The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

This is the thread where you can submit reviews for the Best Review contest. The thread will open for submissions on January 16 and will close at Midnight EST on February 12, 2022. Voting will start the next day and run until the end of the GR day on February 28. The person whose review gets the most votes will have the opportunity to design a 20 point task for the Spring Challenge.

To be eligible for this task opportunity you must have achieved at least 100 points on the Winter 2021 Challenge Readerboard by midnight Eastern Time on February 12, 2022. Only one task per person per challenge.

Just a reminder that each person can only submit one review - but you can make edits to your review up until the end. The review does not have to be any particular length and doesn't have to be a positive one (i.e. you can choose to review a book you didn't like).
Please include your Readerboard Name.

PLEASE DO NOT comment on people's reviews in this thread - this is for submissions only - you will be able to comment when voting begins.

SPOILER ALERT!- These reviews may include spoilers

Hannelore

Review for:
Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson


Betsy has a really, really, really bad day. She loses her job and then dies. And it doesn't even end there. She wakes up in the funeral home, finds out she is dead and can't die again, might have killed some guys by accident and worst of all: her precious shoe collection is missing.
It's good she has some really great friends, because this story is a wild ride.

I was expecting to strongly dislike this book and its main character, as it seems quite shallow, but I didn't. The main character is a raging shoe addict, but I forgive her every bit of shallow-ness, because she is so brave and most of all incredibly funny.
I'm giving this book five stars purely based on how much I enjoyed it.
I'm glad this is a series, because I got through that book so fast and I need more.

I review every book that I read but I am very new to this challenge & by the time I'd got my head round the rules I only made my first claim for points on Jan 17th, so I don't think I am eligible :(
Seems a shame when there are obviously so few people wanting to participate/share their reviews ...

TraceyL
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
5 Stars

"I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good."

Reminiscent of The Farm by Joanne Ramos but this book stands on it's own. A woman loses custody of her toddler after having "A very bad day" and leaving her alone for over two hours while she ran errands. It's made very clear that she was overwhelmed with her situation, but it's also clear that there were other behaviors that were borderline neglectful before her bad day. She had several people in her life who she could reach out to for help, but she stubbornly refused to. She is admitted to a 1 year program at a school where bad mothers are taught how to be good mothers, and that's where things get weird.

This book was very ambitious and I think the author pulled it off. This a a dystopian sci-fi novel, so it shows a more extreme version of child social services. There were some points that were a little over the top, a little too on the nose, but I have to give this 5 stars because as a complete work it was excellent and I will be thinking about this for a long time.

LAUREN JODI

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
5 Stars

Henry II of England has a problem. The Jews are suspected of killing small children and cannot pay their taxes. Henry summons a “doctor of the dead” from Salerno, Adelia Aguilar, who must not only investigate the gruesome deaths, but also conceal her identity among superstitious people preoccupied with blood libels and witchcraft. Adelia and her companions are in a race against time to solve the mystery before the Jews are lynched and another child is slaughtered.

This was a re-read for me. I enjoyed it just as much the second time around, especially as the audiobook was narrated by the incomparable Rosalyn Landor who always makes the stories come alive when she reads.

The story is basically CSI in the Middle Ages. The descriptions of the period are detailed and thought-provoking, and the characterization is brilliant even for the supporting cast. I particularly enjoyed the heroine, who is intelligent and admirable. The traditional serial killer plot takes on an interesting twist that will shock and disturb. I know it made my throat go dry.

I have since read the entire series and I cannot recommend it enough.

Lucy-Bookworm wrote: "I review every book that I read but I am very new to this challenge & by the time I'd got my head round the rules I only made my first claim for points on Jan 17th, so I don't think I am eligible :..."

To be eligible "you must have achieved at least 100 points on the Winter 2021 Challenge Readerboard by midnight Eastern Time on February 12, 2022."

ROBIN P

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

I read a LOT of mysteries and I don't expect much literary quality from them. And actually "whodunnit" is the least interesting part of a mystery for me. I like compelling characters and a distinctive setting in time and/or place. If there is a series, I like the characters to grow and change and to be affected by what happens. Although they may be good detectives, Poirot and Holmes never change, and they are never psychologically affected by their cases.

This book is the 6th in the Armand Gamache/Three Pines mystery series. Louise Penny writes mysteries that have many qualities of literary fiction, in the wonderful depictions of places and especially people. And this book is a high-wire act in that the author is juggling 4 different mysteries.

She starts off with something I have never seen - the detective begins to question the way he solved the crime at the end of the last book. So he tries to prove the convicted person is actually innocent - but then who did it? At the same time, there is a new case of someone being murdered toward the beginning of the book and the detective pursuing that case. The victim was obsessed with finding the burial place of Quebec founder Samuel Champlain, and we get involved in that historical mystery also. And, since the last book, a traumatic episode happened involving several main recurring characters, and that event is only slowly revealed throughout this book. We go back and forth between those 4 stories but it's not at all confusing, as they are brilliantly tied together.

As usual for Louise Penny, we get excellent descriptions of the weather, the surroundings, and fabulous food. But she is also terrific with the psychological makeup of various characters. I'm sorry I took so long to start this series and I will continue to read this author.

Dlmrose wrote: "Lucy-Bookworm wrote: "I review every book that I read but I am very new to this challenge & by the time I'd got my head round the rules I only made my first claim for points on Jan 17th, so I don't..."
Oh, I felt sure that I'd read somewhere 100 points by Jan 16th .....
In which case I'd like to submit my review of The Hunt for Mount Everest

This fascinating book tells the story of the early days of the exploration of Everest. Whilst most books focus on the 1953 summit of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary & Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, or tales of subsequent adventures, this book starts many years earlier & culminates in 1921, where most other narratives start!

The story starts when the English Empire was at its height, and tells the story of the struggle to find the mountain and a way to its base, which of course had to be done before it could be climbed! I had naively assumed that the mountain was not conquered sooner due to lack of gear (clothing, oxygen etc) or similar, but in fact whilst surveyors could see the high peak from some distance away and assumed that it may be the world's tallest, they couldn't actually get to it because the countries it borders, Tibet and Nepal, were closed to foreigners. Today, most ascents of Everest use the Nepalese southern side of the mountain, however in the early 20th century, Nepal was completely closed to foreigners. This left the Tibetan North side, and a friendship between the 13th Dalai Lama & Charles Bell, who had spent many years working for the Viceroy of India in Lhasa, resulted in an entry pass being granted for the expedition.

The book follows the rather ramshackle group as they map & survey the hitherto unexplored area, and translated the skills they had gained in the Alps to the very different terrain and altitude of Himalayan climbing. Along the way there are unexpected moments of politics, imperialism and upper-class privilege mixed in with the adventure, and this brought some slightly uneasy moments that wouldn’t happen today when we have a better understanding of other cultures & respect all people as equals. We also see the very real perils of such adventures as various members of the group become ill or injured, and how a mistake with fitting camera plates resulted in 2 “lost days” where they had to retrace their steps to retake key images rather than continuing to explore that unusual little stream (which could well have resulted in the discovery of the East Rongbuk Glacier and a way to the summit sooner!)

However, George Mallory and Guy Bullock became the first westerners, and likely the first humans, to set foot on Mount Everest, and their explorations & challenging climbs resulted in discovery of a potential route to the summit via the North-East Ridge, paving the way for future adventures and of course the famous summit in 1953. 100 years on from this initial discovery/exploration of Everest, it’s time that some of the names of those who did the initial, and very critical, exploratory work are remembered as widely as those of Edmund Hillary & Tenzing Norgay!

It did take me a couple of attempts to get into the book, but once I did, I just wanted to keep reading! It’s not so much a pick up & put down type book but one to read a chunk at a time as there are a lots of dates, names & facts to absorb but the excellent research is what makes it such an absorbing & interesting book.

Overall, an absolutely fascinating read that covers history that I have never encountered before, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in 20th Century history, the British Empire, mountaineering, and much more.

Disclosure: I received an advance reader copy of this book free via NetGalley. Whilst thanks go to the author & publisher for the opportunity to read it, all opinions are my own.

The Real Food Grocery Guide by Maria Marlowe

I rated this only 2 stars for the reasons stated in my review. It's not a horrible book, but as a biologist (both as a bench researcher and a college professor) I'm so sick of the fearmongering about the food supply.

**********

My eyes were rolling hard before I even opened the book. FoodBabe wrote one of the recommendations and she mentions artificial and unsafe ingredients in the subtitle. Sigh. Here comes the pseudoscience. The book was a gift, thankfully, but I'm very disappointed because the person who purchased it is usually smarter than that about nutrition.

Inside she references the Environmental Working Group's "Dirty Dozen" - one of the biggest loads of crap in the organic movement, although at least she does not perpetuate the myth that organic is grown without pesticides. Her website, listed in the back of the book as a source of additional information, talks about superfoods, except there's no such thing. It's just a marketing gimmick for so-called diet gurus.

And then there's the cartload of bull-crap and flat-out wrong information she provides about GMOs. She claims there are no large studies demonstrating their safety and immediately follows that with an assertion that a series of small independent studies prove they might be dangerous. None of that is true. She claims that the only studies that show they are safe are paid for by the companies that developed them, which is partly true but neglects the fact that who pays for the research is less important than the independence of the researchers (university professors for the most part). This is the way most university research is funded, and the money is never dependent on the results. She conveniently neglects to mention that the smaller studies that support her bias are almost universally paid for and conducted by researchers with a vested interest in proving these things are not safe. The organic industry pays for most of this, and they are a powerful lobby despite their claims to the contrary. They pay for results. I've read some of these studies, and the things they claim to prove are usually pretty weak, relying on carefully massaged data, innuendo, and a poor understanding of things like standard deviation. Failing to prove something is safe does not prove it is unsafe - that's like trying to prove that bacteria don't exist because you haven't figured out how to detect them yet.

Not everything in the book is pseudoscience, however. The information about selecting, storing, and preparing fruits and vegetables is great and makes up nearly a third of the book. The grain chapter has a great list of gluten-free alternatives for those who need them. Most of the chapters covering specific food groups have some good information, although her bias makes itself apparent here and there. Keep that in mind and this is still a decent resource (I'll be keeping the book despite the pseudoscience). Oddly enough, most of the side panels (food myths, expert tips, time-saving tips, money-saving tips, and FACTS) are pretty solid, except for those that feed directly into her pseudoscience - the one on page 40 about organic vs. local produce, for example.