The Reading Challenge Group discussion

Narin, I see you've been reading the Pretty Little Liars books! Do you watch the TV show? I've been meaning to read them, but I really love Emily the show, and I don't particularly like the sound of her in the books...

I guess I relate to her most out of everyone. Her character is really awesome in the show, which is so addictive it's put a serious damper on my reading! From what I've read about the book series, they change Emily a lot in the tv series. Instead of being bisexual, she's gay, so her storyline is almost completely different.

I've just downloaded the first book onto my Kindle. Might try it out!

There's no Isaac. There's Paige instead, who's awesome and totally my favourite character!

I feel like that with the show. I can't watch anything else until I get up to date...

good luck Narin! ^_^

Narin, I completely understand. I watch like 12 shows, most of which I'm not up-to-date on. I've watched like a whole series of PLL this Christmas, with a series of Lost Girl and The Fosters. All of which are coming back soon...

I'm definitely going to have to cut down on the TV I watch when I go to Uni. I'll probably just stick to the shows that I'm caught up on, so I only get them once a week!

I read Pretty Little Liars (the first book) and didn't like it a lot. I think the characters are better developed in the show. Especially since the first book only dealt with like the pilot! :L I just feel a lot more for the characters in the TV show!

so what are you reading now narin? just curious. I hope your reading is going well.

No problem Narin. I'm sorry about the drama on my personal challenge thread but all those weird comments are gone from it now, Holly did a clean sweep there. don't know why luffy was being weird about my reading challenge. LOL. :) Cool. good luck!

No problem. and okay. Thanks. If you ever need any reading recommendations, let me know. :)

Princess Ai: Ultimate Edition is a pretty good manga. It had the whole manga series in it and I enjoyed reading it. I recommend it to you. definitely check it out.

Narin,
I have a question. What does 'manga' refer to as a genre? Anyway, best of luck on your reading challenge!

hey rob, manga is like a comic book except Japanese style so it would be in the comics/graphic novel genres.

Oh wow. Good deal. Sounds like fun :). Thanks Amber.

No prob rob. :-) it's fun.

Amber wrote: "No problem Narin. I'm sorry about the drama on my personal challenge thread but all those weird comments are gone from it now, Holly did a clean sweep there. don't know why luffy was being weird ab..."

My comments are gone? Lol, I'm genuinely surprised. Live and learn.

sorry luffy but holly said it made my thread messy and took away from me recording my 2014 books there so I hope you understand that I read what I want to read and don't care about the length.

Amber wrote: "sorry luffy but holly said it made my thread messy and took away from me recording my 2014 books there so I hope you understand that I read what I want to read and don't care about the length."

It's okay. If I wanted to record something for posterity I'd have gone about my business otherwise, not posted on goodreads. Everything is temporary here, so I don't mind what happened.

Narin I can't think of anything for the X challenge but I will keep thinking about it. I read Inferno last year as really enjoyed it - it was my favourite of the Langdon series. Red Dragon was also really enjoyable.

The only one I can think of is Xena: Warrior Princess by Rob Weisbrot. You can probably check Google for more suggestions though.

I am doing an a to z challenge in another group and because x is so hard to find as long as the letter x appears in the title someplace it counts as x. Just a suggestion.

Roseanne wrote: "I am doing an a to z challenge in another group and because x is so hard to find as long as the letter x appears in the title someplace it counts as x. Just a suggestion."

That's why it's called a challenge Roseanne... ;) Just kidding... I thought of this option as well, but I'm the kind of person who wants to do things the hard way. If I did that I'd feel like I was cheating. But that's just me. It was hard to find a book for X, so your suggestion is great!

I'm doing the A-Z challenge as well and I'm planning to read XVI by Julia Karr as my X-book. It sure doesn't sound like something I'll love, but I think I might manage to find it interesting enough to be able to read it.

Narin wrote: "That's the thing; I don't want it to be 'interesting enough to be able to read it', I want to look forward to reading it!

And I am by no means saying your way is wrong; I'm like that with a lot of things, but if there's one bad thing about Goodreads it's that feeling when reading becomes a chore and the tbr-list is just a huge to-do list. I want to go back to the simple joy of reading, where I take challenges as simple suggestions, easily bended if I find a better option."

Agreed wholeheartedly, Narin. That's why I don't plan which books to read, not for the whole year. If a book is in my tbr list too much, I lose interest in it. I also need to be able to change my mind.

Narin, try Sue Grafton. She might be up to X by now.

Narin wrote: "I want to go back to the simple joy of reading, where I take challenges as simple suggestions, easily bended if I find a better option. "

I know what you mean and I agree. I was part of group on Goodreads that did a lot of challenges, but they were so strict with the rules that I decided to leave the group all together. I was actually told I couldn't use one book for a certain challenge because they thought it didn't fit even though it fit perfectly. They took all the fun out of reading!

I think challenges should be more like a guideline and inspiration, but I choose not to mess with my alphabet. :D

Inkeri wrote: "I think challenges should be more like a guideline and inspiration, but I choose not to mess with my alphabet. :D"

Have you tried this alphabet challenge before? If now, I think it might be harder to keep faith with than expected.

Luffy wrote: "Have you tried this alphabet challenge before? If now, I think it might be harder to keep faith with than expected."

Yes I have tried it before, and failed to complete, but not because I couldn't find books that kept me reading, but because I tend to give up on things I don't find important enough. I'm not going to feel bad if I don't complete this one either, but it's not like I'm planning to fail on purpose. :)

Exactly, it's not a competition, and there's more to life than books. It's weird to say this on goodreads, but it needs to be said.

I'm also doing an A-Z challenge in another group. A lot of the suggestions were to search the listopia page for lists of books that start with X. For myself, the X book I think I'm going with is X-It.

Great suggestion Chase! If I actually get close to completing mine I may do that. Though it is the first time I am doing it and am not even sure how it will work out.

Hey, calm it down, guys. This group is meant to be supportive and encouraging of people's achievements and goals, so if you could keep the negative comments and arguing to a minimum.

I can't stop you arguing, but if you could please leave it to more private means, that leaves Narin's thread for her books and films.

Narin wrote: " Bleh, I've become one of those people that only reads famous literature... :/ "

I'm the exact same, Narin. I feel guilty reading anything vaguely unknown. There are too many classics to get through!

I've just realised you've got Red Dragon on your book list. I'd definitely be interested in doing a buddy-read with you if you want!

February would be fine for me :) I agree, there's definitely too much to read in January!

150 books and school (er, uni? Americans use the same word for both, right?)...

Kudos to you, seriously. Have fun! :D

Man, I'd love to live in Sweden... It seems like such a cool place.

Narin wrote: "No, definiteeely not something that scary! I'm only 15, not really sure what the equivalent of the grade I'm in is in USA/anywhere else. I live in Sweden. = a lot of free time, but I'm a terrible p..."

Fair enough! Yeah, if you've got a lot of free time, why not use it to advantage, right?

Narin wrote: "I live in Sweden."

I live in Finland, but my English was never as good as yours when I was 15 years old. Is Swedish your native language? Have you been speaking English since you were very little, or are you just that good? :)

Trust me, your English is very good for a 15-year-old, but that's just great! :) I didn't start reading books in English until I was in my twenties, but then again I didn't start studying English until the seventh grade when I was 13 years old. :)

I started studying Swedish in 3rd grade, but my English is still a lot better than my Swedish. I've just recently started to read some books in Swedish, but it's very time consuming and frustrating when I don't have wide enough vocabulary. I can easily handle everyday situations and keep up conversation in Swedish, but reading whole books is sometimes frustrating. :)

Language in general fascinates me a lot too, especially foreign languages. :)

Well English and Swedish are both mandatory languages to study at school at some point. When I went to school we chose one of them on 3rd grade and the other would automatically start on 7th grade. I chose (actually my parents did) to start studying Swedish in 3rd grade.

Then on 8th grade we chose a third language if we wanted to. I choose to study German at the time...

I think nowadays in Finland kids start their first language (English or Swedish) on 3rd grade and already on 5th grade choose the other. Then by the 7th grade they'll probably have the opportunity to choose a third language.

There are special schools as well where you can study English from the first grade and by the 3rd grade most of your classes are taught in English. My cousin went to this kind of school and her English was pretty immaculate by the time she was 15. :)

Russian is a handy language to know these days, I think. At least in eastern Finland, where we get loads of Russian tourists who appreciate that they can get service in their own language. :)

Narin wrote: "I want to learn Russian someday too, but that's just way too terrifying for me right now, what with the completely different alphabet."

To me, the different alphabet is the best part! It's lots of fun to feel 2 years old again, learning what sound each letter makes, LOL. :)

I like the list of books you have for the Alphabet Challenge. Personally, I enjoyed Inferno and the rest of the Dan Brown books, and I hope you will too.

Good luck!