The Perks Of Being A Book Addict discussion

So I finished my first book of 2018, Reap the Wind, and I am underwhelmed unfortunately. I enjoy the Cassandra Palmer series (and the Dorina Basarab one) a lot but this book was just not what the others were. The action scenes were too many and too confusing, and there was barely any plot progress or character development.

Hopefully the next in the series will be better again.

And I hope you guys are luckier with your first reads of the year :-)

I've had some good reads this year!
In particular:
One of Us Is Lying - the murderer is obvious from the get go, but I read this n one sitting nonetheless because of the characters, who were real & compelling
The Black Tides of Heaven - again, not for the plot so much as the interesting exploration of gender, family dynamics & such like
A Life in Parts - it started off slowly and a bit disjointed, but got much much better as I got into it. Really interesting musings on what it is to be an actor

I've had some not-so-good reads too, but I'm not going to burden you with them - they were generally picked up to fit a Cutthroat challenge - taking one for the team, so to speak!

Haha, hopefully not every book you read to take one for the team will be bad!

I bought One of Us Is Lying a couple of months ago but haven't read it yet. The lady I bought it from at the store was raving about it though. I'll keep it in mind for Uno as a reverse card! :-)

I just finished More Than This and I thought it was great! I was nervous at first that it might be slow, but it really picks up and has some good surprises :)

I've got One of Us Is Lying to read for a group read this month.

My reads tend to be more fluffy currently. I finished My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella the other day and it was quite good just slow to start. I’m now reading the third in the Poldark series by Whnston Graham - Jeremy and it’s started well but I just can’t stay awake long enough to make a proper dent into it. I blame the long dark winter days!!

I'm reading Tower of Dawn right now. It started off pretty slow, but I'm about halfway through and it's picking up. :)

I have My Not So Perfect Life sitting on my shelf as well. I usually enjoy Kinsella's stand-alone romances a lot, despite some of the characters being over the top.

Oh, Tower of Dawn! I still need to read that, too. Can't wait! Empire of Storms was so so good! Have you read Maas' other series?

Savana wrote: "I just finished More Than This and I thought it was great! I was nervous at first that it might be slow, but it really picks up and has some good surprises :)"

Surprises in books are always good! Gotta love some good plot twists and turns :-)

A friend of mine absolutely swears by Patrick Ness and loves his book. I'm not so sure hehe. My first encounter with this author was The Knife of Never Letting Go and I did not enjoy it.

Eldarwen wrote: A friend of mine absolutely swears by Patrick Ness and loves his book. I'm not so sure hehe. My first encounter with this author was The Knife of Never Letting Go and I did not enjoy it.

I actually have The Knife of Never Letting Go on my to read list. I love Patrick Ness too, but haven't gotten around to reading this one yet. What didn't you like about it?
If anything, we could use it for a reverse card!

Eldarwen wrote: "I have My Not So Perfect Life sitting on my shelf as well. I usually enjoy Kinsella's stand-alone romances a lot, despite some of the characters being over the top.

Oh, [book:Towe..."

I've been keeping up with her Court of Thorns and Roses series as well, which I love. Are there others?

Savana wrote: "I actually have The Knife of Never Letting Go on my to read list. I love Patrick Ness too, but haven't gotten around to reading this one yet. What didn't you like about it?
If anything, we could use it for a reverse card!"

True! Always good to have a few options for Reverse cards because we do have a few, and that's just this month. Who knows how many March and April will bring ;-)

I liked the overall idea of the story. It was actually pretty great. What I didn't like though were most of the characters and the writing. There was also a very lengthy scene towards the end where I wanted to rip out my hair for it to be down - involving one of my most hated characters of the book.

The book just didn't click with me, unfortunately, despite some great reviews by people whose opinion on books I usually share.

Katie wrote: "I've been keeping up with her Court of Thorns and Roses series as well, which I love. Are there others?"

Not as far as I know. But ACoTaR is awesome! The second book floored me! I was raving about it for months. And then I never got round to reading the third one, which is way, way overdue!

We still have a couple of weeks to go before the start of Uno, but I had some time to kill at work, so I made us a little summary of the cards we're facing this month.

Unless my eyes are going weird, this is what we have:

Card 0: 2
Card 1: 10
Card 2: 6
Card 3: 9
Card 4: 7
Card 5: 4
Card 6: 8
Card 7: 7
Card 8: 6
Card 9: 7

Skip: 7
Reverse: 6

Wild: 3
Wild Draw 4: 2

Coloured Cards:
- 3 Red
- 1 Yellow
- 8 Red
- 1 Red
- 8 Blue
- 9 Blue
- 5 Blue

We also have a few Draw 2 cards, but since we don't have to read anything specific for them, I didn't put them on the list.

Don't worry, there is no need to start planning who is going to read what. We aren't going by a strict regime ;-)

But if you have a little time over the coming weeks, this is going to be your homework: check your books for coloured covers! :-)

There are seven coloured cards we are going to have to read for, and we are going to have to duplicate two of them to complete our two Wild Draw 4 cards. We can choose which coloured cards we're going to duplicate, but we can only double each coloured card once.

As for the reverse cards, we already mentioned a few options while talking, so that's a good start! Feel free to compare books with your team mates to see which books you have in common and that you might want to read for a reverse card.

I have started to compare books with the other team members. I have many in common. This will definitely help in clearing the TBR shelf.

It's going to be a cold, snowy weekend here, so I should have plenty of time to check out those colored covers.

I will look through mine as well!!

two weeks to wait! ...... it's sooooo long!

and I say that even with Cutthroat going on...

A cold, snowy weekend sounds great! It's looking grey here at the moment but it's leaning towards cold. Apparently we might even get to see the sun some!

Lol yes, it seems so far away still! But those two weeks will go by fast, I'm sure. And then we can get started! :-D

I'll take a look through my covers, 2 weeks, so near and yet so far

As I've been going through my books, I realized that I have SO MANY that qualify for the 1 card, because I've put the first of so many series on my to read shelf!

Savana wrote: "As I've been going through my books, I realized that I have SO MANY that qualify for the 1 card, because I've put the first of so many series on my to read shelf!"

oooh! oooh! do you have a YELLOW one??! That'd be SO awesome if you did! I hate the yellow cover task!

Cat wrote: ooh! oooh! do you have a YELLOW one??! That'd be SO awesome if you did! I hate the yellow cover task!

I'm gonna check all the colors too! I definitely have lots of blue and green lol. Would the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo count? It's yellowish green?

that one??

I checked with TinEye who say it's green :(

Cat wrote: " that one??

I checked with TinEye who say it's green :("

Yeah that's the one :( I'll keep searching though! I've been having way too much fun making a spreadsheet with all my books that qualify.

hey! who doesn't love a bit of spreadsheeting? and booky spreadsheeting is just double the joy!

Yellow covers are the worst! I might have a couple...will have to check. :)

Cat wrote: " that one??

I checked with TinEye who say it's green :("

Nah, it's yellow.

We've had that cover pop up several times for Uno and the paperback cover is actually much more yellow than it seems here in the pic. Besides, it's been approved in captain's group for yellow, so definitely go for that one if you feel like it :-)

I have books to cover:

- 3 Red
- 8 Red
- 1 Yellow
- 5 Blue

I also have a green one that I would like to read soon, but maybe I can squeeze that in for March since this month we don't have green covers in our hands.

Eldarwen wrote:
Nah, it's yellow.

We've had that cover pop up several times for Uno and the paperback cover is actually much more yellow than it seems here in the pic. Besides, it's been approved in captain's group for yellow, so definitely go for that one if you feel like it :-)

Hooray! I've been wanting to read that book since I bought it like three years ago...

Perfect! Then now's your chance :-D

Pssst, if you have the same issues as I do (and apparently Karen haha) with not reading the old books you have on your TBR, then this might be an interesting challenge for you ;-)

--> Cleaning Out your TBR Closet in NBRC.

Eldarwen wrote: "Cat wrote: " that one??

I checked with TinEye who say it's green :("

Nah, it's yellow.

We've had that cover pop up several times for Uno and th..."

That's a really good book

I can cover

1 yellow
1 red
3 red
8 red
5 blue
8 blue
9 blue

Awesome, Louise! :-))

Here's what I can cover this month (as far as I can tell, it may be more once we get started!)
- 1 Yellow
- 9 Blue
- 5 Blue

I have two more yellow covered books to use for other hands as well!

This is just the colored covers, I have tons for just normal numbers!

Looks like we shouldn't have all too much trouble covering our coloured cards this month :-)

good grief, Cutthroat is getting fierce! Ashlee, which team are you in?? How are you guys getting on?

Lysanthra. Back to the drawing board with everything I started to read because of the hardcover sabotage.

Yeah, for us too. And Kelly keeps saying that she’s saving the really evil ones til the end of the round.... argh!

I think I'm glad I didn't join up! ;-)

Waiting for the days to go by, and I feel like this:



Not all too long now!! :-)

Eldarwen wrote: "Waiting for the days to go by, and I feel like this:

but you're like, a cool mom XD

Hahaha :-p

I need to watch that movie again. It's been too long ;-)

Attention Attention!

It is now less than a week (barely, I know) until the challenge starts but could I please get a shout-out from all of you to see if we're all still here and haven't forgotten that we signed up for Uno? ;-)

Do you have any reads planned already for the start of the challenge? Or the entire month? If so, please let us know what they are, preferably with the options of cards they can fit and why.

Thank you! :-)

I'm here! I'll try to get a list going of what I might read, but with other challenges, I might not have much of a plan.

still here!

nothing planned, as Cutthroat is sucking all the attention and makes planning impossible!

I'm probably going to be a read books to throw into the mix, rather than read to order, at least for the first month of Uno. After Cutthroat finishes I'll be able to plan & obey Uno orders!

Hello!
I will try to come up with specific books this weekend for the cards we have next month!

I am in the same boat as Cat. I will be reading what fits the Cutthroat tasks, which I'm sure will fit with our numbered cards.

Oh no worries, you don't need to plan any of the books at all! I was just wondering, since some people do plan ahead.

Haha, yeah, from the little I've heard, Cutthroat isn't much of a challenge for readers who follow a reading plan ;-) I'm not much of a planner myself either. I pick books according to what jumps out at me and really wants to be read and what fits the challenges I'm in.