Books 2022 Reading Challenge

[Starlight]

i started negative space (2020) by b. r. yeager!

Welcome!!! Do you have a yearly goal amount in mind?

 

[Janp]

Time to properly focus on this challenge and write down my thoughts about each book. Spoilers ahead.

The Stand by Stephen King

Spoiler:

I started this book last year, but I had to put it aside because of reasons I described above/in the previous thread. What a behometh of a book. And one of the best King novel I've read so far. I love how eerie the beginning is. How the superflu slowly built up in the shadows. And then it hit and civilization collapsed. The second part of the book, in which everyone slowly got to Boulder was the weakest part in the book in my opinion. It had one excellent chapter full of classic King. It introduced several new characters and brutally murdered them by the end. I get that this part was mostly about developing the main cast and worldbuilding, but it felt like a chore to read after a while. But it was worth it, because the rest of the book was brilliant. The politics of Boulder Zone, the meetings and Harold's betrayal were all written so well. The climax was a little bit weaker, but I kinda expect that with King. I don't like the whole "hand of God" thing at the end, but I quite liked the rest of supernatural occurrences.

The characters were astounding and really one of King's biggest strength. My personal favourites are Tom Cullen, Stu and Glen. I'm especially glad Tom got so much attention in the last 100 pages. On the other hand, I didn't really like Randall Flagg or Mother Abagail. Randall was a weak villain. He was scary, but his plans went south before the main characters even got a chance to meddle with them. I completely agree with Glen's reaction, when he first met him face to face. Mother Abagail was selfish for most of the book and hid her decisions behind the "God". I'm not saying they weren't well written, I just didn't like what they were doing.

[1/14]

Next, I'll probably start reading The Witcher series. I still have a Jo Nesbø novel I started the last year, but I haven't got far in it, so I think I can read it later.

 

[Autumn94]

Just finished For Better Or Cursed by Kate Williams, so I'm at 2/40 books so far. Next up is finishing The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa and starting Smells Like Teen Spirit by Kate Williams

 

[Autumn94]

Just finished The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa, so I'm now at 3/40. About to start reading Iron's Prophecy by Julie Kagawa

 

[Mercurybro]

Finished a few books. 2/5 now, will take a break for the rest of this month as I need to focus on reading articles for coursework.

1. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
This was a quick, easy listen. I suppose since I have the book physically also, I can place this book on the shelf of stories that are great for a quick read on the beach or in a deck chair on a cruise. The story didn't seem very captivating to me, though.

2. Sooley - John Grisham
I thoroughly enjoyed the journey throughout Grisham's Sooley.
I prematurely expected this book to have a strong legal tone, given Grisham's works so far. I also stereotyped the perception of sports movies and assumed that this book would be a typical rags-to-riches story.

My expectations were boldly checked on both fronts.

Grisham may have been inspired to write Sooley because of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on basketball in the U.S., but this is a thoughtful story to contemplate for anyone that is rising and aspiring to fulfill their greatest dreams.

[2/5]

 

[tenfrogs]

I'd like to sign up! I've been meaning to get back into reading, this gives me a great chance!

I'd like to try 24 books. I think I can do a minimum of 2 a month. Will post back in the morning with the first book I'm reading!

 

[tenfrogs]

I have decided on my first two books!

Pokemon Adventures Vol. 1
Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 1

Acquired them today, about to start Pokemon right now. :D Here's my Goodreads profile!

 

[Autumn94]

Just finished Smells Like Teen Spirit by Kate Williams, so I'm now at 4/40 books read, about to start Iron's Prophecy by Julie Kagawa

 

[Ivysaur]

13.4: The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language - Mark Forsyth. I sure do love me some good book about words and how they came into existence.
13.6: Le groom vert-de-gris - Yann & Schwartz. Starting the Schwartz Trilogy from the Spirou series. It was a fun book, but the ending felt rushed and weird. We'll see how the sequels go.

 

[Duck]

Finished the 3 volumes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood.

Boy, I'd forgotten how terrible DIO was. I kinda wonder how his character will evolve throughout the series.

6 / 25

 

[Janp]

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

Spoiler:

Pretty standard dark fantasy book. All short stories, except for the titular The Last Wish, were enjoyable and great way to kill a time on train. I can see why The Witcher series never exploded in the west until the games came around. Sapkowski doesn't care about deep character/places descriptions or great/meaningful dialogue and sometimes fails to put some of his ideas into words, resulting in inconsistent story and characters. Some characters just turned their behavior by 180° between 2 paragraphs without any explanation. There was also this weird feeling in the back on my mind that this could be easily written by someone from Writer's Lounge. On the other hand, Sapkowski write excellent action. I enjoyed every single fight in the book. I also love how clever he was with references to Slavic folklore. Plus the character of Geralt is fine main character.

There are 7 more books in the series, so there is a hope that the quality will go up.

[2/14]

 

[Duck]

Finished with the 4 volumes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency.

This one is ... complicated. It's a bit of a bizarre story with some weird tonal clashes and I kinda miss Jonathan, even if his character was on the simpler side.

10 / 25

Edit:

Also finished with the 10 volumes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3: Stardust Crusaders.

I liked the road trip format, the introduction of stands, and making Joseph being the butt of the joke, but the story felt a bit meandering at times and all in all, I think it ran too long - they could have cut a lot of enemies and make for a better flow, in my opinion.

20 / 25

 

[Autumn94]

Finished Iron's Prophecy by Julie Kagawa, so I'm at 5/40 books so far.

Right now I'm starting The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa, and Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

 

[Duck]

And I also finished the 9 volumes for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable.

This felt a lot more street level than the other entries in a way that I appreciate. Kira is also a great villain, in ways that I frankly don't think DIO can ever hope to be (although DIO has his strong points as well, of course).

I do feel the ending fell a bit flat though, but so far it's my favorite part of Jojo.

I also very much appreciated the fact that this part dunked on Joseph a bit more, I really don't like Joseph. I don't appreciate the fact that they brought him in, and then forgot that the very reason they brought him in would have helped at the final arc, but that's for another time

29 / 25

 

[Duck]

I also finished JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind (or would it be GioGio's Bizarre Adventure?). Now, since the english repackaging haven't been completely finished by now (the 3rd volume is due to be released in March I think), I had to finish with Japanese scanlations and the Japanese system uses a different amount of volumes (~ 15).

So, for consistency's sake I decided to go with 9 volumes since 1) I've already shot through my goal, 2) the English release will probably have around this number of volumes anyways since it's more or less the same size as Diamond is Unbreakable and 3) I don't think mind if you undershoot, right?

As for the part itself ... it's one of the weaker ones in my opinion. The villains were meh - but then again, they're all kinda meh after Kira - and the ending gets absurdly confusing. Still better than Battle Tendency though.

37 / 25

 

[tenfrogs]

Oh I thought I posted in here!

I finished Vol. 1 of Pokemon Adventures, so now I'm on Vol. 1 and 2 of Tokyo Ghoul and Vol. 2 of Pokemon Adventures! Let's goooo!

 

[Janp]

Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski

Spoiler:

Just like the previous collection, this was pretty fine way to kill a time on a train. But I feel like the first few short stories were generic and predictable. The book goes back to rough and dark atmosphere of the first collection only after Ciri is introduced. I think ending the book with Something More would be perfect. But Sapkowski had to put a story about Geralt and Yennefer's wedding at the end. I get that this story was suppose to be non-canon comedy, but it is a bad one. It embodies everything bad about Sapkowski's writting. Boring dialogues, almost non-existent descriptions and random shifts in story and character's motivations. And while these are present in the whole book, they are not as prominent. Or as prominent as in the previous book. I like that there is more philosophizing and that it isn't limited to Geralt's point of view. I also enjoyed several newly introduced characters like Essi or Dudu.

Hopefully, the writting will get better, because I'm quite enjoying the world of The Witcher.

[3/14]

 

[Ivysaur]

13.8: La femme léopard - Yann & Schwartz
14: Le mâitre des hosties noires - Yann & Schwartz

Finishing the Yann & Schwarz "AU Spirou" trilogy before he publishes a new main series entry this year. Frankly, the former was a better adventure, even if technically a set-up for the latter. The leopard woman was a much better villain than the master of black hosts, who only really appears at the end of the story to be defeated by a mouse (yes) and then somehow decides to tell Spirou his tragic backstory for no good reason. I'm not extemely excited about Schwartz's art (admittedly it's better than Fournier's or Nic's efforts), but perhaps the 1946 vibe does a lot. I wonder what'll come out of new writers and a modern setting in his new story.

14.2: Tokio 2020 - Ibáñez. The yearly silly comic from the Spanish comic master.

Currently reading: Politics, history and a comic about vampires!

 

[Autumn94]

Finished the book Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher so I'm now at 6/40 books

 

[Finneari]

Oh, I'll join! I haven't had a good track record for finishing books lately, but I've been doing pretty well so far, so I'll give myself a goal of 25 for the year.

I recently finished Moon Called, by Patricia Briggs.