Ryan's 2024 Reads

Hello. I have been a sporadic LibraryThing user but Goodreads has gotten really bad so I'll come back over and see what is happening here. Financial systems guy (accounting background with enough IT knowledge to be dangerous) living in St Paul, Minnesota.

75 books is a stretch for me as I am usually around 55-60 but I'll give it a shot. If I add a few more audiobooks than a normal year, I have a chance. I am training for a half marathon in May so perhaps I can listen to a book while running.

My first six books of the year:

1. The Puppets of Spelhorst - Kate DiCamillo - what more needs to be said? It's a Kate DiCamillo book so of course it is good.

2. Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands - Heather Fawcett - #2 in this series and it was very good

3. Dreambound - Dan Frey - this was just okay

4. The Great Ghost Hoax - Emily Ecton - #2 book in this series after Great Pet Heist and it was very good. Read this with my 10 year old

5. Tales of the Celestial Kingdom - Sue Lynn Tan - collection of stories from the world of Daughter of the Moon Goddess. It was okay

6. Lone Women - Victor Lavalle - interesting combination of historical western, horror and thriller. Very interesting

Welcome! Audios are absolutely legit.

Welcome. If you put square brackets around your book titles they will provide a link to the book page on LT. if you put doable square brackets around the author's name they provide a link to the author page. It's up to you whether you want to do this but it is helpful if someone wants to know more about the book or author. Again Welcome to LT. (And by the way the number 75 isn't written in stone and lots of people read fewer books.) The number really doesn't matter.

Thanks for the welcome drneutron and the tip on the square brackets arubabookwoman. I have edited my post.

Welcome, and happy reading!
We are all here to enjoy and share our readings. Some go way over 75, some never get to it, it doesn't really matter :-)

7. The Warm Hands of Ghosts - Katherine Arden - Historical WWI story with some fantasy elements. Very different from her other books but still very good.

Hello Ryan! How are you?

>7 Owltherian: Lovely, thanks! Slowly plodding my way through multiple books. My teenager can juggle multiple books at a time but I tend to have one paper and one audiobook. I just finished a book that I was reading to my 4th grader, have a NetGalley ebook and two audiobooks in progress! How are you?

8. The Great Vandal Scandal - Emily Ecton - Book #3 in the Great Pet Heist series. Another read aloud to the 10 year old. I have to take these opportunities to sit and snuggle with my little guy as long as he will let me. And this books are great.

>8 walterqchocobo: I am reading like 14 books at once- its kinda stressful to be honest with you

9. The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett - I loved this murder mystery set in a fantasy world. Fun characters, great world building and fast paced book. Contrast that with...

10. Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility - Rebecca Solnit - I found this collection of essays to be very uneven and repetitive. There were some good ones that I took something away from but I was pretty disappointed.

>11 walterqchocobo: My sister-in-law gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for Christmas and I just ordered the Bennett with it. Should be here tomorrow! Glad it's a good one, though I'd read pretty much anything Bennett writes.

11. The Hard Switch - Owen D. Pomery - Interesting premise but this graphic novel felt like only the first issue in a new comic book series. It started to establish the characters and universe but stopped there.

Not bad, it is almost the end of February and I have finished eleven books and pretty close to finishing the audiobook of The Poppy War. We'll see if I can keep up this pace.

Welcome back to the group, Ryan

>14 PaulCranswick: Thanks!!

12. Those Beyond the Wall - Micaiah Johnson - Disappointing second book after The Space Between Worlds which was wonderful. I got an early copy from NetGalley but it just didn't work for me. The early reviewers are mostly positive so hopefully it will work for others.

>10 Owltherian: I’m so glad I’m not the only one that does this and feels stressed 😂

>16 KB23: Yeah, its like i accidentally start a bunch of books but then gets stressed so i restart the whole book/series.

The next two books that I finished were not my favorites but they are done now.

13. Mislaid in Parts Half-Known - Seanan McGuire - The latest in the Wayward Children series continues Antsy's story from the last book. It was okay but nothing terribly special. It just felt really short.

14. The Poppy War - R.F. Kuang - I bought this audiobook on Libro.fm when it was on a big sale awhile back because I heard so many good things about it. I really liked the first half where the main character Rin was at the academy but things took a dark turn around halfway through when the impending war started for reasons that didn't feel well explained. Plenty of action, gore, violence and really dark stuff filled the second half along with less character development and people to care about. Even with grimdark, there is something to root for but I didn't really like anyone towards the end. This was a slog to get through and I have no interest in further adventures of Rin.

Fourteen books in 2 months is a crazy fast pace for me--we'll see if I can keep it up.

15. Moon of the Turning Leaves - Waubgeshig Rice - Sequel to interesting post-apocalypse novel Moon of the Crusted Snow from a few years ago. There are some answers to questions left open from the first book which was nice. I enjoyed this one.

Next up: Ferris by Kate DiCamillo!

A few books for younger readers next.

16. Ferris - Kate DiCamillo - I am quite a bit older than Kate DiCamillo's target audience but will ALWAYS pick up her books. Sometimes my youngest child, now ten, will even let me read to him.

17. A First Time for Everything - Dan Santat - my 8th grader read this recently and thought that I would like this graphic novel memoir about a shy middle school kid who got to go on a trip to Europe in 1989 with classmates. It was very well done.

18. The Princess of Las Vegas - Chris Bohjalian - This was not his best work. In fact, it might be one of his weakest novels. The last few have been more thriller/mystery based with broken and unlikable female lead characters and his books are starting to become a little too formulaic. Unfortunately, the formula that he is following isn't great. I am hoping that he changes gears next time.

19. A Sweet Sting of Salt = Rose Sutherland - I received a message from NetGalley saying that I would really like it because it was similar to other books that I had read and reviewed previously. I am not quite sure why this one ended up in my inbox.

This debut novel is a feminist, queer retelling of The Selkie Wife. It wasn't a bad book but I just had problems with the relationships of the two main characters and their interactions. It wasn't clear to me why the main character Jean did so much for the neighbor woman.

It wasn't a fantastic book but not a bad debut.

20. Ruthless Elimination of Hurry - John Mark Comer - I have had a string of not great books and this one continues the streak. There were some good messages about slowing down but I found the author's writing style to be annoying and repetitive.

I'm almost finished with Starling House so I'm hoping that Alix Harrow sticks the landing on that one.

21. Starling House - Alix E. Harrow - I really like Alix E. Harrow's books and was really happy that she keeps writing stories that are interesting and fun to read. This was a dark fairy tale type story set in Kentucky. Feisty main character, a mysterious house and an unlucky town--definitely recommended.

22. The Bound Worlds - Megan O'Keefe - An excellent end to this space opera trilogy. Highly recommended!

Uh oh, I'm slowing down a bit! I have a long road trip coming up so might be time to find an audiobook.

23. The Latehomecomer - Kao Kalia Yang - Excellent memoir about a Hmong family's travel to the United States and their experience living in Minnesota.