The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

What were your favorite books of the Spring 2014 Challenge?

A Pedigree To Die For
Dying For Chocolate
Crunch Time
The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service

Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service"

Very happy to see this book on your list, Jayme! I've got it on my bookshelf, too. Time to move it up the to-be-read list!

My favorites this season were:
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

I had two favorites this season

Bitten
The Enchanted

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer . I read this as a teenager. I am sure I appreciated Ms Heyer's wit much more this time around.


Killer Species Books 1,2, and 3 by Michael P. Spradlin Fun series, but what I really enjoyed was discussing it with my son.

On a Lee Shore by Elin Gregory Pirate romance. Yum!

Both of my five star reads this season are firsthand accounts of living in the wild west during the late 1800s. I loved that both authors showed through their stories that there is/was some truth to America's romantic notions about cowboys' lives right along side some harsh realities of those times.

We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher by E.C. Abbott

A Bride Goes West by Nannie T. Alderson

Interestingly, both of these books are co-written by the same author, which I didn't realize until after I read them. She really must have had a good sense for finding people whom had led exceptional lives.

honorable mention:

Vedi by Ved Mehta

This memoir about growing up rich and blind in India during the 1940s is a hidden gem. Mehta describes the people and events in his life so engagingly that I felt transported to that place and time.

Favorites Spring 2014

I only had one 5 Star Book this Season.

Favorite Book of Spring 2014

Kristi (Passion for the Page) wrote: "Jayme(the ghost reader) wrote: "The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service"

Very happy to see this book on your list, Jayme! I've got it on my bookshelf, too. Time to move it up the to-be-r..."

I loved this book. Wait til you meet the flabrador :)

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

No 5 stars this time around, but quite a few 4 stars:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
In the Woods
My Most Excellent Year
Jim Henson: The Biography
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Speaking from Among the Bones
The Winter Sea

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

I too loved this one and the second one; planning to read the third one this challenge!!!

I actually had three 4-star books this challenge, which is very unusual for me, plus there were lots of other really good ones.

The best of the lot: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics - If you like audiobooks, you've got to listen to Edward Hermann read this one!

Also
Watergate by Thomas Mallon
And Then There Were None
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Also really good:
Cress by Marissa Meyer
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo

My five-stars for this season were:
Wonder by R.J. Palacio. This is the type of book that when you finish it you want to go out and buy a copy for everyone you know. It sounds like a really depressing story, but it is so completely the opposite.

A Woman's Place by Lynn Austin. I found this one by accident and truly loved it! Such a gentle, sweet story.

Cress by Marissa Meyer. I liked the first two books in the series but this one just blew me away. Now I am anxiously awaiting the next installment.

My favorite reads this season were:

The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Tempting Fate by Jane Green

All of these books earned five stars from me!

My favourite reads this season:

Broken Blade by Kelly McCullough I went to this with not much expectations, but really liked the world and the hero

A Kiss Before the Apocalypse by Thomas E. Sniegoski urban fantasy how I like it. It made me stuff book 2+3 also into the Spring Challenge

The Troop by Nick Cutter nice old fashioned Monster Survival horror story

The Explorer by James Smythe Science fiction with a twist and an interesting POV

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey Space Opera at its best, even so we never leave the solar system

I had quite a few good books this season:
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
Burial Rites
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Under the Wide and Starry Sky
The Lightning Thief
Eleanor & Park
The Light Between Oceans

Five Stars:
Wives and Daughters
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I only had one five-star read this time:
Looking for Alaska by John Green -- and I'd still tell anyone to read The Fault in Our Stars first, if you've never read John Green.

I had lots of four-star reads, though. Here are the 4.5-ish ones:
The Blue Fox -- one I only read because it fit a task, and then ended up entranced by it
Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed -- if you've read her blog, don't bother (it definitely has recycled posts), but I hadn't really, and I *loved* her honest, humor-filled approach to life/parenting/you name it
Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures -- read this aloud with my 8- and 5-year-old kids; definitely deserves the Newbery it won!
Margot -- interesting idea (if Anne Frank's sister Margot had survived and lived post-WWII in obscurity...)
Out of the Dust -- another Newbery book
One Mountain Away -- I've discovered a new favorite author for contemporary fiction that makes you think a bit!

My favorites: