On The Same Page discussion

I know life is not black and white and there are lots of shades of gray in between, but in the case when someone knowingly lies and manipulates others in order to get fame and/or money, there's not a lot of room for the grays.
She knew what she was doing and saying (and how was saying it, listen to that voice, proven later as fake too). She can't claim she was duped or coerced, she was the CEO.

December Month End Report/Year End

Books Read: 9 books this month and 153* total (last year was 155)
*Includes loads of children's books and short stories
52,279 pages total

Books from Filling in the Gaps: 88/100; 2020 Books 6/7, 2021 Books 11/11!!, and 2022 Books 71/82

Books from First 12+4 Challenge: 16/16
Books from Second 12 + 4 Challenge: 16/16

Previously finished:

Diper Överlöde
Anne of Windy Poplars
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Recently Finished:

The Mountain Shadow - Sequel to Shantaram, file this under sequels that do not need to be written. This book made me dislike the first book more. The only nice thing I can say about it is that it did help me in my Around the World Challenge, giving me Sri Lanka. 912 pages were not worth it. 1.5 STARS

Wanderers - This was another enormous book. I would recommend this to any fans of The Stand. Be forwarned, it is very intense and very long. That said, it was good. The story: some people start sleepwalking and shortly thereafter, other people start getting sick. It's a global pandemic. Some people behave heroically. Lots of other people behave despicably. 3.5 STARS

Dead Until Dark - After all of these long dark novels, I needed a palate cleanser. Sookie Stackhouse was just what the doctor ordered. She's silly. She's annoying. But, she's also super entertaining. She reminded me that I need to catch up on the Stephanie Plum series, which I slightly prefer. The book was published in 2001 and you can tell, but I'm not mad I read it, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. 3 STARS

Holy Bible: New International Version - This is a hard one for me to rate. I would equate it to reading a book written by a friend. There's a comfort bias. 5 STARS

Kindred - This a science fiction book about a woman in 1976 California transported back in time to 1816 Maryland. I'm usually not a big fan of time travel, and had my usual problems with it, but the story was so solid and impactful that I couldn't help but give it 5 STARS. Highly recommended.

Tales from Watership Down - Sequel to Watership Down. In a strange way, I appreciated this book more than the first book. I remember being annoyed by all of the plot digressions that Adams made, where he'd be talking about something and get stuck on something irrelevant and go on for pages. I also remember being a bit annoyed by the way the author treated the female rabbits. This is a compilation of short stories and on the one hand, it has a better flow and he added some female leadership. On the other hand, it is short stories, and some are better than others. I am glad I read it, but I wasn't wowed by it. 2.5 STARS

Currently reading:

Anne's House of Dreams - No progress.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - This is a book about Elizabeth Holmes, a young woman who founded a company called Theranos, which supposedly patented a new method to diagnose disease with just a drop of blood. It's a great idea, but the technology didn't work. Somehow, it seemed better to continue to try and make it work and swindle more money out of investors. Not much progress.

Progress on the Whack-a-Mole Series Situation – 29 series completed. 12 series started. 3 series started this year that are still in progress. If I could just do this every year...but I'm not going to. The heart wants what it wants, and I do want to do other things next year. I'm still hoping to finish a series every month, but I will also be starting a fair number of series that I've been waiting to tackle. And I know authors will add to all of the series that I've already started. We'll see how it goes.

Series Completed this year (for the moment...):
1. A Court of Thorns and Roses (1)
2. Sweet Sanctuary (2)
3. Lunar Chronicles (1)
4. Greentown (2)
5. The Henna Artist (2)
6. Charlie Bucket (2)
7. Shadow and Bone (7)
8. P.S. I Love You (1)
9. Li Du (1)
10. Capitaine Nemo (2)
11. Bill O'Reilly's Killing Series (1)
12. Twilight (1)
13. Six of Crows (2)
14. Jane Austen's Heroes (5)
15. Camino Island (1)
16. Catch-22 (1)
17. King of Scars (2)
18. Olive Kitteridge (1)
19. Anne of Green Gables (2)
20. The Border Trilogy (3)
21. Deathless (2)
22. The Tattooist of Auschwitz (1)
23. Robot (8)
24. Thursday Murder Club (3)
25. Graveminder (2)
26. We Were Liars (1)
27. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (13)
28. Shantaram (1)
29. Watership Down (1)

Series Started This Year with Books Remaining:
1. Bladerunner (3)
2. Wanderers (1)
3. Sookie Stackhouse (12)

Series Started Last Year with Books Remaining:
NONE

Series That Added Books This Year with number of books I still need to read in that series:
1. Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez (8)
2. Xanth (40)
3. Jake Brigance (1)
4. The Miniaturist (1)
5. Comoran Strike (4)
6. Beartown (1)
7. It Ends with Us (1)

Series That Added Books Last Year with number of books I still need to read in that series: (so you can see how I really made no progress!)
1. Ender's Universe (5)
2. Stephanie Plum (7)
3. You (1)

Series that added books this year that I'm abandoning, until I change my mind and read them anyway:
1. Crescent City
2. The Spanish Love Deception
3. Detective Erika Foster
4. Lore Olympus
5. Graceling
6. Saga
7. Arc of a Scythe

Book of the month: Kindred
Worst book: The Mountain Shadow
Biggest Surprise: Well, Kindred, probably, but since I already put that as the Book of the Month, I was also pleasantly by Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. After starting and stopping that book so many times, I was afraid it was the book's fault. Nope. My problem. And once I was in the right mood for it, an excellent book.
Greatest accomplishment: Did you not see that I finished 29 series this past year, 20 of which I had started years ago? My head is so much lighter! And only 3 1-star books!!!

Books of the month:

January - Broken
February - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
March - Crying in H Mart
April - The Lost Wife
May - Long Bright River
June - The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
July - The Lincoln Highway
August - The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
September - Firekeeper's Daughter
October - The Secret History
November - The Bullet That Missed
December - Kindred

Other five star books - All the Pretty Horses and Lea re-read comfort books Anne of Green Gables, Anne of the Island, Holy Bible: New International Version

Ioana wrote: "I know life is not black and white and there are lots of shades of gray in between, but in the case when someone knowingly lies and manipulates others in order to get fame and/or money, there's not a lot of room for the grays.
She knew what she was doing and saying (and how was saying it, listen to that voice, proven later as fake too). She can't claim she was duped or coerced, she was the CEO."

I'm really hoping to find a different rationale, but I probably won't. And I keep thinking that if she wasn't female, young, pregnant, and beautiful, would she have gotten so much leniency? I can't have been the only person that wanted to see women excel in STEM-related subjects. To me, her argument that she was coerced makes everything so much worse. But, again, hoping to find some reasons for all of this!

Lea wrote: "I'm really hoping to find a different rationale, but I probably won't. And I keep thinking that if she wasn't female, young, pregnant, and beautiful, would she have gotten so much leniency? I can't have been the only person that wanted to see women excel in STEM-related subjects. To me, her argument that she was coerced makes everything so much worse. But, again, hoping to find some reasons for all of this!"

I hope you will, and then you will convince me I was wrong.

Lea wrote: "December Month End Report/Year End

Books Read: 9 books this month and 153* total (last year was 155)
*Includes loads of children's books and short stories
52,279 pages total

Books from Filling in..."

Great month and year, congratulations! My take away from it, as otherwise it will be too long:
1) I'm so happy you loved Kindred
2) I really enjoyed The Stand, and hope to get to The Wanderers soon

I will not even comment on all the accomplishments, the # of books, pages, the # of series completed, etc. I am not worthy...

Happy reading in 2023, can't wait to see what other gems you discover!

Wanderers sounds interesting. And I do want to explore Butler more. Good luck with your final books and good luck in 2023.

Ioana wrote: "I hope you will, and then you will convince me I was wrong."

LOL, well, we can dream. Although if I find them wrongly accused, there's a whole other set of wrongness going on. I really need to finish the book so I can solidify my opinions on the topic. :-)

Ioana wrote: "Great month and year, congratulations! My take away from it, as otherwise it will be too long:
1) I'm so happy you loved Kindred
2) I really enjoyed The Stand, and hope to get to The Wanderers soon

I will not even comment on all the accomplishments, the # of books, pages, the # of series completed, etc. I am not worthy...

Happy reading in 2023, can't wait to see what other gems you discover!"

Thanks, Kindred was such a pleasant end of the year surprise. It's always nice to end the year on a high note.

I hope that you enjoy Wanderers as much as I did. Wait and see what Alissa thinks about it, I think she got the book back...but if you really enjoyed The Stand, I think you'll like this too.

As for accomplishments, you might have had even less 1-star books than I. I was thrilled with only three this year, but you are smarter than me. You know when to ditch the book. I'll learn, I'll learn. :-)

I'm looking forward to seeing what books you discover in 2023 also! There's always something there that I haven't heard of and something else that I was thinking about reading...and you push me one way or the other. My TBR groans, but the rest of me is happy! :-)

Bill wrote: "Wanderers sounds interesting. And I do want to explore Butler more. Good luck with your final books and good luck in 2023."

Thanks, Bill! I am never bothered by books carrying over into the New Year...so I might not finish my last two...or I might...who knows? I'm getting excited about 2023!

Lea wrote: "you might have had even less 1-star books than I. I was thrilled with only three this year, but you are smarter than me. You know when to ditch the book. I'll learn, I'll learn. :-)"

You're right, just 1...but if I counted all the ditched ones, there would be a couple dozens 🤣

Great year of reading for you Lea. The Wanderers looks good, so I will keep it on my radar.

Kudos and good luck in the new year!

So glad you enjoyed Kindred, it's special.

Great year of reading, you made a lot more progress on series than I did!

Ioana wrote: "You're right, just 1...but if I counted all the ditched ones, there would be a couple dozens 🤣"

I also set aside books that I'm not in the mood to read after the first chapter or so...but once I get in, I am too curious not to continue. That's the behavior I have to unlearn. :-)

Alondra wrote: "Great year of reading for you Lea. The Wanderers looks good, so I will keep it on my radar.

Kudos and good luck in the new year!"

Thanks, Alondra. I'm really eager to read the sequel, I'm impatiently waiting for my library to give me Wayward. If I get it this month, I am sure I will try and get it read. But it is a huge book, so we'll see. So excited to see where this story will go. :-)

Carolien wrote: "So glad you enjoyed Kindred, it's special.

Great year of reading, you made a lot more progress on series than I did!"

Yes, I really focused on series, to the exclusion of a lot of other challenges. I think you made much more progress on the Around the World challenge. I think those two challenges conflict with each other, unless you've got a series about travelers. Otherwise, if you read a lot of series books and they are all set in the same places, you really go nowhere. Maybe I'll focus on that this year. Or maybe not. It's a new year, and the heart wants what it wants. We'll see where we go! :-)

Lea wrote: "Kindred - This a science fiction book about a woman in 1976 California transported back in time to 1816 Maryland. I'm usually not a big fan of time travel, and had my usual problems with it, but the story was so solid and impactful that I couldn't help but give it 5 STARS. Highly recommended."

Woohoo! You read it :) Wasn't it just so intense and awesome? I'd initially rated it a 4.5 but I've raised it to a 5 star now (need to change my year end review to reflect that).

Can't wait to see what books you tackle in 2023.

Lillie wrote: "Woohoo! You read it :) Wasn't it just so intense and awesome? I'd initially rated it a 4.5 but I've raised it to a 5 star now (need to change my year end review to reflect that).

Can't wait to see what books you tackle in 2023."

Thanks, Lillie. I loved Dana's voice on Kindred. I liked how she described the events, with the benefit of hindsight, acknowledging her own weaknesses and mistakes, while being generous about the weaknesses and mistakes of others. I am eager to read more by Butler. I thought to rate it 4.5 stars too, mainly because of some of the problematic time travel elements, but ultimately decided I should try to be more generous like Dana. The pacing on the book was excellent and it was such an important story.