EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone,

Year's almost over! How's everyone's challenges coming, if you were working on any?

I'm looking forward to the next round! I think next year I'm going to do both Pop Sugar, and Around the Year in books. I might do Read Harder, but the prompt list hasn't been posted yet. I'll see how I like them. Doing more than one challenge, I allow myself to count books multiple times for different challenges. So one book can't apply to two prompts in the same challenge, but can apply to prompts in all 3 challenges if they work.

This week I was mostly catching up on comics. I finished The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror and then moved on to trying to clear my ipad off.

So i read Wynonna Earp, Wynonna Earp: Yeti Wars which were not very good. Glad I didn't read them before I watched the show, or I might have skipped the show entirely. Usually I get annoyed when shows don't follow the source material beyond the name, in this case it was a good thing. I also read Wynonna Earp Volume 1: Homecoming but it was pretty lackluster. It's supposed to be based off the TV show but it wasn't clear where int he timeline it took place. They added a bunch of new characters, and the existing characters didn't really feel like they do in the show.

Xena: Warrior Princess, Volume 1: All Roads i think I'd have enjoyed this more if I knew more about xena. I didn't expect it to rely so much on past knowledge.

Babyteeth Volume 1 - This was super creepy and weird and kind of absurd, but I liked it. I'll probably continue.

Also kept up with a lot of ongoing titles, reading individual issues.

How's everyone doing?

Hello All,

I found my footing with reading "sans challenge" this week and delved into some really good stuff. I finished La Belle Sauvage yesterday and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to make time to re-read His Dark Materials before the next book comes out (which will apparently be soon as the author has confirmed it's already written). I liked this book, even though it was bit of a slow burn and it's not as consistently good as the books in HDM. Still, I read that the next book will actually jump partly into the future past the evens of HDM, so I'm really excited about that.

I also finished Bound by Night. To reiterate my comments last week, it was terrible.

I had some fairly mindless data entry and processing tasks at work this week, so I downloaded the audio version of The Princess Diarist and listened to it while I was running excel formulas and formatting the results. Ah, Carrie Fisher. Such a brilliant woman and writer. As someone who was also a very insecure young woman, this book resonated deeply with me. I finished it in less than 24 hours because I just couldn't stop listening.

Finally, last night I started Eliza and Her Monsters. This definitely fits into the YA category (Eliza is 18 and just waiting to get to college where things will get better). I think it would be a really interesting read for a lot of people in this group, particularly anyone who loves comics and social media. Doesn't sound like any of us, does it? At any rate, the basic premise is an 18 year old high school senior who is famous online for a webcomic she creates, but is a bit of a pariah in her school because she's different (reading between the lines, I think maybe kind of Goth?--if we were still in the 1990s?). It's kind of Ready Player One-ish, but with a female lead and they incorporate her drawings and web chats/texts into the book, so it feels like a fairly fresh update on your typical YA social outsider novel.

Sheri, I listened to How to Train Your Dragon for the audio book challenge this year and feel about it the same way you do about Wynona Earp, it seems. I thought the book was pretty meh (and I only chose it b/c I had heard about the movies, and it was narrated by the glorious David Tennant ;-) ). But, I watched the movies in the summer and I LOVED them. I would have been very disappointed had I watched and then listened. I've chosen The Martian for next year's prompt of a book that you've already seen the movie of: I hope it's also not disappointing!

BTW, how was the Stupidest Angel? I saw many good mentions about it on one of the popsugar threads and I was thinking of reading it.

Stephanie,

I'll have to check out the Eliza one, that sounds fun!

I really liked both the Martian movie, and the Martian book so I think you're safe enough. I'd say the book is a little dryer just because it goes more in-depth into the math/science parts. But Wattney is still the same sort of personality, so the profanity and self depreciation keeps it readable. But it's a pretty straightforward adaption so i don't think you'll be upset, if you liked the movie!

Stupidest Angel was ok, I don't think I loved it as much as everyone over in Popsugar did. I do like Christopher Moore in general, but honestly of all his books, the Pine Cove ones are my least favorites. I didn't love Practical Demonkeeping or The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove either. (Bloodsucking Fiends and Sacre Bleu are my favorites of his, for the record)

Also I realized I forgot to mention I'm currently reading Rhapsody: Child of Blood which is a re-read for me. I'm trying to get through the ones I've read already, so I can read the two new ones I got at Powells. I first read it back in college which is longer ago than I really want to consider, so it's not very fresh in my mind anymore.

I too really loved both the movie and book versions of The Martian. But I'm a software engineer so I loved so many of the math/science parts. I think I've mentioned before, I had the same (good) reaction to The Martian as I had for The Hunt for Red October. Both are excellent freshmen books. My husband asked for Artemis, Andy Weir's sophomore novel, for Christmas so I'll read that after he's done with it.

I'm almost done with Cream of the Crop. I can see the set-up for book 3 being laid. I'll have to get that on order soon.