50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2017, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it's not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here and the second one here.

Yes Cote I would. I haven't read too many books like it, I'd say Seven Years In Tibet is the closest that comes to mind? It's definitely an action-packed book, and doesn't flinch from describing the brutality of the penal system, but ultimately positive and optimistic about the possibility of redemption. I'd say give it a try, you'll know within the first chapter whether you'll enjoy it or not.

Cote, have you read Shantaram? That's the book Papillon reminds me of most. Both are a lively, adventurous read with a rather arrogant narrator!

Have just bought Bitch in a bonnet, thank you for the heads up!

Yes, I read Shantaram and enjoyed it overall. I'll get Papillon, thank you both

12. Even Dogs In The Wild by Ian Rankin

DI Siobhan Clarke is investigating the death of a senior lawyer, DI Malcolm Fox is assigned to a covert team from Glasgow trailing a notorious crime family who are searching for someone or something in Edinburgh, and John Rebus is not settling into retirement well. So when someone takes a shot at Big Ger Cafferty - ageing gangster and Rebus' long-time nemesis - Rebus jumps at Clarke's invitation to get involved since Cafferty won't talk to serving coppers. Threatening notes tie the attack on Cafferty to the murder of the lawyer, and Rebus has to go searching through the past to find out what links the two men.

Rankin and Rebus both on good form.

Oh, The Hiding Place! Always put your Hiding Place at the top of the house, so your hiders have time to run up there while the police are searching the griound floor.
For some odd reason, that bit of advice has stick with me for twenty years.

1. Only Daughter by Anna Snoekstra
2. Viral by Helen Fitzgerald
3. The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
4. The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle

5. Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land

Crime thriller. 15 yr old Annie's abusive mum is a serial child killer, who is arrested after Annie finally reports her to the police. The details of her mother's crimes are left to the readers imagination for the most part. Annie is taken into care, renamed Milly, and placed with a new family as she prepares to give evidence against her mother in her mother's trial. The teenage daughter in Annie's new family is very hostile towards Annie, resents the attention her parents give Annie, and starts a campaign of bullying towards Annie at school.

It's told entirely from Annie's point of view. A major theme in the book is Annie's internal struggle with herself - part of her wanting to be good, better than her mother, but part of her wanting to give into the darker impulses.
The ending of the book was however a bit predictable, given the way Annie's character was developing, and the hints dropped by the author.

Overall a good page turner and a good, but not outstanding read.

6. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

Set in a small town where strange things happen to other kids. A bit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer might be if the star of the show was one of the ordinary high school kids and all the vampire stuff was going on in the background (although this is immortals and strange blue lights rather than vampires).

The main problem with this is that all the exciting potentially world ending stuff is crammed into a brief paragraph or two at the start of each chapter, and the focus of the book is on a relatively ordinary teenager angsting about his OCD, the girl he's had a crush on for years, how things will inevitably change after graduation, how his mother's political ambitions have screwed his family up, and so on.
There's nothing necessarily particularly wrong about books where teenage characters obsess over things while trying to get on with their ordinary lives, but this lacked impact when set against "brief summary of current end of the world supernatural drama" that's threaded through the book.

It's not terrible, but ultimately it's not a book that I found very interesting.

I thought The Rest of Us Just Live Here was a great idea but didn't live up to the initial promise Stitches - I've read a couple of other Patrick Ness books of DDs & felt very much the same about them.

I know he's very highly rated as a YA writer, but I was actually much more impressed by his tv scripts for the Dr Who spinoff this year.
I've bought Bitch in a Bonnet too :)

6. Dead Girl Walking, Chris Brookmyre
This is a Jack Parlabane book - not familiar to me, I've never come across him before despite being an avid reader of crime thrillers,. It's quite far on in the series, but I don't think I'll bother with any of the others - I didn't like it at all. I thought that the writing was appallingly bad, almost at the 'he said, she said' level, and there wasn't much character development. Not a patch on Wallander or Rebus.

Another Bitch in a Bonnet here....and Tenant of Wildfell Hall is free on Kindle...so I've got that too to reread.

Bitch in a Bonnet is great.

Topically, I'm currently reading Take courage : Anne Bronte and the art of life, by Samantha Ellis. I loved her previous book, How to Be a Heroine, which looked back over the books she read growing up and the messages she took from them. This is less sparky, but I agree with her that it's refreshing to go from Charlotte and Emily's lusting after the bad boy to Anne's observation that he'll make you miserable.

There's nothing new in Samantha Ellis's book if you're reasonably familiar with their lives, but I like general musing about books and how they get read and misread, so this is my kind of thing.

I think maybe Patrick Ness just isn't an author for me.

I borrowed The Knife of Never Letting Go from the library last year, and I just couldn't get into it at all. I gave up on it before I got a quarter of the way through.

omg

cote's all time favourite Measuring the World has finally dropped in price to £2.97.

Just had to come and tell y'all

I have purchased OF COURSE

Get it! Get it! GET IT!

@RemusLupinsChristmasMovie - You will love it. Please get it.

Stitches - "I think maybe Patrick Ness just isn't an author for me. I borrowed The Knife of Never Letting Go from the library last year, and I just couldn't get into it"

You are too kind. I was somewhat less polite in my review

Ah Remus now I remember, you were the reason I ordered Age of Wonder. This great lump of a book arrived and I was wondering why (turns out hardback copy was dead cheap)! biblio loving your "am dabbling in murder as a palate-cleanser" comment . wilting, the bloke has BJ's Churchill book on his TBR pile. I may have to sneak it over to mine based on your recommendation.

LookingForMe echo your review of The Sellout utterly. I found it made it really hard to rate & review. Thankyou Futura for your snort worthy review. A prime example of why I lurve this thread . I've also bought Bitch in a Bonnet and Tenant of Wildfell Hall, thanks v much for the heads-up.

Been reading Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five but struggling as I keep being interrupted, so have switched to an old favourite Dick Francis which I've read loads of times before!

Have had a good couple of reading days (everyone has been ill so I've had peace lol).

1. The Choir-Joanna Trollope. Meh. Not enough about a choir more about very self-indulgent people who I couldn't give a toss about.
2. A year in the life of the Yorkshire shepherdess-Amanda Owen. Loved it. A friend lent me the first one and this was just as good if not better. I want to walk the Pennine way and go have a cream tea at Ravenseat to meet her.
3. A Monster Calls-Patrick Ness. Finished this sobbing. My dad died suddenly, but all the emotions that I felt for a long long time were described in this book so well it took me right back. Thoroughly recommend (along with a box of tissues).

Picked up Everyone Brave is forgiven at the weekend on the back of Murine's review am looking forward to that. Never read any Bronte books but took dd to the Bronte parsonage yesterday as we've never been and am now inspired to read them. It was a bitterly cold day yesterday and that was with thermals, decent coats and central heating in cafes. Life back then must have been very very hard.

Oh dear I've not been very persuasive re: HHhH It's a shame if people cross it off though without trying it. I actually think based on your previous reading on this thread you would find the content interesting happyflappy - WWII, Nazis, occupation, persecution, but your choice.

I loved Papillon - our tastes do meet with adventure and survival cote so hope you enjoy it. The author's French what could go wrong?

Tenant of Wildfell Hall very good and enjoyable read.

Satsuki - "I loved Papillon - our tastes do meet with adventure and survival cote so hope you enjoy it. The author's French what could go wrong? "

Oh dear

I'll give an example to explain why I said HHhH was "so... French":

I'm going through Rameau's keyboard works, as those on last year's thread might remember and my (French) teacher keeps saying that notes written exactly the same must be played differently. She says that is how French music is to be played, with "inégalité".

I don't get it. What would a musician write notes in a way that is different to how he wants them played? Unless he is French, of course.

That is the sort of wishy-washy, imprecise, "Oh but it doesn't matter. Or does it?" nonsense that makes HHhH so... French

Hope you enjoy it Murine.

For some odd reason, that bit of advice has stick with me for twenty years.

Let's hope none of us ever need to use it Muddler

Cote good review of The Knife of Never Letting Go

It loooks like a fair account of the portion of the book I managed to read before abandoning it for something else.

1. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Written from the perspective of a German soldier in WW1, this is stark, vivid and heart breaking. Thank you so much to Best and Remus and everyone else who recommended it. My highlight of the year so far.

Stitches, I aim to please