EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay again. Been a busy week, visited in-laws since they’re vaccinated and we’re in the safe zone for our first doses at least. It was my Husband’s birthday and that’s what he wanted to do. So I was traveling Thursday, and Friday watch catching up from 2 days off. Got our second doses yesterday! Been very run down and achey today, but otherwise ok.

Book club I started putting up book club threads, but goodreads kept giving me errors for the last of the sections posts. I tried with 3 brand new posts and it kept giving me errors. so we’ll see if this posts, or if goodreads is just borked.

This week I finished;

Smiling Bears: A Zookeeper Explores the Behavior and Emotional Life of Bears - Really loved this! I love bears, it was full of charming stories about a zookeeper who specialized in them. I counted it for my popsugar and book nerds book on a subject you’re passionate about.

Lightless - This was an interesting read for me. I really like slow burn sci fi movies (think things like Moon, Ex Machina, Arrival). This felt in a similar vein. It counts for my popsugar locked room mystery, book nerds book with a rebellion,

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars - FInally finished this, ended up having to binge the last 8 hours or so in 1 day, bit of a marathon. But it was much better than I expected. I’m not that big of an Eragon fan, so I wasn’t terribly interested in his other work. But I ADORE Jennifer Hale as a voice actress, and she narrates the audio book. So figured even if it sucked, hey Commander Shepard reading me a story. I liked it pretty well, I got a lot of the sci fi references. Maybe felt a little long, but I enjoyed! Counted for book nerds audiobook, ATY book with more than 6 words.

Currently reading:

The Bloodprint - Not very far in this, was focusing on audio book, and another book that’ll be on the coming week’s post.

1Q84 - Still no real progress

QOTW:

Are there any books you loved but didn’t like on re-reading?

I kind of get a sense of books I have aged out of, so there are a number of books I’ve avoided re-reading because of this. I don’t think I would appreciate Narnia as much now as I did as a kid, I’m not intending to re-read. Also I read Ready Player One for book club a few years ago, and rated it high. But any time I think back on the book, I can’t remember why I liked it. And think of things that annoyed me in retrospect. So at this point I’m not planning on re-reading because I figure I wouldn’t really like it a second time around.

I'm glad to hear you're feeling OK after the second dose, Sheri. Mine is due this week, so I took of a few days from work preemptively, just in case.

I had a few finishes this week:

Soulstar - I loved this trilogy. It's sort of a magical Victorian England sort of setting. This one hit a little close to home, with the main character being part of a protest group fighting for equal rights for all citizens. There's scenes where the police arrest people at one of their protests and it's very reminiscent of the BLM protests this past year. I'm using this as my Popsugar book published in 2021.

The Poet X - I was so engrossed that I devoured this in a couple of hours, and it was fantastic. The main character of this book reminded me powerfully of a friend I had as a teen in NYC. I don't read a lot of poetry, so using it as my Popsugar book in a different format than what you normally read.

I also read a ton of manga: Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 5 through Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 10 (not going to link them all individually....) I've discovered that reading digital manga on the Kindle app makes a great time filler when I have a little downtime at work but don't want to get sucked into a longer work.

I'm currently reading In a Holidaze, which will be my Popsugar book about do-overs or fresh starts, since the main plot hook of the story so far is the female lead gets to redo the holiday week and try to fix everything that went wrong. I usually like these authors, and so far, so good. It does feel a little weird to be reading a holiday book in May, though.

QOTW: I haven't been doing a lot of re-reading lately. Mostly books where I remember loving them, but it's been long enough that I forgot a lot of detail, even if I remember the gist of the story. I can't really think of anything I didn't like on re-reading. Like you said, Sheri, I tend to avoid re-reading books where I suspect my opinions will have changed.

After a glut of long books that took forever to read, I finally have some finishes to report.
Twisted: The Tangled History of Black Hair Culture. This was recommended by my library, and they had copies available with no holds, so I jumped on it. It's a timely and important topic, and I'm glad to now know that much more about it.

Hotel Honolulu. Ooof. This was a slog. I ended up skimming most of it when I realized it wasn't going to get any better. The premise was interesting - a struggling author runs away to Hawaii and ends up managing a low-end tourist hotel. The execution? Not so great. Every female character had a history of abuse and trauma, and the portrayals of native Hawaiians were flat out racist. The book was plastered with pages of rave reviews - amazing how cultural standards have shifted in the couple of decades since this came out.

Murder on Route 66. Another book with a lot of promise that didn't deliver. This was a collection of short mysteries supposedly featuring Route 66, but aside from some token name drops and locations, the stories were utterly disconnected from the Mother Road. Plus, many seemed like the authors just phoned it in to get their name in an anthology.

A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East. Another promising premise that kind of delivered. This is a travel memoir from 1993 that's showing its age. The author was 55 at the time, so it's mostly a middle-aged white man lamenting the changes he sees in the world. He's not blatantly offensive, so that's a plus, but I don't share his interests or worldview, so the long-form narrative was a bit too long. I wanted more travel and less philosophizing.

I have a bunch of library books coming due soon, so hopefully there will be some more engaging books in my near future!

QOTW: I experienced this recently. I re-read Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking to refresh my memory before diving into the rest of the series...and I almost didn't make it through the book. It wasn't bad, but it didn't capture my imagination at all on the second go 'round. I made it through the second book in the series before quitting.

Hi all!

Last week I finished One Good Turn, which I did use for the "character that frustrates you" prompt. I enjoyed the mystery, but the detective annoys me to the point that I'm not sure I'm going to go on with the series. He's kind of sex-obsessed - his POV chapters always seem to mention the desirability or lack thereof of all of the other characters (other POVs don't do this, so I know it's the character, not the author) and yet is a complete dumb*ss when it comes to maintaining a relationship. I still rated the book four stars because I got totally wrapped up in the actual mystery and the connections between the characters, but I probably won't read more.

I'm almost all of the way through The Space Between Worlds now and absolutely loving it.

QOTW: This question always makes me think of this post on tor.com. For me, it's the early Pern books. I was totally obsessed as a teen, and I still absolutely adore some of the later ones, but through adult eyes Dragonflight is sooooo problematic...

Yeah, for sure on Dragonflight. Luckily her Harper Hall ones still hold up pretty well, those were always my favorite! And I think the telepath books and petaybee ones hold up ok (although I still think the Damia and Afra thing is...weird.)

This weekend I had houseguests (besides my son) for the first time since August 2019! My niece and brother came to visit so I could sew her prom dress so had a fun weekend of intensive sewing rather than reading.
Two finishes for me since last post. I read First Grave on the Right, which was a book set in a place you'd like to live for book nerds. I was having trouble figuring out where else I'd like to live because I'm pretty happy where I am, then remembered I decided I would like to spend a month in Albuquerque after I retire so searched for books set there. This caught my eye; the main character is the grim reaper who is a private detective. I think the author was aiming for Stephanie-Plum-like sass and was ok at it. Will probably try a second in the series, but not right away.
I also read The Obsidian Tower, the first in a new trilogy by Melissa Caruso. I really enjoyed her first trilogy (like ordered the second book from the library before finishing the first.) This one was fine, but definitely darker than the first batch. I will probably continue with #2 when it comes out.
For QOTW, some disappointing rereads were some early Margaret Truman and Nancy Pickard mysteries set in the 80s. 30+ years later, they seemed to be trying WAY too hard to represent their female leads as independent and liberated. One was dating multiple men simultaneously-how modern! It was too distracting from the main mystery plot.

First book this week was Strong Poison. I enjoy the Sayers books, but this was not my favorite. There were some very funny scenes, but I didn't think it was her best mystery plot, and I was irritated by the premise. I don't think it's really a spoiler to say that Lord Peter sees a woman on trial for murder and determines that she is innocent and that he wants to marry her. He hasn't even spoken to her at that point! Insert skeptical Elsa gif here. Then he tells her this while she's literally a captive audience, in jail relying on him to get her acquitted. I just cannot with that right now. (He does agree to leave her alone at the end, but knowing the future of the series...)

Next was a book I actually purchased! with money! Budgerigar: How a Brave, Chatty and Colourful Little Aussie Bird Stole the World's Heart is pretty much what it says. I am an erstwhile and possibly someday future budgie owner, and a budgie blogger I like is featured in the book, so I had to get it. I enjoyed the parts tracing the "discovery", export, and breeding of the birds by Europeans: the authors collected an impressive number of primary sources. It did devolve more into "here are some famous people who've owned budgies!" later in the book, but I would recommend it to budgie enthusiasts (and pretty much no one else).

QOTW: I don't do a ton of rereading, but I can't think of any books that make me wonder why I used to like them; generally "I was a child" is the explanation. I don't remember any that I really dislike now, either; if I don't enjoy them, it's more that they're just too facile or boring for an adult. In more grown-up-type books, I am not now as into Wuthering Heights as I was in high school, but it's still an evocative classic, and the message isn't "these are healthy relationships," so it's held up OK for me.

i just finished You Love Me, book #3 in the You series.
i think what I really want to say is spoilery, but here goes: Joe needs serious hugs. but I would also want to never meet the guy XD