Here it is - the OFFICIAL 2014 READING GOAL CHALLENGE THREAD

[cousinbb]

Book 5/13 Book 2 of the Brotherband Chronicles by John Flannagin. It's still holding my interest so I'm Head d to book 3 now!

 

[threeboysmom]

26/30
Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington. She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal: her fiancé Kevin has left her. His new lover is Lucy’s own sister. Lucy's bitterness over being dumped is multiplied by the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life.

Facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's parents, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy and hopefully loosen her up and get her over her anger. Complications ensue when Sam and Lucy begin to fall in love, Kevin has second thoughts, and Lucy discovers that the new relationship in her life began under false pretenses. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life—even after being broken—can be made into something new and beautiful.

This was a freebie for my Nook. I haven't had a freebie yet that I've actually liked... guess that's why they're free in the first place. Sigh. I didn't hate it, but I'm not going to gush over it or even recommend...

27/30
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker

A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.

Now this one I loved! What is it with me this year? I don't LIKE romance novels, but the 2 best books I've read so far in 2014 fall under this category, lol.

I gave this a 5* on Goodreads, but wish I could take it back and do 4 instead. After mulling over the ending, I feel unsatisfied - the way it ended didn't leave me with a feeling of resolution. But regardless, it was a beautiful story and I'm thankful I discovered this little gem. Would recommend.

Next up: Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Having a hard time getting into it (but only 40 pages in...). It has great reviews, so I will persevere (plus it's short - 270 pages lol)

 

[nemofans]

I am back on! I was having trouble using my laptop b/c our internet service stunk. We finally got it changed today. Now I have to remember all the books I have read so I can review them.

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #51 - The Son by Joe Nesbo

Great plot, great characters, great storyline. It was a little slow to get into at first, but then the story picks up the pace.

Sonny Lofthus is a strangely charismatic and complacent young man. Sonny’s been in prison for a dozen years, nearly half his life. The inmates who seek out his uncanny abilities to soothe leave his cell feeling absolved. They don’t know or care that Sonny has a serious heroin habit—or where or how he gets his uninterrupted supply of the drug. Or that he’s serving time for other peoples’ crimes.
Sonny took the first steps toward addiction when his father took his own life rather than face exposure as a corrupt cop. Now Sonny is the seemingly malleable center of a whole infrastructure of corruption: prison staff, police, lawyers, a desperate priest—all of them focused on keeping him high and in jail. And all of them under the thumb of the Twin, Oslo’s crime overlord. As long as Sonny gets his dope, he’s happy to play the criminal and the prison’s in-house savior.
But when he learns a stunning, long-hidden secret concerning his father, he makes a brilliantly executed escape from prison—and from the person he’d let himself become—and begins hunting down those responsible for the crimes against him . . . The darkly looming question is: Who will get to him first—the criminals or the cops?

Finished book #52 - We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

At first, I thought this book was a typical teen summer story about a rich family. Then you read the twist & bam, you see the story in a whole new way. The twist makes the story. Read it.

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

Finished book #53 - The Dirty Secrets Club by Meg Gardiner

Good thriller.

A string of high-profile murder-suicides has San Francisco more rattled than the string of recent earthquakes. Hired by the SFPD to shed light on the victims' lives, forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett makes a shocking discovery: all the suicides belonged to a group of A-listers with lots of money and plenty to hide. And soon Jo finds herself trapped in a nightmare from her past when she gets invited to join the club...

Finished book #54 - Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

I read this for my book club this month and it had me hooked. There are multiple mini mysteries and subplots that keep you intrigued. Private school, mean girls, a tragedy, a mother trying to find out what happened.

Kate's in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate.
An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump.
Reconstructing Amelia is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. But, most of all, it’s the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn’t save.

Next Book: Annihilation

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#57 The Soul Catcher by Alex Kava

Third book in the Maggie O'Dell series. Good, not as good as the first two but still good. Halfway thru #4 in the series now.

 

[Swimnoid]

53. Hollow City (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #1) by Ransom Riggs
I loved the first book. Couldnt wait for this one to come out. I didnt like this one much at all. The story seemed dull and repetitive to me. I'm not sure if I'll go on to the third one.

54. Is Everyone Hanging out without me? by Mindy Kaling
This is an autobiography of the author. It covered her upbringing and her breaking into comedy and TV. It was interesting and funny.

55. NYPD Red2 by James Patterson and Marshall Karp
The second in the NYPD Red series. It is set in NYC. The main characters are male and female partners in an elite police squad. In this one they had to find a serial killer. Although a lot of it was obvious it was an enjoyable read with some good twists.

 

[Glynis]

Goal - 70 books

Book #38 - "the Messenger" by Lois Lowry

From Goodreads: Matty has lived in Village and flourished under the guidance of Seer, a blind man known for his special sight. Village once welcomed newcomers, but something sinister has seeped into Village and the people have voted to close it to outsiders. Matty has been invaluable as a messenger. Now he must risk everything to make one last journey through the treacherous forest with his only weapon, a power he unexpectedly discovers within himself.

My review: What a book!!! This is the third book in the series, and it was so powerful! It was really short, and I was sucked in from the very beginning. I was able to finish this in 1 day! Can't wait to get the last book to see what happens to these characters!

Next up: I'm almost done with "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

 

[PigletsPal2]

Goal: 100 books this year

#32 - The Women of Pemberley by Rebecca Ann Collins. This is a fanfic follow-up to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, chronicling the lives of Jane Bennet Bingley, Elizabeth Bennet Darcy, Charlotte Lucas Collins, and the rest of Austen's "gang," after Pride and Prejudice. We learn about their daughters and granddaughters and a little about Mary, Kitty and Lydia Bennet. All the families are large, and sometimes I forgot who was who. There's a family listing at the end of the book, but I think it would have been better placed at the beginning. (After typing that sentence, I think I might have read this book last challenge! Oh, well, I'm old, and it read like a new book to me!) I also just noticed that the author has the same name as Charlotte Collins' daughter. Coincidence? Hmmm...

Queen Colleen

 

[Colleen27]

#53/100 - Detroit City is the Place to Be by Mark Bernelli

From Goodreads: Once America's capitalist dream town, Detroit is our country's greatest urban failure, having fallen the longest and the farthest. But the city's worst crisis yet (and that's saying something) has managed to do the unthinkable: turn the end of days into a laboratory for the future. Urban planners, land speculators, neo-pastoral agriculturalists, and utopian environmentalists—all have been drawn to Detroit's baroquely decaying, nothing-left-to-lose frontier.

I think I'm burned out on Detroit books. Binelli's writing is evocative and entertaining, and I found a lot of echos of my own perspective and experience in his chronicle (we grew up in the same suburb, about 10 years apart) and yet the book just didn't grab me. It didn't offer anything new, anything not already covered in other chronicles of the decay and hopeful hints of rebirth of Detroit.

#54 - The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

I doubt anyone needs a synopsis to know what this one is about. One of the classics of mid-20th century sociology, I somehow never got around to reading it before now and found it both exactly what I expected and entirely surprising in turns. I was surprised at how strongly it still resonated, so long after it was written, and how little some of the problems enumerated have changed. I also found the foreword to the 30th anniversary edition (in '93) oddly prescient as she touched upon the very economic changes that have devalued and impeded workers of both genders in recent years. Dense, challenging, and complex it wasn't a quick read but it was one of those rare books that really shed new light on something I thought I understood well.

#55 - The Big Tiny by Dee Williams

From Goodreads: Dee William’s life changed in an instant, with a near-death experience in the aisle of her local grocery store. Diagnosed with a heart condition at age forty-one, she was all too suddenly reminded that life is short, time is precious, and she wanted to be spending hers with the people and things she truly loved. That included the beautiful sprawling house in the Pacific Northwest she had painstakingly restored—but, increasingly, it did not include the mortgage payments, constant repairs, and general time-suck of home ownership. A new sense of clarity began to take hold: Just what was all this stuff for? Multiple extra rooms, a kitchen stocked with rarely used appliances, were things that couldn’t compare with the financial freedom and the ultimate luxury—time—that would come with downsizing.

An entertaining chronicle of building the sort of home my husband and I are considering for retirement, tiny and towable, I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick, light read, amusing at times in ways any DIYer will be able to relate to but with a deeper message that gave meaning to even the most comical mishaps.

 

[wilma-bride]

Book #31 - Little Lies by Heather Gudenkauf

When the body of a woman is discovered in a local park—with her bewildered four-year-old son sitting beside her—veteran social worker Ellen Moore is called in to assist in the police investigation. Positioned beneath a statue of Leto, the goddess of motherhood, the crime is weighted with meaning and, Ellen discovers, remarkably similar to one from a decade past.

Ellen's professional duty is to protect the child, but she's not equipped to contend with a killer. As she races to connect the dots, she knows her time is running out. And the stakes are high: if she fails, another mother is sure to make the ultimate sacrifice.

This book is a prequel to one I read a little wile ago, Little Mercies. More of a novella than a full novel, it was a quick and easy read. It was somewhat disappointing after the follow up book, although had I read it first I probably wouldn't have had the same opinion. It was just too short really to gain any insight into the characters or identify too much with them. Still an enjoyable read though.

Book #32 - Larger than Life by Jodi Picoult

Alice is a researcher studying memory in elephants, and is fascinated by the bonds between mother and calf - the mother's powerful protective instincts and her newborn's unwavering loyalty. Living on a game reserve in Botswana, Alice is able to view the animals in their natural habitat, as long as she obeys one important rule: she must only observe and never interfere.

Then she finds an orphaned young elephant in the bush and cannot bear to leave the helpless baby behind. Alice will risk her career to care for the calf. Yet what she comes to understand is the depth of a parent's love.

This was a freebie on my Kindle from Amazon UK (not sure if it would be free on Amazon US too but worth a try for any Kindle owners). Another short read but nonetheless really well written and incredibly moving. I literally read this book in about 90 minutes last night but it really touched me. In fact, not only did I well up while reading, I did it again this morning when telling DH about it. According to Amazon, this book introduces Alice, the character at the centre of Jodi Picoult's new book, Leaving Time, due out later this year. I, for one, can't wait to read it.

 

[tiggrbaby]

Book #32 - Larger than Life by Jodi Picoult

Alice is a researcher studying memory in elephants, and is fascinated by the bonds between mother and calf - the mother's powerful protective instincts and her newborn's unwavering loyalty. Living on a game reserve in Botswana, Alice is able to view the animals in their natural habitat, as long as she obeys one important rule: she must only observe and never interfere.

Then she finds an orphaned young elephant in the bush and cannot bear to leave the helpless baby behind. Alice will risk her career to care for the calf. Yet what she comes to understand is the depth of a parent's love.

This was a freebie on my Kindle from Amazon UK (not sure if it would be free on Amazon US too but worth a try for any Kindle owners). Another short read but nonetheless really well written and incredibly moving. I literally read this book in about 90 minutes last night but it really touched me. In fact, not only did I well up while reading, I did it again this morning when telling DH about it. According to Amazon, this book introduces Alice, the character at the centre of Jodi Picoult's new book, Leaving Time, due out later this year. I, for one, can't wait to read it.

Thanks for the tip! It is a free novella on US Amazon. Just downloaded it!

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#58 At The Stroke of Madness by Alex Kava

Another Maggie O'Dell novel. Very good.

 

[Pig Pen]

Finished Ill Wind. Gabriella finds herself in the Caribbean surrounded by evil sugar plantation owners (including her sadistic husband), cruel pirates, and down-trodden slaves. She is struggling to fit in and make a place for herself.

This was a novella and part 1 of a series. I enjoy pirate tales and historical novels so I will probably check out the rest of the series. It appears that each book tells the story from the viewpoint of a different character which I find intriguing.

Next up "The Mountains Echoed." That will be 25 - meeting my goal already! I guess I underestimated the power of the kindle library book due dates.

Finished "And The Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini. I have read his two previous books and found them very brutal. This one is thought provoking without the violence. At first I was confused about all the different characters, but once I figured out that each chapter was a different story (all related) I began to enjoy it more. Overall I liked it.

I don't know what I will read next. I will probably go back to the Goldfinch and see if I can pick it up again.

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #55 - Annihilation By Jeff Vandermeer

This is a short book, not even 200 pgs. It is odd & intriguing. An expedition team goes into Area X which has had some sort of catastrophe years ago. They don't know much info about the area as either do you so it's very mysterious. There is a lot unknown & even when you get to the end, you still don't have much info. So I have started book 2, Authority, hoping to get more answers.

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third expedition in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.
The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.

Next book: Authority (book 2)

 

[CourtasanSatine]

The Icy Touch (John Shirley) is my current one. Its a Grimm tie-in novel so its basically an episode in book form but so far its a lot of fun.

 

[Glynis]

Goal - 70 books

Book #39 - "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

From Goodreads: Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.

My review: This is probably NOT a book I should have read after dealing with my own daughter's depression and suicide attempts this past year. However, I'm kind of glad that I did. It opened up some discussion points with my daughter, and gave me a kind of insight into the mind set of someone plagued with depression. It was hard, emotionally, for me to read, as I kept comparing Esther's behavior with that of my DD. Still, I'm glad I read it.

Next up: "The Boys in the Boat" for book club

 

[wilma-bride]

Book #33 - Look Behind You by Sibel Hodge

Chloe Benson wakes up kidnapped and bound in an underground tomb with no memory of how she got there. She escapes through deserted woods with her life, but no one believes her story.

And when she suspects her husband is lying to her, Chloe is forced to retrace her past, following in her own footsteps to find the truth and stay alive.

But who is following Chloe?

Look Behind You. You never know who's out there.

The book opens with Chloe tied up in an underground chamber in the pitch black, realising she has been kidnapped. She manages to escape but when her husband visits her in the hospital he tells her that she has been having psychotic episodes and has been receiving treatment for depression. With everybody around her doubting her story, she even begins to wonder whether she is kidding herself about what really happened. Such a fast=paced and thrilling story, I could barely wait to turn the page (metaphorically speaking, since I was reading on the Kindle) and see what happened next. The characters build to the point where you just don't know who is telling the truth and who Chloe can trust. Again, I seem to be on a roll with good books. A great read and a real thriller in the true sense of the word.

Book #34 - Cruising Panama's Canal by Al and Sunny Lockwood

Who would have guessed that it would have taken an almost fatal car accident to motivate Al and Sunny Lockwood to take a cruise ship vacation to the Panama Canal?

Riveted by their near death experience. this charming couple decided to make their bucket list dream cruise vacation come true, and now they want to share it with you!

Come along with them as they share intimate details of their 17-day odyssey from San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale via the Panama Canal. Sunny provides the facts. Al adds delicious humor. A perfect recipe for cruise travel fun!

Get a firsthand look into what ocean cruising is really like: the service, the staterooms, the entertainment, the surprises, and of course the food -- from endless buffets to amazing gourmet dinners and decadent desserts, Al’s enthusiastic descriptions will have your mouth watering.

Stand on the bow of Holland America’s MS Zuiderdam with Al and Sunny as they share the sights, sounds and feelings of transiting the Canal; watch as the sun rises over the Pacific Ocean and then sets into the Atlantic on the same day. Miraculous!

Let Al and Sunny be your guides to exotic ports of call such as: Zihuatanejo, Mexico, Putarenas, Costa Rica, Cartagena, Colombia and Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas.

Learn about the building of the Panama Canal and how the locks actually work as huge, modern ships squeeze into 100-year-old chambers to take the world’s most famous short cut.

This book has been on my Amazon 'wish list' ever since DH and I booked a Panama Canal cruise for next May. Since I wasn't expecting it to be a particularly riveting or informative read, I wasn't about to shell out the £2.14 (approx. $3.50) that Amazon wanted for it. However, I was surprised and delighted to see that it was temporarily available for free last week and immediately downloaded it to my Kindle. The actual book is very short and centres mainly around the ship, which wasn't really of much interest to me. However, there were some interesting snippets of information about the Panama Canal and some of the ports of call. All in all, it was a quick and fun read and has inspired me to read a more informative book about the Panama Canal before our trip.

 

[CaliBear]

It took me so long to read the past two books. They weren't bad. I just wasn't really into either of them. The two books are older so I won't post the summaries:

22,/30. Tales of the City- Armistad Maupin
23/30- The Greek Coffin Mystery- Ellery Queen

I haven't decided on my next read, but I hope I choose better next time.

 

[tiggrbaby]

#21/40: Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen

This is one of his early books about a reporter turned PI who tries to stop a former colleague from his out of control attack to try and return Miami and FL to its natural state. Crazy characters and situations abound (although no Skink yet). 4/5 stars

#22/40: Blood on the River: James Town 1607 by Elisa Carbone

This book was assigned to the eighth graders in my school for their summer historical fiction. It follows a young boy assigned to John Smith from England across the Atlantic for the first few years of the colony. I am hoping that the students will make connections when we reach that section in S.S. class. 4/5 stars

I am currently about 2/3 of the way through Unbroken. What a powerful book!

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#59 One False Move by Alex Kava

Melanie Starks and her 17 year old son, Charlie, have been running one con job or another for as long as she can remember, the necessary survival moves of a single mother. But Melanie is getting sick of that life, and she's more than a little worried that Charlie is enjoying it too much.
Then her brother reappears in her life.
And everything goes terribly wrong.