Here it is - the OFFICIAL 2014 READING GOAL CHALLENGE THREAD

[Pig Pen]

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Set in suburban Australia (as are most of Ms. Moriarty's novels), this is the story of three women with children in the same school. From the opening chapter we know something awful is going to happen, but we don't know what, which keeps us guessing.

This is another author who somehow manages to turn relatively mundane life activities into mesmerizing stories. There were a few nice twists and I recommend this book.

 

[CourtasanSatine]

Have officially tossed in the towel on The Giver but will try again once I see the movie, maybe more will make sense? Also about 10 away from my total.

But question: are the Bones novels anything like the show? I have the newest on hold at the library.

 

[Cantw8]

Have officially tossed in the towel on The Giver but will try again once I see the movie, maybe more will make sense? Also about 10 away from my total.

But question: are the Bones novels anything like the show? I have the newest on hold at the library.

I threw in the towel on Silkworm. I hate not finishing a book but I just couldn't get into this. Currently I am reading the Pecan Man and I'm really enjoying it..

The Pecan Man is a work of Southern fiction whose first chapter was the First Place winner of the 2006 CNW/FFWA Florida State Writing Competition in the Unpublished Novel category. In the summer of 1976, recently widowed and childless, Ora Lee Beckworth hires a homeless old black man to mow her lawn. The neighborhood children call him the Pee-can Man; their mothers call them inside whenever he appears. When the police chief’s son is found stabbed to death near his camp, the man Ora knows as Eddie is arrested and charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, Ora sets out to tell the truth about the Pecan Man. In narrating her story, Ora discovers more truth about herself than she could ever have imagined. This novel has been described as To Kill a Mockingbird meets The Help.

 

[mumloveseeyore]

Have officially tossed in the towel on The Giver but will try again once I see the movie, maybe more will make sense? Also about 10 away from my total.

But question: are the Bones novels anything like the show? I have the newest on hold at the library.

the bones novels are a lot darker than the tv show, temperance brennan is older, divorced, a recovering alcoholic with a college age daughter

 

[portia9]

I haven't posted in a long time so I hope I haven't duplicated. I usually archive books on my kindle once I list them here.

#85 The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym. I really recommend Barbara Pym to people that like books that are big on characters, not a lot happens but they are well crafted stories.

#86 Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh-the second Inspector Alleyn book. I liked this one more than the first one.

#87 The Tudors:The History of England Vol 2 by Peter Ackroyd-I'm a little addicted to the Tudors so I enjoyed this non fiction.

#88 Penmarric by Susan Howatch-highly recommended to anyone that likes a good sprawling saga. This was wonderful, full of complex and flawed characters and a great read.

#89 Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford-I have never read Nancy Mitford. I downloaded all her novels to my kindle. The characters were very superficial but I still enjoyed this.

 

[tiggrbaby]

#35/40: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

I believe this book has been discussed before, so I won't go into the plot.

I enjoyed reading this book, but I thought the way they lived was so sad. I'm glad she found someone steady in the end.

4/5 stars

 

[CourtasanSatine]

the bones novels are a lot darker than the tv show, temperance brennan is older, divorced, a recovering alcoholic with a college age daughter

Thanks for the scoop, will try the novel I have on hold and see how it goes.

 

[dizluvah]

2014 Goal is 100

#87 Deep in the Valley By Robyn Carr
I liked the main character, Doctor June Hudson but found it a bit far fetched that she was so inexperienced in matters of the heart. I gave it 3 stars and will try the 2nd book in the series but it is not a favorite.

#88 Anyone But You By Jennifer Cruise
This was cute - the dogs shenaningans made me smile. The actual love story was a little slow but overall, I enjoyed it.

#89 Love Overboard by Janet Evanovich
I gave this 2 Stars, I found the inclusion of a ghost to be a little hokey.

 

[Christine]

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Set in suburban Australia (as are most of Ms. Moriarty's novels), this is the story of three women with children in the same school. From the opening chapter we know something awful is going to happen, but we don't know what, which keeps us guessing.

This is another author who somehow manages to turn relatively mundane life activities into mesmerizing stories. There were a few nice twists and I recommend this book.

I just finished this one and, I agree, it was good. It was a really page turner for me. Not overly complex or anything. I loved/hated all of the characters and I really wanted to see how it played out.

Another good one I've recently read is The Queen of the Tearling. It is being made into a movie with Emma Watson as the main character.

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #72 - The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

This story starts out slow through the first 100 pages, but then it kicks into gear. It's a twist I didn't see coming from a story that takes place in post war England 1922. There could be better editing as the story, at almost 600 pgs, is too long winded. 25% could be cut out which I feel would have kept the reader more enthralled with the story. I did find myself skimming a lot through all the descriptions of inner feelings from the main character.

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.

Next book: The Abundance of Katherines

 

[lovegrumpy]

#14 I think
Private Berlin by James Patterson

 

[wilma-bride]

Book #46 - Split Second by Cath Staincliffe

On a winter's evening, a trio of unruly teenagers board a bus, ganging up on Luke Murray, hurling abuse and threatening to kill him. The bus is full but no one intervenes until Jason Barnes, a young student, challenges the gang. Luke seizes the chance to run off the bus, but he's followed.

Andrew Barnes is dragged from the shower by his wife Valerie: there's a fight in the front garden and Jason's trying to break it up. As Andrew rushes to help, the gang flees. Jason shouts for an ambulance for Luke, but it is he who will pay the ultimate price.

The premise of the book is essentially how things can change in a split second and the impact it can have on so many people's lives. After an altercation breaks out on a bus, a stranger intervenes. A simple enough story and something which could happen in every day life, which is possibly why I found this book so chilling. I thoroughly enjoyed it, the writing style, the characters, the way everything was weaved together. Great book!

 

[Kinziepoohsmom]

#23 Private - Down Under by James Patterson I am addicted to Patterson and this book was an easy read but the ending was a little flat. Not one of his best.

 

[Deffenm]

#18/30 - Christmas on Nutcracker Lane
This book was ok, it started slow and then got really good in the middle, and then the end just kind of ended. It didn't really wrap up the story so you could tell what happened to the characters. I don't think I would read another book from this author.

I also read a book of my dd's. I won't count it as I read it in less then an hour but it was really good. It is called Diamond Willow. The story is written in a diamond shape on each page with key words highilghted. I was really impressed by the story.

 

[willowsnn3]

Goal 72

#69 Whitewash by Alex Kava

A stand alone book by the author of the Maggie O'Dell series.

Pretty much a book on environmental pollution. Was just ok.

 

[wilma-bride]

Book #47 - The Truth About Ever After by Rachel Schurig

Book #4 in the best-selling Three Girls series!
Kiki Barker-Thompson has always lived a charmed life.

Blessed with wealth, a loving family, a dream career, and the perfect husband, Kiki appears to be living a modern-day fairy tale. But when a startling loss turns Kiki's world upside down, she realizes that her perfect fairy tale life may not be so perfect after all. Maybe living happily ever after is not all it's cracked up to be!

For the first time in her life, Kiki has to learn to deal with true heartache--and the repercussions for her marriage are far-reaching. To make matters worse, Kiki must work with a nightmare client in the form of a frenemy from the past--or risk endangering her new business. Their uncomfortable reunion will force Kiki to confront issues and insecurities that she left behind long ago. Or so she thought.

With her unshakable spirit and optimism, Kiki Barker-Thompson must now learn to re-evaluate her choices--and her dreams. In doing so, she may just find that a real-life happily-ever-after could be possible after all.

As the blurb says, this is the fourth book in the 'Three Girls' series. Having read the first three, the third one as recently as just a few weeks ago, I wasn't overly keen on reading this book since the last one was starting to get a bit 'same old, same old'. This one actually came as a nice surprise, focusing mainly on Kiki, who is the sister-in-law of one of the 'three girls'. For that reason, it was a little more interesting, but still had the familiarity of the characters you came to know in the first three books. Fru-fru reading, chick-lit but entertaining nonetheless.

I have actually just downloaded the fifth book in the series, which I am saving to read by the pool at Disney World in a couple of weeks

 

[Deffenm]

#19/30 - Comfort and Joy

Overview from Good reads: Joy Candellaro once loved Christmas more than any other time of the year. Now, as the holiday approaches, she is at a crossroads in her life; recently divorced and alone, she can’t summon the old enthusiasm for celebrating. So without telling anyone, she buys a ticket and boards a plane bound for the beautiful Pacific Northwest. When an unexpected detour takes her deep into the woods of the Olympic rainforest, Joy makes a bold decision to leave her ordinary life behind—to just walk away—and thus begins an adventure unlike any she could have imagined

I really liked this book. It wasn't what I was expecting.

 

[zippitydoo]

Book #56 of 75: The Girl Who Never Came Back by Amy Cross
From Goodreads: Twenty years ago, eight-year-old Charlotte Abernathy vanished while playing near her family's house. Despite a frantic search, no trace of her was found until a year later, when the little girl turned up on the doorstep with no memory of where she'd been.

Today, Charlotte has put her mysterious ordeal behind her, even though she's never learned where she was during that missing year. However, when her eight-year-old niece vanishes in similar circumstances, a fully-grown Charlotte is forced to make a fresh attempt to uncover the truth.

The Girl Who Never Came Back is a psychological thriller about a woman who is forced to confront her family's dark past. In the process, she begins to unravel the secret surrounding her disappearance, the horrific truth about her niece's fate, and the identity of the ghostly figure that seems to haunt the family.

Book #57 of 75: Fatal Debt(Dana Mackenzie, #1) by Dorothy Howell
From Goodreads: ana Mackenzie lands a job with a faceless financial institution-it's either this or piercing ears at the mall-and while she's grateful for a job, she has no intentions of following the corporate offices' heartless orders. She's sent to the home of an elderly couple with instruction to repossess their television, but instead finds sweet old Mr. Sullivan murdered. Investigating the case is homicide detective Nick Travis, Dana's high school crush, who's still harboring a dark secret from their past. Dana agrees to help Mr. Sullivan's grieving family locate his grandson, a guy with a surprising new lifestyle. Her good intentions put her in the thick of the murder investigation and on a collision course with the killer.

 

[threeboysmom]

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Set in suburban Australia (as are most of Ms. Moriarty's novels), this is the story of three women with children in the same school. From the opening chapter we know something awful is going to happen, but we don't know what, which keeps us guessing.

This is another author who somehow manages to turn relatively mundane life activities into mesmerizing stories. There were a few nice twists and I recommend this book.

I just finished this one and, I agree, it was good. It was a really page turner for me. Not overly complex or anything. I loved/hated all of the characters and I really wanted to see how it played out.

I just finished this one too! Really enjoy this author! Delightful chick lit at its finest, lol. I loved all the clichés, really enjoyed the characters and their quirky lives, and appreciated the ease in which I could read this book (some books just make you think too hard, lol)

Book #46 - Split Second by Cath Staincliffe

On a winter's evening, a trio of unruly teenagers board a bus, ganging up on Luke Murray, hurling abuse and threatening to kill him. The bus is full but no one intervenes until Jason Barnes, a young student, challenges the gang. Luke seizes the chance to run off the bus, but he's followed.

Andrew Barnes is dragged from the shower by his wife Valerie: there's a fight in the front garden and Jason's trying to break it up. As Andrew rushes to help, the gang flees. Jason shouts for an ambulance for Luke, but it is he who will pay the ultimate price.

The premise of the book is essentially how things can change in a split second and the impact it can have on so many people's lives. After an altercation breaks out on a bus, a stranger intervenes. A simple enough story and something which could happen in every day life, which is possibly why I found this book so chilling. I thoroughly enjoyed it, the writing style, the characters, the way everything was weaved together. Great book!

Ooooh, this one sounds great! Good reviews are always bittersweet - love to find a good book to add but hate that my "to read" list grows faster than I can actually read!

I have actually just downloaded the fifth book in the series, which I am saving to read by the pool at Disney World in a couple of weeks

HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[nemofans]

Finished book #73 - An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

This is a quirky & fun YA book. It's about a boy who is a child prodigy that only dates Katherines. I liked the humor & the friendship of Colin & Hassan. The Theorum he creates about the Katherines went way over my head, but abstract math is not my thing. The ending is predictable, but that's okay. It's what I hoped would happen & glad it did even if it was obvious.

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy–loving best friend riding shotgun—but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.

Next Book: This Dark Road to Mercy