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Athena's Reading List 2014


Athena

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I've received the books I won in the BCF Giveaway by PanMacmillan :exc:!

 

These are the books:

 

Seth Patrick - The Returned

James Herbert - The Rats 1: The Rats

Jay Bonansinga - The Governor Series 5: Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead: Descent

Adam Nevill - No One Gets Out Alive

 

And a photo:

 

DSCN1902_0.25.jpg

 

Three of the books I ordered for myself, arrived a few days ago. I was going to wait with posting them until I had them all but I might as well post the three I've received:

 

Catherine Ryan Hyde - When You Were Older

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Second Hand Heart

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Chasing Windmills

 

EDIT: More books arrived!! :exc:

 

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Pay It Forward

Catherine Ryan Hyde - The Hardest Part of Love

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Love in the Present Tense

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Becoming Chloe

Catherine Ryan Hyde - The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Jumpstart the World

Jodi Picoult - Keeping Faith

Kristin Hannah - Firefly Lane 1: Firefly Lane

Lauren Oliver - Delirium: Delirium Stories: Hana, Annabel and Raven

A. S. King - Please Ignore Vera Dietz

Ema Toyama - I Am Here! 2: Volume 2

 

DSCN1904_0.25.jpg

 

Still to come:

 

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Take Me With You

Sarah Crossan - Breathe 2: Resist

Stephen King - The Shining 2: Doctor Sleep

Edited by Athena
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I have some of those CRH's on my long-short list for next year.  Interesting you got Pay it Forward, I can't wait to hear what you think.  I've only seen parts of the movie.  Sounds uplifting and a good concept.

 

On my list I have:

 

Becoming Chloe- Catherine Ryan Hyde (226 pages)

Always Chloe…- Catherine Ryan Hyde (280 pages)

Jumpstart the World- Catherine Ryan Hyde (194 pages)]

Chasing Windmills- Catherine Ryan Hyde (274 pages)

Love in the Present Tense- Catherine Ryan Hyde (274 pages)

Electric God- Catherine Ryan Hyde (320 pages)

Diary of a Witness- Catherine Ryan Hyde (210 pages)

The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance- Catherine Ryan Hyde (237 pages)

Subway Dancer and Other Stories- Catherine Ryan Hyde (288 pages)

 

Happy reading!!  :smile: :readingtwo: Maybe we can read one together next year.  Don't know if I will get to all of those, but that is the goal! 

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I hope you enjoy all those you get to :)!

 

Happy reading!!  :smile: :readingtwo: Maybe we can read one together next year.  Don't know if I will get to all of those, but that is the goal!

I'd be happy to read one together, that sounds like a great idea :).

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James Dashner - The Maze Runner 1: The Maze Runner

 

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Genre: Science-fiction

Age-range: Young-Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 371

Date Read: 10-11-2014 <-> 11-11-2014

Synopsis (GoodReads):When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he's not alone. He's surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade - a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. Like Thomas, the Gladers don't know why or how they came to be there - or what's happened to the world outside.

 

My thoughts: On BCF we were doing a group read of The Maze Runner book series, so I decided it would be a great time to read this book.

 

This book was pretty good. It's suspenseful and there is a lot of action. For a long time you don't really understand a lot of what's going on. I found it really interesting to find out more about what was going on and how things worked. The action was quite good and I wanted to keep on reading to find out what would happen. The characters were all pretty good (though I could've done with some more female characters perhaps). I thought the new sort of words and language used by the characters was well done, though in the beginning it took me a bit of time to figure out what it meant.

 

I really want to read the second book now. Not all questions are answered, which makes sense since it's part one of the series (I believe it's a trilogy with the fourth book being a prequel?). I want to find out more and want to know what's going to happen. That all said, I think the first book ended in a good place.

 

Overall then I quite enjoyed reading this book. It wasn't without its flaws. At times the pacing could've been better (too much action vs. too little answers), and in the beginning the language / dialects bothered me a bit. But on the whole I really enjoyed reading this book (I read it in only two days).

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

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I downloaded two free Kindle short stories:

 

Abby Clements - The Christmas Bake Off

Patrick Yearly - A Lonely Dog on Christmas

 

And I traded two of my physical books at the mini library near here, for:

 

Joanne Harris - Chocolat 1: Chocolat (Dutch translation)

Donna Tartt - De Verborgen Geschiedenis (The Secret History)

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For the life of me, I can't remember the bad joke in the BSC book. The cover reminded me that it's the book where Claudia breaks her leg, but how did she break it?

 

Do you watch The Walking Dead? I absolutely love it. :D I'll be interested to see how the book compares to the show. I noticed you have #5. Do you have the earlier books?

 

Yay for The Secret History! It was such as awesome book. :)

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Congrats on 200 books read Gaia!

 

Wow, you already finished the first maze runner book? I'm only just halfway.

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For the life of me, I can't remember the bad joke in the BSC book. The cover reminded me that it's the book where Claudia breaks her leg, but how did she break it?

 

Do you watch The Walking Dead? I absolutely love it. :D I'll be interested to see how the book compares to the show. I noticed you have #5. Do you have the earlier books?

 

Yay for The Secret History! It was such as awesome book. :)

Claudia babysits a child who likes to pull practical jokes and pranks. The child makes Claudia sit on a swing that looks okay but one of the chains is actually broken (and the child knows it), then they have a contest who can swing the highest and Claudia falls off and breaks her leg (I felt quite bad for Claudia). This makes her reconsider if babysitting isn't too dangerous to do.

 

I haven't seen any of it :blush2:. I won the book in the BCF Giveaway, GoodReads told me it was number 5 in the series. I hope it can be read on its own but I'll have to wait and see. The book was part of the Horror Goody Bag giveaway, I mainly entered it for the other two books in it but hopefully this one can still be understood if I haven't read the other books in the series. The synopsis on the back made it sound understandable.

 

I'm glad to hear you liked The Secret History :). I mainly got it because I remembered lots of people on here really liked it, so I thought I'd give it a go (in return for leaving one of my books behind).

 

Congrats on 200 books read Gaia!

 

Wow, you already finished the first maze runner book? I'm only just halfway.

Thanks Devi :)! Yeah I've been reading quite a bit, I really wanted to find out what would happen in the book so I kept on reading. I hope you are liking it too :).

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I've received the books I won in the BCF Giveaway by PanMacmillan :exc:!

 

These are the books:

 

Seth Patrick - The Returned

James Herbert - The Rats 1: The Rats

Jay Bonansinga - The Governor Series 5: Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead: Descent

Adam Nevill - No One Gets Out Alive

 

And a photo:

 

attachicon.gifDSCN1902_0.25.jpg

 

Three of the books I ordered for myself, arrived a few days ago. I was going to wait with posting them until I had them all but I might as well post the three I've received:

 

Catherine Ryan Hyde - When You Were Older

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Second Hand Heart

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Chasing Windmills

 

EDIT: More books arrived!! :exc:

 

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Pay It Forward

Catherine Ryan Hyde - The Hardest Part of Love

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Love in the Present Tense

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Becoming Chloe

Catherine Ryan Hyde - The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Jumpstart the World

Jodi Picoult - Keeping Faith

Kristin Hannah - Firefly Lane 1: Firefly Lane

Lauren Oliver - Delirium: Delirium Stories: Hana, Annabel and Raven

A. S. King - Please Ignore Vera Dietz

Ema Toyama - I Am Here! 2: Volume 2

 

attachicon.gifDSCN1904_0.25.jpg

 

Still to come:

 

Catherine Ryan Hyde - Take Me With You

Sarah Crossan - Breathe 2: Resist

Stephen King - The Shining 2: Doctor Sleep

Wow! From your list I take it that you like the books by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

 

Sometime I would like to see your ratings on her books. :)

Edited by Michelle
graphic removed as it links to the originating site
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Wow! From your list I take it that you like the books by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

 

Sometime I would like to see your ratings on her books. :)

The image doesn't appear to be working, but yes I do! I haven't read that many yet though, but the ones I have read I really liked (Don't Let Me Go was my first read by her, and I gave it 10/10. Recently I read Where We Belong and I also gave it 10/10). I tend to go a bit mental sometimes and then want to read everything the author's ever written :blush2: (an issue I will be addressing soon). I was thinking, on making my reading plan for next year, to try and read a CRH book regularly, as well as some other authors' books. It's just an idea I'm having for the moment, I don't know yet what I will do for sure. I hope to be reading another one before the end of the year but I've got some other books planned first (ie. I'm doing The Maze Runner group read). I'm not sure yet which one I'll read next, but I've got a bit of time to think about it. So far though I really like her books.

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Claudia babysits a child who likes to pull practical jokes and pranks. The child makes Claudia sit on a swing that looks okay but one of the chains is actually broken (and the child knows it), then they have a contest who can swing the highest and Claudia falls off and breaks her leg (I felt quite bad for Claudia). This makes her reconsider if babysitting isn't too dangerous to do.

Ah, of course! Thanks for reminding me. :) What a naughty child.

 

I haven't seen any of it :blush2:. I won the book in the BCF Giveaway, GoodReads told me it was number 5 in the series. I hope it can be read on its own but I'll have to wait and see. The book was part of the Horror Goody Bag giveaway, I mainly entered it for the other two books in it but hopefully this one can still be understood if I haven't read the other books in the series. The synopsis on the back made it sound understandable.

Hmm. Well, as I haven't read the books, I can't necessarily compare them to the show, but you might be able to read it on its own. You might be sort of thrown into the middle of the characters' lives, but if it gets confusing you could always Google the synopses of the previous books to find out what has happened.

 

I'm glad to hear you liked The Secret History :). I mainly got it because I remembered lots of people on here really liked it, so I thought I'd give it a go (in return for leaving one of my books behind).

Yes, this seems to be a rare book that pretty much everyone loves!

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Ah, of course! Thanks for reminding me. :) What a naughty child.

I agree!

 

Hmm. Well, as I haven't read the books, I can't necessarily compare them to the show, but you might be able to read it on its own. You might be sort of thrown into the middle of the characters' lives, but if it gets confusing you could always Google the synopses of the previous books to find out what has happened.

Thanks, that's true :).

 

Yes, this seems to be a rare book that pretty much everyone loves!

That's pretty rare indeed, hopefully I'll like it too :). It sounds intruiging at least.

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James Dashner - The Maze Runner 2: The Scorch Trials

 

10911181.jpg

 

Genre: Science-fiction

Age-range: Young-Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 359 (excluding an excerpt)

Date read: 11-11-2014 <-> 13-11-2014

Synopsis: (no synopsis because it's part two of a series)

 

My thoughts: After I finished book one in this series, I really wanted to know what would happen after its ending, so I immediately started to read book two (for the Group Read of this series on BCF).

 

The book picks up where book one ended, and straight away I was into the story and wanted to know more. This book is pretty suspenseful, just like the first one. There are plenty of plot twists and I really enjoyed reading it. There was maybe a bit too much focus on action and less on talking but overall I thought it was a good story, pretty tense throughout. It's hard to talk about the book without spoilers, different things happen than in book one but there are also similarities. Some new characters are introduced and I thought they were pretty interesting. I found it a shame when the book ended, I want to know more, so I think I'll read book three straight away :P.

 

Overall I think if you liked the first book you'll like this one too. I really enjoyed reading this book, it's pretty action packed and well thought out.

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

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James Dashner - The Maze Runner 1: The Maze Runner

 

12382940.jpg

 

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

Great review, it was too bad you had some difficulty understanding what was going on at first, it did take a bit to get your bearings.  I loved it and am glad The Scorch Trials is just as good (Just read that review as well)!  I think it will go pretty fast for me, as I can't wait to see how it continues!

Edited by Anna Begins
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Girl, you are a fast reader!  What was that, TWO days???  :o

 

Thanks :)! I started on Tuesday evening and I finished Thursday in the later afternoon, so I suppose about 2 days total :). I was quite surprised at it too, I really wanted to keep on reading so I did.

 

Great review, it was too bad you had some difficulty understanding what was going on at first, it did take a bit to get your bearings.  I loved it and am glad The Scorch Trials is just as good (Just read that review as well)!  I think it will go pretty fast for me, as I can't wait to see how it continues!

Thanks :). I hope you like The Scorch Trials, I look forward to hear / read your thoughts on that one :).

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James Dashner - The Maze Runner 3: The Death Cure

 

13117292.jpg

 

Genre: Science-fiction

Age-range: Young-Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 330

Date read: 13-11-2014 <-> 14-11-2014

Synopsis: (no synopsis because it's part three of a trilogy)

 

My thoughts: After finishing the second book in this series, I immediately wanted to start the third book, so I did.

 

This book was a bit different from the other two, story wise. It was however still quite tense and suspenseful. I wanted to keep on reading to find out what would happen (which is why I finished it in about a day :P). I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters were great and there are lots of unexpected plot twists. There was a lot of action. Basically, if you liked the first two books, I think you'll like this one, the conclusion to the series. I think it's a fitting conclusion to the series.

 

A lot of interesting things happen in this book. I quite liked a lot of the plot twists. I didn't like one of the things that happened but I can see why it was done in terms of the story. Overall then I quite enjoyed reading this book, and will be starting the prequel soon (The Kill Order). I really enjoyed reading this trilogy with our Group Read, if it wasn't for BCF I probably wouldn't have started to read the books yet. It's really fun to read them together and I look forward to discussing them with those who participate :).

 

Rating: ***** (9/10)

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I bought some books at the charity shop today :).

 

Meg Cabot - Boy 3: Every Boy's Got One

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö - Sjöwall & Wahlöo 1: De Vrouw In Het Götakanaal (Roseanne)

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö - Sjöwall & Wahlöö 6: De Man Die Even Wilde Afrekenen (Polis, Polis, Potatismos!)

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö - Sjöwall & Wahlöö 10: De Terroristen (Terroristerna)

Jacques Vriens and Mirjam Oldenhave - P. S. Ik Ben Uw Dochter

Minette Walters - De Tondeldoos (Burning Point)

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James Dashner - The Maze Runner 0: The Kill Order

 

17126549.jpg

 

Genre: Science-fiction

Age-range: Young-Adult

Format: Paperback

Pages: 331

Date read: 14-11-2014 <-> 16-11-2014

Synopsis: (no synopsis because it's part of a series)

 

My thoughts: After finishing The Maze Runner trilogy I wanted to read the prequel.

 

Most of the book takes place thirteen years before The Maze Runner. Mark, the main character, dreams flashbacks, so you also get to know a bit about his past.

 

I liked the book but not as much as I liked the other books in this series. There was a lot of focus on action and while the book did provide some answers, I wanted more of them. I thought there was too much focus on the action and too little on answers and how it ties in with the events in the other books. I mean, there is definitely a connection but I wanted more.

 

I did like the main character, Mark, and the other characters, but found it a shame there weren't many characters in this book, that I met in the other books. I was hoping to see more of those characters. As it was, they only made an appearance in the prologue and epilogue.

 

Overall then I did like this book but I was a bit disppointed. This book wasn't as good in my opinion as the other books in the series. If you really like the series, I still recommend reading this book because you do learn more about the world and how certain things happened and you do get some answers. But I felt there was too much focus on action and too little on how it connected with the rest of the books and I wanted more answers.

 

Rating: *** (6/10)

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I have now read 217 books this year so far. I thought I wouldn't make it past 215, 225 a month ago, but it looks like I should be able to get past 225 if I keep on reading like I have been doing lately :) (undoubtedly though I'll probably feel less like reading at some point, again, after doing it so much lately). I'm also thinking about my reading plans for next year, and writing these ideas down in a document :).

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Ouch!!  Now I am even more hesitant to read it!! :P But, you know me, I am sure I won't be able to resist  :smile:

Well it was still nice to read :), I particularly loved finding out more about what happened in the past (before the other books) but it wasn't as good as it could've been :(. It's very action packed and tense throughout, but I wanted more answers and more connections to the other books. You've got it in your omnibus so I'd say do give it a chance if you feel like it :).

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