Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

(35. A book where one of the main characters is royalty)

I had a hard time with this prompt. Nothing on the lists appealed to me until I got fairly far down and spotted Howl's Moving Castle, which I only know as the title of a Hayao Miyazaki film that I haven't seen. Sill, I put it on the list because it qualifies for the topic and comes from Japan.

Except, it doesn't qualify for the topic or come from Japan. The film is based on a mid-80's book by English writer, Diana Wynne Jones. Still, I am glad that I read it because this is an amazing book. It is incredibly well written, complex, emotional, humorous, romantic... I could gush all day. It's exactly the type of book I would have loved to read when I was 12 and was really into fantasy.

It's just too bad none of the main characters are royalty. And I was enjoying the book so much, that I didn't notice until the penultimate chapter. It was on a few lists, I am certain of that because I was looking hard for this topic (like this one: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/...) but it just isn't the case.

Either way, I'll just have to claim exception due to it being on the list or claim Wild Card. I'm not going to disqualify it after I already read it.

I'm glad you liked Howl's Moving Castle! Lists aren't always right. I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as it was listed as time travel and found while reading it, that it didn't fit that prompt... I put it somewhere else, but I had a lot of empty slots at the time.

(28. A non-fiction)

Originally, I had planned to read The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps for this prompt, and I still intend to read that book, but it is very hard to get.

Instead, I fell back on Breaking the Silence, which was a book I already owned. (A sub-goal of this year is to knock out books I already own.)

This book and I have a bit of an interesting history. I bought it for a course I signed up for at the University of Washington but which I ultimately could not take, no matter how much I wanted to, due to the walking distance between the classroom and my other, necessary to my degree, courses. But I kept the books for the course with the intent of eventually reading them.... for over 10 years.

This was a good book which set out to do exactly what it intended to do. But I would not recommend it most people. Every American should know this bit of American history, but the best way to get it would be either a memoir or a fiction book based on true events. This book is more likely to be useful to the author of those books as one of the citations and a key source for their historical accuracy. This is an anthropological study, well executed, but it reads like an anthropological study.

(42. A best book of the 21st century (so far))

An inherent flaw of the comedy novel is that it will appeal to some and not to others solely on each person's taste in humor. While I did laugh a lot while reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, there were also a lot of jokes that failed on me.

And that perfectly describes my hit and miss relationship with this book, and thus its rating of 3 star. The author did a lot of research and got a lot right about the history, but also made a few blunders. The story itself was also hit and miss, sometimes going in a good direction and other times veering off into an odd direction apparently solely because the author thought that would be humorous (and may well have been for some.)

Ultimately, I can't see this book being held to the height of Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., or Terry Pratchett. While this is a genre book with humor, those authors go above and beyond, making a statement about the human condition in the midst of a fun story.

Still, I did enjoy myself while reading it and will likely pick up another book Christopher Moore for some light, fun reading.

(41. A book with an unreliable narrator)

Annihilation really should have been my type of book. I am a big fan, and long time player of atmospheric horror video games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. And while this book did have a great atmosphere, it was just...so....boring.

I do blame that on the author. Atmosphere and mystery are one thing, but something has to happen. The format of the book is that it was written as a journal by the main character after the fact, but the level of detail doesn't fit that, unless she has a photographic memory. Ultimately, it should be the goal of the author to have a good balance of rich descriptions and plot development. This book needed to either be a strong novella, cutting out some of the description, or a solid novel, adding in more occurrences.

I am a bit concerned about the series. I want to complete the trilogy, as I tend to be a completionist. But I've noticed this trend in modern sci-fi where a big mystery is set up (or a series of mysteries) which are never truly explained/fulfilled. I blame The X-files (a show I loved) for this trend. It is established that the mystery and not the resolution is what brings in the readers. I don't want to read a dozen books to finally have some small clue of what is going on. I want answers here and now! Or at least a few, otherwise I feel scammed.

(38. A novel inspired by a work of classic literature)

Another incredibly boring book. Lavinia never really gave me a reason to want to know what happens nor any investment in the characters. It's an odd thing to say that I didn't much enjoy a book by Ursula K. Le Guin. I never would have suspected that I could feel that way. But here we are.

It does pick up toward the end, after the events of the Aenid have played out and Le Guin is free to do what she wants. Before that, the author seems tied down by the established events of the inspiring work. Not only are we simply going through the motions with her, but the story is spoiled for us very early in the book (by the author) and so we are just waiting for it to come to pass.