Reading with Style discussion
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SU 2016 Completed Tasks
15.7 5 yrs through summer -time traveler1985
Shanghai by Christopher New
25 task
5 jumbo
___
30
(corrected, including bingos) Running total: 455
15.6 FYTS: Time TravelerPlanned for: 2014 -1964 (1969 skipped)
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Published 1989
+25 Task
+5 Bonus (547 pages)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 1,000
(corrected- following readerboard's total incl. bingos)
20.3 Winners The Lake Houseb y Kate Morton
Women's and Home Readers Choice Award For Best Historical Thriller (2016)
Review
This book was slow to get into but I am glad I read it. It is about a family with secrets. It starts with Eleanor and Anthony and they fall in love and get married before the start of World War I. He goes off to war and he develops PTSD. They have three girls and then Eleanor discovers she is pregnant again and it is a son. She hopes the boy will bring Anthony back to himself. However, the baby boy goes missing. Seventy years later Sadie Sparrow finds the house that the family lived in. The only living person from that family is the middle daughter Alice who has become a mystery writer. The character I liked best was Howard which is Anthony's friend from childhood who joined the war with him. This book had many twists and turns and different layers. I thought more than one person could have kidnapped the baby boy. It has an ending you may not expect. I rated it 4 stars in the end.
Task +20
Style +10
Book Total: 30
Grand Total: 165
15.7 FYTS: Time TravelerPlanned for: 2014 -1964 (1969 skipped)
Shallows by Tim Winton
Published 1984
+25 Task
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 1,025
FYTS: Time Leaper1951-1996
Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
+20 task
Task Total = 20
Grand Total = 655
10.05 Mods TaskA Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
I had, from the title, expected more than half a chapter set in Alice Springs, but much of this story is set in Malaya during World War II, following a group of English women and children as they are passed from one Japanese encampment to another on their way to a seemingly non-existent Womens Prisoner of War camp.
Leader of this group of women is Jean Paget, who returns to Malaya a few years after the end of the war to give thanks to the people who had looked after them, but there is one more person who it is necessary for Jean to give thanks to.
Ultimately this is a love story, but in no ways mushy and smushy, instead rather practical, as is very much Jean's nature.
A well told and enjoyable story. The scenes is Malaya were engaging and interesting, and I wonder if there was any basis for the women's story. The descriptions of outback Australia were also very insightful and interesting.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 combo (20.5)
Task Total = 25
Grand Total = 680
10.3 HolidayThe BFG by Roald Dahl
#38 on Best Friendship list
Low Lexile - no combos
+10 task
Task Total = 10
Grand Total = 690
Post 709 Ed wrote: "20.9 Political (Kate S's Task)Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
Another great history lesson from Sarah Vowell. A delight to listen to her read her account of the ..."
I don't see "Politics" in the genre section on the book page. Did you post earlier for approval and I missed it?
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 709 Ed wrote: "20.9 Political (Kate S's Task)Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
Another great history lesson from Sarah Vowell. A delight to listen to her read..."
oh shoot....I'm sure it was there when I started...I guess I need to switch it to 10.6 then and lose 15 points...and now to find a book for 20.9.
20.5 London CallingThe Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton
#69 on list
+20 Task
+10 Canon
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 555
20.5 London Calling!London by Edward Rutherfurd
+20 Task (#9 on list)
+5 Combo (10.7)
+25 Jumbo (1152 pages)
Post Total: 50
Season Total: 1110
20.3 WinnersThe Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
I enjoyed this book at first. For the most part it is told in first person plural - an unusual and fresh telling. We came from Tokyo and we came from Kyoto. We were farmers daughters and we were the daughters of rich merchants. Most of us were virgins, though some were not and hoped their future husbands would never know. In this way, we came to see these "picture brides" as the varied group of women they were. They had been sent for and were much the mail order brides of Europe, except, of course, they were Japanese. The husbands who were waiting for them more often than not did not resemble the pictures and description the "brides" had been expecting.
Having grown up in California, I was very familiar with the towns and farming areas described. I could easily picture the settings. I could be with these women as they tilled the earth and performed their duties as maids. But about half way I began to tire of the repetitious nature of the prose.
And then, of course, the war came. I knew what we had done with the Japanese before reading any of the more recent fiction about the internment camps. But if you've read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet or The Japanese Lover, this part of the story is familiar. Otsuka does tell it differently because the perspective is so entirely different.
Most disappointing is that the final chapter is told in the third person. We and Us becomes Them. I might rate this more highly if Otsuka had continued with the Japanese perspective. I wanted to continue to see the world of the Japanese women whose story this is. I didn't like this change of viewpoint and it spoiled the book for me. (3 stars)
+20 Task (PEN/Faulkner 2012)
+10 Review
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 680
20.5 London CallingMidnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
Review: I’m pretty sure I’ve had this book out of the library two or three times and never ended up reading it. I’m not sure why – it’s a solid urban fantasy story with a non-white protagonist, which is great. It’s the first in the series, but the story was wrapped up well enough that I don’t feel the need to jump straight in to the next, which is kind of nice sometimes. The worldbuilding got a little confusing at times, but the way the mystery came together was really interesting and kind of creepy. I definitely stayed up way too late last night finishing, which is almost always the mark of a good book.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.7)
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 1155
10.7 First LetterPandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
+10 Task
+10 Jumbo (768 very long pages)
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 1130
10.10 Group ReadsEvicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Review: “Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. They used to draw crowds. Eviction riots erupted during the Depression, even though the number of poor families who faced eviction was a fraction of what it is today.”
I’ve read a lot about urban planning. I’ve read a decent amount about housing discrimination and segregation. But this book taught me things and made me add another layer to the things I knew and believed. Desmond himself mentions in his notes at the end that the resources available surrounding this subject were minimal at best when he started his research, and that even when eviction was studied it wasn’t necessarily approached from a perspective that would get the most accurate results. When he did his own research, he determined that at least one in eight families in Milwaukee (the city he chose to study for this book, and a fitting one given recent events) is evicted each year. The loss of stability this causes leads to countless additional problems – reduced time to work or search for work, increased expenses and/or loss of property, inconsistency in education and missed school days, health problems (including depression), etc. Talking about one part of the problem of poverty cannot solve it, and the fact that eviction hasn’t been part of the equation is kind of astounding.
In the last few months, I lost my husband after a long illness, moved out of my apartment, and had a brief period of time worrying I couldn’t pay all my bills while waiting for the benefits to come in. I had a massive support network, access to medical and psychological care (both covered by health insurance), and the worst monetary difficulty I had was that I might not be able to pay off my entire credit card bill for a month or so. I still went through a period of depression, and moving, even voluntarily, while feeling that way was something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
I’m not trying to make this about me. It’s not. I’m only pointing out that I had this brief period of time where I didn’t know what I was going to do, where I was depressed even while taking antidepressants, and where I had to try to detangle bureaucratic complications while also figuring out my next steps. And I had everything on my side. The people in this book have nothing on their side. Some of them ended up in poverty because of mistakes they made, but for them one mistake took away all hope and landed them in despair. Many of them have been impoverished most of their lives. They have physical and mental disabilities but minimal access to healthcare of any kind. One of the chapters is titled “Can’t Win for Losing,” and I think that just about sums up the experiences of most of the people Desmond profiled.
Desmond also tells the story beautifully. If it were in the fiction section, he wouldn’t have to change much, since it reads so easily. He made the decision to tell it in third person rather than the more common first person used by other ethnographers; in the notes, he says it’s to take himself out of the story and keep the focus on the subjects. He succeeds admirably, and I found little to criticize in the way he told their story.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (20.7, 20.9)
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 1185
From Post 687Karen Michele wrote: "20.6 War
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
+20 Task
+10 Canon
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 950"
+5 Combo 10.5
20.8 KotickThe Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
+20 Task (#3 on list)
+5 10.3 Holiday (#6 on list, YA Lexile 970L)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 580
20.9 PoliticsWhite Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
This book could have been so much better. The book tells the history of class descriptions, particularly descriptions of poor whites by better off whites. Clearly, a great deal of research was involved and historical documents and quotes are presented. But the book somehow lacked heart. There were no personal stories, no voice given to the poor themselves, and very little analysis of what this all means today.
Also, while the title promises an "untold history," the information in this book didn't feel especially surprising or unrevealed to me. I don't think this is an area about which I'm particularly well-informed, but it surprised me not at all to hear that poor whites were a matter of discussion and derision throughout the nation's founding and history. Maybe I just absorbed this information by growing up in Texas. In any event, I expected something more fascinating or surprising here. Of course class suppression is one of the goals of systematic racism -- allow the lower class whites to elevate themselves above minorities and they will align along race lines rather than engage in populist rebellion. Is this really a new theory? Or one that hasn't been explored? Perhaps, but it wasn't all that interesting to read in this format.
My enjoyment of the book was also hindered by the narrator. While not terrible, the narrator seemed at a loss for how to convey the start and end of quotes in the document that made the reading choppy. Perhaps this is the author's fault, but I think at least some of the blame falls on the narrator. She also just didn't seem enthusiastic about the book at all. I know this is an academic text, but it should have been read in a more upbeat way.
This book was selected by one of my book clubs, so I'm looking forward to the discussion with the group (if we ever find a date to meet).
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 870
20.10 - Meta fictionThe House of Doctor Dee by Peter Ackroyd
+20 Task
+ 5 Combo (20.7)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 1055
15.5 FYTS: Time Traveler2015-1965
The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid
+25 Task
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 1080?
Task 20.7 U.S. (Rebekah's Task)Read a book whose author has initials that exactly match US State Abbreviations.
LA: Louisiana
Buried in a Book (Novel Idea #1) (2012) by Lucy Arlington
+20 Task
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 460 + 20 = 480
20.8 KotickThe Towers of Silence by Paul Scott
Review: Paul Scott wrote an amazing historical fiction quartet set in India during WWII. This is the third book and it is told mostly from the POV of Barbara Batchelor, a retired English missionary teacher. She rents a room in Pankot. Here we see the female side of society in British India where your position is based on your husband's rank or civil job. We see a range of attitudes towards the "natives" from paternalistic to explotive. The English women have no idea how to relate to educated, high ranking Indians men or women.
This book covers a number of incidents that happened in previous books but at a distance--from news reports and conversations with participants and observers, giving us a different perspective. It ends on the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. I am very interested in reading the fourth book A Division of the Spoils.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 30
Grand Total: 245
10.5 Mod TaskCocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood
Review: I’d been meaning to read this first book in the Phryne Fisher mysteries for a long time (and also to watch the television series, but that will have to wait), and am really glad I finally got around to it. Unlike most mystery novels, this one doesn’t really revolve around a murder. Instead, as the title suggests, Miss Fisher ends up trying to track down the head of a cocaine ring. It’s a short book, but Greenwood managed to introduce a whole cast of interesting characters. Because of the length, however, a lot of the plot was only just sketched out, so there were a few hanging threads that I would have liked to see. Regardless, I am completely sold on the series and will track down the next when I need a cozy mystery in my life.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.7)
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 1210
20.5 London CallingSlammerkin by Emma Donoghue
+20 Task
+5 Combo (10.7-first letter)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 950
20.6 WarPiece of Cake by Derek Robinson
+20 Task
+5 Jumbo 569 in MPE
+5 Combo 10.7-First Letter
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 980
20.10 Meta FictionLives of the Poets: A Novella and Six Stories by E.L. Doctorow
+20 Task
+5 Combo 10.7-first letter
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 1005
10.9 It's PersonalNora Webster by Colm Tóibín
+10 Task
+10 Combo 10.2, 20.7
Post Total: 20
Season Total: 1025
15.10 FYTS Time Traveler2015-1970
Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith 1970
+40 Task
+100 Completion
Post Total: 140
Season Total: 1165
10.7 - First LetterProtege by Lydia Michaels
Erotica review under spoiler. (view spoiler)
+10 task
+10 review
Task total: 20 points
Grand total: 275 points
20.5 London CallingWhose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
Lord Peter Wimsey is a charming, intelligent aristocrat who keeps occupied as a rare book collector and an amateur sleuth. Set in post-World War I Britain, he occasionally suffers from PTSD from his war years. Wimsey enlists the help of his valet, Mervyn Bunter, in the detective work, and the dry British wit of the duo had me laughing. Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, is another wonderful character--a socialite who often voices the feelings of the 1920s upper class.
A body--naked except for a pair of gold pince-nez-- is found in the bathtub of an acquaintance of Wimsey's mother. On the same day Reuben Levy, an important Jewish financier, is reported missing. The corpse has a mild resemblance to Levy, but is found to be an unknown person. Wimsey, Bunter, and the competent Inspector Parker from Scotland Yard work together to solve the cases. A confessional letter by the criminal at the end of the book detailed why the corpse was found in the tub.
Although the characters seem to think that the Jewish Reuben Levy is a good person, there were quite a few stereotypical comments about Jews scattered throughout the book. It is probably reflective of the lack of understanding of other religions and ethnic groups that existed in 1923.
This short detective story is the first of a series of Lord Peter Wimsey cozy mysteries. It kept my interest, and I especially enjoyed the humor.
+20 task
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand total:825
10.5 Mod TaskCocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood
This series has been recommended to me several, by people whose tastes I trust, and I'm glad I finally dug in. This was a quick read, light and fun. Phryne Fisher, a high-society London detective, goes to Australia and hunts down the head of a cocaine ring, along the way meeting various colorful characters. The feel and pace of the book reminded me of the Mrs. Pollifax novels or the Amelia Peabody books -- pleasant, fun, fast, and a series I'll return to. The downsides are the same for me (and the same as someone mentioned above) -- the book is so short that some of the plot points are wrapped up quickly rather than told and developed as part of the story.
+10 task
+10 review
+5 combo (10.7)
Task Total: 25
Grand Total: 490
20.10 Meta FictionDer Name der Rose by Umberto Eco
(English title and most popular edition: The Name of the Rose)
+20 task
+ 5 combo (20.3 Winner, PEN Translation Prize 1984)
+ 5 jumbo (536 pages The Name of the Rose)
+10 Lost in translation (Original in Italian, read in German)
Task Total: 40
Grand Total: 195
10.6 Traveling the DDC WayThe Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta von Trapp
920 T77
+10 Task
Post Total: 10
Season Total: 590
20.1 South America Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
I read Borges other collection of stories...Book of Sand for a different task this season....and enjoyed that more than this more well-known volume. Having now read two of his works, I see that he is intrigued with books, infinity, the mystical, and just pure numbers, words and names. He seems to love order and incongruity equally. I understand that he was an adherent of the Cabala...belief in mystical messages in the Bible. Anyway...as I was reading one of the stories in this set, The Library of Babel, I realized that I had "seen" this library before. I did an online search...and voila!.... Umberto Eco used Borges story as the basis for his Name of the Rose! and Eco even named one of the blind monks Jorge de Burgos. Duh! Learn something new everyday.
Task = 20
Review = 10
LiT= 10
Cannon= 10
combo= 5 (20.10)
total = 55
grand total= 985 (I think)
Kate S wrote: "From Post 680Rebekah wrote: "10.10 Group Reads
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
by Matthew Desmond
+10 pts - Task
+ 5 pts - Combo (20.7 - Maryland..."
Thanks!
15.2 FYTS: Time Traveler2014-1964
Hella Nation: Looking for Happy Meals in Kandahar, Rocking the Side Pipe,Wingnut's War Against the GAP, and Other Adventures with the Totally Lost Tribes of America by Evan Wright (2009)
+15 Task
+5 Bonus (Non fiction)
Task Total - 20 pts
Grand Total - 355 pts
10.8 - Come to the FairAnother Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
Two hippies fall in love at first sight, buy a hot dog stand in northern Washington State, and live on mushrooms while welcoming friends, human and animal, to come and go as they will.
Very much a book of the 60s, even if it was published in 1971. I used to like Tom Robbins when I was younger, but whether it's me or this particular book or the additional time that has passed, this seemed to take forever to finish. There are some great lines but a lot of it is like listening to a monologue by someone on drugs who's grabbed your arm and thinks he's imparting the secret of the universe in every sentence. There are plenty of times when he seems to run himself into a corner but he always comes up with something - a dead body in the woods, a trip to the Vatican, an even deader body ... it's a marvel of the imagination, and memorable, but overall it left me cold.
(Only one task left now for my mega-finish - and it's my own task!)
+10 Task
+ 5 Combo (20.3 Washington State Book Award 1972)
+10 Review
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 1080
10.3 OppositesThe Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Review:
This book was selected by one of my online book clubs and it seemed like a good time to reread this since the first time I read it was in high school, which was, ahem, quite a while ago. About all I remembered about the book was the sense of desperation that the main character felt. I had completely forgotten how everyone around her seemed to behave in completely annoying and inexplicable ways. Of course, the book is told from Esther's perspective, so we're probably not getting a reliable objective picture of the other players. Still, it felt like there was absolutely no sympathy or understanding from any of the relevant family or friends.
The ending is particularly bittersweet knowing, as any reader today does, of the author's suicide.
Recommended.
+10 Task
+10 Review
Task total: 20
+100 RWS Finish
Grand total: 990
20.8 KotickThe Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
(From the Wikipedia article)
Review: Sai, a naive and somewhat privileged young lady living in a decaying mansion in Kalimpong with her emotionally distant uncle, and Biju, a less than privileged young man who has travelled to New York to make his fortune. In many ways the novel is a study in juxtapositions, but both of the main characters struggle with an immense sense of loss and loneliness.
It is a sad and melancholy book which reflects on the loss of belonging and identity that is the legacy from one generation to the next in a modern and independent India. The main point in the novel seems to be that in trying to straddle the gap between India and the West, most Indians, if not all, will fall into it. It is a slow, yet quite beautiful read.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 LiT (Read in Danish)
Task total: 40 pts
Grand total: 775 pts
10.6 Travelling the DDC WayI Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
(Catalogued as "B", a couple of shelvings as YA Bio, but it has a Lexile of 1000)
Review: Malala Yousafzai is a very brave woman. In a way I'd love to be as brave or have my daughter be as brave, but then again, maybe not. Being brave is a dangerous thing.
Growing up in a society that habitually values women as less than men, Malala is recognized throughout her childhood by her parents as equal to her two brothers. Her father especially encourages her to go to school and she does so with enthusiasm and a competitive mind.
Then the Taliban comes to the Swat valley, where they live, and slowly things start to change. Freedom is limited and school for girls is a thing of the past. But Malala refuses to accept that girls should not be allowed to go to school and protests by speaking up and attending school whenever possible. Soon she becomes a known face for this simple and basic right: the right to learn for all children, a fact which will eventually place her in harms way.
The prose is well paced, though occasionally it becomes a bit uneven. I still gave the book five stars, Malala's remarkable courage is worth at least that.
+10 Task
+5 Combo (10.7)
+10 Review
+10 LiT (Read in Danish)
Task total: 35 pts
Grand total: 810 pts
10.3 HolidaySnow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Review: In the beginning of the 19th century Lily is born into a lower middle class family in a remote and poor corner of China. When it is time to bind her feet, they are so beautiful as to enable a move up the social ladder. A move which include a marriage into a wealthy and powerful family and a laotong, a lifelong friendship with another girl her age, binding the two girls together in a sort of marriage of minds. The friendship is really the central character in this novel and we follow it through ups and downs as the lives of Lily and Snow Flower meander on.
The novel gives a unromantic view of women's lives at this time and the accounts of foot-binding are especially gruesome for all their sobriety.
I liked it well enough, but it probably won't stick out to me in a couple of months.
+10 Task
+10 Combo (10.7, 20.4 (Takes place in China))
+10 Review
+10 LiT (Read in Danish)
Task total: 40 pts
Grand total: 850 pts
10.9 It's PersonalMatilda by Roald Dahl
I read this because I am challenging my daughter with a Roald Dahl reading competition. I have also not read much Dahl myself, although a few books were read to me when I was a young little thing at school, a practice that still exists due to Dahl's love of writing the revolting and ridiculous.
Matilda is not so much the revolting or ridiculous, although most of the adults are.
It's a pleasant, fairly straightforward narrative of a remarkable child growing up surrounded by unsupportive and dismissive adults.
All turns out right in the end, but a little abruptly. Still, I am not the target audience, and Miss 9 really loves this book, so it works for those who are.
+10 task
+ 5 combo (10.7)
+10 review
Task Total = 25
Grand Total = 715
10.1 Square PegVinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
Review: I was going to read another book by Anne Tyler for the American roadtrip subchallenge, but I never made it that far, so I was pleased to hve the chance to get acquainted with. And while I am encouraged to try another of her books at some point, I have a feeling that this was not her strongest writing.
Kate Battista lives at home with her distracted and not terribly sociable scientist dad and her pretty, but shallow, little sister, while working in a preschool in a job she claims not to like.
When her dad's brilliant research assistant visa is close to expiring the two men set out to convince Kate to marry the assistant Pyotr, so he can stay and help with the research.
The novel is based on Shakespeare's comedy "The Taming of the Shrew", and it does have some of the lightness of a comedy. Especially the scenes at the school and the conversations Kate has with the children are funny. But the novel felt rushed, and even worse: It felt like one big surrender into doing what the menfolk says. In the end the question I was left with was: "Really?".
In terms of modernizations of "The Taming of the Shrew", I will continue to go with "10 Things I Hate About You".
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 LiT (Read in Danish)
Task total: 30 pts
Grand total: 880 pts
15.8 FYTS: Time TravelerPlanned for: 2014 -1964 (1969 skipped)
The Matarese Circle (Matarese Dynasty #1) by Robert Ludlum
Published 1979
+25 Task
+5 Bonus (544 pages)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 1,055
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Last Orders by Graham Swift
My negative for this is largely due to my own lack of knowledge rather than the work itself. I think if I had been familiar with London and its environs my appreciation would be greater. It begins in Bermondsey. A Google search tells me it is one of the oldest areas of south London, but even that doesn't tell me what I think locals would know. From the story, I gather it is more of a working class neighborhood - but I gathered that from reading, not from foreknowledge. Foreknowledge would have better informed me about the men who people this novel and more fully fleshed them.
That aside, I liked this story and the men as I came to know them. The chapters are voiced by the four men who take Jack Dodd's ashes to the sea and by his wife, Amy Dodd. The story begins It aint like your regular sort of day and takes place in that single day. Throughout the men (and Amy) talk about their lifelong relationship with Jack. The tone is entirely conversational in addition to the actual dialog. We aint here to do the honours and pay respects to Jack because he worked so hard on his own nature he turned into something else. We're here because he was Jack. The characterizations might not be as clearly defined as I might have wanted, but there are differences between them. I think many would find more humor in this than I did.
I was not as enamored of this as I was his Waterland, but I'm glad I read it. I've given it 4 stars, but it probably lies in the bottom quarter of that range.
+20 Task (Man Booker 1996)
+10 Combo (10.7, 20.10)
+10 Review
Task Total = 40
Grand total = 650