EPBOT Readers discussion

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all having a good week. The shorter work week has been pretty good for me.

From last week I finished One Last Risk. Of all the free romance novels from the winter kindle stuffer this is the only one that I liked enough to consider reading the next one. I'm not super motivated but don't object to it.

I started a physical book after. It is one I got from my sister when we visited last fall. The Way Back to You. She happened to have two books by this author that are part of a group. This one is #9! Thankfully it is standing on its own for me.

For audiobooks I've been on a binge of listening to the Amazon Prime free collections. I got through a lot of them this week:
Everywhere You Look completed
Just a Girl completed
The June Paintings completed and recommend
The Forgotten Chapter completed and recommend
Slot Machine Fever Dreams completed
Amelia's Shadow completed
Scorpions completed
The Other Side of the Road completed and recommend
The Ghost Writer in progress

QOTW:
Can you think of a book that kept you up at night?

For me the only one that I truly recall keeping me up at night was Alexander Hamilton. Although I DNF'ed it because it was so long and it was from the library and I had to return it. The storytelling in there definitely kept me awake. Generally I try to read things that will help me fall asleep so I stay away from things that are too exciting. I save those for listening on audiobook during the daytime.

I always feel like four-day work weeks feel longer than regular ones. I don't know why! Maybe because my students are always a little extra antsy when there's a long weekend.

In the last weeks I've read:
Die Laughing by Carola Dunn, which I picked up on a whim while browsing at the library to kill time. I hadn't realized it was one of a series. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will look up more Daisy Dalrymple books next time I'm in the mood for a cozy mystery!

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro: I was in a memoir kind of mood, looked up a list of best memoirs, and this was on it. I thought it was beautifully written, but at the same time I was kind of turned off by the author's belief that the father who raised her suddenly wasn't her real father just because he didn't pass on his DNA to her. She eventually came to understand that the genetics of it were less important than the love, but it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner: an excellent debut fantasy novel with really interesting worldbuilding. I promptly requested book two from the library (it was just published in april) as soon as I finished it.

Now I am reading Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky, the second volume of the ten-book Shadows of the Apt series. I love diving into a long epic fantasy series (especially one that is finished)!

QOTW:
Uhh....I can't think of one in particular, there have been a lot of books over the years that have kept me up reading past my bedtime!

Yeah, it was a long short week here, too.

Hula - Unintentionally snuck this one in under the wire for AAPI month. It's a sort of lit fic style exploration of several generations of Hawaiian women. I liked the bits of first person plural narration from the POV of the community, but there were some parts that dragged a bit, so overall I thought it was OK.

QOTW: At the moment I can only think of things that kept me up in a bad way, as in nightmares. I was pretty prone to that as a kid. The one that springs to mind is The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, which I think I may have DNFed after an unpleasant night.

Sorry I am late to this week's check-in. I just got out of the hospital on Saturday. It's an infection, they kept me for IV antibiotics but now I'm taking oral antibiotics. Still not 100%, but getting there.

Finished:
Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher - 4 stars - 24th book of an author for PopSugar. I love her fairy tale retellings anyway, and I hadn't read this one yet. I loved this take on Beauty and the Beast.

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali - 3.5 stars - for PopSugar's book set 24 years before I was born. Most of the first half of the book is a flashback to the main character's life in Iran in 1953, which was the year I needed for the prompt. A bit of a tearjerker.

Currently reading:
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett - for PopSugar's cozy fantasy prompt.

Upcoming/Planned:
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell - for Robot Librarian's Nonfiction: 400s.

QOTW:
I can't think of anything in particular. I can remember a few nights staying up late to read, but that's about it.