Thursday, May 28, 2020

Fiction Review: The Last One

I'm always looking for ideas of great thrillers to give my husband as gifts, especially by authors he hasn't read yet, so when I heard my favorite books podcast, Books on the Nightstand (now retired but archived episodes still available), recommend The Last One by Alexandra Oliva, I added it to my list! My husband enjoyed this unique thriller about a survival reality TV show gone wrong, and it was perfect for me this spring, with so much distraction around. This fast-paced novel grabbed my attention and never let me go until the last page.

The reader knows immediately--right from the first line of the prologue--that a horrible pandemic hits (no, I didn't realize this before I started the book!), but of course, none of the characters in the novel know what is coming. Twelve people have signed up for a survival reality show that claims to be unlike anything that has been done before. They are given nicknames for the show, like the Hispanic cowboy known as Rancher, the fit military guy called Air Force, and the gorgeous but unprepared Waitress. The novel mostly focuses on Zoo, a strong but petite woman whose background in zoology and job working with animals earns her the nickname. The first few episodes of the show start pretty much as expected, with a combination of both Solo and Team Challenges, getting to know the contestants, ever-present cameras, and a highly produced final product. One of the unique things about this show is that it begins to air within days of production, so it truly is happening as viewers watch. A few days in, though, during a Solo Challenge, Zoo notices a big change. She can no longer see the cameramen, she truly feels as if she is alone, and the clues she's supposed to follow are no longer obvious. But they've been told that they will be alone for days at a time, and that many of the cameras are hidden, so she fully believes she is still being filmed and is still in the contest. The reader knows, from page 1, that a horrible pandemic has very quickly killed off most of the population (though we don't know any details about it), but as Zoo hikes further and further east, she just thinks that the size of this production is way bigger than she imagined and that with the fake dead bodies and deserted homes and towns, they must have a huge production budget. The narration moves back and forth between the start of the reality show and Zoo's current never-ending slog eastward, so the details are gradually filled in as the two timelines come together.

A big part of the tension here is in the reader knowing what has happened, and Zoo--in her exhausted and hungry state (oh, and she broke her glasses)--just not getting it. As she gives herself pep talks not to get psyched out by the special effects, the reader is freaking out a bit inside thinking, "Zoo, wake up! The dead bodies are real!" The suspense is stupendous as she hikes through both forests and devastated areas; this is a super gripping novel that I stayed up much too late reading each night. The pandemic aspect wasn't too disturbing since it is so different from what we've been dealing with in the real world. In the novel, the unnamed pandemic happens fast--within days, most people are dead-- and out of sight. The reader just sees the aftermath (mostly empty towns and houses) through Zoo's eyes. The focus is always on what Zoo is seeing and experiencing and thinking. I absolutely loved every minute of this novel, and it kept me captivated from beginning to end, which was just what I needed!

290 pages, Ballantine Books


Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.


Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, with multiple narrators, and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase The Last One from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:
Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org


Or you can order The Last One from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Teen/YA Review: Bent Heavens

In the mood for some fast-paced sci fi, I recently listened to Bent Heavens, a teen/YA novel by Daniel Krauss. It was a twisty, dark, action-packed story with plenty of unexpected surprises.

Liv Fleming is just trying to get through her last year of high school, so she can move on and go to college. She's been through a lot. Two years ago, her father went crazy in a very public way and then disappeared shortly afterward. He showed up in a public park, naked, and raving about alien abduction. As her school's high school English teacher, he also directed a very strange version of Oliver Twist, all about aliens. So, the whole town knows. Before he disappeared into the woods and never returned, his passionate insistence on the dangers of aliens convinced Liv and her childhood best friend, Doug, to help him build traps all over the Fleming's overgrown backyard. Even though he's been gone for two years, Liv and Doug trudge out there every Sunday to check and maintain the traps (and an impressive homemade weapons arsenal in the shed), just like her dad taught them. Doug is still committed to this routine, but Liv is ready to move forward ... until the Sunday when they actually find something in one of the traps. The creature is like nothing they've ever seen before, but it does match some of her dad's lunatic ravings. Does this mean her dad was telling the truth the whole time? And could this thing know something about her dad and what happened to him? Could her father still be alive? Liv and Doug must decide what to do next.

This is a rollercoaster ride of a sci fi thriller and also quite an emotional ride as well, with Liv's complicated feelings about her dad and her guilt that she hadn't believed him. The plot is original and super twisty, and I was constantly surprised. However, the story is quite violent and sometimes brutal, which was hard to listen to, even though the audiobook was very well done and gripping. All in all, it's a unique premise and well-written, but you have to be prepared for a dark ride.

304 pages, Henry Holt and Company
Macmillan Audio

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, a flashback to Liv's dad's sudden naked appearance in a park, and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase Bent Heavens from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:
Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org



Or you can order Bent Heavens from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Monday, May 25, 2020

It's Monday 5/25! What Are You Reading?

Happy Memorial Day, if you are in the U.S.! This weekend is considered our official start to summer, but I'm wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and am under a blanket! ha ha We have had a very cool May here. We did get out for a nice, peaceful kayak on a local pond this morning--our first time getting the kayaks out this year! It was wonderful, especially since we are missing camping and our outdoor adventures and travel so much. Everything else around us is still so weird, though. It was strange driving home from kayaking, past empty parking lots at stores and restaurants.

Lovely kayaking this morning

Memorial Day weekend also means ... the start to the 2020 Big Book Summer Reading Challenge!! Woohoo! I kicked it off on Friday, and you can read all the details here. The response so far this year has been amazing--lots of people were asking me when it starts ahead of time, and dozens have already signed up just over the weekend! I think we all need something fun and special to look forward to this summer. I hope you'll join the fun, too! It's super easy-going--you only need to read one book with 400 or more pages between now and September to participate (but you can read more, if you want). Check out my big stack of Big Books that I have to choose from this summer--this challenge is also great for those TBR shelves!



Here's what we have all been reading this week:

I finished a classic I have been meaning to get to for a while, The Call of the Wild by Jack London. I remember reading this wilderness adventure back in junior high/middle school and enjoying it, but it's been a loooong time! My husband and I went to see the movie in the theater, just before everything shut down in early March (you can read my review at the link).  If you're not familiar with the story, it's about a dog named Buck who is living a happy and easy domestic life in California in the 1890's as the top dog in Judge Miller's house. Then he is captured and sold (multiple times), beginning a long journey up north, where the Gold Rush in the Yukon has made strong sled dogs a hot commodity. Buck suffers a great deal of abuse from both humans and dogs but soon learns the ways of a sled dog ... and meets some good people, too. Eventually, he meets a kind man named John, just when he needs him the most, and Buck begins to heal with John by his side, all the while hearing the wilderness around him calling to him.  I thoroughly enjoyed the short novel; London is a wonderful writer, capturing Buck's experiences from a dog's perspective.

I squeezed in one last quick book before the start of Big Book Summer, The Way to Stay In Destiny by Augusta Scattergood.  I love Scattergood's warm and fun middle-grade novels, peopled with real-feeling historical characters, like Glory Be and Making Friends with Billy Wong. In 1974, Theo feels like he has lost everything. His parents died when he was very young, and his beloved grandparents--who brought him up--are no longer able to care for him. He's now in the custody of an uncle he'd never met before, a Vietnam vet with a gruff manner who doesn't seem to even like him, and moving to the town of Destiny, FL, a long way from the farm in Kentucky where he spent his first 12 years. But their boarding house has a piano, and on his first day, he meets a new friend named Anabel who loves baseball as much as he does. Maybe Theo can really make a home in Destiny, after all. This book had been sitting on my TBR shelves for much too long, but I am glad I finally got to it. I loved every moment of it and cheered for Theo and Anabel.


On Friday, I started my first book for Big Book Summer! I am starting with Faithful Place by Tana French, book 3 in her Dublin Murder Squad series. I just read--and LOVED--book 2, The Likeness, back in the fall, and my husband and I took advantage of a recent free week of Starz to watch the new TV adaptation, Dublin Murders, which is based on the first two books and is excellent. So, I was geared up for this one and eager to read more! It is amazing so far, completely engrossing. This time, the story focuses on Undercover Detective Frank Mackey, with a cold case dating back to his childhood in a run-down neighborhood called Faithful Place. As always, French has created immersive and realistic characters, setting, and plot that have pulled me right in. This one is keeping me up much too late every night, but I am loving every minute of it.

On audio, I finished listening to Lakewood by Megan Giddings, one of the selections for Booktopia 2020 (which was cancelled but they are scheduling virtual author events now - click on Events to join the fun!). This dark and disturbing novel has a unique premise. A young woman named Lena has just lost her beloved grandmother who raised her. Though she is still in college, responsibility for Lena's mother, Desiree, with her many health problems, now falls to Lena. When she stumbles across a potential job as a highly paid medical research subject, she jumps at the chance to earn so much money and ease her family's problems. Within a few days, though, Lena starts to realize this is a very strange arrangement. She's given a fake job and is required to lie to her family and friends about it, and some of the experiments are not just strange but frightening. It was an intriguing, scary story that was interesting and thought-provoking but perhaps a little too dark for my current mood.



My husband, Ken,  is still reading a thriller (and a Big Book!), Neon Prey by John Sandford. I gave him this paperback in his Easter basket ... I had to choose from the 10 books for sale in our local drugstore! I remember giving my dad some of Sandford's Prey series, but I don't think Ken has read one before. The series is about Lucas Davenport, who seems to be (from the blurbs) a member of the police force who is brilliant and tends to work on his own. In this particular novel (number 29 in the series), Lucas is chasing after a serial killer in Louisiana who has been killing--and getting away with it--for years. We always love reading books set in Louisiana, where we used to live (and an intriguing setting for any novel). This one sounds like a gripping thriller!


Our son, 25, returned to a favorite author, with a spin-off series from one of his old favorites. He finished reading Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima, book 1 of the Shattered Realms series, which he described to me as a companion to The Seven Realms series, which he read years ago and loved. This newer fantasy series is set in the same world but a generation later, so in that way, it continues the stories begun in The Seven Realms and gives readers a look at what comes next (and what avid reader doesn't want that from a favorite series?). Amazon describes it as "a breathtaking story of dark magic, chilling threats, and two unforgettable characters walking a knife-sharp line between life and death." Sounds good!

Now, our son is reading a relatively new novel, Priest of Bones by Peter McLean, book 1 in the series War for the Rose Throne, which be bought with the Amazon gift card that was in his Easter basket. It's a British fantasy that combines religion, politics, crime, and war. He says it's great so far. Ironically, just as I switch to Big Books, this one is only about 350 pages--my son very often reads fantasy chunksters over 1000 pages long, so this is a quickie for him!






Last week's blog posts:
TV Tuesday: Dublin Murders - based on the first 2 books of Tana French's series (one of our favorites!)

Fiction Review: Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett -  moving and immersive novel about mental illness and its impact on a family

2020 Big Book Summer Reading Challenge - has started, so join the fun!

My 2020 Big Book Summer - see the stack of Big Books I will be picking from this summer

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?

Friday, May 22, 2020

2020 Big Book Summer Reading Challenge

About 9 years ago, I came up with the idea to use the relaxed freedom of summer to tackle some of the biggest books on my to-be-read shelves that I'd been wanting to read but never seemed to have the time for.  One of my book groups takes time off during the summer, so with fewer interfering commitments, I declared it The Summer of the Big Book and really enjoyed delving into some hefty tomes, like The Passage and Pillars of the Earth.

It was so much fun that eight years ago, I created this challenge so that YOU can join me. And here it is Memorial Day weekend again and the unofficial start of summer 2020. In this strange global pandemic world we've been living in, we all need something special to look forward to this summer even more. So join in the fun!

And please note that if it is the start of winter where you live, you are still welcome to participate!

The Details:
Hey, it's summer, so we'll keep this low-key and easy!
  • Anything 400 pages or more qualifies as a big book.
  • The challenge will run from Memorial Day weekend (starting May 22 this year) through Labor Day weekend (Labor Day is September 7 this year).
  • Choose one or two or however many big books you want as your goal. Wait, did you get that?  You only need to read 1 book with 400+ pages this summer to participate! (though you are welcome to read more, if you want).
  • Sign up on the first links list below if you have a blog so others can visit (or in the comments below or in the Goodreads group if you don't have a blog).
  • If you have a blog, write a post to kick things off: you can list the exact big books you plan to read or just publish your intent to participate, but be sure to include the Big Book Summer Challenge pic above, with a link back to this blog. It's fine to kick-off your Big Book Summer as part of another post.
  • Write a post to wrap up at the end, listing the big books you read during the summer.
  • You can write progress posts if you want to and/or reviews of the big books you've read ... but you don't have to! There is a separate links list below for big book reviews, progress update posts, and wrap-up posts.
That's it!  Go check out your shelves and your TBR list and sign up below!

Don't have a blog? No problem! You can still participate in the challenge. Just leave a comment in the Comment section below, stating your goals for the Big Book Summer Challenge, or sign up in the Goodreads group.

Whether you have a blog or not, you are welcome to join the group on Goodreads for the 2020 Big Book Summer Challenge, where we can talk about Big Books and our progress on the challenge. If you don't have a blog, you can also use the Goodreads group to sign up for the challenge, post updates, and show which Big Books you are reading and completing.

Check out my own list of books to read for the challenge this summer.

At the end of the summer, there will be a Big Book Giveaway! After Labor Day, I'll select one name from among the participants (bloggers who leave a link below as well as those without a blog who leave a comment to announce their participation or participate through the Goodreads group) and will send the winner an Amazon gift certificate.

And help spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media with #BigBookSummer (you can follow me at @suebookbybook on Twitter and/or the Facebook page for this blog). Challenge updates will be posted in both places.
   


Link-up your 2020 Big Book Summer Sign-Up Posts here--be sure to include a link to your kick off blog post (not your homepage):


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter


Link-up your Big Book Reviews, Updates, and Wrap-up Posts here:


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter
 


My 2020 Big Book Summer

I have just announced the 9th year of my annual reading challenge, Big Book Summer Challenge, so I guess I should be the first to sign up!

I always enjoy tackling some big books in the summer, and I'm looking forward to doing it again and finally reading some of these bricks that have been collecting dust on my shelf (NOTE: for this challenge, a Big Book is defined as a book with 400 pages or more).

I definitely won't get through all of these, but I like to have some options to choose from. These are all currently on my shelves, waiting patiently to be read (along with many others!):
 

From the bottom of the stack:
  • Sycamore Row by John Grisham (447 pages)
  • Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly (433 pages)
  • The Air You Breathe by Frances De Pontes Peebles (449 pages)
  • The Overstory by Richard Powers (502 pages)
  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (453 pages) - a hold-over from 2019 Big Book Summer!
  • Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (436 pages)
  • Faithful Place by Tana French (400 pages) 
  • Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty (517 pages)
  • Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (578 pages)
All of these also qualify for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2020. One  of them will also count for my Back to the Classics 2020 Challenge, which I am behind in, and I hope to add another classic to the stack this summer.  I also have gone through my backlog of audiobooks to pick out the ones over 400 pages, so I will be listening to Big Audio Books, too! I won't get through all of these this summer, but they are all books I want to read.

Tonight, I will be starting Faithful Place by Tana French, so my Big Book Summer is officially kicked off!

How about you? Are you up for tackling a Big Book (or two or three) this summer?  Join me and sign up for the 2020 Big Book Summer Challenge! The rules, details, and link-ups are on that page.

NOTE: You don't need a blog to participate--you can either leave a comment on the Challenge page or sign up in the 2020 Big Book Summer Goodreads group

Join me in some bookish summer fun!

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Fiction Review: Imagine Me Gone

In my pandemic-fueled quest to read from my own shelves, I dove into an award-winning novel that my husband gave me for Christmas, Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett. This deeply moving and immersive novel about family and mental illness was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, Andrew Carnegie Medal, National Book Critics Circle Award, and it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction in 2016.

Right from the prologue, you know this novel is going to end in some sort of disaster, with brothers Alec and Michael staying alone in a house in coastal Maine in the winter. Then the narrative moves back to the past, when the boys and their sister, Celia, were young, and the family--including parents Margaret and John--were packing up for their annual summer vacation at a house in Maine loaned to them by a family friend, which is clearly a happy place for all of them. With Margaret narrating, she goes even further into the past, when she and John were dating and living in England (where he's from), and she noticed one fall when he became more distracted, was talking far less, and his "clock began to run more slowly." While Margaret is back in New York for the Christmas holiday, John is hospitalized. She's confused when the doctors explain that he's just tired and needs to rest and that John has been hospitalized under similar circumstances before. Being the 1960's, though, nothing further is explained, and in fact, no one wants to talk about it. Margaret also talks about the children: eldest son Michael is eccentric and intense, middle-child Celia is entering adolescence and harder to reach, and youngest Alec is energetic and affectionate. She also muses on her ineffectiveness as a parent:
"With children, everything's already happening and then over with. It happens while you're trying to keep up and gone by the time you arrive at a new view of things."
Chapters alternate between each of the five family members, as the children gradually grow up and move into their adult lives. Alec is gay and a successful businessman but has trouble committing to a serious relationship. Celia has moved out to California and is in a relationship but undecided as to whether to stay. Michael struggles all of his life, in and out of school, wanting to focus on his passion--music--but often unable to live on his own, and involved in a series of dead-end relationships in which he becomes obsessed with unattainable women. John's chapters delve into the depths of his mental illness and his constant struggle to simply live a normal life:
"Against the monster, I've always wanted meaning. Not for its own sake, because in the usual course of things, who needs the self-consciousness of it? Let meaning be immanent, noted in passing, if at all. But that won't do when the monster has its funnel driven into the back of your head and is sucking the light coming through your eyes straight out of you into the mouth of oblivion. So, like a cripple I long for what others don't notice they have: ordinary meaning."

As you can probably tell, this is a very thoughtful novel with a lot of emotional depth; there is ample fodder here for book groups to talk about. In fact, I broke my general rule of short reviews here because I just had to include some quotes (I tabbed many pages while reading) and extra detail. From John's passage up above (and Michael's are similarly enlightening), you can see that this book provides an inside look into what it feels like to grapple with mental illness (serious depression certainly and probably bipolar disorder). The use of multiple narrators, though, also digs deep into the effects of mental illness on the entire family, including Margaret's worries and fears as wife and mother and Alec's and Celia's lifelong concerns and feelings of obligation to help care for their brother. As you might suspect, there are some very dark moments in this story, and it is an often-painful account of a seriously dysfunctional and disrupted family. Ultimately, though, it is also a warm story of healing and of the power of family connections.

356 pages, Back Bay Books


Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.



Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample is from the very beginning of the book, a haunting prologue in Michael's voice that gives you an idea of both the humorous and disturbing quality of his narrations.

You can purchase Imagine Me Gone from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:
Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org


Or you can order Imagine Me Gone from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

TV Tuesday: Dublin Murders

When I saw that our cable company was doing a Watchathon week, offering the usual-for-pay channels Starz, Showtime, Hulu, and Peacock for free, I knew immediately what I wanted to binge in that one week: Dublin Murders. This new BBC TV show, which aired on Starz in November 2019, is based on the first two books of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series: In the Woods and The Likeness. My husband and I are both huge fans of the author and the book series, and we both enjoyed those first two books. In fact, I just read the second book, The Likeness, last fall and was blown away by its unique plot with its unexpected twists. We watched the 8-episode series last week and both loved it. I will write the show description assuming you have not yet read the books.

When a young girl is found murdered in the woods outside of Dublin, with her body arranged on a rock altar, two detectives in the Dublin Murder Squad are assigned to the case. Cassie Maddox, played by Sarah Greene, is a recent addition to the Murder Squad. Her partner, Rob Reilly, played by Killian Scott, is a relatively new detective, but the two of them work well together. They answer the initial call to the scene of the crime, but we soon find out that Rob is hiding an enormous secret. Back in 1985, in these exact same woods, Rob was a young boy named Adam and the sole survivor of three friends who went into those woods and were never seen again. The experience was so traumatic and the other parents and neighbors so cruel to young Adam that his parents shipped him off to boarding school in England, where he changed his name and started a new life. Rob remembers nothing of the crucial 90 minutes between when he and his friends went into the woods and when he was found, alone and screaming with blood in his shoes but unhurt, by the police. Cassie knows Rob's secret and insists they pass the case to other detectives, but Rob soon gets caught up in it and refuses to give it up. Cassie reluctantly agrees. As the case moves forward, past and present mingle, and Rob becomes obsessed, not only with solving the present murder but with finding out what happened to him and his two friends 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, a second case crops up that personally involves Cassie. A young woman is found murdered who not only looks like Cassie's twin but is carrying ID that identifies her as Lexie Mangan, an undercover alias that Cassie created and used in a drug case, pretending to be a student at the nearby university. This new Lexie is a grad student at the university, living with four other grad students in a big, old house in town. Believing the fake Lexie's murder must be connected to their old drug case, Cassie's prior boss in undercover work convinces her to resume her Lexie alias. They tell the housemates that Lexie barely survived her knife wound, and Cassie moves into the house, pretending to be Lexie, in order to find out who actually murdered Lexie, now a Jane Doe. What could go wrong?

Readers of the books will immediately recognize that the TV show combines the timelines for both books 1 and 2 into a single timeframe and TV season. This was a bit disorienting to us at first ("hey, why is Lexie showing up already?"), but we soon adjusted. The cast and crew have done a great job of recreating these outstanding novels. The show has a sinister tone with a constant undercurrent of tension. Both Rob and Cassie have dark histories that interfere with their jobs, though both of them are completely committed to solving these crimes, whatever it takes. The mysteries of both past and present are slowly revealed, with plenty of twists and unexpected turns along the way, creating fabulous suspense that will keep you watching to find out what happens next. As in the books, not every question is neatly answered, and both Cassie and Rob are further damaged by their dark secrets and compulsion to solve their cases, no matter what the cost. Given our 1-week timeframe (more like 6 days when we realized it was temporarily free), we eagerly watched all eight episodes last week and absolutely loved the ride it took us on. Whether you have read the books or not, this is an excellent mystery/suspense series to sink your teeth into.

As of May 1, the show had been neither cancelled nor approved for a second season yet, but we are hoping they continue the show. I am about to read the third book in Tana French's series, The Faithful Place, so I will be ready if the show comes back next year!

Dublin Murders is currently available on Starz and Hulu, with a subscription (or do as we did and check your cable company for a free week promotion). It is also available on Amazon for $1.99 an episode (8 episodes total) or you can sign up for a free Starz trial through Amazon at the link.

Monday, May 18, 2020

It's Monday 5/18! What Are You Reading?

It was another week of ups and downs. My chronic illness flare-up continues, and I had about 4 days in a row of feeling pretty crummy and being unable to do much. I am feeling better about this recent mysterious downturn, though, because my specialist in NY agreed to run some labwork to try to get to the bottom of it (mainly infectious stuff, including COVID-19). Since I have an immune disorder, a relapse like this is often caused by some sort of infectious trigger. Anyway, I have my lab slip now, so I feel better knowing I might have some answers and potential treatment soon (to be clear, I don't have symptoms of COVID-19--I just want to know if I was exposed to it in case that's the cause of my immune relapse).


Anyway, the high point of the week was celebrating my father-in-law's 95th birthday! He hadn't left his apartment (independent living so not locked-down) in over two months, so he was thrilled to see us all again (he's only been seeing my husband). We were very careful and kept our distance, seating him at the head of the dining room table, and the rest of us at the other end (and our college son even further away in the living room!). He got to enjoy his favorite steak dinner, a special drink my husband made him, cake, and a pile of presents. Unfortunately, his building decided just that day to change their policy so that now he has to quarantine for 14 days and can't even leave his apartment. He wasn't going out anyway, but he needs to be able to walk a bit (he has severe spinal stenosis), so he's struggling now.

A socially-distant birthday dinner (see our other son way in the back?)
The other high point was a very quiet weekend with just my husband and me. Since I wasn't feeling well, we chilled out with lots of TV, including binging Dublin Murders, which is based on Tana French's novels--great show! I will review it tomorrow.

Watch for the kick-off to my annual Big Book Summer Challenge this Friday! This is a lot of fun every year, and you can make the challenge fit your own interests and needs. All you have to do is read at least one book of 400 pages or longer sometime between the end of May and the beginning of summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day in the U.S.) You can read the details on last year's 2019 Big Book Summer post (and watch for the 2020 one on Friday afternoon). I always use this challenge as a way to tackle some of the bigger books on my TBR shelves, and my husband and I already set aside our piles this weekend! Whether you join every year or are new to the challenge, I hope you'll join the fun!

Here's what we've all been reading this past week:

I finished The Last One by Alexandra Oliva, a thriller about a survival reality TV show gone wrong. A woman nicknamed Zoo by the show's producers is competing with eleven other contestants for a million dollars. They are told this show will do things that have never been done before and that they may not see anyone else for days at a time while surviving on their own out in the woods. It starts out predictably enough, with some team challenges and solo challenges, lots of crew in the shadows, and a couple of people dropping out early. But several days into a solo challenge, Zoo notices strange things: towns and neighborhoods completely devoid of people, a notice of a deadly pandemic (no, I didn't realize this when I started the book!), and even dead bodies. She just assumes that it is all a part of the elaborate charade (and that the show must have a huge budget), but in truth, while she was hiking through the woods, almost everyone really died of this pandemic. When will she finally realize this is real? What happened to the other contestants? I gave this novel to my husband as a gift, and I loved it! It was just what I needed, with an original story and fictional world so engrossing that I stayed up much too late at night reading it.

Next, sticking with quick reads, I chose a YA novel, Out of Reach by Carrie Arcos. It was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2012 ... and that's how long it's been sitting on my TBR shelves! It's about a seventeen-year-old girl named Rachel whose brother Micah is addicted to meth. The siblings have always been close, since they are just 11 months apart in age, but Rachel felt helpless as she watched Micah slip further and further away. After high school graduation, he really disappeared, leaving in the middle of the night. Rachel gets a lead on where he might be, in a nearby city, so she asks his bandmate and best friend, Tyler, to come with her while she searches for Micah. Most of the book takes place over one very long day (though there are many flashbacks) while Rachel and Tyler search for him and begin to bond. The subject matter was pretty dark, but it was a beautifully written book about how addiction affects family and friends and how one person began to heal.

Now, I am reading a classic I have been meaning to get to, The Call of the Wild by Jack London. I remember reading this wilderness adventure back in Junior High/middle school and enjoying it, but it's been a loooong time! My husband and I went to see the movie in the theater, just before everything shut down in early March (you can read my review at the link).  If you're not familiar with the story, it's about a dog named Buck who is living a happy and easy life in California in the 1890's as the top dog in Judge Miller's house. Then he is captured and sold (multiple times), beginning a long journey up north, where the Gold Rush in the Yukon has made strong sled dogs a hot commodity. Buck suffers a great deal of abuse from both humans and dogs but soon learns the ways of a sled dog ... and meets some good people, too. Eventually, he meets a man named John, just when the two of them most need each other, and they help each other heal. I am thoroughly enjoying the short novel so far; London is a wonderful writer, capturing Buck's experiences from a dog's perspective.

On audio, I am still listening to Lakewood by Megan Giddings, one of the selections for Booktopia 2020 (which was cancelled but they are scheduling virtual author events now - click on Events to join the fun!). This is an unusual novel plot so far. A young woman named Lena has just lost her beloved grandmother who raised her. Though she is still in college, responsibility for Lena's mother, Desiree, with her many health problems, now falls to Lena. When she stumbles across a potential job as a highly paid medical research subject, she jumps at the chance to earn so much money and ease her family's problems. Within a few days, though, Lena starts to realize this is a very strange arrangement. She's given a fake job and is required to lie to her family and friends about it, and some of the experiments are not just strange but frightening. It's an intriguing (and scary) story so far, and I am interested to see where it goes. I'm not making much progress; with my husband home 24/7, my audio listening time is greatly decreased!

My husband, Ken,  started a new thriller (which, ironically, is a Big Book!), Neon Prey by John Sandford. I gave him this paperback in his Easter basket ... I had to choose from the 10 books for sale in our local drugstore! I remember giving my dad some of Sandford's Prey series, but I don't think Ken has read one before. The series is about Lucas Davenport, who seems to be (from the blurbs) a member of the police force who is brilliant and tends to work on his own. In this particular novel (number 29 in the series), Lucas is chasing after a serial killer in Louisiana who has been killing--and getting away with it--for years. Sounds like a gripping thriller!

Our son, 25, returned to a favorite author, with a spin-off series from one of his old favorites. He's reading Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima, book 1 of the Shattered Realms series, which he described to me as a companion to The Seven Realms series, which he read years ago and loved. This newer fantasy series is set in the same world but a generation later, so in that way, it continues the stories begun in The Seven Realms and gives readers a look at what comes next (and what avid reader doesn't want that from a favorite series?). Amazon describes it as "a breathtaking story of dark magic, chilling threats, and two unforgettable characters walking a knife-sharp line between life and death." Sounds good!


Last week's blog posts:
TV Tuesday: The Good Fight - outstanding--and funny!--spin-off of The Good Wife

Nonfiction Review: Greek to Me by Mary Norris - travel memoir filled with history & mythology

2 Graphic Novels and a Graphic Memoir - 3 reviews of great graphic novels/memoir for middle-grade, teen, and adult

My Summary of Books Read in April - an outstanding reading month for me!
 
What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?



Books Read in April

Weeping cherry tree in bloom
I had a great reading month in April, though it took me a while to catch up on all my reviews! Here are the books that I finished last month:
  • Notorious by Gordon Korman (Canada, MI) - middle-grade fiction on audio
  • Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (NY, Germany) - adult fiction
  • Snapdragon by Kat Leyh - middle-grade graphic novel


  • The Phantom Twin by Lisa Brown - teen/YA graphic novel
  • How to Write Nonfiction by Joanna Penn - nonfiction


Eleven books in one month is a LOT for me, but before you get too impressed, four of these were graphic novels or memoirs, easily read in an hour or two, and the last book on the list took me over a year to finish! I read it in bits and pieces while writing and publishing my own book. Of the eleven books, three were nonfiction and eight were novels. I listened to two of them on audio. Seven of the books were for adults, two for middle-grade readers, and two for teens and/or young adults. All in all, that's a pretty good mix for one month! It's always tough for me to choose a favorite--I enjoyed all of these--but I think Oona Out of Order, with its original, twisty time-jumping plot grabbed me the most.

Progress in 2020 Reading Challenges:
You can see all of the reading challenges I am participating in and full lists of the books read for each at the challenges link. I have some fun ones going this year! Here's how April stacked up:


Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2020 - I read 8 books from my own shelves last month! The pandemic has been great for reducing my TBR shelves.
2020 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge - April was Classics or Currents, so I chose a current (published in 2020), Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
Back to the Classics 2020 - Finally, I read a classic! Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut was first published in 1969, more than 50 years ago, making it a classic for this challenge. That brings my 2020 grand total to ... one!
PopSugar Reading Challenge - this is a unique one! I fit nine of my eleven books into categories in April, filling in 26 categories so far this year--it's getting more challenging with fewer categories left but still a lot of fun:
  1. A book published in 2020: Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
  2. A book with a pun in the title: Go with the Flow by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann
  3. A book with at least a four-star rating on Goodreads: Snapdragon by Kat Leyh
  4. A book set in a country beginning with "C" - Notorious by Gordon Korman (Canada)
  5. A book with a character with vision impairment or enhancement: Go To Sleep (I Miss You) by Lucy Knisley
  6. A book set in the 1920's: The Phantom Twin by Lisa Brown
  7.  A book by an author who has written more than 20 books: The Late Show by Michael Connelly
  8.  A book with more than 20 letters in its title: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
  9.  A book published in the 20th century: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
2020 Nonfiction Reader's Challenge - I read three nonfiction books in April, fitting into the categories of Related to an Occupation and Published in 2020. Only Greek to Me (travel memoir) didn't fit into any of my remaining categories.
2020 Diversity Reading Challenge - Five of my eleven books were diverse, according to the rules of the challenge, though none fit this month's category (Middle-Eastern/South Asian).
Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge - I added 3 new countries: Canada, Germany, and Greece.
2020 Literary Escapes Challenge - I only added one new state, Michigan, but read lots of books set in New York last month!
And finally, Bookish Bingo hosted by Chapter Break - not really a challenge per se, but a fun game that I play each month! Stop by to print out this month's Bingo card and play along. In April, I filled 18 spaces on my bingo card:




Spaces Filled: 
Notorious: audiobook, gold on the cover
Slaughterhouse Five: historic setting
Snapdragon: not in a series
The Late Show: favorite author, in a series, vengeance
Go to Sleep (I Miss You): read a physical book
Oona Out of Order: free book, set in spring
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: shelf love
Greek to Me: book club read, travel
Go with the Flow: feisty character
The Phantom Twin: romance, siblings
How to Write Nonfiction: not a new release
Free Space

What was your favorite book read in April?