I just love this time of year when all the Best of 2009 lists come out, don’t you? Amazon has released most of their Top 100, with their Top 10 to be announced on Monday. I have only read FOUR of these (bolded). I’ve asterixed the ones I’m most interested in reading. What are your guesses for the Top 10?
Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.
Carl’s R.I.P challenges are so much fun, but usually I just barely make the minimum required. I’m pretty proud of myself this year. Do you see the list below — I killed it (no pun intended)! I went with Peril the First, which was to read 4 books from any subgenre, but I ended up reading 22. Including mysteries and thrillers allowed me to read more books than I normally would, and I also really got into some series books as well — Twilight, Chief Inspector Gamache, Sookie Stackhouse, and the Hunger Games. I enjoyed all the books I read, but my favorites were the titles with a single asterix below. My least favorites were probably the Sookie Stackhouse books and the manga Vampire Knight. I really enjoyed Sookie at first, but then it just got into too much s*x and oc*ult stuff for my tastes and Vampire Knight was just okay. I doubt I’ll continue on with either series, but who knows by next year. The double asterixes are for those titles that best fit what I consider to be the mood of the R.I.P. Challenge.
Thanks so much, Carl, and I’ll look forward to next year!
J. Kaye hosted this challenge, which lasted all year and had 12 selections. I was getting worried awhile ago that I might not complete this challenge, but then toward the end of the year everything fell together rather quickly. I enjoyed reading all of these authors’ second books and do plan on reading a third on all of them (or already have in the case of Charlaine Harris and Louise Penny). My two favorites on this list were Unless and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Both were truly outstanding.
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (1st: The Eyre Affair)
The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (1st: The Shadow of the Wind)
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (1st: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan)
Thanks, Debi for hosting this wonderful challenge again this year — it’s always fun to find book titles for this one. Of the books I read, I enjoyed The Housekeeper and the Professor the most and probably The Optimist’s Daughter the least.
It was fun to read both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire back-to-back for the read-a-thon. I’m glad I didn’t have a long wait between the first two books of the trilogy, but obviously I’ll have a longer wait for the third book to come out. The bad part is, the cliffhanger between 2 and 3 is quite a bit greater than from 1 to 2 in my opinion. I do look forward to reading the next book.
I liked this sequel about the same as the first book and both books received a rating of 4 stars. As I said in my post about The Hunger Games, though, I still feel there are some better written young adult dystopian books out there. However, this series, though a bit dark and violent, will definitely keep you going until the very last page.
2009, 391 pp.
Disclosure: I received this book from a promotional company (but after I had already purchased The Hunger Games).
You will not believe the amount of reviews I have to write. The list below isn’t even complete! I’ve seen some other bloggers ask for questions on certain books that they will answer in their review post, so I thought I’d try that out as well. Please help me get out of my review backlog quagmire by asking me some questions about the following books. I will be in your debt! I’ve put my star ratings for each book below so you can guage my general reactions. Please, ASK AWAY!!
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
I read this book for the read-a-thon, and I must say it was an excellent choice as it was quite a page turner. This book is taking the internet by storm, and while I did enjoy it, I didn’t quite love the book.
I’m not going to go through the plot as quite a few people have read it, or if they haven’t, there are plenty of sources to find that information. I will say that the plot was, in my view, the best part of the book. As I said above, it’s quite a page turner, but although I didn’t think the writing was bad per se, I didn’t feel it was up to par with The Giver by Lois Lowry or The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. The romance angle in the book irritated me a bit. I understand to a degree why it was necessary to the plot, but I thought it could have been a little more well done. Another minor irritation was the naming of the characters in the book. I suppose it was done on purpose, but I felt it distracted me from the story every time I came upon a strange name. I’ve never really noticed it in books like Lord of the Rings, etc., but in this book the names just seemed a bit silly.
Even with all that said, I did like the book quite a bit and plan on reading the entire trilogy. I hate to be too negative when I actually enjoyed it, but since it’s received so many rave reviews, I just thought I’d explain why my rating was a little lower.
2008, 374 pp.
Disclosure: I purchased this book for my personal library.
I always enjoy the read-a-thon, and this one was no exception. I had a bit of a late start (really didn’t start reading until 10 am) and then crashed at 1am, so actually for the time I had available, I really did well. I had 15 hours that I participated, and I read just over 11. I do hope to hit the 15 hour mark in a future read-a-thon, though!
My strategy for any read-a-thon is really just to read as much as I can. I don’t do a lot of the mini-challenges just because I’d rather spend the time reading. I don’t visit other read-a-thoners very much during the read-a-thon, either, but I do enjoy going to everyone’s blogs the following day to see how they did and which books they read. It seems like quite a few people read the same books as I did, so it will be fun to compare notes.
Thank you organizers and cheerleaders for such a fun event!
Time spent reading: 672 total (11 hours 12 minutes)
Pages read: 772 pages total
1. Which hour was most daunting for you? The 19th hour. I fell asleep hoping to take a short nap, but my body demanded more. 2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? I would definitely recommend the two books I read, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins 3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Nope, it was great as usual. 4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? Everything! 5. How many books did you read? Two 6. What were the names of the books you read? The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins 7. Which book did you enjoy most? Both 8. Which did you enjoy least? N/A 9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? N/A 10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? Very likely. I’ve participated in every read-a-thon since the very first!
What I’ve been reading: I’m now 2/3 of the way into Catching Fire and about ready to start Part III: The Enemy.
I’m pretty happy with my progress so far, especially since I had a late start. I’ll have to look back to check, but for most of the read-a-thons I think I have had about 10-12 hours of pure reading time, so I’m definitely on pace to at least meet that. I’m getting a little tired now, but who knows? Maybe I can beat my own personal record.
Time spent reading: 115 minutes/551 total (9 hours 11 minutes)
Pages read: 132 pages/647 total
What’s up next: Hopefully finishing up Catching Fire.
Books finished: 1 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
It was fun to read both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire back-to-back for the read-a-thon. I’m glad I didn’t have a long wait between the first two books of the trilogy, but obviously I’ll have a longer wait for the third book to come out. The bad part is, the cliffhanger between 2 and 3 is quite a bit greater than from 1 to 2 in my opinion. I do look forward to reading the next book.
You will not believe the amount of reviews I have to write. The list below isn’t even complete! I’ve seen some other bloggers ask for questions on certain books that they will answer in their review post, so I thought I’d try that out as well. Please help me get out of my review backlog quagmire by asking me some questions about the following books. I will be in your debt! I’ve put my star ratings for each book below so you can guage my general reactions. Please, ASK AWAY!!
I read this book for the read-a-thon, and I must say it was an excellent choice as it was quite a page turner. This book is taking the internet by storm, and while I did enjoy it, I didn’t quite love the book.
I always enjoy the read-a-thon, and this one was no exception. I had a bit of a late start (really didn’t start reading until 10 am) and then crashed at 1am, so actually for the time I had available, I really did well. I had 15 hours that I participated, and I read just over 11. I do hope to hit the 15 hour mark in a future read-a-thon, though!
What I’ve been reading: Just finished Catching Fire. I’m getting soooooooo sleepy. I think I’ll take a short nap now…
What I’ve been reading: I’m now 2/3 of the way into Catching Fire and about ready to start Part III: The Enemy.
