50 Book Challenge 2015 Part 3

[Southeastdweller]

Thread three of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2015, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. It's still not too late to join, any type of book counts, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

First thread of the year here, and second thread here.

[whitewineandchocolate]

24. Eeny Meeny - MJ Alridge - first in a new detective series featuring DI Helen Grace - this has very good reviews on Amazon. I found it a not particularly well written page turner with a slightly disappointing ending. I did enjoy but won't be purchasing the next in the series.

[DuchessofMalfi]

I really enjoyed Eeny Meeny as an audiobook but probably wouldn't have liked it so much if I had read it. It just seemed to work well with multiple narrators keeping the fast pace of the story going. I probably will continue with the series.

[esiotrot2015]

Mumslife - I felt the same as you about Love Anthony

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Book 70 - 'A Streetcar named Desire' by Tennessee Williams
I really disliked this, but hope that somebody who loves it will come on here and tell me what I've not seen in it.

I didn't think there was a single likeable character in it, or many believable moments. Really, really disappointing. :(

[DuchessofMalfi]

59. Waterlog by Roger Deakin - 4.5/5 stars (half a star deducted because I really wanted some pictures of the locations :o)
    
    Really enjoyed this. Will appeal to anyone who is a fan of Robert Macfarlane's books (Roger Deakin was a friend of his).
    
    This book is Roger Deakin's account of wild swimming across Britain, in rivers, lakes, lochs, the sea - in fact anywhere. Like with Robert Macfarlane, there was quite a bit of "and I chipped away the ice, took off my clothes and dived in" kind of thing - brave, but made me shiver :o
    
    Have got my eye on his Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, and Wildwood as well.

[whippetwoman]

44. Us - David Nicholls
    
    A book where I intensely disliked all the characters! Particularly the wife and son. I still quite enjoyed this though and it wasn't at all what I expected. A light, quick read and it was engaging. But everyone was so annoying. Really, they were.

[BestIsWest]

I hated them all too whippet. The wife especially. She seemed to have no redeeming features.

[southeastdweller]

I also felt that, whippet. The son's girlfriend was another P.I.T.A.

[BestIsWest]

37, 38, 39. A few of Jilly Cooper's short romantic novels from the 1970s. Harriet, Prudence, Imogen. All very silly but sweet and some of the 1970's values are a bit . I loved these when I was 15 and they were brand new. I still like them now and I love her descriptive passages of the countryside and the outlandish names.

[whippetwoman]

Ooh, very good to know Best and southeast.
I was worried it was just me

[tumbletumble]

27. The Martian by Andy Weir. This has been reviewed a few times already on this thread, it's about a man accidentally left behind on Mars and his struggle to survive. I really enjoyed it, and I say that as someone who's not generally a massive sci fi fan. The science-y bits were interesting and the main character was really funny. Thanks for the recommendation, Cote and others.

[wiltingfast]

God whippet, I'm trying to read Us too but really dislike all the characters. The don is awful, the wife is awful and the husband, whybische pitting up with it? And I just find it so unlikely that you'd drag an 18 yo on a v expensive trip around Europe when he hasn't the slightest interest. Have picked up a Marian Keyes paperback that I'm sneakily reading instead! The Mystery of Mercy Close

Not sure why I feel guilty about it!

[wiltingfast]

O god sorry about the typos

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Book 71 - 'Red Rising'
I enjoyed this. I liked the central character; liked the dialogue; liked the idea of infiltrating the enemy from inside. It was v YA in tone and style (not a problem for me, as I like YA, but surprised that you liked it so much Cote because of that). The battle stuff in the middle got a bit tedious and could have been culled some, and it was very derivative of, 'The Hunger Games' but, all in all, it's an enjoyable read and I'll probably read the others at some point. I didn't like it anywhere near enough to pay £8.49 for the second one, though.

[ShakeItOff2000]

22. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.
    Wonderful writing, short novel about friendship, love and difficult decisions. I thought the characters were all painted so well. Very good.
    
    I am kind of working my way through some of the classics and have read The Grapes of Wrath (now one of my favourite books of all time) and East of Eden. Can anyone recommend me a further John Steinbeck that I would enjoy?
    
    
23. Station 11 by Emily St John Mandel.
    This has been reviewed a fair bit already. I thought it was okay. Viral-meggedon destroys everything but people survive and re-group. I agree with DinosaursRoar it was all a bit neat for my liking.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Shake - 'Travels with Charlie' is v good. It's a Steinbeck, but non-fiction, rather than a novel.

The novellas like, 'Cannery Row' and, 'The Pearl' are good too.

[BugritAndTidyup]

52. The Axeman's Jazz, by Ray Celestin -- Immensely readable crime novel set in pre-prohibition New Orleans, based on the Axeman murderers (that ghosty chap in the third series of American Horror story, if anyone's watched that, although this book takes a very different tack). It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, revolving more around organised crime than serial killings, but it was very enoyable in any case.
    
    Next up is Americanah.

[CoteDAzur]

Remus - I'm very proud to have found another book (3rd ever?) that we both like

"It was v YA in tone and style (not a problem for me, as I like YA, but surprised that you liked it so much Cote because of that)"

I was wondering if you would call Red Rising YA. I didn't get a YA vibe from this book, at all (thankfully). It is definitely closer to Game Of Thrones than Hunger Games.

It is obviously about young people, but:

• Its politics and brutality are not watered down to teenager level.
  
• It is not about puppy love.
  
• It talks about uncomfortable, un-PC ideas on social order, politics, economics, and interpersonal relationships.
  
• It deals with shades of gray rather than all-blacks and all-whites.
  

... much like Lord Of The Flies, in many ways.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I think, other than the love crap, you'd probably like some YA if you gave it a chance. :) Lots of it nowadays is v much as you just described RR to be.

And, to be fair, a lot of the stuff in, 'Game of Thrones' (other than the intolerable over-writing) is pretty teenage too!

Thanks for the recommendation - I like it when we agree.

[CoteDAzur]

I love you, too

I have given a chance to YA, more recently to The Girl With All The Gifts, Let The Right One In, and Delirium. In all three, I got Swivel-Eye Syndrome from all the I kept doing to all the silliness, the superficiality, the truisms, the Godawful heartstring-tugging sentimentality. Gah. Can't do it.

[ClashCityRocker]

AARGH just wrote a long post on RR and lost it! Will retupe, but for now a couple more to report:

No. 50 Burnt Tongues - An Anthology of Transgressive Fiction

I got this because it was cheap, and edited by one of my favourite authors, Chuck Paulanuik. I had to google what transgressive fiction was though. According to wiki: Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual or illicit ways. So far so good.

Some of the stories were excellent; some were meh, and some were so ridiculously derivitive of Paulanuik I almost felt embarrassed for them. On the whole, a decent anthology with a few low notes.

No. 51 Dreamcather - Stephen King

Good enough story, but not one of my favourites. I found bits of it a bit dull.

Now reading yet another horror anthology whilst I figure what to read next.

[ClashCityRocker]

Try again re RR...

I thought RR did have a bit of a YA vibe, but that may be because most books of this ilk that I have read have been YA books. I am glad the author didn't cop out with putting loads of swearing and shagging in it just to set it apart from YA fiction.

Where it differs from YA, IMO, is the subtlety of morality. The main character is, in a lot of ways, a bit of a bastard and like GoT, no-one really has a moral high ground. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

As a reader, it is difficult at times to trust the main character's motivation - in fact, it is alluded to that he doesn't even truly understand his own motivation, particularly after getting to know the Golds, although this is more apparent in the second book. Far from making him less likeable, it makes him appear more human and realistic - a bit of an anti-hero.

I also felt that the characters were in general less cliched and therefore less predictable than in lots of YA fiction. There is a real sense of not being sure who the main character should trust and this gives the book an edge of real unpredictability (rather than waiting to see which equally unsuitable bloke/woman/career the main character will choose whilst the whole world crumbles around them).

I like YA - they're often good stories but tend to be very thinly disguised morality tales with a bit of love and mawkishness thrown in. I really enjoyed the usual suspects - hunger games, divergent et al and will read them again. I think though that RR is much more complex.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

'Let the Right One In' isn't YA. I enjoyed it, but yes, it is a bit mawkish. Saw an interesting Iranian vampire film at the cinema this week and it was v derivative of LTROI, but rather less cutesy.

[CoteDAzur]

How is LTROI not YA? It's about teenagers, teenage-y concerns like bullying, lack of friends, not being part of adults' world etc. It's superficial and cutesy (as you say). The vampire has no credibility as a very old creature, acting exactly like a YA herself. The moral of the story is all cutesy, about friendship etc. The ending is all tidy and cutesy. (Yes, I'm loving the word 'cutesy' )