Books #8 Reading chats

[Katykatykaty]

After seeing lots of reviews about Kindle Paper Whites on here I decided I was missing out and started looking at them. I don’t mind reading on my phone app but find I end up distracted by other apps so thought a kindle might be a good option. The other day I set up an Amazon alert for if ever there were deals and today I got a message to say they were down to £99. I’ve had a really crap week and decided to treat myself so it’s coming tomorrow - so excited!

 

[fudgebox]

Never mind the book - I love your nails!

Thank you! This was them in all their glory

 

[Caffeine Fiend]

My morning routine consists of wordle, heardle and checking my Amazon book wishlist. Hit the jackpot this morning, wordle in 3, heardle in 1 and one of the books is 99p!

 

[Caffeine Fiend]

Best day ever when one of your wish list books is on kindle daily deal

 

[StephenTJackson]

I'm normally one for reading mysteries, whodunnits, thrillers, that sort of genre. Just finished The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley.

But I needed another book for a multibiy deal on Amazon, so I bought this gay romance novel, and oh my god, I've found a love for soppy, fluffy, cute as fuck, bit angsty, happy ever after lovey dovey stories.

I can sit and read a gruesome, murder, gorey book very straight faced. But give my cute as fuck, inject this good shit into my veins happy fluff, and I was just smiling and enjoying it all the way through. Like it was actually so good for my mental health as well. So I've decided that more lovey dovey books are gonna be part of my reading going forward.

 

[marjan]

Hellooo! Took a bit of a break from the internet lately, but I'm back to say that I finished 'at the existentialist cafe' by Sarah Bakewell and 'the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house' by Audre Lorde and both were exquisite
I'm reading 'everything I know about love' by Dolly Alderton now which I'm flying through and makes me laugh out loud sometimes.

Have to say though lately I feel a bit out of place in this book thread, because I feel like you all talk about the same type of books and I'm always talking about different ones hope that's okay and I'm not boring all of you lol

 

[Oohthedrama]

I hope you are OK. I missed your posts.

Aw thank you! I bloody knew I’d find one person who missed me
I kept the faith
Boring info
I’ve been in hospital since the end of January really, but getting back to the land of the living.

 

[Caffeine Fiend]

Just wanted to share my reading insights with you all. I’m quite proud of it . I rarely watch tv and read every night before bed.
Currently reading a light hearted find yourself book about a girl who gets hit by a bus ( she survives) and re-evaluates her life. It’s kind of a will they won’t they with her love interest. Definitely think they will.
I’m not into crimes / thriller / mystery type books . Just like light hearted escape book

I had read every day this year until a day in March where I got day drunk and passed out. I was so upset

 

[nbt]

Have just finished my last April read. This month was a slow starter.

Most books were 3 star reads, a couple of 4’s. The three stand out books were Big Little Lies (loved it just as much as the series), 56 Days and The Last Thing To Burn.

 

[LaBlonde]

Actually I'm curious to know your thoughts. I haven't read the book, but it's had so much hype and the local bookshop has been promoting it in a really annoying way.

you may regret asking this but here goes:

- the writing is incredibly basic, bordering on bad.

- kaya, the lead character, has been living alone on a shack in marshland since she was a young child. a social worker comes to visit once and then never again. any child growing up in that environment would be semi-feral, probably unable to talk well, missing a lot of primary skills etc. kaya is just adorably rumpled, pretty enough that the most popular guy in town is interested, is taught to read by another teenager in TWO DAYS and is then reading daphne du maurier by herself the next week. i think said teenager also teaches her to write in a day too, this is apparently enough for her to become a best-selling author. i think to truly enjoy the book and get past the writing you have to buy into kaya as a character: i just couldn’t. nothing about her makes sense and it’s all waved away by her being so smart and so pretty. lazy writing essentially.

- it also becomes a sort of murder trial book towards the end. i will also say that the way the police officers speak in this book is ridiculous- owens uses them to introduce the reader to the town but it means they say things to each other like “look there’s lablonde, the town gossip, always hanging around that diner watching people”. why would two characters speak about people they know like this? i’ll tell you, bad writing.

- the actual murder and trial is the type of thing that jodi picoult does way better. everyone obviously falls in love with kaya but then

Spoiler

despite her having a motive, no clear alibi, bits of her clothes found at the scene, she is found innocent. i can only assume this is because of how deeply in love with her the jury were otherwise it makes no sense. there’s then a “twist” at the end which confirms she did do it but it isn’t really a twist when you already made it obvious.

i feel better now, thank you the fact it has so many five star reviews absolutely blows my mind.

 

[nbt]

Stephen (aka the book with chapter 28) review

Well, that was quite a read! Any book with reviews like that is going to make me want to read it.

If you’ve read anything by Karin Slaughter (and there are probably others), you’ve probably read worse than you’ll read in this book. I’ll put the plot in a spoiler below and it’ll definitely sound awful, but actually reading is was quite laughable! I’d say you definitely build it up in your head as you get closer to chapter 28.

All in all, probably worth a read if you want to satisfy your curiosity, but only because it’s on Kindle Unlimited/is currently 99p. Don’t pay much more than that!

Spoiler: Plot

The book is narrated by the main character, who is herself telling her past story in the form of a book. It goes back and forth between 1899 and 1939.

The protagonist is a nanny for a couple who have recently had a baby.

It turns out, this baby is dead. The mother believes the baby to be alive.

It starts off fine, not too gruesome and not scary. I think the lead up to chapter 28 is harder to stomach than the actual chapter, simply because what everyone talks about is so ludicrous.

Basically, the mother who is suffering from mental health issues, attempts to “save” her baby by…ahem, inserting it back into herself.

So, yeah. There you go! It’s quite mad.

 

[ordinaryjelly]

Just in case anyone is interested, we have chosen our May book over in the book club thread.

Book Club January - Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I sometimes get this. Probably just a glitch in the matrix 😊 It happens all the time, it annoys me. If I use another browser it works perfectly. But I'm too lazy for that.

tattle.life

It's A Bit of a Stretch by Chris Atkins

A Bit of a Stretch

Where can a tin of tuna buy you clean clothes? Where is it easier to get ‘spice’ than paracetamol? Where does self-harm barely raise an eyebrow? Welcome to Her Majesty’s Prison Se…

bertsbooks.co.uk

 

[Tit4Tattle]

I really need to stop checking this thread when I already have so many books lined up. The First Day of Spring has now been bought!

I’ve just finished this month’s Paige Toon read which I didn’t enjoy as much as the others I’ve read so far.

I have The Heights and They Both Die at the End queued up next as they’re library books with a limit on them. I also have Where the Crawdads Sing as an audio book.

Then I MUST start Pachinko and also the two physical library books I have, argh!

Then at some point I should probably make my way through the books on my kindle I guess. Wouldn’t it be great if you could take a week off normal life and just focus on reading and that’s it?

Wouldn’t that be amazing! There’s a company fairly local to me who do reading retreats in a big country house where you literally take your books and read all day and they have private chefs in to make your meals but it’s so expensive!

 

[ordinaryjelly]

I find it so interesting how we all like / dislike books, especially when people share in-depth comments about books like on this last page and explain why they like / dislike then. I think it is why I like the book club thread here because we all read the same book and share our thoughts about it, some love the book, some like it and others dislike it. But it is always interesting to read each others thoughts on the same book.

I read Jodi Picoult's books because I enjoy her writing, like was said above she isn't a great writer but she does at least make all her characters likeable and while her plots are formulaic they are usually plausable. I actually have her newest book better in my tbr. Maybe that is what I need to read to get me out of my reading slump.

 

[strawberrysunshine_x]

Just wanted to share my reading insights with you all. I’m quite proud of it . I rarely watch tv and read every night before bed.
Currently reading a light hearted find yourself book about a girl who gets hit by a bus ( she survives) and re-evaluates her life. It’s kind of a will they won’t they with her love interest. Definitely think they will.
I’m not into crimes / thriller / mystery type books . Just like light hearted escape book

 

[nbt]

Apparently I’ve already read The Whisper Man but I think I’ll have to give it another read after reviews here

Does anyone read books and then immediately forget a lot of the storyline?! Doesn’t necessary mean they were bad, I’m just terrible at things like that.

 

[Smca53]

Apparently I’ve already read The Whisper Man but I think I’ll have to give it another read after reviews here

Does anyone read books and then immediately forget a lot of the storyline?! Doesn’t necessary mean they were bad, I’m just terrible at things like that.

There are so many I’ve marked as Read on GoodReads that I know I’ve read… but I couldn’t tell you a single thing about them and the blurb doesn’t even look familiar

 

[ordinaryjelly]

Just a heads up in case anyone is interested we have just asked our April book over on the book club thread and have chosen The Club by Ellery Lloyd. It is currently 99p on Kindle.

Book Club January - Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Here we are! February read; How shall we go about picking books? I kind of like @nbt idea of picking books like we do thread titles here. So you could post "Book Nomination : book title" and then the one with the most likes is our choice, in a specified time frame. March book choice...

tattle.life

 

[Caffeine Fiend]

Did I just buy 3 books from my wishlist? Yes, yes I did.

I don't need 3 books.

Edit - I had forgotten I had bought 2 last night

 

[nbt]

March reads! I still don’t know how I manage to get through so many but I guess it’s pretty easy when you constantly have at least one on the go I think 6 of these were audiobooks too.

Two DNF’s this month. Started off well and actually got half way through before giving up. Just didn’t keep my interest.

Quite a lot of 5 star reads this month - Our Little Lies, Appetite for Innocence, They Both Die at the End, Eleanor Oliphant, The Daughter, Boys Don’t Cry, The MIL and One of Us is Lying.