2013 BOOK CHALLENGE! Are you in?

[stacy347]

Goal 30

Book #4
Dark Visions by Jonas Saul

Story about an 18 year old girl who gets "messages" during blackouts. That was the most believable part of the entire book.
The dialogue was awful, and it seemed like there was little to no research done on this story.
The scenes with the police/FBI were completely off-base, and the conversations between the criminals and everyone else were so cheesy.
I forced myself to finish it, but it was painful, LOL. Definitely do not recommend this book or author.

 

[Kewz1]

They really get us hooked with the free Kindle books, don't they? I downloaded one, a diary kept by a British woman during WWII, chronicling her experiences during the Blitz and her problems in her marriage and with her grown children - touching on just about everything that could happen to Londoners at that time. I was fascinated with the book (as I am with that period of history; I'm one of the first wave of baby boomers) and promptly ordered volumes 2-4!

Queen Colleen

Sounds intriguing! What's the title/author?

Oh yes! Do tell!

Kristen

 

[PigletsPal2]

Sounds intriguing! What's the title/author?

It's World War II London Blitz Diary (A Woman's Revelations Enduring War) by Ruby Side Thompson. Volume I is a free download on Kindle right now.

I was also fascinated by A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead, the story of 230 women working for the French underground during WWII. They were captured and ultimately sent to Auschwitz, from which only 49 would return. Includes interviews with these survivors and their families and friends. Their stories are well-told and I went through a large box of tissues by the end of this book.

Queen Colleen

 

[Caseheidi]

Goal 50

Book #5: Destination Unknown by Trent Zelazny

I am not sure when or where this book got picked up, but decided to give it a try. It is a short novel about Brian, who is married to Kate. Their world ended when their little boy died. Neither are coping well, when they have $160,000 land in their hands...and someone wants it back, by and will do anything to get it.

This was a quick easy read. My biggest problem with the book was the foul language. Parts of the story were predictable and parts were a surprise. It was an okay read.

 

[CourtasanSatine]

Just got 3 of the Nikki Heat novels (Castle tie-ins) so I'm hoping for some light fun before diving back into the Sherlock Holmes stories.

 

[disneyfanforever]

Just got 3 of the Nikki Heat novels (Castle tie-ins) so I'm hoping for some light fun before diving back into the Sherlock Holmes stories.

I love all of the Castle Nikki Heat novels!

 

[disneyfanforever]

Goal 25

#6. The Coincendence of Callie and Kayden by Jessica Sorensen.

This was a cheap Nook book that was rated high so I thought I would give it a try. The plot was fine (boy and girl each have troubled lives, find each other, etc.) , but I didn't think it was written that well. Also, I would have like to have known it was only the first in a series before I started it as this one ended in a cliffhanger. I would like to know what happens to them, but I am not sure that I care enought to read another book.

#7. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

I loved this book! It was a tearjerker, and I really liked both of the characters. It's about a lady named Louisa that becomes a caregiver for Will, a quadriplegic due to being injured in an accident. I don't want to give anything away but it was just really well written. It was sad, funny, moving, and everything in between.

 

[zippitydoo]

Book 4 of 30: Defending Jacob by William Landay

 

[DisneyWalle]

Book 3 Completed: 3 of 30
27 more to go

Cellar of Horror - 1 stars
True story of serial killer in 1986
The author's book should have been half its size - after the first 100pages he just started repeating himself.

 

[portia9]

It's World War II London Blitz Diary (A Woman's Revelations Enduring War) by Ruby Side Thompson. Volume I is a free download on Kindle right now.

I was also fascinated by A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead, the story of 230 women working for the French underground during WWII. They were captured and ultimately sent to Auschwitz, from which only 49 would return. Includes interviews with these survivors and their families and friends. Their stories are well-told and I went through a large box of tissues by the end of this book.

Queen Colleen

Thank you!

Goal 100

#15 The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes-this got very mixed reviews but I loved it.

 

[DisneyWalle]

Book 4 of 30
26 books remaining

House of Evil: the Indiana Torture Slaying
Stars: 4

Hard to rate these kinds of books simply because of their content. So I will rate them on the author's ability to retell the events without being repetitive or inserting their personal opinions.

This is the true story of the death of a 16 yr old girl in 1968 by the hands of a mother and several children under the age of 17. Very sad --- reading these types of stories makes you question humanity -- how can people so young be so cruel and sadistic.

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #4: Replay by Ken Grimwood

This book was okay. Got a little boring by the end. It did pose an interesting question about if you had the opportunity to relive part of your life, would you follow the same path or do something different?

Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again -- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?"

Next book: A Fault in Our Stars by John Green

 

[phorsenuf]

Book # 3 of 26 The Edge of Never by J.A. Redmerski
4 stars out of 5

I really liked this book a lot. It was a different genre then I usually read but every once in a while I need a fluff book. I highly recommend it, but be advised there is some very detailed sexual content. I'm not big into that so I was a bit bummed when it got to that point. But overall it was a really good book.

This is the review from Amazon;

Twenty-year-old Camryn Bennett had always been one to think out-of-the-box, who knew she wanted something more in life than following the same repetitive patterns and growing old with the same repetitive life story. And she thought that her life was going in the right direction until everything fell apart.

Determined not to dwell on the negative and push forward, Camryn is set to move in with her best friend and plans to start a new job. But after an unexpected night at the hottest club in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, she makes the ultimate decision to leave the only life she's ever known, far behind.

With a purse, a cell phone and a small bag with a few necessities, Camryn, with absolutely no direction or purpose boards a Greyhound bus alone and sets out to find herself. What she finds is a guy named Andrew Parrish, someone not so very different from her and who harbors his own dark secrets. But Camryn swore never to let down her walls again. And she vowed never to fall in love.

But with Andrew, Camryn finds herself doing a lot of things she never thought she'd do. He shows her what it's really like to live out-of-the-box and to give in to her deepest, darkest desires. On their sporadic road-trip he becomes the center of her exciting and daring new life, pulling love and lust and emotion out of her in ways she never imagined possible. But will Andrew's dark secret push them inseparably together, or tear them completely apart?

 

[phorsenuf]

Book #4 of 26. Afraid - A Novel of Terror by J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn
I give this 5 stars.

It's hard to review this book actually. The underlying story is so good, but it was one of the most gruesome and gory book I think I have ever read. He spares no detail! So while it was hard to read at times I could not put it down. So if you do decide to read it, make sure you have a strong stomach. I had no idea how graphic it was till I started reading, but by that point I was hooked.

Review from Amazon;

WELCOME TO SAFE HAVEN, POPULATION 907...

Nestled in the woods of Wisconsin, Safe Haven is miles from everything. With one road in and out, this is a town so peaceful it has never needed a full-time police force. Until now...

A helicopter has crashed on the outskirts of town and something terrible has been unleashed. A classified secret weapon programmed to kill anything that stands in its way. Now its headed for the nearest lights to do what it does best. Isolate. Terrorize. Annihilate.

Soon all phone lines are dead and the road is blocked. Safe Havens only chance for survival rests on the shoulders of an aging county sheriff. And as the body count rises, the sheriff realizes something even more terrifying - maybe death hasnt come to his little town by accident...


WELCOME TO SAFE HAVEN, POPULATION 907... 906... 905...

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#9 Replay by Ken Grimwood

I pretty much agree with nemofans's review above. Was good but some parts were long and drawn out.

Finally got Gone Girl from the library yesterday & started reading that last night. So far, so good.
I also started reading 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' by Maria Semple a few days ago. I set it aside as it doesn't really seem like my kind of book but may pick it back up to try again. It was on Bookpage's top 25 reader picks & also the top 50 editor picks for 2012 but I'm finding that most of the books on those lists are not appealing to me.

 

[willowsnn3]

Book #4 of 26. Afraid - A Novel of Terror
I give this 5 stars.

It's hard to review this book actually. The underlying story is so good, but it was one of the most gruesome and gory book I think I have ever read. He spares no detail! So while it was hard to read at times I could not put it down. So if you do decide to read it, make sure you have a strong stomach. I had no idea how graphic it was till I started reading, but by that point I was hooked.

Review from Amazon;

WELCOME TO SAFE HAVEN, POPULATION 907...

Nestled in the woods of Wisconsin, Safe Haven is miles from everything. With one road in and out, this is a town so peaceful it has never needed a full-time police force. Until now...

A helicopter has crashed on the outskirts of town and something terrible has been unleashed. A classified secret weapon programmed to kill anything that stands in its way. Now it’s headed for the nearest lights to do what it does best. Isolate. Terrorize. Annihilate.

Soon all phone lines are dead and the road is blocked. Safe Haven’s only chance for survival rests on the shoulders of an aging county sheriff. And as the body count rises, the sheriff realizes something even more terrifying - maybe death hasn’t come to his little town by accident...


WELCOME TO SAFE HAVEN, POPULATION 907... 906... 905...

Hey, sounds good to me!! Who was the author?? I can just put in title on library website tho and it should locate the book for me.
I went in yesterday to pick up Gone Girl from being on hold & also picked up the 3rd & 4th books of The Giver series. And Halo, the first of another YA trilogy. But then I still have Ms. Dalloway & Timescape to read before they are due back. So many books, so little time, lol.

 

[RunningGirl]

#8 done - "Mornings in Jenin" by Susan Abulhawa

Forcibly removed from the ancient village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejas are moved into the Jenin refugee camp. There, exiled from his beloved olive groves, the family patriarch languishes of a broken heart, his eldest son fathers a family and falls victim to an Israeli bullet, and his grandchildren struggle against tragedy toward freedom, peace, and home. This is the Palestinian story, told as never before, through four generations of a single family.
The very precariousness of existence in the camps quickens life itself. Amal, the patriarch's bright granddaughter, feels this with certainty when she discovers the joys of young friendship and first love and especially when she loses her adored father, who read to her daily as a young girl in the quiet of the early dawn. Through Amal we get the stories of her twin brothers, one who is kidnapped by an Israeli soldier and raised Jewish; the other who sacrifices everything for the Palestinian cause. Amal’s own dramatic story threads between the major Palestinian-Israeli clashes of three decades; it is one of love and loss, of childhood, marriage, and parenthood, and finally of the need to share her history with her daughter, to preserve the greatest love she has.

Definitely not an easy book to read - don't take it on vacation with you! But it was a good book and very interesting to get a different viewpoint on things.

 

[phorsenuf]

Hey, sounds good to me!! Who was the author?? I can just put in title on library website tho and it should locate the book for me.
I went in yesterday to pick up Gone Girl from being on hold & also picked up the 3rd & 4th books of The Giver series. And Halo, the first of another YA trilogy. But then I still have Ms. Dalloway & Timescape to read before they are due back. So many books, so little time, lol.

Don't know why I forgot the authors. Updated both posts to include them.

 

[PigletsPal2]

Goal: 52 books this year.

I'm currently reading #7 and #8 at the same time.

#7 is Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly. I'm not a fan of O'Reilly, but he does write fairly well, and he's a former history teacher, so he's done his research. His descriptions of the Civil War battles are very vivid.

When O'Reilly's book gets too intense, I switch to something ligher; right now I'm also reading Dragonwell Dead by Laura Childs. Charleston teashop owner Theodosia Browning and her tea-blending expert assistant Drayton Conneley are compelled to find out who poisoned Mark Congdon in the middle of a garden party/orchid auction at which they provided the refreshments. This is one of a series, all named after a type of tea. Fun reads, pure fluff.

I never need encouragement to read, but this is a fun challenge. I'm going to go back through past posts to decide what to read next. Thanks for all the suggestions and reviews!

Queen Colleen

Goal: 52 books for the year.

No. 7 down and done.

OK, I finished Dragonwell Dead before I finished reading Killing Lincoln, so I guess Lincoln will be #8. I'm about 2/3 of the way through and expect to finish it by the end of the week.

The story line for Dragonwell Dead is in my quoted post. I liked the story and enjoyed becoming reacquainted with recurring characters in this series. And as much as I pride myself on being able to figure out "who-dun-it" well before the end of the book, I was surprised by the ending of this one.

OK, back to Lincoln.

Queen Colleen

 

[phorsenuf]

Goal: 52 books this year.

I'm currently reading #7 and #8 at the same time.

#7 is Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly. I'm not a fan of O'Reilly, but he does write fairly well, and he's a former history teacher, so he's done his research. His descriptions of the Civil War battles are very vivid.

When O'Reilly's book gets too intense, I switch to something ligher; right now I'm also reading Dragonwell Dead by Laura Childs. Charleston teashop owner Theodosia Browning and her tea-blending expert assistant Drayton Conneley are compelled to find out who poisoned Mark Congdon in the middle of a garden party/orchid auction at which they provided the refreshments. This is one of a series, all named after a type of tea. Fun reads, pure fluff.

I never need encouragement to read, but this is a fun challenge. I'm going to go back through past posts to decide what to read next. Thanks for all the suggestions and reviews!

Queen Colleen

I loved Killing Lincoln. Ranks right up there as one of my all time favorites!