Saturday, February 15, 2020

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 2/15/20

Hello.  Sorry I'm late.  I forgot to finish this and schedule it last night. 

Welcome to the Saturday Reading Wrap-up.  If you've been here before, you know how this goes.  If you're new, this is where I wrap-up all the book stuffs from the week before.  (For a complete list of all the books I've read this year, go here.)

It was a DNF-o-rama for me this week - every day a new DNF until I picked up an Agatha Christie to cleanse my reading palate.  Then another DNF.  But despite the depressing nature of DNFs, I did pick up some new ebooks - romance, SF, fantasy.  There's always hope.

Books read:

15) The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie (2/13/20) - Mystery Short Stories - 5 stars.  Picked up at the thrift store 8/$1 last November.
No review.  You all know how I feel about Christie.

14) The Hungry Gun by Steve Thurman (2/8/20) - Western# - 5 stars.  Never heard of the author or the book, and apparently neither has pretty much anyone else.
Review: "An excellent western I picked up at the thrift store. I'm a little sad that it was so unheard of that I had to make a Goodreads listing for it, because it deserves more people to love it. It's filled with plenty of twists and turns, romance and excitement, and a mystery to thrill even the biggest mystery fans like myself. The revelations at the end... I never saw those last pieces of the puzzle until they fell into place."


DNFs:

2/13/20 - UF - free.  From the start, I got the distinct feeling that I was too old and square for this book and the more I read, the older and squarer I felt.  Anyway, it had a very hip (do they even use the word 'hip' anymore?) and trendy feel to it that made me feel every inch of the fifty that's creeping up on me.  Don't need more of that.  Bleh. 

2/11/20 - mystery that I picked up for 25c at the thrift store.  It sounded cute, but it was meh.  Into the pile to go to St. Vinny's it went.

2/10/20 - thriller with a strange semi-supernatural bent.  free.  Yeah, it was thrilling and probably would've made a good story without the added supernatural thing, which just made it weird.

2/9/20 - uf/sf/f... huh? - free.  It started off pretty good with shady govt characters chasing a girl who had strange powers and then it got weird and ended up on another planet where there were dragons and wizards and magic.   It felt like the author was trying too hard to make everything different, but making cows bigger and different colors of the rainbow doesn't really make it different or make me feel like I'm somewhere magical.  Maybe magically delicious.

2/8/20 - mystery - free.  Gah.  You do not need to name each character every time you refer to them - in dialogue or otherwise.  And the characters were all juvenile and annoying.  I gave up after only a few pages.

Currently reading... a cute paranormal.  I can't exactly put my finger on the genre, and I think it's like what they call 'New Adult' since the MC is college aged, but it's a fun story, so I don't really mind not being able to pigeonhole it.  

How was your reading luck this week? 

2 comments:

  1. I actually had an exceptional listening week, due to the book I finished last night. Not many books to add but they were mostly good ones. I'm still ahead in my GR quest but I'm too lazy to go back to check the numbers. I'll start with the best first and work backwards.

    1) A HEART OF BLOOD AND ASHES, fantasy, Milla Vane author, Nicole Poole narrator. FIVE STARS! ***** This one hit my "Best Book of the Year" list. Vane is not only a new-to-me author, she's a fairly new author. This book has had a decent splash and was recommended by one of my favorite authors, Nalini Singh. I LOVED this book. It's dark. It's violent. It's heartbreaking. But there's love and a HEA and good guys and honor and duty and evil and gods and...and...yeah. It won't be for everyone and that's okay. It's for me! So...I get a point for a new author. 🥰

    2) THE ALCHEMIST AND AN AMARETTO (Codex Guild: Spellbound #5), Annette Marie, author, Cris Dukehart, narrator. 3.5 stars. This is the latest book in the series. There's paranormal snark, comedy, some action, and a big series cliffhanger that felt a lot like click-bait for the next book. I've enjoyed this series but glad I can get the books from Hoopla to read for free. Still, a fun way to spend several hours. The others have been 4-5 stars but this one just felt sort of...flat. Moving on...

    3) Junkyard Cats, SF/apocalyptic. Faith Hunter, author, Kristine Hvram, narrator. 4.5 stars. New-to-me author, new series, but she's definitely not underated, given she writes the Jayne Yellowrock series. This was a free Audible Only audio book I picked up with my membership. It sat in the pile for awhile but I'm glad I finally got 'round to it. It's pure SF goodness and I described it as being sort of a cross between HALO and CATS. Only the heroine is human. Sort of. There are nanobots, weapons, and...junkyard cats. If I could figure out a way to loan to you, I would. I think you might enjoy it.

    4) VENDETTA ROAD (Torepedo Ink #3). Christine Feehan, author, Jim Frangione, narrator. 2.5 stars bumped to 3 stars based on the narration. I have a bumpy-road relationship with this author. I really enjoyed the first two books in the series. This one? 90% angsty sex, 10% action--and because of the barely-there plot that I wanted resolution of, I stuck with it for the full 15 hours of listening. Luckily Frangione makes even boring stuff a pleasure. Sadly, this was an autobuy series for me. The next book? I'll probably just wait on the library list and make up my mind after listening for free.

    So, only four books, and a mixed bagged, but mostly a win for me. Sadly, after listening to an awesome book, I'm rather at a loss of what to pick up next. Everything sort of pales in comparision. Here's to a new week of reading/listening enjoyment for us all!

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    Replies
    1. Sounds like a fun reading week! Yay!

      I totally hear you on feeling a little lost after reading an awesome book. I usually turn to an old favorite author when that happens, because everything else is meh.

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