sure the kids weren't angels 24/7 despite what he's written. Surprised that the issues regarding integrating the children back with their families wasn't addressed when he started looking, but it's covered in a few pages in the last chapter. :/ 4/5

#31 By Blood We Live Hmm. Not really my favorite of the three. Just seemed like lots of pages to get two or three things done. Can't say that I didn't like it, because I'm a fan of monsters that act like monsters. And, even tho it's promoted as the conclusion to the trilogy, the set up for another book (or three) is present. 3/5

#32 Mary Ann in Autumn This author was recommended to me by a friend who knows I'm trying different books. Turns out this is the last book in a series about the same characters ~ wonderful knowing the end without having the beginning or middle! :/

I liked the characters and wanted to know their stories. I will say that most of the characters are homosexual or transgender, so not for everyone. 3/5

#33 Archangel's Legion Found out I'd missed this (thanks Kim!), swooped it up and finished it today. I do like how some of the Seven have their stories expanded, and it looks like some other storylines are being set up with Elena's family, but generally seemed like a lot of hoopla to get to the actual Legion in the very last pages of the book. :/ And, as per Kim, lots of sex. Tho mostly "hey, they did it again" rather than pages of description (looking at you Laurell Hamilton....) 3.5/5

#34 Murder of Crows Still with the wacky cover "art". The covers of the Black Jewels were so much better. Anywho, yay growly supernatural things! More development of interactions between humans and others, new folk introduced, and more of Simon and Meg being confused in the sweetest way by their growing feelings for each other. That all being said, didn't get the same satisfaction out of this one as Written in Red. Still trying to figure out why. 3.5/5

#35 The Golem and the Jinni It takes a little time to get things set up ( the golem and the jinni don't even meet til page 175!!) and there were times when I wondered what some things had to do with anything else, and then it all started making sense. 4/5

#36 Anomaly Got the first one of the series as a free nook download, and was interested enough to buy the other 3. Not so sure I like the ending. All that fighting just to set things up to start over again? This is darker than the first three books, with lots of fighting and lots of death. 3.5/5

#37 The Madman's Daughter For those familiar with the story of Dr. Moreau (like me), it might strike you as a rehashing of the same story (I thought so). But for a YA reader who hasn't heard of the story, probably an interesting read. And are love triangles required to get a YA book published? Another one? Really? 3/5

#38 The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of England A shortish, easily read book about happenings during the War of the Roses. After a while, all the Edwards, Margarets, Richards and Elizabeths ran together and I just read to find out what happened next. 3/5

#39 Homer's Odyssey Wasn't sure how a whole book could be made out of "My cat is blind", and now I know.. it can't. Much more about the author and her journey than the cat. 2.5/5

#40 The Good Dream Started and finished in one day. Don't know why this appealed so much - it can be repetitive, but in the way that Tennessee summer days are repetitive. For a book that touches on child abuse and adultery, it's a lighter read - the difficult things are only mentioned briefly. 3.5/5

#41 The Black God’s War: A Novella Introducing a new Epic Fantasy Not badly written, just not my thing. The gods take a personal interest in Caio and Lucia and seem to do what they say. Since when do gods take orders? Maybe it's explained in the book vs this novella, but that (and a few other things) bug me enough that I don't think I'll be looking for the book. 3/5

#42 The Art of Saying Goodbye: A Novel Never really got into this. Didn't like any of the characters. Just finished it as a matter of principle. 2/5

#43 360 Degrees Longitude: One Family's Journey Around the World--A Memoir I've been reading this one at trips to the laundromat. Brave folk taking their younger kids around the world for a year! Spends equal time on the fun bits as well as the difficulties. Great way to armchair travel since this type of trip doesn't seem to be on the agenda for me any time soon. 4/5

#44 The Moon Sisters 3/5

#45 A White Wind Blew
Historical fiction about the TB epidemic in the 20s. 3/5

# 46 The Boy Who Could See Demons This is an intriguing book - is Alex really seeing demons? Or is he schizophrenic like Anya thinks? I had fun just reading to see how things played out and the ending was interesting. 3.5/ 5

#47 Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel Amazing story about how one man is coping with incredible new skills unlocked by a brain injury. Granted it's not all puppies and roses as he now also has chronic pain, PTSD, and several other negatives to contend with. Very heavy on the mathematics as that is his focus now, which can be a slog for us non-maths folk. 3.5/5

#48 Crimson Night One of a 5 book download for nook. Not bad, but riddled with spelling errors that made my brain unhappy. Pandora is a nephilim that fights vamps and saves kids. Some sexy stuff as her demon is Lust, but more talking about rather than doing. 3/5