Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 12/28/19

The last week of 2019 was a busy reading week, what with all the DNFing.  Plus, I managed to finish 5 books, though, so it's all good.  Two more books and I meet my reading goal for 2019.  Totally doable now.

I only have one unread ebook left - another mystery.  And I think I'm going to hold off getting any other new ebooks until after the first of the year.  Start with a fresh slate and all that.  I have plenty of hardcopies to tide me over.  (Added 3:30pm Broke that already today.  Downloaded a new book and then read it.  It'll be on next week's wrap-up.)

Books read:

118) The Secret of Seaside by Agatha Ball (12/27/19) - Mystery* - 4 stars.  New to me, but has plenty of lovin'.  Free off the Robin Reads newsletter.
Review: "Super cute story. Super quick read. The hero was a little too 'sensitive dude' for my tastes, but all in all a good mystery."

117) Funerals are Fatal by Agatha Christie (12/27/19) - Mystery - 5 stars.
No review. 

116) The InBetween by Dick Wybrow (12/25/19) - Urban Fantasy*# - 5 stars.  New to me and underappreciated.  Free from the Robin Reads newsletter.
Review: "Interesting and definitely different urban fantasy premise. Smart and snarky writing, just like I like it. The teaser at the end for the next book was not cool, but it'll probably sell a bunch of Book 2s so I shouldn't really fault the guy for it. I'll probably go looking for the next book once I come down a bit from this wild ride. Right now, I need something less intense. Cuz, man, this was intense."

115) Adam (Farraday Country #1) by Chris Keniston (12/22/19) - Romance* - 5 stars.  New to me, but not underappreciated.  Free off the BookDoggy newsletter.
Review: "It started with a trope I've seen a dozen or so times - runaway bride stranded on the side of the road who is rescued by a hot and hunky hero. It's a good trope, but it's the way an author carries that trope into a fresh story that makes or breaks it for me. This author made it. And apparently did an awesome job of weaving a bit of hints for coming books in the series along the way without being annoying about it because I'm interested in reading more of the series. The only things that were kind of annoying were the not-so-subtle requests for reviews throughout the book (above the chapter headings) and the really annoying, huge review request at the end - which I only skimmed through because meh."

114) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (12/21/19) - Literature - 5 stars.  Never read this one before, but it's definitely not underappreciated.  I've had this paperback so long, I'm not even sure where I got it or how much I paid for it.
Review: "This isn't the edition I read, but close enough. I always talked about someday reading this classic Christmas tale, but I never did until now. It only took about two hours and it was definitely worth reading. I've seen a lot of the movie versions of this, from Alistair Sim's and Patrick Stewart's versions to the fun 'A Muppet Christmas Carol' to the quirky 'Scrooged'. All of them told the story in their own ways. Not sure how faithful the new 'A Christmas Carol' movie will be to the book, but I'll reserve judgement until, someday down the road, I see it."

DNFs:

12/27/19 - SF - Supposedly set 25 years in the future and they were quoting Deadpool.  I don't want to live in a future where they're still quoting Deadpool, let alone read about one.

12/27/19 - Romantic Comedy - free.  Meh.  It was first person present tense with multiple POV characters.  Hurts my brain.

12/23/19 - Suspense.  Not suspenseful.  Not even mysterious (which I was willing to believe because sometimes people mislabel mystery as suspense, but no).  Began with something that kinda coulda been suspenseful but wasn't really grabbing me and then dropped into bland backstory and boring character building. Gimme a freakin' body! Or the investigation of a crime.  Or something interesting for pitysakes.  Geez.

12/23/19 - SF? - free.  It kind of started out like a cross between your standard 'waking up from hyper-sleep on a strange new world' kind of SF and then it left all the SF elements behind and it was more a book about surviving in an unknown wilderness against animals that weren't really that different from earth animals and against a power hungry lunatic who should've been dead in the first day of being there.  Which would've been fine, I guess, if not for the constant jabs that animals are better than people ever were and the hero is so happy to be without civilization and... :yawn:

12/22/19 - historical romance - free.  The hero finds a piece of damning info about the heroine - a wanted poster with her likeness and name - and never mentions it, or even thinks about it, for months afterwards.  (The book had dates at the beginnings of the chapters, so yeah, months.)  Then I got to a scene where they were sharing things about themselves and I thought maybe this was it.  But no.   And if she was wanted for murder, wouldn't other people be looking for her?  But no.  And the hero was whiny.  His parents didn't love him as much as they loved his older brother, apparently.  Be a man and get over it.  There's no whining in the old west.  Harrumph.

12/21/19 - SF - free.  I tried.  But the typos and lack of proofreading did me in.  Readers shouldn't have to work that hard to read your book.  Which is too bad because the story seemed like it would've been pretty good if I hadn't had to spend so much time trying to figure out what the author meant to write.

Currently reading... After I finished the mystery last night, I decided not to start a new one.  We'll see what I start today.  Maybe that last ebook mystery of 2019.  Maybe a hardcopy.  But not a big one with the end of the year fast approaching.

What happened in your last reading week of 2019?