Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

This thread is open to discuss Moonshine by Rob Thurman.



Synopsis
After saving the world from his fiendish father's side of the family, Cal Leandros and his stalwart half-brother Niko have settled down with new digs and a new gig-bodyguard and detective work. And in New York City, where preternatural beings stalk the streets just like normal folk, business is good. Their latest case has them going undercover for the Kin-the werewolf Mafia. A low-level Kin boss thinks a rival is setting him up for a fall, and wants proof. The place to start is the back room of Moonshine-a gambling club for non-humans. Cal thinks it's a simple in-and-out job. But Cal is very, very wrong.

Cal and Niko are being set up themselves-and the people behind it have a bite much worse than their bark...

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I'll join this one. I have the first book and luckily found a task it fits in the Spring challenge. Hopefully book 2 will come in time from the library. I put the print and ebook on hold. Ebook has a 2 week wait but the print one is at a library only about an hour from here. Now I need to find the print copy of the first one I have.

cool, i'd love more people to join in! and if you want to make some posts on the buddy read for the first one whenever you read it that's cool too. although watch out for spoilers in our discussion, i think we kind of just stopped using the spoiler cut since we were both done with it. also it looks like both the first two books are available to borrow right now on archive.org if you've got an account there and are having trouble finding your physical copy or getting it from your local library.

What's archive.org?

I'm sure I'll find it. My print books are mostly contained in 2 spots. But I requested it from the library just in case anyway. I've picked the first one up several times now to start and then I put it down for something else.

The Kindle book is only $2.99. I might just buy it since I tend to get through Kindle books faster.

I just signed up for that archive.org. I don't really like to read on my computer but that's pretty cool. I'll have to remember how to get the PDF onto my Kindle.

it's basically like an online library. you can make an account and borrow anything that's on there and it's not limited to your location like your local library. most books are available in either pdf or epub form - with the pdfs usually being scans of the actual paper book and the epubs being converted from that so i usually go with the pdf option because the epubs often have spelling errors.

you can read the files with either adobe digital editions or bluefire reader on your computer and i think they have apps as well but i haven't tried it that way. you can also read the book right in your browser but i find that to be cumbersome because you have to like zoom in to make the print readable and then arrow around the page.

it's probably a bit more effort than getting it from your library but i often find things on there that my library doesn't have -especially with older books- so i use it on occasion.

Score. (I found my print copy of Nightlife). My library has an audiobook edition but it said at least 2 weeks. Glad I opted to put in on hold anyway because it came up already. I will get through it much quicker now.

woo! i used to not be able to listen to audiobooks at all but i really like them now and even find myself switching between reading and audio for some titles if i'm really enjoying them and don't want to stop

I frequently check out both the audio and ebook so I can switch back and forth as needed.

I've loved audio books since I was a kid. I listen when I do yard work, walking the dog or clean the house. Oddly, I mostly don't listen in the car unless I have an expiring library book or a long drive by myself. But I only have a 5 minute commute.

I want to join this buddy read.

It's great to have more people in on this one.

Definitely!

so i didn't get this started today but i'm definitely gonna start it in the morning

Devann wrote: "so i didn't get this started today but i'm definitely gonna start it in the morning" I started it tonight just into chapter 2 a long way to go yet.

I would like to quickly read book 1 before starting this

I would like to quickly read book 1 before starting this

@Beth, go for it! And if you want to still comment with thoughts on the book 1 thread or even here then feel free.

i'm listening to chapter 1 right now and it always kills me that cal is afraid of clowns. i mean i guess it's a common fear but i just never got it. probably because my mom had porcelain clown dolls when i was a kid so i was just used to them, but when my friends came to spend the night they would make me put a blanket over them and i was just like ??? ...okaaay??? lol

Devann wrote: "@Beth, go for it! And if you want to still comment with thoughts on the book 1 thread or even here then feel free.

i'm listening to chapter 1 right now and it always kills me that cal is afraid of..."
Yeah i really never understood that either people fearing clowns. I guess the make-up and movies who have evil clowns that kill people is what keeps people scared. His detail of the clown was interesting and having the fear of clowns a surprise.

I’m going to start this book late. I won’t be starting reading the book until Sunday since I have to projects due for the end of the semester.

i got through about a third of it yesterday [up through chapter 8] but i think i'm gonna take a break today since most people seem to have just started / not started at all. although honestly i know these books backwards and forwards so i guess it doesn't really matter, but it's still nice to draw it out sometimes.

i'd be interested to hear people opinions on George and the whole Cal/George thing. (view spoiler)[I like her as a character but I've never really liked her and Cal as a couple. Mostly because I just have such a strong aversion to couples where it's like ~cute innocent girl~ who is going to make dark brooding man ~a better person~. Granted that is only barely what is happening here, George isn't that innocent and Cal isn't as much of a monster as he thinks he is, but I still find myself rolling my eyes a bit when he thinks about how ~good and pure~ she is. (hide spoiler)]

also just gotta say that I love my girl Promise! (view spoiler)[Her and Robin fighting over Niko is hilarious to me [especially since Niko has zero interest in Robin at all] and also her interactions with Cal are pretty great. I loved when she reluctantly ate his horrible pancakes and then when she started talking about having sex with Niko because he was zoning out lol. (hide spoiler)]

I listened to the whole book. I enjoyed it but I will be honest not my cup of tea. I agree with some of the things you said Devann. I can understand people's draw to werewolf stories. What the story reminded me of is playing a video game where your character is a werewolf and you are out killing things and yes sometimes you get a little banged up. Cal seemed to be in fights constantly. The serious injuries after a battle. I can see the twisted side of the story that the pack of wolves where like the mafia. Cal has a fear of clowns but he is not afraid to die. It just is silly to me that you fear that but yet you will brawl to death and you are ok with death. Yeah the good women trying to make the bad boy good just does not work. Like really no one is pure and i was rolling my eyes too. I have the book version I may try to read the book version at a later date to see if i get more out of it. I am curious what others will say about the book.

@Susanne

i actually usually don't like books with werewolves but i do like what she's done with them here with the whole mafia thing. i think i generally avoid werewolf books because it seems like all of them are romance books now and the main werewolf love interest dude is always a total asshole, oh i'm sorry i mean ~sexy alpha male~ [loud groaning] and i just hate that soooo much.

i do agree the fear of clowns is silly - especially with everything else cal faces down - but i guess that's why it's an irrational fear lol.

this book probably is the heaviest on romance in the series, which is saying something because even here i don't think it's overwhelming but it's definitely present.

i read chapters 8 - 11 today so just over halfway done.

i love how many quality cal and promise interactions are in this book. the scene in the diner is adorable and i like seeing them bond. also just the whole cal 'how do flirt???' plotline because #same lol

also i always forget how the ninth circle bar is described in this book [with all the plants and birds everywhere] because it becomes a regular location for the series but there is never any more mention of either and i always get the feeling after this that she went 'okay no that's dumb' and just made it have a regular bar interior so when it's like 'i walked in and there were tons of trees and birds' i'm always like do what now??

Yay just submitted my final project and the semester is official over for me. Now I have tons of free time until August to read just for fun!!!

That said I am on chapter 4 of the book and just wanted to do a quick check in.

(view spoiler)[I found Cal’s fear of clowns hilarious but completely relatable. I hate clowns and they creep me out even more than Mimes who are also creepy. I think my hate and fear of clown’s goes back to me watching Stephen Kings It when I was like 8 years old alone in the dark and then just built on from there. Then there are all those youtube videos of creepy clowns skulking around in the dark outside people’s house looking creepy and like serial killer and yeah just never going to like them.
On the whole Cal/George thing I dunno how I feel about it. I know Cal mentioned having a thing for her in Book 1 but I just don’t see the relationship ending well. Cal still has too many issues with who he is and from how he describes her it seems like he places her on a pedestal. His whole view of her being good and pure is kind of unrealistic but I guess that’s how he sees her compared to himself. I did find it hilarious how she pushed herself into a date with him and how Niko just goes along with it. George is kind of stalkery so far. (hide spoiler)]

@Claudia haha yeah i never saw IT as a child so maybe that's why i never got the fear of clowns? but also like ...normal clowns do NOT look like IT so i feel like even now they're always a very separate thing to me. like yes you can MAKE clowns look 'scary' to me but that's IF you give them pointy teeth or make them dirty or whatever, but not like normal clowns you would see irl at a birthday party or circus or something. but it is a very common fear so [shrugs]

re: the Cal/George thing, i do agree he places her on a pedestal and that's really never a good thing. also yeah his shit is NOWHERE NEAR together and it wouldn't be fair to her to have to like 'fix' him or whatever, although she seems smart enough to know that even if she does like him. but yeah her just showing up like 'mmm i've decided we're on a date' is pretty funny, and of course niko goes along to annoy cal lol

i'm gonna try to get through a few more chapters today as well

I just started this last night and haven't gotten far yet. But I'm sneak reading it on my Kindle at work.

Am I the only one thinking of the show Supernatural while I read this?

yeah it got compared to supernatural a lot back in the day. well i say 'a lot' but it always had a fairly small following, but i think most of us found the books through the supernatural fandom sooo lol

so i finished this earlier today. i'm always torn between 4 and 5 stars on this one [and the first book as well]. last time i read them i changed it from 5 to 4 on the first book and from 4 to 5 on the second. this time i changed the first book back to 5 and am considering changing this one back to 4. GIVE US HALF STARS, GOODREADS! lol

anyway i do really like all the stuff with the kin and him going undercover and then later (view spoiler)[having to go barter with the rom for the other crown and also hob! he's awful but i love him as a villain. and cal's gating powers and him going off the deep end at the end. (hide spoiler)] all of that is SUCH GOOD SHIT. and the brotherly angst is once again off the charts.

buuuut the cal/george thing i just really do not like. and this time i actually noticed in chapter 15 [i think] where cal says (view spoiler)[that 'it took a vampire to make niko human. who is going to make me human' and i'm like ok look i know your life has SUCKED and everyone is judging you based on a 'father' you never even knew and are definitely nothing like at all, but also you gotta make your own damn self human?? like it's not anyone else's job??? and the comment in regards to promise/niko was more in a joking way and i actually really like their relationship, but with cal it is obviously more like 'someone come fix me' and i'm like mmm ... (hide spoiler)]

also @Claudia, did you read all the october daye books when we did the BRs for those? this one is reminding me a bit of an artificial night w/ the plot structure bc someone mentioned that that book had like 3 climaxes where they kept having to fight a new person or do a new thing or whatever and i noticed that this time around with this book as well. i still like it but i thought it was interesting.

@Devann I just started chapter 11 so am at the halfway point of the book. Right now Cal is undercover with the kin. I did read Artificial Night so I get what you’re referring to with the 3 different climaxes. Does this mean that there is more to come after the undercover stuff with the Kin? Cause I kinda remember when we read Artificial night I was like awesome case solved wait why is there still like 100 pages to go?

haha yeah i think you've got maybe 3 more chapters of him being undercover then it moves onto a new problem. dun dun dun duuuuuun

Am now on chapter 13.

(view spoiler)[So like no sooner than they get the crown from Cerebrus and kill him when a wild Auphe appears. Traumatizes, terrifies and threatens Cal and stealing the crown away…

And like am I the only one who feels the wolves are getting a bad rep in this book? The way they are described makes them sound awful. Like all the wolves can’t be that bad right?
(hide spoiler)]

I feel bad because I just did not like the book as much as you guys do. I liked parts of it. I am not much a fan of fantasy but the supernatural fantasy is not that bad I read some other stuff which grabbed my attention more and i enjoyed it more. I listened to it maybe I would get more out of it if i read it so I do have a copy of the book on my kindle i will give it another read at a later date maybe this will make the difference for me. Listening to it i was not pulled in like other books I listen too. I do realize though that some books are better read then listen to so maybe this will be that way for me.

welp, im behind, for sure. starting this one later today lol. im actually super excited, because i think ive only read this one like once or maybe twice before. so as far as this series goes, moonshine is relatively new for me :)

@Claudia it's more like it's the Kin wolves that are bad which makes sense bc they are basically the mafia, although most of the wolves in the city are in the Kin so yeah it does feel that way I guess. But Rafferty and Catcher are wolves and they're okay so it's not literally all of them lol

@Susanne don't feel bad, i would definitely say these books aren't for everyone and they're kind of like my trashy guilty pleasure / secret favorite series even though i know i have technically read a lot of stuff that is 'better' lol. but yeah i know what you mean about being lost with some books in audio version. i actually really like the audio of this series but it might have thrown you off.

Finished!!!

Okay so many things to comment on. I think this book was like lets recap the first book by facing enemies form first book and new ones on top of it.

(view spoiler)[ Cal portaling home on instinct from fighting the Abbigor was a surprise but I was kinda happy. Cal obviously has this power but has been repressing it due to past trauma (the two years in tumulus and then the whole Darkling possession).

The brotherly angst continues and I continue to love their completely dysfunctional brotherly relationship.

I was a bit sad on the whole Cal/George relationship or non-relationship. Not because I ship them but mainly because Cal seems to be denying himself something he actually wants because of his fears.

Cal is totally not in a place for a relationship but it makes me kind of sad that his whole reasoning is due to the fact that 1. He still being chased by the Auphe who now want to torment him by destroying everything he loves and 2. His fears of reproducing and basically being happy and having it ripped away. (hide spoiler)]

@Claudia i love cal's auphe powers so much so whenever he either has repressed using them or is like ~oh i mustn't they're bad for me~ i'm like come on! live a little! i would seriously be using them constantly for like the stupidest things lol

and you're right that cal is in no way 'ready' for a relationship right now and like i said i don't even really like him with george but also it's like he's had such a horrible time maybe he could have ONE nice thing every now and again

@Devann I know what you mean. If I was half monster I would at least want to have kickass powers to make up for the trauma. I would abuse the crap out of my demonic powers to my advantage.

haha i know! i mean obviously a lot of his feelings of self-hatred come from how abusive his mother was so it makes sense, but i'm always like ok so what if you're a 'monster'? be a monster! mess shit up! go all out! but of course cal would rather be emo all the time. oh well, we love him anyway ;)

One of the things I am liking about this series is that many of the supernatural creatures actually look like supernatural creatures. They aren't all perfectly disguised as beautiful humans until they decide to show their supernatural side.

yeah i like that as well, most of the creatures seem more 'realistic' than they do in a lot of other series and i think she adds her own creative spin to a lot of the creatures - like with the werewolves being the supernatural mafia and the vampires basically just having a complicated case of iron deficiency - and then auphe are basically like a wholly new creature that she just made up.

She just changed the spelling and creature a bit.

an ouphe is a small, mischievous, fairy, goblin or elf.

(according to the definitions I found online when I looked it up). The audio book narrator in Nightlife pronounced it like "oaf" and that's what led me to "ouphe". I didn't realize it was spelled with an "a" in the books until I started reading Moonlight in ebook format.

ah, i've never heard of those, i'll have to look it up. although i assume they probably don't have the gating abilities her auphe have as well as some of the other stuff.

and only the narrator for book 1 pronounces it that way and i haaate it lol. the narrator for the rest of them [they changed after book 1] pronounces it like off-fey which i definitely prefer.

My library only has the first one in audio for some reason.

I am compulsive about looking stuff up like that in series. Especially Urban Fantasy series because these authors will pull up some really obscure (well to me anyway) creatures from various folklores and cultures. Not that I mind made up stuff at all. I am always just curious as to what they made up and what I'd just never heard of before.

so who is wanting to read the next book and when do you want to start? we were thinking of doing one every two weeks but i know some of you were a bit behind w/ this one so idk if you would want to start on the 15th still [or if the mods would get the thread up by then lol]

I’m down to read the next book. 15 works for me but I can wait for those who need to catch up

i'll wait til the end of the day to what other people say, but we can always put off starting once the thread it up anyway

I just started the 1st one and am loving it! Not sure I'll be able to finish this one and the 2nd by the 15th but will try to join you by the next.

i'll request it for the 20th to try to give people time to catch up. i don't think i would be done listening to long way to a small angry planet by the 15th anyway and i like the audio for these.