MobileRead Book Challenges discussion

57. Island Life by William Meikle.
It's summer again so I'm in the mood for horror books. My favourite ones are set in isolated place (village, house, mansion, island, etc) where something (ghost/monster/etc) wanders around and play havoc. This is one of those stories. I really liked this book, the characters are well described, even the ones that die quickly, that's often not the case in these books. The build up of the story is good, telling the read just enough and leaving out just enough to make it very hard to put down. My only comment is that the ending was a bit abrupt for me. I would have liked how the survivors deal with the aftermath.

58. Birdman by Mo Hayder.
It took a while for me to get really interested in this book but when the pace starts going up it's very good, albeit rather graphic.

59. Mostly Human by William Meikle, Scott Nicholson, Steven Savile and Steve Lockley.
Although I love horror stories, I normally don't like the ones that doesn't have a happy ending. This is one of those stories. It also ends rather abrupt with too much not solved.

60. The Cat Who Played Post Office by Lilian Jackson Braun.
An entertaining and quick read.

61. Ancient Awakening by Matthem Bryan Laube.
Normally I like books where ancient things awaking and causing all kinds of problems. This one I found okay but I'm not tempted to bet the next in the series.

62. Of Time And Dust by Steven Savile and Steve Lockley.
A short story. It could have been made into a longer story but it was interesting, although the story wasn't resolved (which I normally hate). I'm very tempted to get the next in the series just to see what happens next.

63. Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels.
Barbara Michaels can get the combination of horror/paranormal, romance and thriller just right. I really liked this book except the feminist angle, it's mentioned too much for my liking. But all in all it's a good paranormal mystery with a bit of romance.

64. Gideon's Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
It's very hard to say what my opinion is about this book. With the Pendergast series by Preston and Child I really like the main character but not all of the stories. With this first book in the Gideon Crew book I liked the story but not the main character. It annoyed me that he got people telling him things they shouldn't have told him so easily or weren't allowed to tell him.

65. The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare by Lilian Jackson Braun.
Another quick and easy mystery. I like how in the last couple of books in the series it moved away from being just solving mysteries to showing the workings in a small and quirky community.

66. The White Devil by Justin Evans.
Before reading this I thought it would be one of those quick and easy but not very memorable horror stories. I'm happy I was wrong. It's a very good paranormal thriller/horror. It was very hard to put down. Normally I don't like endings like this one had but in this book it somehow fit.

67. Death Masks by Jim Butcher.
I'm really starting to get into the Dresden Files series. Harry's whining and need to save women has become less and less of an issue in the last 2 or 3 books. This book also read a lot faster than the previous ones. Can't wait to see what is going to happen next.

68. The Heretic by Joseph Nassise.
I really liked this book probably because it's unlike most books about the Templars that are currently very popular (the adventure type). It's the right mix of supernatural, detective and action and I'm certainly going to get the other two books in the series.

69. The Duke And I by Julia Quinn.
I'm usually not a big fan of romance but I really liked this one. Probably because the character felt real and the love and sex scenes weren't too many. Another series I'm going to continue.

70. The Haunting At Red Feathers by Peter Meredith.
Avoid!
This books contains three short stories, the first two are hauntings the author has witnessed and the last story is fictional. The first two stories felt like they were written by a non-native English speaker, going by the structure of his sentences. There were many grammar and spelling mistakes and just wrong words used (e.g. "down pore", although a page later he did use "pour"). The last story was better, still the occasional grammar or spelling mistakes and weird sentence structuring. This story was about a cursed pen, the characters were almost characters: the bitchy, one dimensional pretty girl, the tough jock, the greasy nerd, etc. Again: avoid.

71. Spiral by Koji Suzuki.
The books in The Ring series aren't horror like the films are. Although there are some tense moments I would classify them as (psychological) thriller. That doesn't mean I don't like them. They are very well written and hard to put down.

72. Vanish by Tess Gerritsen.
The Rizzoli & Isles series gets better with every book! Although the book centers on Rizzoli (and other books in the series on Isles) it never feels like the story is only about them, Gerritsen is very good at interweaving several stories to make it one.

73. The Cat Who Sniffed Glue by Lilian Jackson Braun.
Another fun and quick read.

74. Ashes by Scott Nicholson.
Short horror stories. Although I'm not really into short stories I thought these were okay but I didn't find the stories very scary.

75. Manchester House by Donald Allen Kirch.
I really liked this story which is a haunted house story mixed in with some fantasy. I hope Kirch continues with the main characters because it could be an interesting series. My only complaint was that the conversion for Kindle format didn't go right: spaces, commas and periods were regularly replaced by a &-sign and occasionally the space between two words wasn't there. I reported this to Amazon and the publisher now has uploaded a second version so I hope this problem has been corrected.

76. The Cat Who Went Underground by Lilian Jackson Braun.
Another entertaining book in the series. But I must say that Qwilleran nearly getting killed is getting a bit repetitive.

I'm also still reading Shogun which I'm loving but is a very slow read (at 50% at the moment). In between I'm reading other books.

77. Still Waters by Donald Allen Kirch.
Not as good as Manchester House but still a good read.

78. Blood Rites by Jim Butcher.
I'm really starting to get into this series! In the last couple of books Harry stopped feeling the need to protect every woman he meets, which was a good improvement. In this book he starts taking initiative instead of letting everything just happen to him.

79. The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey.
Although I really loved this book I would never catagorize it as a book for young adults.

80.The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts by Lilian Jackson Braun.
Another entertaining instalment, although I think more could have been done with the ghost angle.

81. Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
The second in the Helen Pendergast sub-series. Some mysteries from the first book are solved, new mysteries arise and other mysteries even deepen. Can't wait for the next book!

82. The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen.
I really like this series. Whilst solving the crime is the main goal of the stories, human interaction and relationships are very important too. Although the crimes itself are often not realistic (or better said, the separate incidents are realistic but the combination makes it too much to be real) the interaction between the characters makes the stories very believable.
I liked this story but found the switching between Boston and Italy very confusing in the beginning because the Italian segments start as flashbacks and it took me a while to fit it all into the story.

83. Riverwatch by Joseph Nassise.
A reread (first read in in 2004). Not as good as I remember it to be, I prefer Nassise's The Heretic, but still a good read.

84. Shogun by James Clavell.
It took me a while to read but the story is very good and beautifully written. Clavell keeps using Japanese throughout the book, which really gives you the feel you are in a strange country, similar to what main character Blackthorne must be feeling. I was slightly disappointed by the ending. To me it seemed that the whole book was working up to war but all we get is a short description of how it ended. I realise it would probably have taken another 1000 pages to describe the battle but I really would have liked to know how the story ended for the main characters.

85. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.
I liked this story but like others have said it does remind me of X-Men a lot.

86. The Summoner by Layton Green.
I loved the setting (Zimbabwe) and the use of Juju, but not taking into account it isn't a very original story. It also bothered me that the important female character's whole personality changed after she was kidnapped and tortured.

87. The Alienist by Caleb Carr.
I really liked this book. The beginning was slow going, although that could have just been me, but the last 40% or so it was hard to put the book down.

88. Banquet for the Damned by Adam Nevill.
Okay, it takes a while to figure out who the good and bad character are. The author doesn't give all the information to the reader which can be very confusing.

89. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher.
Another great book in the Dresden Files series.

90. The Cove by Catherine Coulter.
Although the story was okay I found the characters to be unrealistic. Also too many things happen to the main character to be believable.

91. Vlad The Last Confession by C.C. Humphreys.
A very good book but don't expect it to be about vampires. It's a mix of fiction and historical facts.

92. The Cat Who Lived High by Lilian Jackson Braun.
Not as good as previous books, Qwill goes back Down Below and I like it better when the setting is Moose County or surroundings.

93. Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Simon Baker.
This books accompanies a BBC series, although I haven't seen that series the book is still enjoyable.

94. A Haunting at Hensley Hall by Merabeth James.
A good story and start of a series. There were some punctuation problems though (probably from converting the ebook to a different format).

95. The House of Lost Souls by F.G. Cottam.
Okay. The story is different than both the description and start of the book makes you think it will be. The end was a bit disappointing.

96. The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal by Lilian Jackson Braun.
Better than the previous book.

97. Vendetta by Michael Dibdin.
Better than the first book of the series. Dibdin uses so many Italian words that I started to suspect he was doing it to impress the reader rather than that is was tool to get better into the story.

98. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson.
A reread for me. As enjoyable and even more recognisable (for a foreigner who has lived in the UK) than the first time I read it.

99. 31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan.
It just didn't work for me. I don't know if it were the characters, the story or just me.

100. Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher.
A great story and a set-up for more story lines.

101. The Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey.
Different than the previous two books in the Monstrumologist series. A shame that this will be the last book since it leaves an open ending.

102. Mile 81 by Stephen King.
To me it seems King could have done more with this story, but it was still enjoyable.

103. The Resurrectionist by James Bradley.
I found the scene changes to be to abrupt, it's often unclear how much time has passed between scenes or what has happened during the time between them.

104. Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie.
Although it has been a while since I've read the first book of the First Law trilogy it's easy enough to get into the story again. The first book's function was to introduce all the different characters and there's a lot more action in the second book. I will soon read the final book because I can't wait to find out how it all ties together and how it ends.

105. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann.
Okay and interesting but it didn't quite work for me. To me it feels something is missing but I have no idea what.

106. Roots of Evil by Sarah Rayne.
A good story with a not-so-surprising twist at the end. An enjoyable read but not really special.

107. White Night by Jim Butcher.
Another great story with some interesting new developments for Harry but also maybe for Murphy.

108. The Shelter by James Everington.
Again, a short story with which the author could have done more.

109. The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff.
A good story. I thought it would just be another quick horror story but the story itself is very good and the horror isn't a monster or a ghost but people themselves.

110. 11/22/63 by Stephen King.
Another good book by Stephen King, although it did remind me of Quantum Leap and Fringe. I really liked the ending.

111. Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie.
The last book of the First Law Trilogy. The first book introduced all the characters and set the story up. In the second book you get the know the characters and the third book is the conclusion with several battles.
Of all the books I liked the second one best and the last one least, overall I would give this trilogy 4 out of 5 stars.

I haven't had the time to update in a while, so here are the final books I've read in 2011.

112. The Keepsake by Tess Gerritsen.
113. Freaks by Tess Gerritsen.
114. Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen.
115. The Silent Girl by Tess Gerritsen.
116. Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.
117. A Season for the Dead by David Hewson.
118. Small Favor by Jim Butcher.
119. Turn Coat by Jim Butcher.
120. Neverwhere by Neil Gainman.

I haven't finished the last book yet, I hope to do so tonight or tomorrow. Even though I've only managed to read 4 books in December I have read an average of 10 books a month, which isn't bad.