EPBOT Readers discussion

Hello everyone,

Summer in the northern hemisphere is coming to an end. I'm hoping for some relief from a long season of hot temperatures here in New England. I hope everyone is doing well.

This week I finished The Last Original Wife. I gave this two stars. I used it for "Hat on the Cover", "Character that makes you facepalm" and "Book I Got for Free" for the book nerds prompts. I would have given it one star but something made me keep reading and finish it. The main character, "the last original wife" was a total doormat, until she suddenly wasn't. Although there was a triggering event, it still was too much a change to believe. The husband was so shallow, selfish and a jerk I could not relate to him and he detracted from the book. One thing that kept bugging me was that the math didn't add up. Their kids were portrayed as being in their late 20's, maybe very early 30s. The book is set specifically in 2012 and it says they graduated HS in 1970. The main character dropped out of college at 20 to get married and have the baby which would put the older child at 40.

I got the book for free from my niece (who got it from my sister). My niece had accidentally dropped it in her pool and then dried it. So the hardcover book was puffy and warped. I could read it just fine but decided to throw it away after I finished. It is not worth passing on.

I have started reading Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks. Although I'm not terribly into typography, I am really enjoying this! The history of some characters is fascinating. Thank you @Rebecca for your description a few weeks ago. I'm probably about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through.

I am now about halfway through listening to A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor. So far, I am enjoying this as much, but differently, than the first book. I like that this book is written from the POV of all the main characters from the first book as they move on different paths.

QOTW: Is everyone looking forward to the change of seasons? Start of school?

We have a bunch of travel coming up including a week sailing on a schooner in Maine. Then a bunch of weekend travel including to visit my 93 YO mother who lives 450 miles away. @Sheri we hope to get to Cedar Point this fall for a Halloween Weekend. Going depends on weather and the state of COVID and our comfort level being in dense crowds, even outdoors.

We got home from our trip so late on Thursday night that it was actually Friday, so I'm still working on adjusting back to Eastern time.

The second half of the trip I read -
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (number in the title), which I thought was lovely but didn't like quite as much as The Once and Future Witches.

A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas (unrequited love), the second of the Lady Sherlock books. I read and loved the first book several years ago and then forgot about the series. Nothing I had on my kindle was striking my fancy at the moment, so I was browsing the library's ebook site for books that are currently available and that was on the list. I've got book 3 on hold to read as soon as it's returned!

Naturally Tan (photographs inside) by Tan France because I am currently obsessed with the Queer Eye Fab Five.

QOTW: Fall is my absolute favorite season, so I'm looking forward to it, although it doesn't quite peak here until October-ish. That said, I've got mixed feelings about the start of the school year. I am still in vacation mode and we start our faculty meetings in a few days, and get students after Labor Day. I have to get myself into school mindset. My second grader can't wait to start, my sixth grader is a little more ambivalent because he's starting middle school.

Yay, sharing book joy!

Crying in H Mart - I think this was another victim of hype, or maybe just my inability to relate to the author's experience, but it didn't grab me like it did many others (judging from the library hold list). I haven't experienced loss of a parent as an adult, and I don't have a bi-cultural or immigrant upbringing. I do have a passing familiarity with Korean food and stores, so I enjoyed that part. (We don't have an H Mart here, but we have a knockoff called Super G Mart that is functionally equivalent.) The most interesting parts for me were the author's musical journey, but that was really not the focus of the book.

Six Wakes - I keep complaining that sff mysteries are hard to pull off and then reading them anyway. This one is more of a thriller than a mystery (in that there is a fairly constant drip of information), and the solution doesn't rely on anything that couldn't happen in any other mystery novel, but I found a certain aspect highly implausible, and there were some loose ends. There were also some editing issues that went beyond the nitpicky, like the sentence, "Then I will definitely be a new toothbrush and towel." There was good humor and it was entertaining overall.

QOTW: I love fall, but I have some plants that I am hoping will still flower and fruit, so I'm torn.

Hi, all!

QOTW: I am so looking forward to fall. Cooler weather, and we're renting a house on the Oregon coast toward the end of September, which is always a great little getaway.

Since the last check-in, I have a few finishes:
Heroic Hearts - an anthology of short stories from various urban fantasy and paranormal series as well as some standalone stories. Surprisingly, I liked most of the stories in the book, even the ones where I wasn't familiar with the series they came from.

The Girl in the Tower - book 2 in the trilogy. I used this for the Popsugar prompt of a character living a double life.

The Winter of the Witch - book 3, for the Popsugar prompt of a book about witches. I loved this entire series, and rated all of them 5 stars. Just magical and powerful.

Comics & manga:
Daily Report About My Witch Senpai, Vol. 2
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Vol. 23
Wonder Cat Kyuu-chan, Vol. 2
Wonder Cat Kyuu-Chan, Vol. 3
Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, Vol. 14
Skip and Loafer, Vol. 1
Honey So Sweet, Vol. 2

I'm not currently reading anything, but up next will probably be Holiday Heroine, for my very last Popsugar prompt, a book set during a holiday. It's also going to be the last book in this series, which I'm pretty sad about but also kind of glad the author's ending it where she wants to and not dragging it out.

Hello all-it's been awhile since I posted again, so I will try to list things I think FoEs will enjoy the most. Sorry if there's duplicates from a previous post.
A Mirror Mended has been my favorite book of the summer so far. Also loved the first one in her fractured fables. Funny and sad and refreshingly short if you need a break from long stuff. The Midnight Library was for my IRL book club and (sorry IRL book club) surprisingly enjoyable (they often pick stuff I don't like.) Half a Soul was a cute supernatural regency romance. I will continue with the others in this world.
A disappointing one was Written in Red, which was a recommendation from a favorite author Charlaine Harris in response to what book have you been recommending lately. I stuck with it because I wanted to find out what happens, and world is interesting, but it was a little grim for my taste.
QOTW: Fall battles with spring for my favorite season. This one is a little mixed because we just delivered my youngest to college 4 hours away. So far so good, and she's been in contact, but miss her. We have some trips to look forward to, including a first-time overnight train ride from Chicago to Utah, so hoping to catch some good fall colors in the mountains.

@kathy we took a trip to Utah in Sept the year my youngest went to college also! Five couples of various sibling relations rented a large house halfway between Zion and Bryce. It was a good getaway to not focus on the empty nest.

Last year my IRL book club read The Midnight Library. I thought it was enjoyable too. There certainly have been some not-enjoyable ones chosen for the IRL club, including some suggested by me!