ANNUAL READING GOAL CHALLENGE for 2015!

Hi everyone :flower3:

I've had problems with sitting down and just reading books in the past. I love books, but I have issues that make it hard for me to read for long periods of time. I'd like to join in the 2015 reading challenge so I can get better at it! My goal is 25 books and I'm most looking forward to finishing up the Harry Potter series :goodvibes
 
Book #14 of 50: Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand

From Goodreads:
Det. roland March is a homicide cop on his way out. But when he's the only one at a crime scene to find evidence of a missing female victim, he's given one last chance to prove himself. Before he can crack the case, he's transferred to a new one that has grabbed the spotlight--the disappearance of a famous Houston evangelist's teen daughter.

With the help of a youth pastor with a guilty conscience who navigates the world of church and faith, March is determined to find the missing girls while proving he's still one of Houston's best detectives.
 
Finished book #5 - Breaking Dawn. I had read the other books in the series a while ago and decided to finish it up. I really need to find a good book to read. My last couple have not been very good.
 
I've been home sick this week so I've gotten a lot of reading done.

9/35 The Boyfriend of the Month Club by Maria Geraci
A rom com that would make for good beach reading. A group of 4 women who are disgruntled with men start a group to rate and critique local bachelors. The issues that result are pretty predictable, and everyone hooks up with a good man in the end.
 

Hi everyone :flower3:

I've had problems with sitting down and just reading books in the past. I love books, but I have issues that make it hard for me to read for long periods of time. I'd like to join in the 2015 reading challenge so I can get better at it! My goal is 25 books and I'm most looking forward to finishing up the Harry Potter series :goodvibes

Hi there! So glad you found us here! I've added you to the first post. Hope this group helps to motivate you to read more in 2015! :)
 
Book #15 of 50: Love Me Sweet by Tracy Brogan

From Goodreads:
Delaney Masterson isn’t looking for fame.

Yes, she has famous parents and a reality TV show, but she’s not the wild-child celebrity the paparazzi have painted her to be. Until…The Scandal. When an old boyfriend releases a private video, Delaney’s name becomes every comedian’s favorite punch line. To escape the media, she sneaks away to Bell Harbor, Michigan—during the worst winter in fifty years.

Adventure show cameraman Grant Connelly has stayed away from Bell Harbor—mostly by choice—but when a family obligation converges with a spontaneous career decision, it’s time to return home.

When bad weather, missing money, honky-tonk musicians, and Elvis impersonators throw Grant and Delaney together on an unexpected road trip, emotions get all shook up. They know only fools fall in love, but they can’t help falling. Still, Delaney has a secret that could tear them apart forever.

Can they weather the storm? Or will this romantic ride end at the Heartbreak Hotel?
 
22 The Martian by Andy weir

from Amazon
The Sunday Times bestseller - Robinson Crusoe on Mars, a survival story for the 21st Century


I’m stranded on Mars.


I have no way to communicate with Earth.


I’m in a Habitat designed to last 31 days.


If the Oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.


So yeah. I’m screwed.

I really enjoyed this a lot. i usually read fantasy more than straight sci fi but this was unexpextedly gripping
 
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Book #5: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

I liked Gone Girl a lot so I decided to take a dip and read another novel from Flynn. I really liked this one, but I figured most of it out before the end. I'll probably read her other book here soon, but I have a crap ton of new books I bought from the Library and I need to read these before buying any more!!!

Excerpt from GoodReads:

Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.

Since then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her borther's? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?

She begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day... especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.

Who did massacre the Day family?
 
Book #6 Summer Promise by Robin Jones Gunn

Book #7 The Name Below The Title by Rupert Alistair

Book #8 The Glass Magician by Charlie N. Holmburg

Book #9-15 The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling

Book #16 When I was a Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago

Book #17 Almost a Woman by Esmeralda Santiago

Book #18 Totlandia Book #1 Fall by Josie Brown
 
#4 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Unless JK Rowling's releases another Harry Potter book by year end or they find some lost Douglas Adams novel I am sure I have read my favorite book ths year.
James Haliday went from a renowned video game designer to the richest man in the world when he introduced a virtual universe that took off beyond belief. When he dies a rich hermit obsessed with everything to do with the 80s (and some really cool things from 70' and 90's), he leaves all of it to the person who can find the Easter egg that he had embedded in the code of the universe.
The story was great not mention the amount of pop culture talked about as all those trying to find it research all that Haliday loved. I loved this most about the book and being a virtual world allowed it to be endlessly used in the world created. I do find it funny as dweebs like myself play games like wow jut so we can beat up people. You know given the opportunity you jut can't help but kick someone's butt. Anyway give it 5stars+ and if you are an 80's fan well it would have to go to 11.

As always anyway want to read any of my works would gladly send Kindle or Nook gift copies, just message me or like this. They are also still running giveaways on goodreads(Three Twigs for the Fire, Written for You).
 
Book 14/100 was The White Princess by Philippa Gregory. I somehow missed this book (#5 in The Cousins' War series) when it was released and didn't even know it had been published until I read the The White Queen. I have now officially read everything Philippa Gregory has written. From Goodreads:

When Henry Tudor picks up the crown of England from the mud of Bosworth field, he knows he must marry the princess of the enemy house—Elizabeth of York—to unify a country divided by war for nearly two decades.

But his bride is still in love with his slain enemy, Richard III—and her mother and half of England dream of a missing heir, sent into the unknown by the White Queen. While the new monarchy can win power, it cannot win hearts in an England that plots for the triumphant return of the House of York.

Henry’s greatest fear is that somewhere a prince is waiting to invade and reclaim the throne. When a young man who would be king leads his army and invades England, Elizabeth has to choose between the new husband she is coming to love and the boy who claims to be her beloved lost brother: the rose of York come home at last.
 
5/25

A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire Book 5)

From Amazon:

In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance—beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. As they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind.

Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way to Daenerys. But his newest allies in this quest are not the rag-tag band they seem, and at their heart lies one who could undo Daenerys’s claim to Westeros forever.

Meanwhile, to the north lies the mammoth Wall of ice and stone—a structure only as strong as those guarding it. There, Jon Snow, 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, will face his greatest challenge. For he has powerful foes not only within the Watch but also beyond, in the land of the creatures of ice.

From all corners, bitter conflicts reignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all.​

I started reading the Game of Thrones series last spring when season 4 of the tv show started, I've had to take breaks in between all of the books because I found them a bit slow, but good. A Dance with Dragons was great... very different in terms of where the story had gone in previous installments. I can't wait to maybe one day, some day find out how the next two books turn out.

Book 6: Is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns) by Mindy Kaling

 
Book #16 of 50: Ties That Bind (Madison Knight, #1) by Carolyn Arnold

From Goodreads:
When a woman is found strangled in her home, Detective Madison Knight and her partner Terry Grant rule it an isolated incident. But when another woman is murdered with the same line of neckties, they know it isn’t a coincidence. Now they must figure out the connection so they can stop a potential serial killer before he gets to his third victim.
 
16. Found by harlan Coben
This is the third of the Mickey Bolitar series written for YA. He continues right where the second one leaves off and involves the kids in a new adventure. There are a couple different subplots in this book while they are still following the mystery that started in book 1. I really enjoy this series and hope he comes out with more installments.

17. The Morning Show Murders by Al Roker and Dick Lochte
This is the first of a series of books by Al Roker starring Billy Blessing. I listened to this in the car and Al reads the book. I'm not sure if that was good or bad because you really picture the main character as being Al. The book itself was all right. It kind of skips around a lot. Billy is a morning show host (big surprise) and someone who works with the show gets murdered. Billy is blamed and he must try to solve the case to clear his name. I don't know if I will read any of the others.
 
Finished book #12 - The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor

This is a historical fiction story about a girl from Ireland traveling to America on the Titanic. I really enjoyed this story even knowing the outcome of that cruise. It helped to connect with people who were on that voyage and what it must have been like, not only for the deceased, but for the people who survived. This story takes place in 2 time periods: one is with Maggie as she journeys to America in 1912 and the other with Grace who is Maggie's great granddaughter.

Inspired by true events, the New York Times bestselling novel The Girl Who Came Home is the poignant story of a group of Irish emigrants aboard RMS Titanic—a seamless blend of fact and fiction that explores the tragedy's impact and its lasting repercussions on survivors and their descendants.
Ireland, 1912. Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For seventeen-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with Séamus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the lucky few passengers in steerage who survives. Waking up alone in a New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that terrible night ever again.
Chicago, 1982. Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her Great Nana Maggie shares the painful secret she harbored for almost a lifetime about the Titanic, the revelation gives Grace new direction—and leads her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those they thought lost long ago.


Next book: The Forgotten Girl
 
#6: 50 Shades Darker - It was ok. I am just trying to finish out the series. I am heading to library tonight to book up some new books. I am on the waitlist for several books recommended here.
 
Finished All the Light We Cannot See over the weekend.

It took me a little bit to get into it, but once I did, I was entranced. I do have to admit the time jumping confused me on more than one occasion, but overall that strategy worked well with this book I think. It created suspense that had me coming back for more (once I figured out where I was in the timeline of things first, lol).

However, I'm in turmoil reviewing this book because as much as I loved it while reading it, the ending disappointed me. I'm not sure if I missed something along the way? The whole book was building and building towards this one climax... and it wasn't much of a climax at all once you finally got there.

But I did love the storyline, I loved the author's way with words - the beautiful descriptions and the way his words made me feel, and I loved the characters and all the meaningful relationships they formed. It made me really think on how the littlest of things could impact lives and bring such joy to others.

This is the story of a young blind girl, Marie-Laure, and Werner, a soldier in Hitler's youth regiment, living on opposite sides of the war, their childhoods, and the impact they had on each other's lives.
 
Finished All the Light We Cannot See over the weekend.



However, I'm in turmoil reviewing this book because as much as I loved it while reading it, the ending disappointed me. I'm not sure if I missed something along the way? The whole book was building and building towards this one climax... and it wasn't much of a climax at all once you finally got there.

But I did love the storyline, I loved the author's way with words - the beautiful descriptions and the way his words made me feel, and I loved the characters and all the meaningful relationships they formed. It made me really think on how the littlest of things could impact lives and bring such joy to others.

I agree with everything you said. I thought it was going to be one of my favorite books, but the ending was just kind of blah. If you like historical fiction set during WW II, I liked Nightingale.
 
Goal 72

#12 A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux

From the jacket:
'Once upon a time....as a fair maiden lay weeping upon a cold tombstone, her heartfelt desire was suddenly made real before her: tall, broad of shoulder, attired in gleaming silver and gold, her knight in shining armor had come to rescue his damsel in distress.....'

This was very good. Total chick lit, that I usually don't read but this one was pretty good.
 

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