2015 Reading Challenge Update XI & XII

I completely forgot to update for November!  I just finished the challenge!!  It was fun, but I'm definitely ready for a break from reading.  I read seven books in November and only one in December if that tells you anything about how burned out (and busy) I am.

These aren't going to be in order because I was reading some of them at the same time (on two different devices) and I don't remember which ones I finished first.  So for November we have...

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I started reading Drama Geek, a free book on Amazon Kindle app, because I finished one in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep.  My first impression was "Ahhhhhh another first person, present tense ahhhhh!!!!!!"  Seriously why doesn't anyone write in past tense anymore??  After I got over that I actually really liked it.  It definitely was aimed at young adults, because I'm not sure most parents would want their teens reading this (language and suggestiveness).  The use of all caps for yelling was extremely annoying and really pulled me out of the story, but overall I enjoyed it and read it in two days.  It had a few typos and tense inconsistencies, but not enough to really bother me (or maybe I'm just numb to them after the one in October....).

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I chose Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes for my book with a number in the title because it's the first free one I found with a number in the title hehe.  I was happy to find that although this one was in first person it was in past tense!  Yay!  It was silly and weird, but I really loved it.  Seriously anyone with a sense of humor that likes love stories, character growth and a bit of a (slightly predictable) mystery will love this one.  I read it in two or three days.  It had a few typos, but not enough to really bother me.

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I chose Sherlock Holmes The Hound of the Baskervilles for my book that is over a hundred years old.  I have been curious about the Sherlock Holmes books for a long time because it has a huge fan base, people make references to it everywhere, it's mentioned in the dog mysteries series I read and the TV series looks interesting.  I was tired of not being in the know, so I used this as an opportunity to read one.  I don't know if my expectations were too high or if I just forgot that it was written over a hundred years ago, but it was difficult to get through.  I think I've been reading too many of these really simple books, so it took me a while to get used to the verbose language in this one.  I used to only read classics.  I grew up reading them.  I teethed on them.  They aren't foreign to me, it's just been a while and I'm a little rusty.  I also think I knew at one time that these were written in first person point of view and that they weren't in Sherlock's point of view, but I had completely forgotten that when I first started reading this.  It threw me off a bit and I had a really hard time getting into it.  In the end I enjoyed it and I liked the mystery.  It was slow paced and although reading it was a grind, my lasting impression of it is favorable.

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I chose The Scarlet Letter for a banned book because I read that 140 years later it was still being banned (reference link)......  It was awful.  It took me over a week to read it because I just couldn't concentrate on it for long periods of time.  The biggest problem is I was reading it on my tablet so the internet was only a click away.  It was easy to get distracted with something more interesting.  I would even find myself having read several pages with no memory of what I read because I was thinking about something else.  I didn't read the intro... the information at the end of the book was more interesting than the actual book.  There was a summary of the story at the end that basically told the whole story in three pages!!!!  It was truly agony getting through this book.  I'm not normally put off by long descriptions, but this book was so full of excess words that there were no actions.  Each chapter was long, but very little actually happened in them.  One whole chapter was her recognizing someone standing in a crowd... the whole chapter!!!  It was just overkill.

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I finished Scarlet Letter and was desperate to read something else, so I went through the free books looking for anything in past tense.  Senseless Attraction was the first one I found.  It was in first person, but I didn't mind as long as it wasn't present tense.  The first third of the book was interesting and a quick read.  Then it left on a cliffhanger and went to a whole new set of characters (but at least it was still in present tense... I have when they change tenses).  I've never been fond of books that switch point of view characters mid book, especially in first person, so I was irritated, but I kept reading anyway.  In no time I'd guessed what would happen.  The ending was very predictable.

The last half of the book (it was actually in three parts) was switching back and forth between the characters in each chapter... annoying.  The worst part is how much the personalities changed.  It's like the first two parts were written and then the author forgot everything about the characters in the last part.  They were even using pet named they had never used before.  It was very jarring.  Overall they would have been decent stories if they had been stand alone, but the way it was pieced together just didn't work for me.

It had that annoying high school drama "are you really that stupid" vibe, but it wasn't that bad.  I just didn't like how it was separated into three parts.  Also the parents were really weird and annoying.  Normal parents don't act that way and their jobs conveniently kept them out of the way so the kids could get into mischief.  So it was... eh.

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I chose The Catcher in the Rye for a book I should have read in high school because I read somewhere that the protagonist's fear for adulthood would make this book easy to relate to.  Seriously???  He wanders around New York for a few days and does basically nothing.  Nothing happens.  He learns nothing.  Nothing changes.  I don't want to give away too much about it so I won't bother saying anything else except every other word was practically a cuss word.  He also repeated himself a lot.  He called everyone old, said he hated everyone, everyone was a bore and he added "and all" to almost everything he said!  Maybe the only way I could relate to this is if I was a teenager?  Or a boy?  The absolute only thing I found endearing was his perception of time and the way he said something happened ten hours later (when it was just a few minutes) or he was a kid fifty years ago (when he's only a teen) because I used to do that (and probably still do).  The whole exaggeration of time for effect.  I've been known to call something older than dirt when in reality it's only a decade old or whatever.  At least that part made me grin.  Everything else was.... pointless.

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I chose The Diary of a Young Girl for my memoir.  I could relate to Anne Frank a lot more than Holden from Catcher in the Rye.  Maybe it's just a gender thing?  A teenage girl is easier to relate to than a boy for me I guess (which is why when I write my main character is always a girl!).  I can't believe I hadn't read this book earlier.  I read a version that had all of her original, uncensored writings in it (I think the first version published was edited by her father to keep from making people look bad).  It had a lot of information in the back too.  I've never read a book that is basically a compilation of diary entries before, but it didn't bother me at all.  It made the book quick to read because the chapters were short and sweet.  There wasn't a lot of word fill if that makes sense.  As I read this book, knowing it was a true story, my heart broke for Anne.  The things she went through, the things she missed out on, knowing what happened to her before I started reading, etc.  It all made reading it very emotional for me.  I'm a very empathetic person.  I could easily imagine what it would have been like to be in her position as I read.  It is a valuable book to read for perspective, but it is heartbreaking.  I wish things could have been different.  I wish she could have known that she managed to write a book that is still being read so many years later (she wanted to be a writer).  Anyway I could go on and on, but I'd be saying the same things over again.  I'm very glad I read this book.

That was all for November.  For December there is only one book and that finished out my 2015 Reading Challenge!!

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I chose Nora Roberts' Irish Thoroughbred for a popular author's first book.  It had horses in it!  Easy choice!  The amount of time it took me to read this is no reflection on the book.  I was just finally tired of reading and was busy doing other things.  I went for a couple of weeks in the middle of this book without reading it.  I enjoyed it, although it wasn't nearly as good as her later stuff (obviously).  She's grown a lot as an author from her first book.  I enjoyed the characters, but the story was a little slow and just lacked some meat to it.  It just couldn't hold my interest very well with all the other stuff going on right now (need to do a blog post!).  I actually have the trilogy that is linked above so I'm going to go ahead and read the other two books, but it's not part of the challenge so they won't be listed here.

So that brings the challenge to an end.  I really enjoyed this!  It was so fun to keep track of everything I read for a year and sharing my impressions of them.  I think I'm going to continue tracking what I read and writing my impressions, even if I don't share them here.  It's really fun to go back and read what I thought of a book.  :D  I hope you enjoyed following my reading challenge.  My mom did it too (she's the one who introduced me to the idea) and she totally smoked me.  She's a fast reader!!  My dad loves to read too.  It's no wonder I love it.  It's just in my genes hehe.

Here is the final list.  It does not include a book I didn't finish and a book I reread.  It does include new books I read that may not apply to the list.  My total for the year was fifty eight (can't forget the trilogy) and a half books.  I'm linking each book to the post about them instead of to Amazon like they are in my sidebar.

1. Share & Share Alike by Hannah Hooten for a book I started but never finished.
2. Barker Street Regular (Dog Lover's Mystery) by Susan Conant for a mystery or thriller.
3. Trixie Beldon Book 1 The Secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell Tatham for a book I can finish in a day.
4. Trixie Beldon Book 2 Red Trailer Mystery by Julie Campbell Tatham for a book with a color in the title.
5. Trixie Beldon Book 3 The Gatehouse Myster by Julie Campbell Tathem for a book your mom loves.
6. Playing For Love (Summer Beach Vets 1) - Escape Down Under -  by H.Y. Hanna for a book set in a different country.
7. Curse of the Scarabs by H.Y. Hanna for a book with nonhuman characters.
8. Evil Breeding by Susan Conant for a book from an author I love that I hadn't read yet.
9. Unlisted for a book written by an author with my initials.
10. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns for a book that became a movie.
11. Creature Discomforts by Susan Conant for a book I own but hadn't read yet.
12. To kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee for a Pulitzer Prize winning book.
13. Cold Fire by Tamora Pierce for a book with magic.
14. TinTin in Tibet by Herge for a graphic novel.
15. Dragon Fantastic for a book of short stories.
16. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell for a book with more than 500 pages.
17. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho for a book that was originally written in a different language.
18. The Perfect Date by R.L. Stine for a book from my childhood.
19. Hidden Riches by Nora Roberts for a book by a female author.
20. The I's of Iris by Gayle Sliva for a book by an author I'd never read before.
21. Melting Into You by Tracey Alvaraz for a book set somewhere I've always wanted to visit.
22. The Rancher's Promise by Jillian Hart for a book based entirely on it's cover.
23.  The Playboy's Redemption by Diana Fraser for a book a friend recommended.
24. The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde for a play.
25. Absolute Fear by Lisa Jackson for a book that scares me.
26.  Playing to Win by H.Y. Hanna wasn't part of the challenge.
27.  The Netherfield Affair by Penelope Swan for a book published this year.
28. Hunger Games by Susanne Collins for a trilogy.
29.  Aurora by Steve Lowe for a book at the bottom of my to read list.
30.  Red Rising by Pierce Brown for a book written by someone under 30.
31.  Summer Beach Bride (Summer Beach Vet series) by H.Y. Hanna wasn't part of the challenge. 
32.  Wicked by Gregory Maguire for a book with bad reviews.
33.  Veronica Mars by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham for a book based on or turned into a TV show.
34.  He Sees You When You're Sleeping by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark for a book set during Christmas,
35.  Hot Ice by Nora Roberts for a book with antonyms in the title.
36.  Birthright by Nora Roberts for a book with a one word title.
37.  Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy by Douglas Adams for a funny book.
38. The Wicked Flea by Susan Conant wasn't part of the list.
39. The summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han for a book that made me cry.
40. Sing For Us by Steven Wise for a book based on a true story.
41. Rebecca  by Daphne Du Maurier for a classic romance.
42.  Anxiety by Chris Kelly for a nonfiction book.
43.  Confessions of a Kleptomaniac by Jessica Sorensen for a book set in high school.
44.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen for a book with a love triangle.
45.  Unlisted for a book set in my hometown,
46. Unlisted for a book that came out the year I was born.
47. B The Exxtinction by Santiago Mantilla for a book set in the future.
48.  Drama Geek by SM Dritschilo wasn't part of the challenge.
49.  Twenty-Eight and a half Wishes by Denis Grover Swank for a book with a number in the title.
50.  Sherlock Holmes Hound of Baskervilles by Sir Arther Conan Doyle for a book over 100 years old.
51.  The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for a banned book.
52.  Senseless Attraction  by Lila Rose wasn't part of the challenge.
53.  Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger for a book I should have read in high school but didn't.
54.  Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank for a memoir.
55.  Irish Thoroughbred by Nora Roberts for a first book by a popular author.

The Amazon links are in the sidebar or on the individual posts.  That was a lot of fun!  Now bear with me and I'll try to get an update post up soon.  I know I've been very scarce in bloggerland lately.  Everything is fine, so no worries!

2015 Reading Challenge Update X

Wow I did a really great job last month!!  I read eight books and I'm halfway through another one!  Granted they were fairly short books, but I'm really excited.  The past two weeks have royally SUCKED because everyone at work is sick (except me... so far....) so I've been doing a lot of reading to try to relieve stress (being around sick people stresses me out).  It truly is my go to coping mechanism when my anxiety or stress levels are high.  So it's been good for the challenge at least haha.  I now only have six (actually five and a half) books to go.  I was feeling overwhelmed for a while thinking I wasn't going to make it, but these shorter books have been a huge help in getting caught up.  I'm so glad I got the long ones out of the way at the beginning of the year, especially Gone With the Wind since it had eight or nine hundred pages.  So enough rambling, here's what I read for October.

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I read Sing For Us for the based on a true story.  It was set during the civil war and was actually a really good book.  It's funny because I really don't like war movies, but books are usually good.  Of course it wasn't really in the middle of the war.  It was actually about a Confederate hospital close to the end of the war and was a love story.  I wasn't too sure about it at first, but by the time I finished it I liked it.  It has some really sad parts in it, especially knowing that stuff like that really happened.  Some of it was really gross too by the way!  Overall I enjoyed it.

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Rebecca was suggested to me for classic romance and the person compared it to Wuthering Heights (okay didn't really compare it, but said if I liked Wuthering Heights I would like this).  I loved Wuthering Heights so I was excited to read this, however the comparison gave me expectations that were wrong.  This book was not set in the same time frame and it took me a bit to realize that.  When I first started reading it the first person point of view totally threw me for a loop because nobody wrote in first person at the time Wuthering Heights was written (well not that I've read anyway).  Once it finally sunk it what time it was set in I really enjoyed the book.  It was strange and different, but I liked it!  It doesn't really send out a very good message... but it was good lol.

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I wanted to get the non-fiction category over with so I started looking through the Kindle Unlimited stuff on Amazon (I had a free trial) for the shortest non-fiction book I could find.  I knew if I started reading one of my horse books it would take forever for me to finish it, because I like to slowly peruse them and absorb what I'm reading (not to mention some of them are really long and most of them I've already read a lot of and I didn't want to read something I'd already started).  I found this anxiety book and figured I would give it a shot, since I have problems with anxiety.  I'll just say... I'm glad it was really short.  I don't even remember much of it because it was mostly stuff I already knew.  Oh well, at least that dreaded category is over with.  :)

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I read Confessions of a Kleptomaniac for the set in high school book.  It was kind of weird... I'm really not a huge fan of switching points of view (although they did at least only switch in different chapters), especially in first person present (why is that all anyone writes anymore??????), but at least they were consistent.  Once I got used to the flow of the story I did actually like this one.  The characters were interesting and the story was definitely different from anything I've read before.  This was another Kindle Unlimited book.  I made good use of my trial lol.

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I borrowed the movie Water For Elephants from a friend.  I'd been wanting to see it because the book started out as a NaNoWriMo novel!!  Learn more about NaNoWriMo here.   I'm a huge fan of NaNo, so this has been on my list a while.  I really enjoyed the movie so I started looking for the book and I found it on Kindle Unlimited (yay free trial!!).  It was different from the movie, but I loved them both equally (rare for me)!  Again it was first person present tense... does anyone write in third person anymore????  It seemed to work well for this one though, but it's really been an adjustment reading all of these present tense books.  I really, really enjoyed learning more about how the circuses used to be.  The facts in this book were so interesting.  The author spent a lot of time on her research!  I enjoyed reading more about her too.  :)

I didn't have a category in mind when I read this one (I wanted to read it before my trial ran out), but I decided to put it in the love triangle category and I'm moving Wicked to the book with bad reviews category.  I was having trouble finding a book with bad reviews because I was looking for one that had mostly or all bad reviews.  That's really hard to find.  On Amazon and Goodreads both you rarely find a book under three stars.  Then I realized I could interpret it differently... it's says a book with bad reviews... it doesn't say how many bad reviews.  So technically any book with more than one bad review would fit this category.  Wicked had quite a few bad ones and to be honest my own for it isn't great, so I figure it works.  :)

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This is going to be a first for me... I HATED this book! I chose B The Exxtinction for the future book because it's set in 2034 and it was on Kindle Unlimited (thank heavens I didn't pay for this one... if I had I would have burned it and I truly respect books).

This book is without a doubt the worst book I have ever read in my entire life!  The only reason I finished it is because it's short and I really wanted to see if it could get any worse lol.  Not only is it full of typos but it has chapters that are in first person present tense and other chapters that are in third person past tense.  Who does that??  That's bad enough, but there were even sentences that were half present and half past tense!  In the same sentence!  What the heck???  This author should NEVER write in present tense ever again (if he should even write anything at all... the idea behind the story wasn't that bad, but I couldn't enjoy it because everything else was horrible).  I don't think this book was proofread at all.  It also broke one of the biggest rules of writing in present tense... the main character tells parts of the story in first person present tense of things that were happening somewhere else!!  The whole point behind first person is that you're only supposed to know what the character knows.  They can't know what is happening miles away in present tense!  This book should never have been written in present tense.  It would have been so much better in third person past tense!  Why doesn't anyone write fantasy or sci-fi in past tense anymore?

I've been reading a lot of self published books this year and I try to ignore the typos because it happens, but I couldn't ignore the constant and repeating errors in this book.  The writing was so stilted that there was no flow at all.  The grammar, the punctuation, the spelling... all horrible.  He couldn't even get redneck right!!  He left the apostrophe out of y'all.  Some examples of the horrible grammar and spelling are... creator was used TWICE for crater... lighting instead of lightning... your instead of you're... whaling instead of wailing (seriously??)...  I can care less instead of I cannot care less... peaks my interest instead of piques my interest...  crevasse instead of crevice... what is really funny is he tried to use a bunch of big words to sound smart, but couldn't even get the simple words right.  Something else that annoyed me to no end is he kept using "I will like to say" instead of "I would like to say".  I've never seen anyone write or heard anyone say "I will like to say"...

Anyway I could go on and on... it isn't like me to completely trash a book like this, but it truly was horrible...  I did realize after I'd finished reading it that the author's name is Santiago Mantilla... which is Spanish... so maybe English isn't his native language... in which case he should have paid a proofreader before publishing.  The truly awful thing is that it has four 5 star reviews on Amazon... hahahaha!!!  Anyway I'll quit rambling on about this book.

So the other two books I read were for the categories "A book that takes place in your hometown" and "A book that came out the year you were born".  For obvious reasons I'm not writing the titles on here.  It's probably a good thing anyway because the book I read for my hometown was bad... not as bad as the above book, but I didn't like it.  The one I read that came out the year I was born I really liked though.  :)

The only categories I have left are:

1. A book with a number in the title - Was thinking of Fahrenheit 451 if I can find it.  Anyone read that?
2. A popular author's first book - Already have this one picked out.
3. A book more than 100 years old - halfway done with this one.
4. A book you were supposed to read in high school, but haven't
5. A memoir
6. A banned book

P.S.  If anyone made suggestions for any of these categories and I didn't use them, it was nothing against you.  I just couldn't find them for free.  I've been getting all of these books from my mom, the library, free on Amazon or with my free trial on Kindle Unlimited.  I can't afford to buy all of these books, so I hope I didn't offend anyone by not using your suggestion.  I really appreciate all of your help!

2015 Reading Challenge Progress IX

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I got a bunch of Nora Roberts books for really cheap at a yard sale (they were less that 25 cents a piece) so I've been taking them to work for something to read.  They are much better than the stuff that's available up there lol.  This one fits the category of a book with antonyms in the title.  I wasn't sure I'd like this book because I had just read He Sees You When You're Sleeping and that wasn't my favorite, but I loved this book.  I don't know how Nora Roberts does it but her books just draw me in and I can't put them down.  This had such interesting characters and even the story line was unique and interesting.  I definitely enjoyed it.

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I was skeptical reading another Nora Roberts book back to back, because normally I don't like that unless it's a series with the same characters, but I loved this one too!  The story line of this one was definitely one of a kind and really interesting.  I did not guess the ending at all!!  This one fits the one word title category.

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I think I'm too dumb to truly appreciate this book (quantum physics has never really been my thing lol). I'm putting this in the funny book category because I did laugh out loud at some of the jokes and funny books are hard to find it seems like... I was seriously thinking about reading a Hank the Cowdog book because I couldn't find anything and I loved those books when I was a kid.  Once I realized what year this book was written I did understand a little better why everything thought it was so great.  It mentions touch screens before touch screens were a thing lol.  Still... wasn't my favorite.

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I finished the previous book in the middle of the night and didn't have a book on my nook that applied to the list so I just started the next Susan Conant book.  Once I start one I have to finish it even if I can't find a category it fits in.  I loved this, obviously, it's been one of my favorite series hehe.  It seemed like she spent a lot of time explaining dog facts in this one where she didn't do that in the previous ones, but I still liked it.  One of the things I really enjoyed about this series is that when I started reading it I noticed how it talked about dogs like the reader already knows a lot about them and is already just as obsessed hehe.  :)

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The high school librarian at the school where my husband works is helping me find books for the challenge (because I was running out of stuff I already had) and she chose this one for the based in high school book.  Unfortunately it's based during summer, so it doesn't apply to that category, but the ending made my teary eyed so I'll put it in the book that made me cry category (I had put one in that category before, but I moved some around so it's still available).  The ending was kind of expected, but the way it put you in the main characters point of view so strongly it did get to me more than I thought it would.  I didn't care for how it jumped around in the beginning, but once I got into the story I realized how it was kind of necessary to really show me who the main character was.  I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Well that's all for September.  I'm already halfway through two other books (one I don't think applies... ugh!), but they will go in the October post.  :)  I seriously need to read more!  I'm running out of time!!!!

P.S.  I really could use suggestions for the rest of the categories, especially a classic romance, a book I was supposed to read in school but didn't, a book with bad reviews, a book set in the future, a book set in high school and a banned book.

2015 Reading Challenge Progress VIII

I'm behind in posting this. I've been really busy, so I only read three books for August. I'm going to have to get it in gear if I'm going to complete this challenge in time!!

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I started reading Wicked by Gregory Maguire with the intention of it being for my one word title category, but then I realized it actually fits in the love triangle category so I'm going with that.  The one word title will be much easier to find another one for.  I loved the idea of this book.  I was never really a fan (because we watched it too much when I was a kid) of Wizard of Oz, but I appreciated it as a classic so the idea of learning the history of the wicked witch of the west was a really cool idea.  In that sense I really did enjoy the book.  However it was really weird at certain points and the language was very... I don't know... silly or something.  It's like he just strung together long sentences of big words just to seem smart or fill space, but they made no sense.  It was very bizarre.  If you're interested, click on the Amazon link and read the review that someone did called Wicked Sucks because that person wrote it better than I could.  So I'm in love with the idea, but not a huge fan of the book... I did finish it though!

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Okay confession time.  Veronica Mars is one of my all time favorite T.V. shows (right up there with Gilmore Girls and Big Bang Theory)!!  So when I heard there was going to be a book I jumped on the chance to read it for my based after a T.V. show category.  :D  It did not disappoint!!!!  It picks up right where the Veronica Mars movie left off, completely got all of the characters right and was just all around amazing!!  I don't know what else to say about it except that I loved it.  It was a short, easy read too.  I also just realized there is a second book!  Yay!!!!!

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I read this one for the set during Christmas category. It was meh.  Not bad, but not mind blowing either.  Kind of slow and predictable.  Cute story idea though.  :)

I've already finished one book for September, so fingers crossed I get more read this month!

2015 Reading Challenge Progress VII

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Penelope Swan is a pen name for my friend HY Hanna that has written the Beach Vet books and the Honey mysteries that I've read for this challenge and posted about several times.  The Netherfield Affair was a variation on Pride and Prejudice.  I really liked it!!  She kept true to the characters and it was like reading a book by Jane Austin!  I can't wait to read the others.  This is going in my category for a book published this year.

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I read the Hunger Games for my trilogy.  I've been meaning to read these for a long time, but I just never got around to it.  I had seen the first movie when it came out and absolutely loved it.  The books are just as good or better.  I loved them!  I liked the first one the best.  The other two had some slow spots, but they redeemed themselves.  I wasn't totally happy with the ending of the final book, but it wasn't horrible.  If you liked the movie you really should read the books.  It's totally worth it.  :D

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Aurora is a book I found on the shelf at work.  I like to read during my breaks, but the choices are very few and most are really not my kind of book.  I picked this one for my one word title because it was the smallest book with one word, but within a chapter it quickly made it's way into the category of a book at the bottom of my to read list.  It was awful!!!!!!!  I'm so not into political books and it was so boring!  Glad to have that dreaded category done at least.  Also to keep from totally bashing this book I did like the end of it.  Basically the last two chapters or so lol.

LINK

Red Rising is for my author under thirty years old category.  I had never heard of it before, but when they compared it to Hunger Games I was immediately intrigued (and now I want to read Ender's Game since they also compared it to that too).  When I started out reading this book I was really unsure...  The first person present tense was the same as Hunger Games, but I didn't see anything else similar.  It took a while before it got to the part that resembles it.  In the end I absolutely love this book!  I can't wait for the rest of the trilogy to come out!

LINK

This is another HY Hanna book.  It's actually book five in the Summer Beach Vet series.  I loved it because it brought back the people from earlier books and added in new characters.  It was a lot of fun to read and I loved all of the characters, new and old.  This one doesn't fit into a category.

I also realized that a book I read last month called Playboy's Redemption can actually go into the recommended by a friend category.  :D  So that only leaves two books that don't fit into categories.  So 29 down and 21 to go!  I did great this month though.  I read seven books (even though the trilogy only counts as one) and I'm halfway done with another one (I read one book at home and one at work so I'm always reading two).  Sadly the reason I got so much reading done is because it's been so hot outside and I've been injured for most of the month.  Sucks!!  So thankful I have my books to escape into. :)

2015 Reading Challenge Progress VI

The Playboy's Redemption by Diana Fraser was one of the books in the Love Down Under romance box set that I was asked to read and review.  It is the second book.  This wasn't my favorite.  I liked the characters, but they were way too hung up on the past.  There wasn't enough action I guess to really grab my attention.  It wasn't bad, just not my favorite.  As part of a box set I wouldn't have been disappointed in it since the others were totally worth the money spent. 

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is a play.  I think this is the first play I've ever read.  I loved it!!!  It was so funny!  It's very short, but totally engaging all the way through.  I'm glad my first play to read turned out to be a good one. I wouldn't mind reading more like it! 

Absolute Fear by Lisa Jackson is a horror, suspense, or something like that novel about a serial killer.  I don't really read books like this (I think the only other horror book I've read was Rose Madder by Steven King... yikes!), so I was not expecting to like this at all... I was pleasantly surprised!!  It wasn't so gross that I couldn't read it, although maybe slightly more graphic than I tend to prefer, but it just pulls you in!  I never guessed who the killer was (well I guessed the connection to the main character, but not who it actually was until it was revealed) and I never expected the ending.  Very surprising twist!  I'm putting this in the category of book that scared me... the book itself didn't scare me, but the idea of having a serial killer who is obsessed with me is terrifying so I'm going to let it count LOL!!  I have a feeling any one of the Steven King books would scare the bejeebers out of me, but I'm really not interested in losing sleep over a book challenge so this is as scary as it gets. ;)

Playing to Win by H.Y. Hanna is another one from the Love Down Under box set that I was asked to read and review.  It also doesn't really fit a category, but like all of her books that I've read so far I loved it!!  It was the second book in her Summer Beach Vets series.  It was fun getting to know more about Ellie.  As usual I loved the characters and it had a great story too.  Since these books aren't falling into any of my book challenge categories I'm going to have to wait to finish the box set because I'm falling behind on the challenge.  I will finish it though because I've enjoyed reading them so far.

2015 Reading Challenge Progress V

 I have been so disorganized with my reading challenge!!  Most of what I'm reading I don't know if it even applies to the list!  I'm going to sit down this weekend and try to figure out what categories I've completed and which ones I still need to do so I don't miserably fail this challenge.  For now, here is what I've read for May.

The Perfect Date is one I read at work.  There is a limited supply of books there (and I'm not taking my Nook up there!) so it's slim pickings.  I used to read R.L. Stine when I was a kid so I might be able to make this apply to the list.  My opinion of this book is.... uhh... I liked them better as a kid I think.  It was fairly predictable, a little slow, but there was a surprising twist in the epilogue.  It was good for passing time at work.  :)

Hidden Riches is one I started out reading at work... the toddler that I babysit at the feed store is obsessed with playing with the Reader's Digest books they have up there.  She always hands me one and tells me to read it while she pretends to read one (she's three).  One day instead of pretending to read I actually started reading this.  Then when she was napping I started reading it again.  I was hooked.  Then I started wondering how much I was missing out on because I've never read the digest form of a book, so I checked to see if my mom had the ebook (she did) and I started reading it over from the beginning at home.  Wow they take out a lot!!  Whole scenes!!  So I won't be reading digest forms of books ever again.  I really enjoyed this book.  There was something I didn't like about it, but I finished it so long ago now I don't remember what it was, but for the most part it was great.  I really enjoyed the characters.

The I's of Iris is one I've been wanting to read for a while because it's written by one of my favorite bloggers at Nuzzling Muzzles.  I'd never read a book about a psychic before so I was really curious about this one before I even started it.  The beginning was a little confusing, but the end was an on the edge of your seat, can't put it down, what in the heck is going to happen kind of book!!  I was totally blown away by the plot twist (not giving anything away hehe) and I loved it!!

Melting Into You is a romance book that I was asked to read as part of a box set called Love Down Under (they are all in Australia).  There are eight books in the set, so I'm glad this was a quick read.  The one I'm really impatient to read is the fourth one because it's written by fellow blogger Hsin-Yi (blog here) that I've known for years (she also wrote the Big Honey Dog mystery for kids based on the Great Dane she had and the Beach Vet book that I read already for part of this challenge).  So anyway this book Melting Into You was actually really good.  I totally fell in love with the characters.  The euphemisms were distracting and made me giggle.  It was weird because the author used euphemisms for some words and not others that you would think she would have.  It was odd, but it didn't really take away from the story or anything.  This was a great book and I'm looking forward to reading the rest in the box set.

The Rancher's Promise is another book I read at work (can you tell I spend more time awake at work than I do at home lately??).  I picked this one based solely on the cover (hello horses!  I didn't read the description) since that is one of the categories for the challenge.  Um... the cover is really nice... the book was kind of boring.  I didn't enjoy it very much at all to be completely honest.  The entire book was I can't love her, I can't love him, she doesn't love me, he doesn't love me, why doesn't she love me, why doesn't he love me, etc.  It was totally predictable and didn't really have much of a plot other than them constantly coming up with reasons they couldn't admit they loved each other.  Rather annoying.  I understand it is supposed to be a "clean" romance (they only kiss), but it wasn't that romantic to me.  It was just two undecided, prideful people who wouldn't openly and honestly communicate with each other.  If they'd just say what the heck was on their mind the book would have been two pages long.  Anyway sorry for the harsh review.  Maybe it's just not my cup of tea.  I was reading it at the same time as Melting Into You and although I don't normally read hard core romance but I much preferred it to this one.

I'm glad I actually managed to read quite a few books this month, but I'm concerned that I won't be able to make them fit into the challenge list... if they don't all fit a category then I am way behind!  Hmm... I'll figure it out.  :)

ETA:  I did manage to fit all 22 books I've read this year into a category.  To see which category they are in see the list in the sidebar.  :)

2015 Reading Challenge Progress IV

I've been so busy!  Sorry I'm so late with my reading challenge progress post!!

I read Tintin in Tibet for my graphic novel and because I've always wanted to read one before hehe.  It was great!!  I've never read a graphic novel before, so I didn't really know what to expect.  I'm not used to having pictures to look at so I was reading the words and kept getting really confused because I didn't know what they were talking about.  I went back and looked at the pictures and all of a sudden it made sense and was so funny!!!  Some of the things they say are so funny mostly because they aren't anything anyone in the U.S. says hehe.  I really liked it.

Dragon Fantastic is a book of short stories by different authors.  I was at work and had finished reading Cold Fire, so I went through the limited selection of books they have and saw this one.  I like fantasy books and dragons so I figured I'd give it a try.  I didn't realize at first that it was short stories.  I'm not really a huge fan of short stories.  I like to read really long series because I get so fond of the characters I'm always sad to see a book/series end.  Short stories don't give you enough time to learn to like the characters lol.  It actually really worked out well for work though since I'm interrupted constantly.  It had a bunch of really short stories. Some were boring, some were really funny, some had good messages and some were mildly entertaining.  It fulfills the need for a book of short stories on my list and it was entertaining for slow times at work.  :)

I LOVED Gone with the Wind!!!!  I honestly don't even know what to say, because it was so awesome.  I thought there was no way I would like it from the snippets I'd seen of the movie when I was a kid (in the process of watching that from beginning to end for the first time ever... it's long!), but I was wrong.  It's so funny because normally I don't like books where I hate all (okay most) of the characters, but in this one I loved to hate them!  I don't want to give anything away in case you haven't read it and want to, but I recommend it (not done with the movie but I can already tell you the book was better).  It's LONG!  Like 900 pages long!  So I'm using this one for my book that is more than 500 pages on the list.  :)  Oh and I would totally read this book again!  The funny thing is when I started reading it, the first chapter went on and on and on and on and on about this one conversation and only halfway through it I was ready to scream!  I was actually not going to read it, but mom told me to stick with it and I'm glad I did!  There are long winded parts, but it's totally worth it.  :)  P.S.  My only complaint about this one was the ending... I like a book to have all the loose ends neatly tied up.  I forgive this one though because she did such an incredible job writing it and she was making a point which was perfectly made by leaving it open ended.  :)

I read The Alchemist for my book that was originally written in a different language.  All I can say is I'm glad it was only 100 pages.  I can normally read 100 pages in a day, but this one took me a week or two.... it's not that it was a bad book... it was just really different, kind of boring... it's hard to explain.  :\

I hope you guys are enjoying following my progress and my reviews.  Sorry these weren't the best reviews.  I was in a hurry because I have to go to bed ASAP!  Night guys!

2015 Reading Challenge Progress III

 I only read three books for March because I've been so busy, but here they are.  Also if you want to see the rest of my posts on the challenge click here.  I'm still really enjoying this challenge.  I'm not burned out on it at all (I kind of expected to be by now).  :)

Creature Discomforts is another Susan Conant book from the Dog Lover's Mystery series.  Once again this really doesn't fit into the challenge but I started reading it because I finished a book in the middle of the night and needed something to help me go to sleep.  Then once I start reading a book I have to finish it.  I really, really enjoyed this one.  It had a different twist to it that freshened up the series a lot.  It also kind of had a cliffhanger at the end that has me dying to read the next book!!  I'm going to try to focus on my challenge though so it might be a while hehe.

I actually never read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was a kid (bad me I know), but I'm kind of glad I didn't because it fits into the challenge for a Pulitzer Prize winning book, a book that was turned into a movie or under the a book I should have read in high school category!  I LOVED this book!!!!!  I don't know what I loved about it so much, but I did.  I'm really enjoying reading these old books set in the south (teaser: I'm reading Gone With the Wind right now)!  The only thing I didn't like is that I want to know what happened to the kids when they grew up, but the most exciting news of all is that there is a sequel coming out sometime this year!  I'm so excited!  I can't wait to read it!

Cold Fire is the third book in the Circle Opens series by Tamora Pierce.  I read her Circle of Magic series when I was a kid and really enjoyed it.  This series is about the same four characters a few years later.  I started reading this book because it was on the shelf available for sale at work and I was bored.  I actually started reading it last December, but only now finished it because I don't have much time to read at work.  I really liked it.  It was fun to find out what happened to the same characters years down the road.  It had some slow spots, but not too bad.  Now I want to read the other three books too hehe, but they aren't at the store (they sell and trade used books).  This book fits in the a book from my childhood category.  :)

Well that's all for March.  I'm reading Gone with the Wind right now and it has 900 pages so I'm hoping I can finish it in April (200 pages in so far), but if I don't it's not a big deal.  I'm enjoying it so far!  Check back at the end of April to see if I finish it in time hehe!

2015 Reading Challenge Progress II

 I'm a little behind, but here are the books I read in February for the 2015 reading challenge!  To see my other posts on the challenge click here.  I didn't get as many books read this month because I was sick and I've been working a LOT of extra hours at work because my boss is injured.  I've been adjusting my schedule for much earlier hours than I'm used to and that leaves me so exhausted I can't read much at night before bed.  I am adjusting though and hopeful that my schedule can go back to normal soon, so hopefully I can get back on track.

I started off with Curse of the Scarabs by H.Y. Hanna.  You may notice that I read one of her books in January as well.  Some of you might know her from the Big Honey Dog blog actually.  I've been following her blog for years (I think since 2008 or 2009), so I'm very excited about her new writing career and self publishing.  It's been a dream come true for her and I'm so proud of her for going for it!  I've been wanting to read her books since she first published them, but I was in the middle of this long series and I have trouble putting a series down once I'm hooked.  I'm very happy that this challenge has given me the chance to read her books.  I LOVED this book!  It is very well written, very entertaining and it even made me cry.  If you love dogs, even if you're an adult, you can't go wrong with reading this book.  :D  This book could go in the made me cry, non human characters and female author categories.

I finished the Curse of the Scarabs in the middle of the night as usual and couldn't go to sleep, but I didn't have a book from my list on my Nook so I just grabbed Evil Breeding, the next book in the Dog Lover's Mystery series I was reading right before I started the challenge.  It helped me fall asleep, but once I start a book I can't just quit reading it, so I finished it and added it to the list.  This was not one of my favorites that she's written.  It was a great book with an interesting mystery, but it just dragged a bit for me.  I would still recommend all of the books in her series though if you love dogs and mysteries.
 
The next book I read was for the book written by an author with your same initials.  For the sake of internet anonymity I won't mention the title (if you know me on Facebook and want to know, just send me a message and I'll share it), but trust me you aren't missing out because it sucked.  It was the worst book I have read in years.  For that reason it took me a long time to read it because I tend to procrastinate if I'm not enjoying the story.  I did get it read though... finally.  I at least have that category checked off the list.

 The last book, Cold Sassy Tree, I actually finished last night, but since I read the majority of it in February I'm going to go ahead and include it.  This was a long book that I thought I wouldn't like at first because it seemed to drag at first, but I really did enjoy it!  It gives a fascinating look into what life was like in 1906.  I really, really enjoyed that aspect of it.  The redneck Southern lingo was hilarious.  Even though I'm from the south I do NOT talk like that hehe.  Okay I admit I'll sometimes say ya'll, but I'm telling you the language was so funny.  I really liked that once I got used to it.  I've started saying some of it out loud though... ahhh!!! ;)  I will warn you though, if you're a fan of neatly wrapped happy endings with no loose ends don't touch this book with a ten foot pole!!  However if you enjoy a really great book with characters that you will love like your own family and don't mind bawling your eyes out like a baby I totally recommend this book.  This one definitely falls into the category of a book that made me cry.  It also goes in the book by an author I've never read.  There are probably others, but I'm too tired to go look so I'll figure all of that out later.

Anyway I'm still really enjoying this challenge and I hope you're enjoying my short reviews and following along on my progress.  My mom and I are having so much fun we are thinking about doing this every year!  :D

2015 Reading Challenge Progress

I'm having so much fun with the reading challenge (see my other posts here)!  The interesting thing is that a lot of these books could go in multiple categories, so I'm not pinning them down just yet.  I'm writing them down along with whatever categories they could go in and I'll make it final at the end of the year.  Heck I might even read extras by accident lol.  It's February now and I've read six books.  So far, so good!

Here's what I've read so far as well as the categories they will fit in.  :D

Amazon link here.

I started reading the Dog Lover's Mysteries by Susan Conant in 2014.  They can be a little slow sometimes so they are actually really great for reading at night before bed when I'm trying to fall asleep (that can be difficult for me sometimes).  This one actually wasn't one of my favorites.  It has a Sherlock Holmes theme and I've never read them so I felt a little out of the loop.  It actually really made me want to read them though so maybe I'll figure out how to add them to the list lol!!  I really have enjoyed all of her books though.  This is the eleventh book.  I really like the series because it doesn't dumb down the dog talk (although it does sometimes go into long explanations that us dog people don't really need).  I love reading a book where dog terms and training are tossed around like everyone understands it hehe.  Also in the later books she even gets into clicker training so that's AWESOME!  She has Alaskan Malamutes too!  :D  Yep, if you are a dog lover with a sense of humor who likes mysteries and can be patient through the slow spots you will love these.  This book falls into the mystery category or a book by a female author.

Amazon link here.

This is a book that I was asked to review.  I didn't like it the first time I tried to read it in July of 2014 so I quit reading it.  That makes it perfect for a book you started but never finished category.  I ended up really liking it.  You can read my full review on my other blog here.

Amazon link here.

I had never heard of the Trixie Beldon books before mom told me about them.  I don't remember how she found them, but she really liked this one and recommended it to me.  So it fits under the categories of a book your mom loves and a book by a female author. This one also fits under a book you can read in one day, because I did read it in one night.  I LOVE them!  It was written in 1948 and I love that!  It feels like books written for teens these days are kind of dumbed down, but these aren't.  I love the language and grammar in them.  These kids use words at thirteen that an eighteen year old these days might not know and it was normal back then!  I probably sound like a total snob saying that.... but it can be so true sometimes.  Obviously it's not true about everyone.  There are a lot of bright kids even now... but anyway you get the idea.  These are really entertaining and fun.  I'm having a hard time putting them down as you'll see below hehe.

Amazon link here.

This is the second book in the Trixie Beldon series and it was just as good as the first one, although I didn't finish it in one day because of that little thing called a job lol.  It fits under the book my mom loves or female author categories though.  Oh and all of these count for the mystery category.  I've really been a fan of mysteries lately.  I was very pleased to find that this book starts where the first one left off.  I love that in a series.  It can be really annoying to find a great series just to learn that each book is about different characters or that it skips a bunch of time.  I really am a series addict hehe.

 Amazon link here.

The third book was just as great as the first two.  I'm literally never bored when I'm reading these.  Even if the mystery is sometimes simple and easy to figure out, it doesn't matter because reading how the girls figure it all out is what makes it fun.  These are not suspense mysteries, but they are hard to put down.  :D  After the third one I finally forced myself to read something else.  There are a bunch of books in the series and I don't want to get sidetracked from the reading challenge.  I will be back though!!

Amazon link here.

This is a book I've been meaning to read for a while, but I hadn't gotten around to it because I only had it in the Kindle version.  At night I read on a Nook because it's not backlit and I can use a dim book light.  My tablet that has the Kindle reader on it is very bright and disturbs my husband when he's trying to sleep.  Today was my day off and we are both feeling sick (head colds and in his case a really bad sinus infection and fever) so I decided to catch up on some Kindle books.  This book is so fun and easy to read that I finished it in two hours (so it could go in the read in one day, female author or set in a different country categories)!  I couldn't put it down!  I haven't read any romance books in a while (besides Share & Share Alike) so it was a bit different, but it was really refreshing (maybe I need to take a break from mysteries lol).  I enjoyed the characters and I could understand how the main character was feeling even though I couldn't really relate to what she was going through.  I love the way it ended and I can't wait to read the other books in the series.

Well that's all so far!  Only 44 to go!  I'll update again at the end of the month with what I've read.  :D  Also here is the list again.  If any of you have suggestions for books to read definitely leave a comment.  Especially for the hard ones like a play.... where do I find a play that isn't Shakespeare??

1. A book with more than 500 pages
2. A classic romance
3. A book that became a movie
4. A book published this year
5. A book with a number in the title
6. A book written by someone under 30
7. A book with nonhuman characters
8. A funny book
9. A book by a female author
10. A mystery or thriller
11. A book with one-word title
12. A book of short stories
13. A book set in a different country
14. A nonfiction book
15. A popular author's first book
16. A book from an author you love that you haven't read yet
17. A book a friend recommended
18. A Pulitzer Prize winning book
19. A book based on a true story
20. A book at the bottom of your to read list
21. A book your mom loves
22. A book that scares you
23. A book more than 100 years old
24. A book based entirely on it's cover
25. A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't
26. A memoir
27. A book you can finish in a day
28. A book with antonyms in the title
29. A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit
30. A book that came out the year you were born
31. A book with bad reviews
32. A trilogy
33. A book from your childhood
34. A book with a love triangle
35. A book set in the future
36. A book set in high school
37. A book with a color in the title
38. A book that made you cry
39. A book with magic
40. A graphic novel
41. A book by an author you've never read before
42. A book you own, but have never read before
43. A book that takes place in your hometown
44. A book that was originally written in a different language
45. A book set during Christmas
46. A book written by an author with your same initials
47. A play
48. A banned book
49. A book based on or turned into a TV show
50. A book you started but never finished