Miss_Moneypenny's ROOT 2018 Challenge

Hi all! I'm so excited to join this group! I've been participating in the 75 books challenge for several years now but always find myself prioritizing shiny new library books over my slowly growing TBR pile at home. No more of that!

I'm a cybersecurity project manager in the great state of Ohio. I have an amazing husband and an adorable French bulldog, Bibi. Mr. Moneypenny works full time and goes to school full time as well, and my job is incredibly stressful. Reading is my favorite way to destress and fill the hours. I'm also deeply competitive so the challenges here on LT are perfect for me :D

The target for this challenge is 60 books that have been languishing on my Kindle and bookshelves, some for several years. I'm also participating in the 75 book challenge, so everything I read here will also count for that.

I'm aiming to be an active participant in threads here so stop by, say hi, and tell me what you're reading!

Book List

1. La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (paper)
2. The Beguiled by Thomas Cullinan (Kindle) finished 6/2; 3 stars
3. Every Last One by Anna Quindlen (Kindle) finished 5/28; 3 stars
4. The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan (paper) finished 7/16; 5 stars
5. The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan (paper)
6. Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (paper)
7. A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (paper)
8. The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan (paper)
9. Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan (paper)
10. Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan (paper)

11. Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan (paper)
12. The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan (paper)
13. Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan (paper)
14. A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan (paper)
15. Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien (Kindle)
16. The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien (Kindle)
17. The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien (Kindle)
18. Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan (Kindle)
19. The Witches of Blackbrook by Tish Thawer (Kindle)
20. Dangerous Liasons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (Kindle)

21. 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam (Kindle)
22. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (Kindle)
23. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel (Kindle) finished 5/13; 4 stars
25. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (Kindle)
26. Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel (Kindle) finished 12/21; 4 stars
27. The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine (Kindle) finished 11/28; 2 stars
28. When I'm Gone by Emily Bleeker (Kindle) finished 11/20; 2 stars
29. Starfish by Peter Watts (Kindle) finished 12/18; 3 stars
30. Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel (Kindle) finished 5/14; 4 stars

31. All Darling Children by Katrina Monroe (Kindle) finished 9/14; 2 stars
32. While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell (Kindle) finished 12/08; 3 stars
33. The Stand by Stephen King (Kindle)
34. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (Kindle) finished 12/13; 5 stars
35. The Prestige by Christopher Priest (Kindle) finished 6/8; 5 stars
36. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (Kindle)
37. A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin (Kindle)
38. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (Kindle)
39. A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin (Kindle)
40. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin (Kindle)

41. The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay (Kindle)
42. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (Kindle)
43. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon (Kindle)
44. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon (Kindle)
45. Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon (Kindle)
46. The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon (Kindle)
47. A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
48. An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon (Kindle)
49. Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon (Kindle)

50. Lucky by Jackie Collins (Kindle) finished 7/4; 1 star
51. The Fairest of Them All by Carolyn Turgeon (Kindle) finished 10/06; 4 stars
52. Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (Kindle)
53. In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden (Kindle) finished 5/25; 4 stars
54. The Rose Garden by Susana Kearsley (Kindle)
55. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (Kindle) finished 5/12; 4 stars
56. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (Kindle)
57. The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber (paper)
58. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (Kindle) finished 5/31; 4 stars
59. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas (Kindle)
60. Version Control by Dexter Palmer

Bonus Books (because sometimes you have to take a break from the heavy fantasy and science fiction and re-read your favorite fluff)
1. Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi (paper) finished 6/6; 5 stars
2. The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan (paper)
3. The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende
4. The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle
5. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (paper)
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling (paper) finished 7/14; 5 stars
7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling (paper) finished 8/01; 5 stars
8. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling (paper)finished 8/03; 5 stars
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (paper)finished 8/06; 5 stars
10. The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenoliera (paper)
11. Redwall by Brian Jacques (ebook) finished 6/3; 4 stars
12. Mossflower by Brian Jacques (ebook) finished 6/3; 4 stars
13. Mattimeo by Brian Jacques (ebook) finished 6/4; 4 stars
14. Sailor Moon vol 2 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper) finished 6/7; 5 stars
15. Sailor Moon vol 3 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper) finished 6/8; 5 stars
16. Sailor Moon vol 4 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper) finished 6/25; 4 stars
17. Sailor Moon vol 5 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper) finished 6/27; 4 stars
18. Sailor Moon vol 6 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper) finished 6/28; 4 stars
19. Sailor Moon vol 7 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper)
20. Sailor Moon vol 8 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper)
21. Sailor Moon vol 9 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper)
22. Sailor Moon vol 10 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper)
23. Sailor Moon vol 11 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper)
24. Sailor Moon vol 12 by Naoko Takeuchi (paper)
25. The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty (ebook) finished 9/18; 3 stars

Welcome to the group! I have found it really motivating being here (sadly also motivating me to buy more books, so the TBR mountain isn't getting any smaller. But books are good!). I hope you enjoy it here :)

Welcome, Miss M - hope you get some competitive enjoyment out of seeing that ticker notch up the numbers and your TBR pile diminish....though I have to warn you, the enabling force is strong.... :)

Welcome aboard! As the others have said, this is a mixture of support group and enablers ;)

Hi Miss M! Glad you have found your way to the ROOTers. Welcome and good luck. Looking at your booklist I see we have a lot of books in common. I like that a lot.

Welcome and good luck with your ROOTing. Some great books in your list, I hope you'll enjoy them.

May



Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! The enabling force is definitely strong: I spent Friday browsing through everyone's threads and added way too many books to my library wish list!

1. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Teddy Daniels is a US Federal Marshal sent to Shutter Island/Ashecliffe Mental Hospital to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Rachel Solando, a violent criminal who murdered her three children. But nothing is what it seems on the island and Teddy is pulled into a frightening conspiracy as he races to solve Rachel's disappearance and get off the island.

This is a shockingly good book. It's gothic and suspenseful and a keen commentary on the nature of modern psychiatry The ending though is absolutely heartbreaking and haunted me for days afterwards. Highly recommended.

Four stars

Acquisitions in 2018

I successfully completed a total no-buy of books in 2017 and relied only on what I had in my Kindle/on my bookshelf and our local library. It was eye opening to me to see just how much of what I read that year was merely "ok." So for 2018, my goal was to spend no more than $15 a month on books or 5 books per month, which ever came first. I'll be keeping track of those here!

May
1. That Kind of Mother by Rumaan Alam (May 12, $2.99, Kindle)
2. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (May 12, $1.99, Kindle)
3. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (May 12, $1.99, Kindle)
4. The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty (May 12, $2.99, Kindle)
5. The Passage by Justin Cronin (May 15, $1.99, Kindle)
6. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (May 31, $2.99, Kindle)
7. The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert (May 31, $2.99, Kindle)
8. The Passage by Justin Cronin (May 31, $1.99, Kindle)

Whoops! Overspent this month for sure. I might have to unsubscribe from BookBub's daily emails!

June
1. Victoria: The Queen by Julia Baird (June 12, $1.99)
2. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley (June 7, $1.99)
3. Circe by Madeline Miller (June 26, $4.99)

>8 Miss_Moneypenny: That sounds great, although as a non-fiction buff I'll probably wait till Mt TBR is a bit lower (haha) before adding it to the wishlist. I've acquired so much fiction over the years that I love the look of, but then find really stressful when I start reading them!

>9 Miss_Moneypenny: I am SO impressed by a year-long no-buy - although the thought is also making me twitch! I agree though that when I've finally got to books they're sometimes not that great (particularly true of my first wave of e-book buying when I first acquired an ereader, and then again when I first discovered bookbub!). Now I'm trying much harder to not get things unless I really think they're likely to be really good (I find checking out both positive and negative reviews on amazon really helps me with making the decision whether to buy, add to wishlist, or not bother!). I also have a similar price goal, although it's per book rather than per month (£2 or under per book in my case; I guess that's about $2.50 or so), although a maximum number a month might be a good way to go. Will have a think about that :)

>9 Miss_Moneypenny: Good luck! I am impressed that you managed to avoid buying any books last year! Awesome willpower :)

>10 Jackie_K: Thank you! I thought about doing a per book amount but realized that would limit me only to what ebooks I could find on sale or what paper books were available at the second-hand stores and sometimes you've just gotta read the newest books, you know? Bookbub is 100% my weakness though!

>11 rabbitprincess: Thank you! It really, really helps that I love to re-read books and have found that checking them out from the library first is really more of an audition to see if the book will be a good fit for my library. I won't lie though: I sometimes miss the days when my husband and I would come home from a bookstore absolutely loaded down with books. There's nothing that makes me feel more rich than buying books willy-nilly!

2. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

First, let me say that I really liked this book. Rosie and Penn have 5 boys and a charmed life. But when it becomes clear that their youngest son, Claude, has gender dysphoria and wants to be a girl called Poppy, everything changes.

There was a lot to love about this book: every character was fully fleshed out and the Walsh-Adams clan are people I want to know in real life. Frankel has an amazing ear for dialogue, especially for children who sound like real, live children and not precocious wunderkinds. Gender dysphoria and how to parent a child dealing with it were handled delicately and sensitively while still feeling real. Frankel has a transgender daughter, so I imagine tackling this subject was easy for her.

What I loved most though was the deep exploration of parenting and family life: Rosie and Penn go back and forth at length about the difficulty of parenting, calling it the longest of long games, where every day you're forced to make dozens of decisions right then without enough information and those decisions can have far-reaching consequences for your children. Poppy's dysphoria is the most obvious example, but it pops up in a dozen different ways over the course of the book.

On the cons side, there were parts that felt like they were copied straight out of a "Parenting a Transgender Child" pamphlet. The most egregious example of this is when Penn and Rosie are discussing hormone blocker therapy for Poppy. It was so blindingly black and white with no room for nuance (Penn being for, Rosie being against) that it felt stilted and stiff. These instances didn't flow and mesh with the rest of the story, kind of like how the after school specials of the 80s and 90s had "the moral of the story is" awkwardly shoehorned in.

There also wasn't any real sense of resolution: the story ends when Poppy is ten and her family has decided to carve a middle path between Claude/Poppy. Ok, great. But what does that look like? How does the family and Poppy in particular get there?

I would have really loved more exploration of the other children: Rosie decides that Wisconsin is not a safe enough place for Poppy and uproots her entire family to Seattle. This is a highly traumatic and disruptive event, and it's mostly just hand waved away. Very little time is spent exploring how the other boys deal with Claude's transformation into Poppy and how they handle the outside world particularly before moving to Seattle.

Finally, the last third of the book is set in Thailand at a medical clinic where Rosie and Poppy escape to. This felt really jarring to me, like Frankel decided it was easier to have her characters grow in the most obnoxiously obvious of ways. It kind of reminded me of my problems with Eat, Pray, Love: two enormously privileged white characters using the hardships and struggles of the natives to have Deep and Profound experiences while treating the natives as little more than cardboard cutouts to bounce their new philosophies off of. Yikes.

Despite my issues with it, this was a really well done and timely story. Highly recommended.

Four stars

3. Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel

This is Mr. Moneypenny's all time favorite series. On our first date we spent hours in his car talking about books and reading and when he found out I hadn't read this book, he reached into his backseat and pulled out his (very well loved) paperback and insisted I take it. How could I not love a man who had such passion for books?

Mushy love story aside, this is a great book. Ayla is an orphaned 5 year old Cro Magon who winds up being adopted by a clan of Neanderthals and this first volume follows her attempts to fully integrate herself into the Clan's world.

This is my second time reading this excellent book and I loved it even more this go-round. I made it a point to slow down as I read and really concentrate on all the details Auel includes and had a much richer experience as a result. She's an incredibly evocative writer and I can see why 10 year old Mr. M fell in love with the world of Earth's Children.

Her characters are richly drawn and Creb and Ayla will forever be at the top of my favorite characters list. Ayla was pretty severely abused through the entire book but managed to maintain hope and optimism and strength despite the staggering amount of events stacked against her. The end was heartbreaking and it took all of my willpower to not immediately start the next book.

Four stars

>15 This-n-That: You're so right! I wonder about the psychology of book buying a lot because you're right: new books are tantalizing distractions but quickly turn into books to be ignored in favor of new shiny ones. This make me think that for me it's the thrill of acquisition and maybe a slight shopping compulsion? 2017 was definitely helpful in teasing that out. I'll 100% support your no buy in 2019!

>16 Miss_Moneypenny: I sometimes buy a solace-book. Things are not that easy here with my husband in a severe depression. So if I feel down or stressed I 'have' to buy a book just to get my spirits up.

>17 connie53: I do that too! The promise of a new book is enough to get me out of a slump and is by far one of the things I missed the most in 2017.

I also do the "book as solace" or "book as reward" kind of thing. Going to the bookstore, either on ground or online, gives me an uplift. And of course, a special coffee helps too. When I was alone, I did the "late night online shopping thing" and that led to lots of spending. Thankfully I am not doing that any more!

Books are my 'treat' to myself too - especially fiction, which is where I find the escapism I enjoy. I buy mainly from charity shops and a special treat is when I buy something new. I try to balance the amount acquired with the amount read. That's the joy of LT, keeping tabs on the numbers!

As we say around here, there are worse habits to have than acquiring books, but if the spending is getting out of hand that's another matter.

I also like secondhand books! I especially enjoy the ones with names or notes written inside, or boarding passes for airlines used as a bookmark. I try to imagine who the person was who owned it or read it. I pass on my "already read" books to a used book shelf at the local YMCA, and have picked up some good books there too. I have also noticed some more "Little Free Libraries" popping up in my community.

>19 LadyoftheLodge: Late night online shopping! I know, I do the same thing. pressing that 'send button' just before going of to bed and wondering why I did that and not think about it some more. But this year I was 'a good girl' and just bought 18 books so far and read a lot of them. Just to prevent them turning into ROOTs.

I blame my mother for this habit, I really do. We went to the library once a week and were given carte blanche to check out as many book as we could carry. We were at the bookstore at least twice a month and never left with less than 2 books. Even at the grocery store, if she had been having a rough day she'd bribe us with a drink and a book to entertain us as she shopped. And with three children under six, I don't blame her in the least!

Wow, we had similar childhoods! We went to the branch library at least once a week, and more in the summer time when we rode our bikes there. We checked out as many books as we could. When we went to the grocery store or "downtown," a book was the surprise of choice. Going to a real bookstore was a big deal!

We went to the library every Saturday when I was a kid, I really liked that, and I devoured books then! I was really sad about a year ago, I had taken my daughter (who was then 3) to the local library and we were checking 4 books out (you can take out up to 20, I think it is) and an older girl in all seriousness came up to me as I was walking up to the desk and told me that I was taking too many, because you're only allowed to take two - the only thing I could think was that that must have been what her parents had told her so that she didn't take lots of books home.

4. In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

On the surface, this sounds like a really boring book: Philippa, an English widow, enters a Benedictine convent at 42 and learns to experience life as a female religious. But it was so much more than that. I wouldn't have expected a book about cloistered nuns to be spellbinding, but it was! Godden's description of the seasons and of the liturgical year were really beautiful and she manages to take a large, unwieldy number of characters and imbue each of them with a personality that jump right off the page.

The structure of this book was really hard to follow at first. A paragraph would start with an event and within 2 sentences would be discussing a past event as if it was happening then and then eventually 3 or 4 pages later the narrative switches back to the present event. It reminded me a little of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's structure in One Hundred Years of Solitude but once I slowed down and just let the story flow, I was enraptured. I do wish that the publisher's note about Benedictine life was at the beginning of the book. It would have helped with a lot of my confusion about the various details of the nuns' activities.

All in all, I really loved this and highly recommend it if you're looking for a quiet, character driven story.

Four stars

>24 LadyoftheLodge: There's just nothing like the promise of a new book, and it's so magnified when you're small and turned loose in a real bookstore :D

>25 Jackie_K: That's awful! Although maybe it came from a place of "less library books to keep track of and potentially lose," but still. My childhood would have been a lot poorer if there had been a limit on books!

>26 Miss_Moneypenny: I haven't read any Rumer Godden but that sounds like a good place to start - wishlisted!

>26 Miss_Moneypenny: I read In This House of Brede several times in the past, and loved it! I believe the book received some criticism about how the author "got it all wrong" about nuns, but I thought it was plausible, since I come from a Roman Catholic background. I actually wanted to enter the convent when I was 12 years old, but my parents would not allow it. As little girls, we had several "nun dolls." By the time I graduated from college, I was interested in academics and men, not the convent. But I still like to read about nuns!

5. Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

I was unprepared for this book. This was one of the first ebooks I purchased last year when I learned about Book Bub's excellent daily deals and unfortunately before I learned how much I just don't care for Anna Quindlen's writing wheelhouse (middle aged white women who have an enormous amount of privilege). I was incredibly put off by her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake when I read it last year, but figured in the interest of clearing out my ROOT pile I should give this one a fair shake.

It was a really well written, heartfelt story of a woman whose entire life changes overnight in the most violent of ways. She and her only surviving child are left to learn how to live in the face of deep grief, rage, and heartbreak. I'm hesitant to write any more than that for fear of spoilers (I knew nothing about this going in and I think that definitely helped), but what actually happens to her family isn't the important point. The point is examining a life well-lived and learning to live with your ghosts and still move forward.

I don't think I'll read anything else by Quindlen, but this was a solid book.

Three stars

>29 LadyoftheLodge: That's interesting to hear the "got it all wrong" criticisms since I, like you, have a Catholic background and also thought Godden got it all right! I think books about nuns (and to a smaller extent priests) are fascinating because I can't imagine loving God so wholeheartedly that I would be willing to renounce everything. It's definitely a window into another life which is one of the things I like best about reading. We all have one life to live and books are glimpses of the other paths not taken.

>31 Miss_Moneypenny: Another series I like is by Ralph McInerny, such as Lack of the Irish. This series is set in South Bend, Indiana and involves Notre Dame U. Since I grew up in South Bend, I feel as if I am going home when I read his novels. They also offer a glimpse into the priesthood. Another book I read in the '70's (oops, telling my age!) is The Priest by the same author.

I recently read Changing Habits, a novel by Debbie Macomber, which follows several different nuns who leave the convent, tracing the paths of their lives back in society. I really connected with that one, as the stories of the nuns reminded me of my childhood at the Catholic school, and the big uproar when so many left the religious life.

6. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

For once, a "buzzy" book that didn't disappoint! An Oprah's Book Club pick, An American Marriage looks at a whole host of issues (the cost of the prison industrial complex on society as a whole and families in particular, race, socioeconomic status, fathers, the cost of injustice, gender) through the lens of one particular marriage. Roy and Celestial are an upper middle class black couple in Atlanta whose entire life trajectory is destroyed when Roy is wrongfully imprisoned for a brutal rape that he didn't commit. He's sentenced to prison for 12 years and Celestial tries to wait for him only to fold after two and begin a relationship with her childhood best friend, Andre. The situation comes to a head when Roy is finally released after only 5 years and finds that Celestial never initiated divorce proceedings.

There was a lot to unpack here and I kind of hate that so much of the actual plot was spent on the love triangle. Who Celestial decides to stay with is a lot less interesting to me than the role that 4 very different fathers played and their impacts on the three main characters or the problem of marriage in today's world. As I read it, I kept wishing for the kind of issue exploration that we see in old classics. But all of the best bits were subtext and hidden instead. I suppose that's what I get for reading fiction instead of nonfiction, but there has to be a middle ground right? But as love triangles go, this was really well done and kept me hooked till the end.

This was really well written: Jones has an excellent way with words and her dialogue is pitch perfect. Even her supporting characters are fully fleshed out and believable with the exception of Andre. I just didn't care about anything he had to say: he felt superfluous as a character and like a plot device instead. I would love to see an alternate version of this book where he didn't exist, which would have forced Celestial to make her own decisions as her own person instead of in relation to these two men especially since I wasn't convinced of her deep feelings for either of them. As it was, Celestial wasn't likable at all and rather wishy-washy but her narrative was compelling and kept me rooted.

I really loved this book and recommend it highly.

Four stars

>32 LadyoftheLodge: Ooh another Hoosier! My husband is from Muncie and we met/fell in love in the South Bend area :D Thank you for the recommendation, it's now on my TBR list!

I am glad to find another Hoosier here! I hope you enjoy the Ralph McInerny books. Alas, he is deceased so no longer writing for us here on Earth. My sister worked at Notre Dame and actually met him.

June



Another month, another round of real-life woes that kept me from reading as much as I would like. Thankfully, we seem to have skipped the never-ending spring rain Ohio puts on every year and are straight in warm summertime sun (mostly). Thank goodness for that, as it let me clock some serious pool time this weekend and catch up on several ROOTs.

7. The Beguiled by Thomas Cullinan
This was a decent way to spend an afternoon: oppressive Gothic horror, lots of secrets (some that are never fully revealed/explained), slow and suspenseful pacing, and a pretty good underlying sense of dread. A wounded Yankee soldier is nursed back to health at a girls' school in Virginia, but very quickly things turn weird. I enjoyed this and am looking forward to seeing the movie.

Three stars

8. Redwall by Brian Jacques
9. Mossflower by Brian Jacques
10. Mattimeo by Brian Jacques
The Redwall series was one of my favorites as a child. Fantasy, talking animals, and swashbuckling adventures: sign me up! I fully expected my re-read as an adult to be less fun, to but my surprise I enjoyed them just as much. The action is appropriate for a wide range of ages and the moralizing is handled really well. I loved this re-read and have already put them on the list of children's books to stock our library with.

Four stars each

>36 Miss_Moneypenny: My cousin and I used to read Redwall too! She collected a whole bunch of them and still has them :)

>36 Miss_Moneypenny: I remember the movie being very, very creepy!

>36 Miss_Moneypenny: I read Redwall last year for the first time - I was sad I hadn't read it as a child because I know I would have loved it then and probably got more in the series. Reading it for the first time as a jaded adult probably diminished its impact - I thought it was OK, but wouldn't rush to read another.

Just reading all new posts I missed since somewhere in May.

11. Sailor Moon vol 1 by Naoko Takeuchi

Despite my love of comic books and graphic novels, I never managed to get into manga with the exceptions of Saiyuki and this. When Sailor Moon was released in the US, my brother, sister, and I turned it into a huge ritual. We'd walk to the comic store and browse for at least an hour for anything not Sailor Moon related. Then when we couldn't stand the anticipation any more, we'd buy one copy and rush home. Since my sister was barely 7 and my brother was only 5, I'd read it out loud while we looked at the pages together. I have incredibly fond memories of this time, and my sister still has our original collection (incredibly beaten up but priceless to us at this point).

All of that to say: I love Sailor Moon. 90s feminism was a beautiful thing and it's all over the pages of this manga. Usagi stays true to herself and her friends while also growing as a character. She and Tuxedo Mask manage to have one of the most functional relationships in a comic that I've seen. She manages to save herself/her friends much more than he swoops in to save the day, they work together, and there's no brooding "I love you and want to be honest with you about my superhero life but I caaaaaan't because I have to broooooood darkly" (I'm looking at you, Batman!).

In this volume, we're introduced to Usagi and the first three Sailor Scouts as well as the first villain and her henchmen. Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon realize each other's identities very quickly, and the whole book moves much faster than the original anime (the recently released Sailor Moon Crystal is much more true to the anime). It's got a nice blend of silly/slapstick comedy and darker, more adult themes like reincarnation and self-sacrifice for your friends and the greater good. Love, love, love.

Five stars

>37 rabbitprincess: Yay for another Redwall fan! I wish I had thought to hang on to my childhood copies. I had a bunch and don't like the new covers nearly as much.

>39 Jackie_K: That's a good point. I wonder how much of my enjoyment this time around was due to nostalgia and already being familiar with the characters because my husband who hadn't read them as a child had the same reaction you did. This is just more incentive for me to start slowly buying them now for future babies to enjoy :D

>40 connie53: Hi Connie! Thanks for dropping by!

>38 MissWatson: That's wonderful to hear! Watching it is on my to-do list for this weekend and I can't wait. It's been too long since I saw a sufficiently creepy but not too scary movie (Crimson Peak was the last I remember hitting my scaredy-cat sweet spot).

>42 Miss_Moneypenny: I wonder if it holds up? Our notions of scary have changed so much in these forty-odd years.

>36 Miss_Moneypenny: I read some of the Redwall books when I was still teaching middle schoolers. They loved them and recommended them to me. I liked the one about the Mouse Maiden.

12. Sailor Moon 2 by Naoko Takeuchi

More magical girl fun :D In this volume, Usagi and friends learn about their past lives and Tuxedo Mask is captured by the enemy. I forgot how fast the manga moves, as the first arc is almost over by the end of the second volume.

Five stars

>44 LadyoftheLodge: Yes, Muriel! She was one of my favorites!

13. Sailor Moon vol 3 by Naoko Takeuchi

And just like that, the first arc is over. Lots of self-sacrifice for loved ones/the greater good, sweet power level ups, and a really satisfying conclusion to the Sailor Scouts first big bad. Love!

Five stars

14. The Prestige by Christopher Priest

Yowza, I loved this! The 2006 film adaptation with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale is one of my favorite movies but I was still shocked at how much better the book is. It's told in epistolary style with the majority of the book being the diaries of Angier and Borden, two rival magicians in Victorian London who have a deadly feud for all of their adult lives. The movie shares the same major plot beats as the book, but the book gets there in such different ways that it was like a new experience entirely. In a rare move, I'm actually really glad I saw the movie before reading this. Knowing what the big twist is took a little of the suspense out but also prevented me from being frustrated with Borden's section. With that foreknowledge, I was able to enjoy his half-truths and unreliable narration; without it, I think I would have gotten so frustrated that I wouldn't have enjoyed the book and put it down.

Priest slowly and subtly ramps up the horror elements and sense of foreboding and unease that by the time I finished it, I was a wreck. I also immediately thrust the Kindle at my husband and told him he absolutely had to take it to read on his lunch break. The only negative I can come up with is that the story ended so abruptly I thought that there was something wrong with my Kindle. Other than that, this is highly recommended and will definitely be on my end of year "best" list.

Five stars

Finally here and enjoying catching up from the beginning. And dodging book bullets, unsuccessfully when it comes to An American Marriage*, getting to something by Dennis Lehane … and all the nun stories! Beautiful monthly flowers! Hoping your real-life woes are easing.

*Did you see Oprah's next book pick is also about wrongful conviction, this time a memoir about death row, The Sun Does Shine.

Sweet lord has it been a stressful month! An official diagnosis, a two week visit from my lovely mother, and a move into a new apartment: we packed a lot of life into June.

15. Sailor Moon vol 4
16. Sailor Moon vol 5
17. Sailor Moon vol 6

As always, I flew through these. When I went to order the next batch from Amazon, it turns out they're not in print anymore because the manga is getting redone! I'm super duper excited and have decided to not continue with the re-read until they're released stateside.

Four stars each

July



Holy cow, this year is absolutely flying by! Here we are in July and I'm still feeling like the holidays were just last week. Work is starting to become insane as per usual and the pace won't let up until Halloween so I'm strapping in and hanging on for dear life.

18. Lucky by Jackie Collins

Ugh. This was a free ebook a couple years ago and it sounded interesting enough. I was so wrong. This was a misogynistic, crude, poorly written piece of trash. I've already deleted it from my Kindle and wish I hadn't read it.

1 star

19. The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

I have a love/hate relationship with the Wheel of Time series. On the one hand, Jordan was really great at writing action driven plot and building a totally unique world that really works. But on the other, his female/male relationships are pretty freaking problematic and the way he writes both men and women is a little weird. And maybe the worst part is that he relies much too heavily on his characters avoiding talking to each other about what's going on in order to get plot momentum going. Jordan could have used a much better editor and someone to help him streamline his story.

Having said all of that, I really enjoyed this book. There was a lot of action, a lot of forward momentum, and some really gripping moments. I think I liked this even more than The Dragon Reborn which is saying something.

Four stars

20. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

Ah, Harry Potter. I'm not sure what I can say about this except that this is probably my third favorite HP book.

Five stars

Hi MP, just catching up on threads and reading yours now!