Jump to content

karen.d

Advanced Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,755

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by karen.d

    Doctor Who Series 10 + New Doctor?

    in Music / TV / Films

    Posted

    9 hours ago, Raven said:

     

     

     

      Hide contents

     

     

    ...but it was a bit odd that his out wasn't in person. In fact, it gets more odd the more I think about it - he spend 19 years in jail to get close to the Doctor, spends all of the episode talking about how great being with the Doctor is, and then phones in his goodbye as he's off to see Gwen Cooper...

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I agree, Jack was such a dynamic character, that he just didn-t seem himself for some reason. They could have made a lot more of him in the plot in my opinion.

     

    Spoiler

    Also I found that when Ryan was introduced into the programme, his Dyspraxia seemed like an interesting trait for a companion to have. I was interested to see how this would be incorporated into different storylines. However,I think after his first and second episode, this really was never mentioned. It was only until his final episode, that this was reintroduced into the storyline. I didn't expect every episode to be feature his difficulties, but it was like it disaapeared, which is not realistic.

     

    Doctor Who Series 10 + New Doctor?

    in Music / TV / Films

    Posted

    39 minutes ago, Madeleine said:

    I watched the Xmas special, first time I've watched it for ages.  It was Ok, John Barrowman definitely livened it up a lot, I never rated Bradley Walsh as an actor and he didn't really do much in this episode either.

    I agree, this was just, ok. John Barrowman wasn't in the episode enough and, although 

    Spoiler

    Bradley Walsh was actually a lot better than I thought he would be. His and Ryan's exits were underwhelming. I was rather surprisd to see John Bishop as the next companion, but, like Bradley Walsh I will leave me judgement.

     

    Karen.d's Reading List 2021

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted · Edited by karen.d

    January

     

    'The Hobbit'- J.R.R Tolkien *****

    'The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Night Time'- Mark Haddon ****

    'The Northern Lights'- Phillip Pullman *****

    'The Woman On The Fifth'- Douglas Kennedy (Currently Reading)

     

    February

     

    March

     

    April

     

    May 

     

    June

     

    July

     

    August

     

    September

     

    October

     

    November

     

    December

    Read-a-thons 2021

    in Group Reads

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Hayley said:

    Me too! I assume it’s the weirdness at the moment changing our normal routines. I felt like the whole of December went by in a few days.

     

    Hope you’re okay. Don’t feel pressured to join in this month if you don’t feel up to it. And remember there’s an extra day so you can just see how you feel tomorrow or the next day :hug:

    Yes I hope you are ok. 2020 was such a strange year, that I have decided not to put too much pressure on myself to do things. I might read a little today, but I am not going to use the read-a-thons to mark the quantity of pages read but just to enjoy reading.

    Happy New Year to you all!

    Read-a-thon 2020

    in Group Reads

    Posted

    On 12/10/2020 at 12:00 PM, Athena said:

     

    Oh yay, I'm glad you are enjoying it much more this time around! Yes, it can really make me dislike a book if I'm in the wrong mood to read it.

    I finished 'Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine' yesterday and loved it!

    Read-a-thon 2020

    in Group Reads

    Posted

    On 12/5/2020 at 8:09 AM, Athena said:

     

    I hope you had and are having fun :). How is Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine?

     

     

     

     

    I'm actually really enjoying it this time around. I must have been in the wrong mood to read this book. Overall this weekend, I managed to read 227 pages of this book.

    Read-a-thon 2020

    in Group Reads

    Posted

    On 8/13/2020 at 3:40 PM, Hayley said:

    Oooh that's exciting! If you'd rather move the September read-a-thon forward a week to the 11th-13th September, so you have a better chance to participate, that would be fine with me! 

    That's fine with me! I actually thought the read-a-thon was last weekend, so I will be doing the read-a-thon twice in one month:giggle2:

    Read-a-thon 2020

    in Group Reads

    Posted

    17 hours ago, A rural reader said:

    New to the group but looking forward to being with you all. I’ve started light, Jeeves in the Offing. Wodehouse might not be a Henry James, but what he lacks in depth is, for me, offset by his narrations by Bertie. It’ll be a fun read, no doubt about it. 

    Hi! Welcome to the group and the read-a-thon!

     

    I can't believe this month's read-a-thon is next week! I'm just about to start reading 'Us' by David Nicholls, so I may use the read-a-thon to make progress on that, or I might start something else. In any case, count me in for next weekend!

    Athena's Reading List 2020

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    23 hours ago, Athena said:

    Some thoughts on recent reads.

     

    Peter F. Hamilton - Chronicle of the Fallers 1: The Abyss Beyond Dreams

    I started reading this book sometime in May, and finished it partway through June. I mostly really enjoyed this book. It was a new-to-me read, and I look forward to read book 2 to finish off the duology, later this year. Now I love Hamilton's book and he is one of my favourite science-fiction authors. I really enjoyed the plot twists in this book, and those times when something just clicked and I was like.. oooh now things make sense!

    One thing that I noticed though, is something that I noticed with Hamilton's earlier books as well. This one was published in 2014. With his earlier works, say from the 1980s and 1990s, I found it more excusable, but I would hope the author would start to do better soon. The thing is that the author uses the white-is-default trope. A character's skin colour is usually only mentioned in his books, if it is non-white. With a lot of the characters the skin colour is not mentioned, and then on occasion it is and it turns out it's white. We need this 'othering' of people of colour to stop.

    Also most of his main characters in his books (that I've read) are usually white, not all of them (for example, Ozzie is Black, Paula has some Asian features, etc). But if you go out of your way to describe the skin colour or features of (side) characters who are darker-skinned, then you should, in my opinion, also mention the skin colour of the main characters who are white.

    I don't know if the author is aware of it (if not, I hope he becomes aware of it soon, but maybe he already has since I haven't read anything newer than his 2014 book..), but I hope the author would change this aspect of his stories soon.. because I couldn't help but find it a bit grating/painful every time it happened in this book (and it stood out to me more so, because of the current times in the world, with the Black Lives Matter movement being much more spoken about and on social media and in the news. I'm educating myself and trying to understand things more and more).

     

    23 hours ago, Athena said:

     


     

     

     

     

    I agree, there should be more diversity in, general, with characters in books!

    Karen.d's Reading List 2020

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    What the ‘Blurb’ says:

     

    ‘Polly Waterford is recovering from a toxic relationship. Unable to afford their flat, she has to move miles away from everyone, to a sleepy little seaside resort in Cornwall, where she lives alone above an abandoned shop.

    And so Polly takes out her frustrations on her favourite hobby: making bread. But what was previously a weekend diversion suddenly becomes far more important as she pours her emotions into kneading and pounding the dough, and each loaf becomes better and better. With nuts and seeds, olives and chorizo, with local honey (courtesy of local bee keeper, Huckle), and with reserves of determination and creativity Polly never knew she had, she bakes and bakes and bakes . . . And people start to hear about it.

    Sometimes, bread really is life . . . And Polly is about to reclaim hers.’

     

    My Thoughts:

     

    During lock down, I had a very bad time mentally; you can read about that in my post here. So, I decided to join the ‘Bon Marche’ book club on Facebook to take my mind off of things and ‘The Little Beach Street Bakery’, was their first group read.

    Whilst everyone else in the group is probably on the third or fourth read by now, I’ve only just finished reading ‘The Little Beach Street Bakery’. That doesn’t mean that this is a bad book.That also doesn’t mean that it didn’t have flaws, it has a few, but I will get to that later.

     

    What I did like the most, was the main character, Polly. Polly is a believable, likable and strong woman and I wanted her to succeed. I also adored the descriptions of the calm fishing village this book is set it. In the stressful times of lockdown, when I read this, I could imagine myself in the calm seaside setting of this book.

     

    I also enjoyed the book’s gentle humour and in particular, I loved Neil the Puffin, but you will have to read this book, to find out where he fits into the story!

     

    The only two characters, which for me, almost spoiled the book, were Polly’s best friend Kerensa and another character, Reuben. They were completely over the top and totally unbelievable and, in some of the later scenes in the book, I had to take a star off this book, because of what happens to them.

     

    The story itself, was quite predictable. Although I have to say, the sub plot with the local fishing trade, was very emotional.

     

    Whether it was predictable or not, doesn’t matter though, in my opinion.

     

    When I read this book, it was like being wrapped up in a warm, comfy blanket and, for a while, despite everything that was going on in real life, it felt like everything was going to be all right.

     

    If you’re having a bad day and want a book to escape into, I’d recommend ‘The Little Beach Street Bakery’.

     

    I look forward to reading more in this series, because the first installment, was so heartwarming and made me feel good when I read it.

     

    My Rating ***

    Karen.d's Reading List 2020

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Athena said:

    Hi Karen! Nice to see you around again! I'm glad you are feeling a bit better :).

     

    Thank you! I'm slowly getting back into things that I used to enjoy, so I hope to be putting a lot more book reviews up shortly.

    Karen.d's Reading List 2020

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    Hello!

     

    It's been a while! Apologizes for going AWOL over the last few months. Lockdown has been particularly difficult mentally for me and I haven't had any motivation to pick up a book, let a lone do anything else.

     

    However, I'm starting to feel MUCH better and I'm reading again! So I thought I would tell you about one of the two books that I have managed to read during lockdown.

     

    'The Moth Catcher' by Ann Cleaves

     

    ‘The Moth Catcher’ is the third ‘Vera’ detective novel I have buddy read with a friend. What I really like about this series, is that you don’t necessarily have to read these books in order, to enjoy them.

     

    There are characters who appear frequently throughout the novels and you can see their development, but you can also enjoy each book, as a stand alone.

    The set up of this murder investigation was good. I loved the character of Vera, she’s a no nonsense, quick witted character and I loved the almost flirtatious relationship she has with Joe. I also liked how the other, newer member of the team Holly, featured more in the story plot.

     

    In fact, I would have liked her issues with depression etc to have been expanded on a little, because I think it could be a powerful story plot. Whether that will be expanded on in other novels, I don’t know.

     

    In previous ‘Vera’ novels, I have felt rather uncomfortable about the way in which Vera’s weight is constantly referred to and characters have sneered at it. In this novel though, it was mentioned but not quite as much, which is good. It’s important to describe a character’s appearance, but I didn’t like the almost, derogatory way she was described.

     

    The plot in itself, was good, it had twists and turns which kept me guessing the culprit. However, I didn’t feel quite as satisfied by the ending, as I have with other ‘Vera’ novels. It made me feel a bit flat and actually, I’d like to re-read this novel, just to clarify the ending because it felt a bit over complicated.

     

    Overall, I enjoyed this novel and would say to anyone who loves a good crime novel to give this a go because not only do these books have good plotlines, but also a unique and believable protagonist.

     

    However, if you are thinking about starting the ‘Vera’ series, ‘Harbour Street’, the sixth book in the ‘Vera’ series, is the best place to start.

     

    My Rating: ***

     

    Which crime/detective books would you recommend?

    Athena's Reading List 2020

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    On 5/20/2020 at 10:38 AM, Athena said:

    Lizzie Huxley-Jones (editor), Gemma Williams, Rachael Lucas, Kerima Çevik, Amelia Wells, Tjallien De Witte, Nell Brown, Robert Shepherd, C. F. Prior, Megan Rhiannon, Grace Au, Reese Piper, Ashleigh J. Mills, Helen Carmichael, Katherine Kingsford, Tristan Alice Nieto, Agri Ismaïl, Laura James, Waverly SM - Stim: An Autistic Anthology

    This is an anthology of things written by autistic people. There are both fictional pieces and non-fictional pieces. I really enjoyed all of the pieces, except the very first one.


    Emma Smith-Barton - The Million Pieces of Neena Gill

    This is a YA contemporary novel about a British-Pakistani female teenager living in Britain, whose brother disappeared about 10 months ago. The novel is a lot about mental health and grief. I really liked it.


    Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials 3: The Amber Spyglass

    Book 3 in the fantasy middle-grade series (though some might say it's not middle-grade but younger YA instead?). I really liked this ending to the series, I buddy read it with 3 friends and we all really liked the book.


    Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

    I was a bit hesistant to go into this book because @karen.d DNFed it (I'm not sure if/when she'll see this). But then this month (May) is mental health month and several people I know were reading the book. So I decided to try it too.

    I really liked this book, but I struggled with the word usage in the beginning. As someone whose first language isn't English, the book used quite a few words that were unfamiliar to me. A few times I stopped and looked things up, other times I did not as doing so does take you out of the story. After the slower beginning (to me!), I got more used to the word use and was also able to read a bit more / being able to concentrate better. The book's ending surprised me. Overall I'm glad I read it because I really enjoyed the book.

     

     

    I'm glad you liked this book, even though it wasn't my cup of tea. Maybe I should give it another go sometime.

×
×
  • Create New...