Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50 Book Challenge 2013/What I've Read In 2013

Blacklands
Darkside (re-read)
Finders Keepers

All by Belinda Bauer

I enjoyed these just as much as my first Bauer novel, Darkside, last year. The author has such a wonderfully poetic turn of phrase combined with a hilariously dry and dark thread of humour running through the narrative, but is light on gore. Add intriguing characters you always want to root for, even when they do the wrong thing, and you have the perfect combination. I also enjoy the thread of characters continuing to have a presence in all three books.

LabRat

Late to the game, but I'll share what I've read this year:

1.) Superman, The Unauthorized Biography by Glen Weldon This book is a summation of all things Superman. It was really helpful for me to learn all the comic book stuff, like what Silver Age and Crisis meant. I didn't grow up with Superman comics, just the Christopher Reeve movies, so this book is great to put everything in context, including the television iterations of the Man of Steel.

2.)I have cancer and I've never felt better by Tracy Krulik I am proud to say this was written by a friend of mine. She has the most extraordinary story about how she was misdiagnosed for years and how she has come out ahead of cancer. She isn't in remission - she is living with a kind of stomach cancer. It is a purely inspirational read!

3.) Life of Pi by Yann Martel I actually saw the movie first and then got inspired to pick up the book. Very entertaining read, and I have to say, the movie captured the book quite well!

4.) Bossy Pants by Tina Fey An entertaining read, especially to learn about how she grew up and came into the SNL family.

5.) Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger Entertaining book, but the plot was VERY predictable. Honestly, no surprises except that Andy and Emily are friends in the beginning. So good beach read, but that's about it.

#33 The Castaways by Elin Hinderbrand

A group of four couples who have been friends for many years must deal with the sudden death of one of the couples.


Joan

#34 Come Back by Claire and Mia Fontaine

Mother and daughter tell the story of the girl's struggles with abuse and drugs.

Joan

#35 Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

This book has gotten some contraversal press so I wasn't sure what to expect. While I agree with some of her points, I also agree with other reviewers who have stated that this woman's situation as a powerful CEO certainly doesn't represent everywoman.


Joan

#36 Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Story about a girl from Indiana going to an East Coast boarding school. The reviews went on about what a great portrait this painted of adolescence. I kept waiting for the main character to grow up and become less selfish. It never happened.

Joan

So behind on my reading compared to the rest of you, but I will dutifully post anyway!

#6 The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Syrie James

If you have read Jayne Eyre or Wuthering Heights, you should read this book. It is a well-researched novel of the life of Charlotte Bronte, written in a voice very similar to that of her novel, Jane Eyre. Such a humble, sad life Charlotte had, with some remarkable parallels to the stories in her books. I've read all the Bronte sisters' novels and this book pays a nice homage to that family. Highly recommended!

#7 The Fault in Our Stars by John Green About two teenagers with cancer who fall in love... heartbreaking and yet humorous and warm and ever so smart. Read most of it in afternoon -- just couldn't put it down!

Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scott Lynch

I've been waiting forever to catch up with book 2 of this series and it didn't disappoint in the main, although there was a boring section in the middle. I guess I'm just not interested in page after page after page of minute detail on how to learn to sail a boat.

But when Jean and Locke were allowed to do what they do best - match wits with those who have minds just as sharp and sly as theirs - it was a rollicking good read.

The Rain Wild Chronicles - Robin Hobb

Dragon Keeper (reread)
Dragon Haven (reread)
City of Dragons
Blood of Dragons

Loved, loved, loved this series from one of my favourite fantasy authors.

Adventure! Mystery! Intrigue! Romance! Liveships! Dragons! What more could you ask for? Add in rich characters and a world that's always fascinating and you have a winner!

Easy to read on its own, but for maximum pleasure, I'd recommend reading the other series - Farseer, Tawny Man and Liveships Trilogies - first. They're all connected, and some of the events in one overlap those in others, with Rain Wilds taking place afterwards. There are enough callbacks to the previous trilogies in Rain Wilds, even though the majority of characters are new, that it's worth reading them in order to get the most out of the story.

LabRat

#37 What to expect when no one is expecting by Jonathan Last

Interesting discussion about lower birth rates and their potential impact on society.

#38 Legend by Marie Lu

Futuristic society where a rebel and a soldier find they have more in common than they think.


Joan

The Fallen Moon Trilogy - K J Taylor

The Dark Griffin (reread)
The Griffin's Flight
The Griffin's War


I really liked this trilogy - although, I'm not at all sure why as there were so many elements in it that should have had me hating it.

The first book was clear cut as to who the villains/heroes were, but thanks to some hasty revision of backstory in the second and third, it became more difficult to excuse our hero's actions. I didn't get the impression that this was because the author was deliberating playing with the ideas of what makes a hero or that no one is all good or or evil, so much as it was just that she genuinely didn't think her hero was acting badly. (In book one, for example, our hero is a young man who is badly treated, abused and maligned through no fault of his own. In book two, he reveals to his mother that he was a corrupt official, destroying lives to suit himself. When he reveals that he once planted drugs on a business rival of his parents, to put him out of business, his mother's response is almost literally 'Oh...you..." and we're not encouraged to see this as anything significant.)

Also carnage/massacres were glossed over and the ending was a bit rushed and anti-climatic, among other issues.

I think it was saved for me by the presence of the griffins and their relationships with their humans. Without them, I might have taken greater issue with this one's flaws.

LabRat

#39 Fatherless by Dr. James Dobson and Kurt Bruner

While I like James Dobson, I was a little concerned a Christian fiction book might come off a little heavy handed. This was not the case. The book does a great job of exploring moral, economic and political issues we could be facing in fifty years as the majority of the population becomes much older.

Joan

Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan:

The Strain (reread)
The Fall
The Night Eternal

I really enjoyed the first book in this series last year, but for some reason I found I just couldn't get emotionally invested in the other two nor connect with the characters or their fates. And I can't really put my finger on why that was. On paper, it worked but it just left me unmoved. I understand this was first intended to be a TV series. I can't help thinking it might have had more of an impact on me if it had been done that way instead.

Wool - Hugh Howey

I'd heard good things about this one (along with the inevitable, but annoying comparison to The Hunger Games), so when I found I had some 'free' cash left in my Google account that was due to expire, I bought it.

And it definitely lived up to the hype. Easily the best novel I've read this year - I loved it and can't wait to read 2 and 3. It held my attention right from the first paras and never let up, partly because of a really cool twist/trick that the author employed in the first couple of chapters (no spoilers!). Suffice to say, it shifted the narrative in ways that were startling, unexpected and very effective. Highly recommended!

LabRat

I just watched the BBC mini series "North & South" based on the book by Elizabeth Gaskell. I was wondering if any of you had read the book, set in regency(ish) England in a cotton factory in Milton, and could tell me if it was worth the read. The mini-series, starring one of the actors on the short list for the next Batman (Richard Armitage - but I didn't know that until I got to part 4), really drew us in.

12. Double Fudge - Judy Blume
We missed a book in the series, but will look for it at the library today. The Hatchers are back in NYC again, and Fudge is obsessed with money. They bump into some cousins and are introduced to another Farley Drexel and Fudge learns what a torment he's been to his brother all these years.

- Again, read to your kids at your own risk, as Judy Blume loves to tell kids that there is no such things as Tooth Fairy or that Monster Spray is just air freshener. My kids LOVE the Fudge books, but come on, Judy! Stop it!

13. Percy Jackson - The Lightning Theif - Rick Riordan
First Book in the Percy Jackson Series. 12 year old Percy Jackson with dyslexia and ADHD has always been a bit of an outsider. Now his math teacher is growing talons and wings and trying to kill him, his best friend is a satyr, and his Latin teacher a centaur. Apparently, his father didn't die when Percy was a baby but can never die because he's one of the immortal Greek Gods, who still exist and live on Mt. Olympia, which is situated on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building.

I've read this story before, but my daughter is becoming obsessed with Greek myths and I must say it's much more enjoyable read when I could discuss it with my kids. I don't know if it helped my son's monster phobia though (see above note about Monster Spray). It's a fun way to bring the Greek Myths back to life in the modern day.

In Enemy Hands
Echoes of Honor
Ashes of Victory
War of Honor
At All Costs
Crown of Slaves
Torch of Freedom
Changer of Worlds
The Service of the Sword
The Shadow of Saganami
Shadow of Freedom
A Rising Thunder
Mission of Honor
Storm From The Shadows
House of Steel

Part of tThe "Honor Harrington" series. Space opera. Great fun.
Honor Harrington is a naval officer in the service of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. The SKM is fighting a battle for its life against the People's Republic of Haven ("the Peeps"). The series follows the events of Honor's life, the battles, the political wrangling, etc. The People's Republic (the leader is Rob S. Pierre, and its capital is Nouveau Paris, just to throw in a little historical parallel there) is eventually transformed into the old Republic of Haven. Meanwhile, adverse forces have schemed to get Manticore into a battle with the Solarian League. This could get dicey.

A Test of Wills
Wings of Fire
Proof of Guilt
The Confession
Hunting Shadows
A Matter of Justice
The Red Door
A Pale Horse
A Lonely Death
Legacy of the Dead
A Cold Treachery
Search The Dark
A Fearsome Doubt
Watchers of Time
A Long Shadow
A False Mirror

July, 1916. The Battle of the Somme. Captain Ian Rutledge gets orders to take out the machine-gun post. His sergeant (and best friend in the trenches) Hamish McLeod, breaks under the strain of two years of warfare refuses to lead his men into certain death. Hamish is put before a firing squad for disobeying orders, and Rutledge is forced to shoot Hamish in the head after the firing squad only wounds the sergeant.

Right after that, German shells land on their trench. Rutledge is buried. The only thing that keeps him alive for the hours until he is dug out is the little pocket of air trapped beneath Hamish's body.

1919: Rutledge is released from a clinic where he was being treated for shell shock, and takes his old job at Scotland Yard. But no one can know that he hears Hamish's voice - Hamish is always with him, taunting him, deriding him, reminding him. Rutledge refuses to look behind himself because Hamish's voice is so real. If he ever sees Hamish, he'll end it then (suicide). He has promised himself that.

Excellent mysteries that give a good view of post-WWI England.

#40 Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

While I'm not totally hooked by this magical romance, I do enjoy all the Southern touches the authors add.

Joan

#41 The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann

My son found this one. It claims to be a combination of Harry Potter and the Hunger Games. He was skeptical but tried it. He enjoyed it so much he got the rest of us to read it.

It's not as detailed as Potter or as dark as Hunger Games but it's a good read. Of course there are seven books in the series.

I'll have to check out "Wool". That sounds interesting.

Joan

Poison (re-read)
The Borgia Betrayal - Sara Poole

It's always nice to read a really strong, interesting female heroine and Poole's Poisoner series, told from the perspective of her fictional official poisoner to the Borgias, Francesca, certainly revolves around one of the best. Can't wait to read book three.

Now You See Me - S. J. Bolton

From a strong female lead from history to another more modern. I'd throughly enjoyed Bolton's previous supernatural thrillers, but this was a bit of departure into a more conventional detective-based plot. I was intrigued by the details of the Jack the Ripper case, most of which I never knew (including the startling, but imo thoroughly convincing idea that he might have actually been a she) that peppered the story. And I fell in love quite rapidly with DI Lacey Flint and her colleagues.

The ending was complete, but left open and just as I was thinking I could have gone some more time with these guys, I spotted the first chapter in the sequel tacked to the end of the book. A series, apparently. I've ordered book two.

LabRat

#42 "The Unwanteds: Island of Silence" by Lisa McMann

Darn, I've gotten sucked into this world. The story ends on cliffy and the next books (in the planned series of seven) haven't been written yet.

Joan

Don't you just hate that?

LabRat :-)

Well, I haven't been reading much of anything except these boards, but I just found something that is very unusual and not mentioned here.
1. Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch
For sci-fi and fan nuts plus alien abduction stuff and Area 51, it is funny as heck. I discovered it on Sony Reader, but it is also on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. I found the paperback series in a local Barnes and Noble.

It is best to read them in order and I'm on the third one:
Touched by an Alien published April 2010
Alien Tango published December 2010
Alien in the Family published April 2011
Alien Proliferation published December 2011
Alien Diplomacy published April 2012
Alien vs. Alien published December 2012
Alien in the House published May 2013
Alien Research coming December 2013

The wisegal heroine is Kitty Katt (she kids you not) and the hero is Jeffery Martini. Mentally you can picture him as a Clark Kent. The books are in Kitty's first person account. Comic geeks alert here! Wait until you see the Dazzlers described! And anyone familiar with big Italian and/or Jewish families will feel at home.
Have fun reading! And, oh yes, NASA, the CIA and various other entities are involved.

Artemis
Oh, and P.S. I will be off the boards until October. We are going to Europe on a long cruise. I have these books loaded for my spare time. /me waves at LabRat from Heathrow.