Book Challenges- Week 8

Popsugar Challenge

(7/50) No progress this week.

While I Was Reading Challenge

(3/12) 25% done, but no progress this week

The Unread Shelf

Running Total: 3

Committed: A Love Story, by Elizabeth Gilbert (memoir): As you may know, Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love. At the end of that memoir, she met Felipe, and fell in love. They decided to stay together, but neither of them wanted to get married. But Felipe was not a US citizen, and at one point, was no longer allowed to enter the US. They were forced to get married if he wanted to continue to stay. They agreed, but were stuck outside the US for almost a year while their paperwork was processed. This book was Ms. Gilbert’s attempt to come to terms with the marriage.

It was an interesting book, part memoir and part exploration of the history and culture of marriage. I found the different sections interesting and informative. There was a lot of information that made me think or say “huh.” I’m always interested in books that explore relationships, and this one was good.

I Remember You, by Cathleen Davitt Bell (YA speculative romance): I’m delighted to announce that I’ve found my first favorite book of 2018! It was a wonderful experience and I’m already looking forward to reading it again. Lucas and Juliet are different people, but when they begin to fall in love, it feels familiar to both of them. But then Lucas starts telling Juliet that he “remembers” their relationship, that it’s happened before. Juliet doesn’t believe him at first, but as time goes on, and he’s right about things that have happened, she’s not sure what to believe. His memories become more and more disturbing, testing their relationship and making them both wonder if he’s crazy. This is a lovely book about first love, relationships, and family.

5 Classic Books

(0/5) No progress

Miscellaneous Reading

Uncanny, by Sarah Fine (YA Thriller): I had a good reading week. This is the second five star book I’ve read this year. Uncanny is an example of how to write a thriller. Cora and Hannah are stepsisters. After Hannah dies, we’re given just enough information about what happened to keep the tension high. This book explores the complex relationships between families and also has some interesting things to say about technology and how it changes the way we look at the world. The whole book is fantastic, but the ending was amazing.

2018 Running Total: 21

Have you made any progress on your TBR or book challenges?

Book Challenges 2018- Week 6

Popsugar Challenge

(7/50) over 10%!

A past Goodreads Choice Awards winner (2014)- The Opposite of Loneliness, by Marina Keegan A friend of mine gave me this book ages ago, and I’ve been wanting to read it, but… well, you know the story of my TBR by now.

It’s a series of essays and short stories written by a young woman who died five days after her graduation from Yale. She wanted to be a writer. After she died, her parents and teachers got together and put this book together.

Some of the stories and essays are fantastic. I particularly liked the title essay. Some of the stories are bleak, and I didn’t enjoy those as much. I’m so impressed that such a young woman wrote such lovely stories though.

Probably the thing that had the most impact on me wasn’t anything in her stories; it was in the Forward, where her professor talks about how Marina kept a list of “Interesting Things,” and that’s part of where she got the idea for her stories. I’m glad she told me that because I would have been wondering. Some of the stories are weird (in a good way) and I would have wondered about a college student thinking of those things.

Overall, it was absolutely worth reading.

While I Was Reading Challenge

(1/12)

A book you chose for the cover- Release, by Patrick Ness: I tackled this choice by going the the library, looking at the “New YA Fiction” shelf, and grabbing the first book that caught my eye. I like train tracks, and I loved that a boy seems to be dangling from them upside down. The cover has absolutely no relation to what the book is about, but that’s always the challenge, isn’t it?

This is two stories in one. There’s the contemporary story of Adam Thorn and one monumental day in his life, when pretty much everything that can change for him, does. It’s a story about love and loss and sex and family. It was a captivating story. Then there’s the secondary story, about a murdered girl who’s spirit latches on to a fairy queen. And if the spirit doesn’t learn how to let go, the world ends.

I understood all the symbolism and how the stories are meant to relate, but I found the fairy queen portion of the story boring. Generally I love fantastical elements, but this one felt thrown in, like the author didn’t want to leave a great contemporary story alone and added some fantasy just to have it. I read it all, just in case I actually ended up needing to know it for Adam’s story to make sense. I didn’t; I could have skipped it.

Overall I liked this book. I would have loved it if we stuck with Adam.

The Unread Shelf

Total: 1

5 Classic Books

(0/5) No progress

Miscellaneous Reading

None

2018 Running Total: 13

Have you made any progress on your TBR or book challenges?

U is for Unbelievable

I like writing cross genre, and most of the things I write require some suspension of disbelief.  Now, I’m the perfect audience in both books and movies.  As long as the unbelievableness makes sense in the context of the universe created, I’ll buy it.  I can suspend disbelief and get totally into it.  On the other hand, I’m horrible to watch with when it doesn’t quite make sense in context.  I’ll comment, I’ll yell at the movie (or my book).  I won’t stop watching or reading (unless it’s so bad I can’t continue); I’ll just annoy everyone around me.

I had someone critique one of my works in progress (WIP).  In the WIP, the main character learns she is from a different world and is special, etc, etc.  The person who critiqued it said that he couldn’t believe she accepted it so fast and that it didn’t make sense.  So, being the good little receiver of criticism I was trying to be, I went back and edited.  I added in disbelief and vacillation for pages and pages.

And it slowed down the pace like crazy.

I recently re-read a Black Dagger Brotherhood book (if you haven’t read these, they’re phenomenal, BTW).  In these books, humans find out that vampires do exist.  They have trouble with belief at first, but it doesn’t go on for pages and pages.  If you really examine the reactions, it’s not realistic.  But it works.

Writing isn’t about realism, unless of course you’re writing a memoir or non-fiction.  People don’t read fiction to read about the ordinary person who gets up day after day, eats breakfast, takes a shower, goes to work, comes home, and watches TV.  Though the Sims made a killing off that, people want to read about drama and action.  They want to read about ordinary people who become special or end up in situations we’d all like to be in: falling in love, having families, saving the world.  Since most of us realize that that heady rush of falling in love comes rarely in a person’s life, if we want to relive it, we have to do it vicariously, through books and movies.  Who wants realism in that?

In the end, I went back to my WIP with a critical eye.  I remembered some of the things I’ve read about editing.  In the end, the WIP belongs to the writer.  We want readers to love it, but not every bit of criticism, no matter how well meant, is good criticism.  That’s why it’s important to develop that critical skin as writers, where we can take criticism, chew it over, think about it (without getting insulted!), then separate out the usable parts from the not-so-usable parts.

After all, I’m one of your readers, and I’ll believe anything, as long as it makes sense in your universe.

Unorthodox- Right Here In the US

A new book came out yesterday, called Unorthodox, The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots.  It’s a memoir from Deborah Feldman, a young woman who grew up in a religious Hasidic Jewish community in New York.  I haven’t read it, but it sounds interesting, and a little frightening that someone in the US could grow up in such a repressive atmosphere.  Of course, that’s what religious freedom is about, isn’t it?  The right of a group to be repressive, if that’s what they believe is right…  Sorry, I digress.

The link below tells you a little bit more about the author and about the book.  It looks very interesting, and I’m going to try to find it at the library.  When I read it, I’ll review it, but with the way I don’t tend to read new books, that could be a year or two from now.

http://shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/unorthodox-womans-journey-repression-freedom-201000868.html