It's Friday! (3/23)

[ufcasey]

What have you read this week? What are you currently reading?

QOTW:
Would you rather live in a climate where it's always hot or somewhere where it's always cold?

[charlatti]

I finished Children of Blood and Bone (highly recommend it — fantasy rooted in African mythology) and started Lullaby Road by James Anderson. He wrote The Never Open Desert Diner, which I really loved.

QOTW: always hot, no question. I loathe being cold, and I live in the Midwest, so I’m mildly miserable a good chunk of the year.

[ufcasey]

I will have read three of our book club picks this year, in this one week. Darn library wait lists went crazy on me!

Read:
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson - non-fiction; 3.5 stars; Informative but a little too filler-y at times.
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate - historical ficiton; 4 stars; saving my review for August's book club (unless you are my friend on GR, whoops)

Total so far for the year: 32

Currently Reading:
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden - fantasy; I can see why some people might not like this, but I am loving it!
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore - non-fiction; just started so I need to read it fast before next Wednesday!

QOTW:
I live in Florida for a reason - hot please! Though a/c is a must. How did people live here before a/c?!?

[travella]

I finished The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane and I started The Child by Fiona Barton. I've been busy and the story has been a little slow so I'm not moving very quickly through the book.

QOTW:Where it is cold. It is easier to get warm than cool down; I can always add another layer. Plus, I like my winter wardrobe much better than my summer.

[Vespasia]

I read An American Marriage in less than 24 hours. I thought it was very good but found the ending a bit disappointing. I'm not really sure what could have been more satisfying though. 

Currently reading: Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson. It's keeping my attention but I think it will annoy me eventually like most thrillers. 

QOTW: Hot if I have to choose but I am not a fan! 




charlatti I am reading Children of Blood and Bone next! I'm just waiting for my library hold.

[snshne322]

I just started listening to Station Eleven last night and it's pretty interesting so far. I'm also reading The Ones Who Got Away by Roni Loren. It's ok. I'm not sure how I'm liking the handling of some of the themes in the book, but I'm reserving judgement until the end.

QOTW: I hate extremes, no fair. Though assuming I had good heating/AC, I could do OK with either. I'm leaning toward AC because at least it's not wet ALL the time like it is with snow. I really want to break out my lighter footwear, but Mother Nature is making it REALLY difficult right now.

[spedrunner]

This week I read:

Final Girls by Riley Sager 
3.5/5 stars
It was suspenseful and held my interest.  Love psychological thrillers. Yet I found it very difficult to connect or sympathise with any of the characters, it was not a very believable book but still a good quick read ( i read it fast!)

Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2) by Rachel Caine
4/5 stars
I had a hard time starting this book but once I got into it I was well invested!  I loved the first one in the series and this one was just as great!

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
3/5 stars.
THis book was so slow for me. It was good just felt long and slow.  I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would


Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Nig
3/5 stars.  An ok read for me.  I liked it and enjoyed it and felt invested in the characters but I did not feel like it was anything too spectacular. 

Currently Reading:


The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
This is addicting. It feels very "Girl on the Train" to me but I am giving it a shot!  

The Ex by Alaifair Burke
This just became available and I downloaded the audiobook so i will be starting it tonight


QOTD:  The heat BUT it has to be a dry heat , I do not like humidity.  I have had enough snow for the year, although when I lived in SC it is what I missed most!  I think I actually really enjoy the 4 seasons , I would not change that 

[bex]

I finished:
Dead Wake by Erik Larsen - 3.5 stars. I like all his books, but I don't love them.
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss - 3 stars? Maybe? I liked the writing and I liked the story I thought she was trying to tell, but I think it fell short of what she was aiming for.

I'm currently reading Beartown by Frederik Bachman.

Definitely prefer heat! I could live someplace colder than here (I'm in MD) but not where its cold year round.

[abs]

I am reading 19 Minures by Jodi Piccoult. Oof, it’s a very hard read. I will need something light and easy after this. I gave up on The Bear and The Nightingale. I didn’t dislike it but I wasn’t looking forward to the story either.

QOTW: ugh, neither?! If I had to choose though I’d say heat. And I do prefer humidity over dry heat.

[sassypants]

I'm about a third of the way through Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. It's a collection of essays and I really enjoy her writing style.

QOTW: Definitely cold. I hate hate hate being hot!! I can layer up when it is cold but there's only so much you can take off when it's hot before it becomes indecent, and even then you are probably still hot. No thanks.

[minzy]

This week I read The Vegetarian by Han Kang, 2.5 stars, one of the weirdest things I’ve ever read, about a woman who stops eating meat and wants to become a literal tree, with some gratuitous sex with her brother in law thrown in. It’s translated from Korean. I did not like it much at all.

I also read Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke, 4 stars, about some racially motivated murders in small town Texas. I thought it moved kind of slowly, but the last couple of pages revealed a big twist. It counted as a mystery by a POC and was my final category of 24 in the 2018 Libby Read Harder category. Next is Radium Girls and then picking up with several other ones I’ve ignored for weeks while trying to make the challenge.

QOTW: I strongly prefer four seasons, having grown up that way, but if I had to pick one extreme, I’d probably pick being hot. I do not like winter because I am nearly always physically cold (my nose is cold right now, for instance). I wear socks to bed and I’ve basically been cold every single day since October. Come on spring!

[tacokick]

Mar 23, 2018 9:20:00 GMT -5 @tooshort said:

Mother of Black Hollywood by Jenifer Lewis
Ghost writer by Alessandra Torres

Hot!

I liked the Jenifer Lewis book! I like when people are a little gossipy in their memoirs. Some people are so tight lipped I don’t know why they wrote one to begin with.

[tacokick]

Lots of false starts with books this week! I started maybe 4 I couldn’t bring myself to finish.

I finished I’ll be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. It was okay but she hadn’t finished it before her overdose and I think it showed. It was a little choppy. Plus she didn’t actually find out the identity of the killer or make a case for who did it so it was sort of anticlimactic. I understand why her husband (Patton Oswalt) would want it to be published but I don’t think it was ready.


QOTW: I’d rather hot if it wasn’t humid. It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity lol

[tacokick]

Mar 23, 2018 13:14:14 GMT -5 sassypants said:

I'm about a third of the way through Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. It's a collection of essays and I really enjoy her writing style.

QOTW: Definitely cold. I hate hate hate being hot!! I can layer up when it is cold but there's only so much you can take off when it's hot before it becomes indecent, and even then you are probably still hot. No thanks.

I’m the opposite! I generally like what she has to say but I can’t stand her writing style. I have all of her books and can’t make it through any of them.

[Gato]

I am just starting the four Elena Ferrante Neopolitan novels. So that will pretty much be my April reading right there.

Also going to fit in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, since I read her more recent one, Manhattan Beach, last month and thought it was amazing. Last, I’ve got Denis Johnson’s Largesse of the Sea Maiden to finish at some point.

[dorothyinAus]

I finished The Red Box - I thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I have enjoyed all the Nero Wolfe mysteries I have read. I am currently reading The Second Mrs. Giaconda by E.L. Konigsburg. It's interesting and I am not sure how accurate it is, but it certainly prompted me to look up more about daVinci and Salai.

QOTW: My dream is to be rich enough to WINTER in both hemispheres. I hate to be hot. I have been known to turn on my A/C in the winter because cooking made the house too hot. I will always pick being cold over being hot. A damp, bone chilling, months long winter cold is better than being hot for even 2 minutes.

[AJL]

I finished reading All the Good Parts by Loretta Nyhan, 3/5. It was a solid chick-lit book with an odd premise and the characters were kind of rushed through some intense, life changing decisions, but it was a fine way to pass the time. lol!

QOTW:
  I currently live in a climate where is is hot 90% of the time. I may bitch from May to October about the heat, but I'd take that over snow for months at a time or rain/gray skies/drizzle/dreary cold. 

[mrspez07]

I finished Little Fires Everywhere and have been listening to Still Life by Louise Penny. I need another physical book and am looking forward to a library trip tomorrow. I have some at home but am stalling on picking them up.

I keep going back and forth on hot/cold choice. I would rather add clothes to get warm versus being hot and sweaty, but then I think about how I am cold all winter long, including cold nose and hands.
Id go with cold as long as there is sun most days. I couldn’t do cold and overcast.

[aurora]

I read Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and am now listening to The Silkworm (which is a re-read).

I finally got Radium Girls so will start that tomorrow and try to finish by Wednesday.

QOTW: definitely cold. I'm generally unhappy when it's above 80.

[aurora]

Mar 23, 2018 10:39:22 GMT -5 snshne322 said:

I just started listening to Station Eleven last night and it's pretty interesting so far. I'm also reading The Ones Who Got Away by Roni Loren. It's ok. I'm not sure how I'm liking the handling of some of the themes in the book, but I'm reserving judgement until the end.

QOTW: I hate extremes, no fair. Though assuming I had good heating/AC, I could do OK with either. I'm leaning toward AC because at least it's not wet ALL the time like it is with snow. I really want to break out my lighter footwear, but Mother Nature is making it REALLY difficult right now.

The truck is to live somewhere cold enough that the snow isn't really wet anymore. Snow is way better at 15-20 deg (or colder) than it is at 30 deg.

[MrsAxilla]

I haven’t checked in in a long time! Missed you all! Recently I finished:

Uprooted, Naomi Novik - 3 ⭐️
Tower of Dawn, Sarah J Maas - 5 ⭐️
Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler -5 ⭐️
The Queen of the Tearling, Erika Johansen- 4 ⭐️ (that might be generous)

QOTD: I refuse to accept the false choice of your question! Neither, and that’s why I’ll never leave Colorado. ❤️❤️

[krystee]

I read Then I Found You by Patti Callahan Henry. I've read three of her books, and I much preferred the other two. The dialogue felt stilted and unnatural in parts of this one, and characters had weird out of character shifts just to manufacture drama. 2.5 stars.

I also read On Second Thought by Kristan Higgins. It was the first book of hers that I've read. 3 stars.

I have to read Confessions of a Domestic Failure next for a book club.

I prefer being cold over hot, but I also love being outside with my kids, so it would depend on the specific temperatures. Over 95, I pick cold. Under that, I pick hot, as long as I have access to air-conditioning at all times!

[snshne322]

Mar 23, 2018 21:39:29 GMT -5 aurora said:

Mar 23, 2018 10:39:22 GMT -5 snshne322 said:

I just started listening to Station Eleven last night and it's pretty interesting so far. I'm also reading The Ones Who Got Away by Roni Loren. It's ok. I'm not sure how I'm liking the handling of some of the themes in the book, but I'm reserving judgement until the end.

QOTW: I hate extremes, no fair. Though assuming I had good heating/AC, I could do OK with either. I'm leaning toward AC because at least it's not wet ALL the time like it is with snow. I really want to break out my lighter footwear, but Mother Nature is making it REALLY difficult right now.

The truck is to live somewhere cold enough that the snow isn't really wet anymore. Snow is way better at 15-20 deg (or colder) than it is at 30 deg.

True.  Though the parking lots still drive me crazy.  Slush and salt/sand goo.  Yuck.

[Nonny]

I finished Y: The Last Man, Vol. 9 (meh), and I'm still working on the Wool Omnibus (Silo #1), I think I'm in the section called, The Unravelling (this series is really good!). 


QOTW:  Neither, which is why I live the very temperate PNW.    But if I had to pick, I'd probably go with the cold, because I loathe being too hot.  I hate being sweaty, I hate prickly heat rash, and I love Sherpa fleece and sleeping under down comforters more than I like feeling swampy all day.

[rainbowchip]

I finished What Happened. I cried through the first 1/2 of the book. It was nice to hear her voice in this book. I really didn't know a lot of her background (wrt her mom's history). And I loved the detail she provided behind her policy because all the news would talk about was her emails!

I'm currently reading Radium Girls. It's very interesting. I feel bad using that word because what happened to those girls shouldn't be "interesting".

QOTW: I'm cold all the time so I would choose hot weather.

[ally]

I finished Born a Crime - I wish I could have found the audio book based on the recommendations here.  I enjoyed it, though I was really happy to pick up a fiction book yesterday.  I started Little Fires Everywhere, about 20% in and I am enjoying it.  Hoping to find time to read this week.  I am also still listening to Station Eleven, I like it, just finding time to listen is harder than finding time to read!

QOTW: As a person who is often cold I can not believe I am going answer a cold climate, but I am.  I can not imagine always being hot.  I can add layers and I enjoy snuggling under blankets and warm drinks, and I would not want to give those up.

[jmliongrrrl]

I didn't finish anything this week. I'm still listening to Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman. It's a little long and dry for my tastes but interesting. I'm also reading Sunrise Point by Robyn Carr. I'll probably finish it tonight and then only one more book left in the series. I'm so sad! I will miss these characters. I started Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman with a coworker a few weeks ago. Neither of us are really into it.

QOTW: Hot, you don't have to shovel sunshine. As an ICU nurse, there is no such thing as a snow day. The hospital will mandate you to stay if other employees can't get in. Thankfully I was off for the foot of snow we got last week, but some of my coworkers were forced to work 16-20 hour shifts and sleep at the hospital. I've been stuck at work for 36 hours before, it's not the end of the world but you don't have to worry about it in the summer!

[spedrunner]

Mar 23, 2018 10:34:27 GMT -5 Vespasia said:

I read An American Marriage in less than 24 hours. I thought it was very good but found the ending a bit disappointing. I'm not really sure what could have been more satisfying though. 

Currently reading: Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson. It's keeping my attention but I think it will annoy me eventually like most thrillers. 

QOTW: Hot if I have to choose but I am not a fan! 




charlatti I am reading Children of Blood and Bone next! I'm just waiting for my library hold.

I just finished an American Marriage as well! What was disappointing for you about the end?