50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Two

[Southeastdweller]

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

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2024, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

The previous thread is here

I’ve had a very busy week with work so have only been able to concentrate on some chicklit.

25 The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

Clementine lives in an apartment that randomly sends her 7 years into the past and she falls in love with the man who lived there then. Will he remember her when they meet again in her present/his future? This was ok but I never really engaged with the main character and the use of Lemon as a nickname for her got really irritating!

26 Once Upon A Leap Year by Anna Bell

Lucy and Noah meet aged 20 and bond because they share the same February 29th birthday. They clearly fancy each other but both are with other people. The story then follows them through the next 20 years, catching up with them every 4 years on their leap year birthday. The ending was predictable but I enjoyed getting there - I liked both main characters and I liked the story.

Finished the first and second parts of 'Heartstopper' today. I haven't been able to get out of bed for a couple of days which is annoying because I was meant to be in Swansea with my mum. Alice Oseman provided the perfect relief.

I've ordered the other three books but some of them haven't arrived yet, so I want to get all of them before I continue with the series.

I've also pre ordered AO's first book 'Solitaire'

Now reading 'Poor Things.' By Alistair Grey ❤️

Also now on series of the fabulous Netflix adaptation of 'Heartstopper.' I love the chemistry between Kit and Joe's characters, and the whole programme is just beautiful ❤️

I wanted to say a big thank you to everybody who mentioned StoryGraph on this thread. It's so easy to use, and tbs recommendations are spot on ❤️

Loved Cold Comfort Farm and Excellent Women. Quite liked Golden Hill

Just finished Confinement- Jessica A Cox* .* Was reading this for research for something I am planning . Exploration of all things pregnancy and birth related in the 19th century,
Very repetitive and not very revealing

I’ve decided with all the Frenchman’s Creek reading going on to go back to my normal
username. (Agualusa very briefly).

I’ve only read Pym’s Some Tame Gazelle and really enjoyed it as a lazy Sunday afternoon read.

8. The winter cottage by Rachael Lucas
A woman goes to Scotland to clear out her dead Father's cottage. While there she reconnects with a family who she used to play with as children including the handsome older brother.

This was a lovely cosy romance that had some quirky bits but was predictable enough to be comforting. I really enjoyed it and have downloaded the next one about one of the sisters immediately on audiobook.

@StColumbofNavron I thought of you when I was reading it - now I know where your name comes from!

We stay very near to Trelowarren Estate every summer and often visit there @StColumbofNavron. Last year was the first time we went into the Halliggye Fogou

Evil Eye - Etaf Rum
A woman who is the child of Palestinian immigrants to the US, struggles to find her place in the world. Despite being university educated she is still expected by all around her to be a traditional wife and mother, while she has greater hopes for herself.
This looks at race and gender stereotypes in a patriarchal culture and how women move forward and away from this when living in a more liberal society. It also explores the effect of childhood trauma on later mental health. I did like this. There was a real glut of similar first-gen US immigrant books a few years ago, that got very samey, so I was a bit sceptical at first, but this is a cut above.

The Running Grave is 99p on kindle today, if anyone’s been waiting for it to come down in price.

Heartburn is in the deals too. I liked it a lot.

8. Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Early into the book Hannah has a sliding doors moment and her life heads in different directions based on a single small decision. Luckily the two different lives alternate short chapters so it isn't too hard to figure out which timeline you are in.

The characters are unbelievable in that they are all good people who are also funny and caring and seem to lack any bad qualities. They never let their friends down and no one has a job that gets in the way of life.

It's nice to lose yourself in this dream world for a bit. I won't talk about what happened in the two timelines so as not to spoil it, but it was an intriguing idea, is there only one way to be happy or not?

10. Charlie Chaplin vs. America - Scott Eyman

As a film enthusiast with an abiding interest in Chaplin I I enjoyed this well-written and meticulously-researched book a lot. Eyman has written a chunk of Hollywood biogs but Chaplin has been a fascination of his for years and it shows, in a good way. Here he focuses on the period from roughly the 30s onwards, when Chaplin started to become a target for frankly unhinged levels of scrutiny from the American authorities and an eager parade of totally batshit 'informants'.

Chaplin's 'crime' essentially appears to have been that he was English, not American. But to his critics he was the Antichrist, out to pervert and degrade all fine upstanding Americans with his filthy Red propaganda. This absolute rubbish (none of which was ever substantiated despite obsessive surveillance) ended with his being effectively expelled from the US in the 50s, never to return.

Eyman examines Chaplin's later films, from The Great Dictator onwards, and maps his blissfully happy final marriage to Oona O'Neill (not shying away from noting his habit of relationships with significantly younger women - it’s not a completely uncritical portrait). The abiding impression is of the terrifying levels of madness persecution can reach against the most blameless of people if whipped up with enough vigour in influential circles.

I spotted that too, and bought it. All I need to do now is set aside a very long time to read The Ink Black Heart and follow on with The Running Grave. I've fallen a bit behind with this series. Last year was a bad reading year. This year needs to be much better.

DNFed Prophet Song. Technically, I suppose it’s very clever and I don’t usually mind stream of consciousness with no speech marks, but it became a real slog at 35% of the way. I don’t care about the characters, main or minor and rather than being a realistic warning of what could happen within a couple of changes of government it felt like something that was happening very far away from probability.

Oh no...I was planning to start this next, but that sounds a bit wnaky. Do you thing it would be better/worse on audio?

It would depend on the narrator, I think. I can’t listen to anyone reading me a story so I’m probably not the best judge! It’s not badly written and I can’t quite put my finger on why I found it so soulless and unengaging. Other 50 Bookers say it is great, so I’d go with their opinion instead of mine

Lol at ‘wnaky’ there’s a blast from the past!

9.Music and Silence by Rose Tremain. Set largely in the court of Christian IV at Copenhagen, this was an ensemble piece featuring innocent maidens, tortured musicians, wicked stepmothers, foxy aristocrats, and of course, lashings of hot gypsies. The plot meanders to the extent that it’s hard to give a brief summary, and sometimes comes across more as a series of vignettes, but the setting is so beautifully brought to life that I didn’t mind. Although this lacks a main protagonist with the chaotic charm of Merivel, this has a similar feel to Restoration, which I also loved. Great stuff.

@StrangewaysHereWeCome

I wasn't in love with Prophet Song I found the ending very unsubtle but it was in general a solid read and a good dystopia.

14 For Thy Great Pain…. by Victoria Mackenzie
Started this last night and grabbed an hour or so this afternoon to finish it. Much reviewed on here and to deserved praise. Gawd, Margery would have driven me mad with annoyance, but she undoubtedly plays a huge role in our knowledge of the life of women in that period. At one point even Jesus tells her to put a sock in it. Nicely, of course She showed such obstinate bravery in refusing to stop proclaiming her visions and crying about them, in the face of the threat of violence, rape and death by burning that I felt quite mean at times for rolling my eyes. Julian is a much more sympathetic character, although is she any less attention seeking than Margery when it comes down to it? Not many choices if your family were dead, so why not make yourself the very fabric of God’s house and live on that way by clandestine writings.
A quick and enjoyable read. I’m looking forward to her novel about John Ruskin due next year. I’ll be disappointed if she doesn’t give short shrift to his need to take to his bed after visiting Manchester (a source of immense hilarity to us when we visited Brantwood). Plus his attempts to persuade Mabel Lucie Attwell to draw dodgy pictures for him and all that hanging around educational establishments for girls and young women.

15 I, Partridge - Alan Partridge
This was a fun read, though maybe a bit long. I’m so familiar with the tv shows that I felt I didn’t need to read about them in detail, though reading Alan’s take on them was funny in places.

16 Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros
Set in a fantasy world at war, Violet finds herself being forced into deadly training at the command of her mother. There she faces many people willing to kill her due to her surname and challenges that could mean death every day.
This is not normally my sort of book, but I could not put it down. It’s long, but didn’t feel a slog and left on a cliff hanger that has forced me to buy the (even longer) sequel. Probably could have done without the sex scenes but the sexual tension between the characters matches the urgent energy of the book when death is a daily possibility. Surprised myself, but I really enjoyed it.

Fell a bit behind with this thread. Not sure I have the energy to put reviews but I'll see how I go.

25. Opaque Calix Reign-Leigh
    This is the first in a series of books which touches on the Oedipus complex. As such it was a bit uncomfortable in places. Basically kids with magical powers who are descended from Russian bloodlines, have to join together to defeat the bad guys

26. Knights, Witches and Murder R.M Schultz
    Book 1 of Calec of the woods. Calec is half witch but also a Knight. A mysterious plague is killing villagers and Calec needs to work out where its coming from. But he needs the Witches help, and people don't like Witches.

27. The Advocate ^Theresa Burrell* loved this. Family courts, a lawyer who just wants to protect a child, domestic abuse. You name it. It's got it.

28. Queen of Secrets E.J Tanda Mafia queen, forbidden love. Secrets. Shitty men and amazing women.

29. The Lost Child Kathleen McGurl A dual timeline story set on the Titanic/Carpathia, and Secrets that are revealed 110 years later about a child that went missing. Some of the characters and events were real, and the bits that weren't felt like they could be.

30. Blood Sapphires Revenge Bruce Farmer apparently Netflix have picked this up which is quite exciting. I hated the first couple of chapters. Listing exact weapons, coordinates and the distance someone can shoot from means nothing at all to me. But then it got going. There's drugs, sex trafficking/forced prostitution, kidnap, murder. The Israeli Defence Force and Al Quaeda. It was fast paced and exciting.

Ok I'm typed out. Not sure how I've read so many books either 🤔

DNF'd Poor Things. I'm sure Alistdair Grey was a great writer, but I just found it hard to get into.

The rest of my Heartstopper books arrived today, so I'm getting stuck into Part 3. 🙂

@MrsALambert good to read that you enjoyed 'Fourth Wing.' I've got it on my TBR 😊

@ICrunchCrispsNotNumbers i think it’s certainly opened my eyes to a genre I had avoided before