The County Library discussion

Here we go! The fall session of Reader's Choice begins July 1st! I'm really excited about several of these titles so I look forward to hearing your reviews!

Alias Emma
The Cartographers
Cover Story
Deaf Utopia: A Memoir - And a Love Letter to a Way of Life
The Echo Man
Everything Left to Remember: My Mother, Our Memories, and a Journey Through the Rocky Mountains
The Gatekeeper
Killers of a Certain Age
A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting
The Marlow Murder Club
Mickey7
The Night Shift
Nora Goes Off Script
The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice
Shutter
The Stardust Thief
Take My Hand
The Tobacco Wives
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
The Violin Conspiracy

Vote online here! https://www.slcolibrary.org/informati...

The Stardust Thief is my SFF group's book of the month for July.

FINAL RESULTS

READ:
Alias Emma – 3.5
Deaf Utopia: A Memoir - And a Love Letter to a Way of Life – 4
Mickey7 – 4
The Cartographers – 3.5
The Echo Man – 3.5
The Gatekeeper – 2
Killers of a Certain Age – 3.5
The Stardust Thief – 3
The Night Shift – 4
The Violin Conspiracy – 4
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches – 3
Shutter – 3.5
The Tobacco Wives – 4
Cover Story – 3.5
A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting – 3
The Marlow Murder Club – 3

NOT READ:
The Other Dr. Gilmer: Two Men, a Murder, and an Unlikely Fight for Justice
Take My Hand
Everything Left to Remember: My Mother, Our Memories, and a Journey Through the Rocky Mountains
Nora Goes Off Script

I thought Take My Hand, The Cartographers, and The Violin Conspiracy were all excellent.

All in audio!! Hooray!

Super excited to see Deanna Raybourn. I first discovered her books through Readers' Choice years ago.

Unfortunately.... I have almost no hold spots available in Libby. 😅
But I created a tag for this round and checked out the ones that were available. So I guess I'll start with those.

Several here that I have either read or want to read. I might have to vote this round. Especially liked "Take My Hand". Also liked "A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting" (even though I was confused by the timeline at the end) and "The Tobacco Wives". On my TBR already are "The Cartographers", "The Marlow Murder Club" , "The Stardust Thief", and "The Violin Conspiracy".

Oh! So glad I got the email update! I was thinking it started in October

Britt, Book Habitue wrote: "All in audio!! Hooray!

Super excited to see Deanna Raybourn. I first discovered her books through Readers' Choice years ago.

Unfortunately.... I have almost no hold spots available in Libby. 😅
Bu..."
alisonwonderland (Alison) wrote: "I thought Take My Hand, The Cartographers, and The Violin Conspiracy were all excellent."
It's pretty rare that we bring back an author for Reader's Choice but Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age is so different than her others and we all loved it! It's got a lot of great comedic scenes.

Excited to hear everyone's thoughts as you finish the books!

I'm struggling with The Cartographers. I want to love it so much but the main character is making me a little crazy and I feel like it's crawling...

I really enjoyed Deaf Utopia. Alias Emma was pretty good. I'm a third into Mickey7, and it's keeping me entertained so far.

I like the new "deliver later" feature on audiobooks. Now I need one that lets you put a hold on it to deliver later instead of checking it out now, which you have to do if there are copies available.

I use "deliver later" soooooo much!

I’m so excited for this new list!
I read Killers of a Certain Age and The Society of Irregular Witches last year and LOVED them.

I’ll probably try to read them all tbh.

Last week I listened to Mickey7 and Night Shift.
I really… did not enjoy Mickey7 but Night Shift was really fun.

Finished Cartographers. Finally. I so wanted to love it and came away disappointed. (It did at least have a really satisfying ending, so there's that.)

Running List:
The Cartographers - 3 stars

I heard that Irregular Witches was a lot like House in the Cerulean Sea, which I absolutely hated, so it's at the bottom of my interest.

I mean I can see similar tropes- found family, contemporary magic but I enjoyed The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches more. But take that with a grain of salt I enjoyed House on the Cerulean Sea.

The Cartographers - 3.5

I liked it. Felt like I should like it more. The whole idea was good, but I too thought it dragged a little.

Vote Now link: https://www.slcolibrary.org/informati...

Is the library likely to get more audio copies of the Readers' Choice books? Because the wait time on some of these is wild!

I really liked Mickey7, so Whitney and I have opposite tastes, lol.

Lol I kinda love that like opposite of book taste twins…

Loved and hated The Violin Conspiracy. Good story. Liked the pace. Hated some of the things the character and his ancestors went through and found myself in some stress while reading it!

Running List:
The Cartographers - 3.5
The Violin Conspiracy - 5

Alias Emma was pretty good, though I kept waiting for it to get more complicated, lol. I've been reading too much Pendergast I guess.

Running List:
The Cartographers - 3
Alias Emma - 4

I got through 75% of The Echo Man yesterday in the car while taking my daughter to Rexburg. It's kind of brutal but kept me interested enough to nearly miss my exit.

Im currently listening to The Other Dr Gilmer and finding it fascinating.

Running list:
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches*- 5
Killers of a Certain Age*- 5
Cover Story-3
Mickey7-1
Night Shift- 4
Deaf Utopia- 4
Alias Emma- 3.5

The Echo Man was pretty good, though the villain was too perfect about never leaving evidence. The Cartographers was pretty good; the characters did make some dumb decisions, and I have some logic questions, but it's fine.

Take My Hand was another that was good, but oh so hard to hear things done to other people through the ages.

Running List:
The Cartographers - 3.5
Take My Hand - 4
The Violin Conspiracy - 5

I ended up only liking the first half of the Other Dr Gilmer. But just finished A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting and found it darling.

Running List:
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches*- 5
Killers of a Certain Age*- 5
Cover Story-3
Mickey7-1
Night Shift-4
Deaf Utopia-4
Alias Emma-3.5
The Other Dr Gilmer- 2
Marlow Murder Club-3.5
The Gate Keeper-1.5
A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting-4

I wanted to like Alias Emma, but grew weary of the night going on and on.

Running List:
Alias Emma - 3.5
The Cartographers - 3.5
Take My Hand - 4
The Violin Conspiracy - 5

Ellen wrote: "Here we go! The fall session of Reader's Choice begins July 1st! I'm really excited about several of these titles so I look forward to hearing your reviews!

Alias Emma
[book:The Ca..."

Would you mind editing this post to include the voting page? I've linked it on another page, but as we go on it will be easier to find it in the OP each time. Here it is so you don't have to look for it: https://www.slcolibrary.org/informati...

I liked A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting enough that I stayed up listening to it too late, to my detriment. Nothing deep, just liked it.

Running List:
Alias Emma - 3.5
The Cartographers - 3.5
A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting - 4
Take My Hand - 4
The Violin Conspiracy - 5

Half-way through Gatekeeper; it's kind of meh.

Patty wrote: "I wanted to like Alias Emma, but grew weary of the night going on and on.

Running List:
Alias Emma - 3.5
The Cartographers - 3.5
Take My Hand - 4
The Violin Conspiracy - 5"

Done! I posted early this year so the link wasn't up yet.

Ellen wrote:

Done! I ..."

You rock! Thank you!

I'm with Whitney on The Gatekeeper. It read like a teen boy wish fulfillment dream.

Really enjoyed Killers of a Certain Age, though I was startled by the language. Mostly because Raybourn's other novels are historical so not so much with the profanity. I'm interested to see if this becomes a series.

Running List
The Cartographers - 3
Alias Emma - 4
Killers of a Certain Age - 4.5

I really loved the Violin Conspiracy. I’m with Patty on being pretty stressed by it.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches*- 5
Killers of a Certain Age*- 5
Cover Story-3
Mickey7-1
Night Shift-4
Deaf Utopia-4
Alias Emma-3.5
The Other Dr Gilmer- 2
Marlow Murder Club-3
The Gate Keeper-1.5
A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting-4
Tobacco Wives-2
Everything Left to Remember-4
The Cartographers-3.5
The Violin Conspiracy-5

I'm going to have to set The Marlow Murder Club aside for now. I'm not sure why I am having such a hard time getting into it. It's to the point I am avoiding it. I don't think of it as boring, but I just can't get interested in it even though it seems like a book I would like.

I hate it when that happens. There are a couple that I've sort of started but either couldn't get into right away or something came up to distract and I've put them down.
I'll get to them it just wasn't the right time.

Finished The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. Overall I really liked it. Cute idea. Liked how the characters interacted. I thought the end was very good.

Running List:
Alias Emma - 3.5
The Cartographers - 3.5
A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting - 4
Take My Hand - 4
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - 4
The Violin Conspiracy - 5

I just finished Shutter and I didn’t read the synopsis before going into it. I was pleasantly surprised. It was great! I loved the paranormal aspect to the police procedural.

Running list
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches*- 5
Killers of a Certain Age*- 5
Cover Story-3
Mickey7-1
Night Shift-4
Deaf Utopia-4
Alias Emma-3.5
The Other Dr Gilmer-2
Marlow Murder Club-3
The Gate Keeper-1.5
A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting-4
Tobacco Wives-2
Everything Left to Remember-4
The Cartographers-3.5
The Violin Conspiracy-5
Take My Hand-5
Shutter-4.5

Violin Conspiracy had so many amazing things to say, and I loved the author's note at the end, but for some reason I really struggled to connect with the story. The writing style/voice just... didn't work for me. I don't know.

It's probably just me. I'm having a hard time with the list this time in general.

Running List
The Cartographers - 3
Alias Emma - 4
Killers of a Certain Age - 4.5
Violin Conspiracy- 3

I read The Stardust Thief earlier this year and absolutely loved it. Can't wait for the sequel!

Wow, such mixed feelings about The Other Dr Gilmer. I agree with Whitney that I liked the first part and not so much about the second part. The second part felt preachy and angsty to me.

Spoiler feelings below my list.

Running List:
Alias Emma - 3.5
The Cartographers - 3.5
A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting - 4
The Other Dr. Gilmer - 3
Take My Hand - 4
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - 4
The Violin Conspiracy - 5

SPOILER, SPOILER:
A good part of my mixed feelings is that my brother had schizoaffective disorder and was also in prison for a while. I saw so many problems with the system and with health and mental health care. We definitely need to work on that, but the question remains of what do we do with people who have already hurt other people? Another thing that went into my mixed feelings was that he took his kids into the prison. Having visited my brother there I know what it is like to visit. I get it if these were Vince's children and I get it that he was ok with Vince being around the children, but any time I have ever been there my brother wasn't the only inmate there. Combine that with Dr Gilmer being on TV and the knowledge that can be gleaned from that I worry about the kids.

Audrey wrote: "I heard that Irregular Witches was a lot like House in the Cerulean Sea, which I absolutely hated, so it's at the bottom of my interest."

Audrey wrote: "I heard that Irregular Witches was a lot like House in the Cerulean Sea, which I absolutely hated, so it's at the bottom of my interest."

I didn't hate Cerulean Sea (just ok), but I liked witches a lot better.

I can totally see the comparison between Cerulean Sea and Witches but so far (haven't finished) I think Witches might be more.... accessible? or have a more general appeal?
Idk how to say what I'm trying to say, lol

I'm having a terrible time with motivation this time around.... also time. Even though I mainly do audio which means I can read when busy. PTA life is kicking my butt, lol.
Which means I keep having to let books go back and wait to finish them when I get them back in. Not ideal.

All that said, I gave Irregular Witches 5 stars. Because my ambivalence about it was definitely a result of having a long pause in the middle and losing that momentum.
And even feeling ambivalent I'd have given it a high 4 rating.
So it gets 5 stars.

And I stand by my last comment-- it's definitely similar to Cerulean Sea, but I think more people will like Irregular Witches while Cerulean Sea was a little more "niche".

Running List
The Cartographers - 3
Alias Emma - 4
Killers of a Certain Age - 4.5
Violin Conspiracy- 3
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches- 5

I liked the Night Shift. Definitely didn't expect some of it.

Running List:
Alias Emma - 3.5
The Cartographers - 3.5
A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting - 4
The Other Dr. Gilmer - 3
The Night Shift - 4
Take My Hand - 4
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - 4
The Violin Conspiracy - 5

I took August off to do another challenge, but I am back into it with The Stardust Thief and Killers of a Certain Age. I think Libby jumped ahead three hours on Stardust Thief, so I will probably just restart it.

Killers of a Certain Age was entertaining.

Three 5-star books in a row!!!!
After ultimately really enjoying Irregular Society, I also loved Marlow Murder Club (my guess was NOT correct! I read a lot of mysteries and I'm almost always right, so being wrong was kind of... refreshing, lol), AND I loved Tobacco Wives which I wasn't expecting to love necessarily. Like, but not love. And I wasn't sure I was in the mood to be reading it at all today, but it ended up being really good. (The author's note is also really interesting.)

So really.... for feeling a lot of ambivalence and having a lot of interruptions and such.... it's shaping up to be a pretty good list for me.

Running List
The Cartographers - 3
Alias Emma - 4
Killers of a Certain Age - 4.5
Violin Conspiracy- 3
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches- 5
The Marlow Murder Club- 5
The Tobacco Wives- 5