KL realizes there IS a 100 books challenge group in existence! (KLmesoftly's progress thread)

Hello, all! I've been living in the 75 books groups for so long that I didn't think the goals went any higher - I'm glad I stumbled upon this one!

This is my first year aiming for 100 - last year I shot for 75 and ended up at 92, though, so I think it's doable!

Book List:
(* = off my January to-read shelf rather than acquired in 2016)

January:
01. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston*
02. The Giant's House - Elizabeth McCracken*
03. The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton*
04. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood*
05. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami*
06. The Collector - John Fowles*
07. The Small Hand & Dolly - Susan Hill*
08. Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation - Dean Jobb*
09. The Color Purple - Alice Walker*
10. Raising Demons - Shirley Jackson*
-- Periodical: Archie #5 - Mark Waid, Veronica Fish
-- Periodical: Bitch Magazine (Winter 16, "Nerds")
11. Jamaica Inn - Daphne du Maurier*

February:
12. Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann*
13. On Such a Full Sea - Chang-Rae Lee*
14. Our Souls at Night - Kent Haruf
15. For the Time Being - Annie Dillard
16. The Book of Aron - Jim Shepard
17. The Story of My Teeth - Valeria Luiselli
18. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak (reread)
19. The Invaders - Karolina Waclawiak
20. A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki*
21. Wreck and Order - Hannah Tennant-Moore
22. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco*
23. Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

March:
24. The Fifth Season - NK Jemisin
25. And Again: A Novel - Jessica Chiarella
26. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography - Laura Ingalls Wilder
27. Rule Britannia - Daphne du Maurier

April:
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.

My Current To-Read Shelf (as of February 25):

Welcome KL, some great reads so far !

Thanks, bryanoz!

I'm taking a break from literary novels this week to read The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin. In the past I've criticized her for writing beautifully but rehashing plots I've seen before in other fantasy novels, and I think this book may end up being the answer to that critique - I have no idea where the plot is headed and I'm very intrigued to find out!

My hold on Jessica Chiarella's And Again just came up at my library, too, so I'll be reading that one shortly.

I just finished The Fifth Season - What an excellent fantasy novel! The premise is pretty clean yet intriguing: future-apocalyptic Earth-type planet where the earth is so polluted and unstable there are periods of extreme seismic activity called "fifth seasons" where ash chokes out a population or a similar disaster takes place. Some people are sensitive to and even able to control seismic activity, but they are seen as dangerous and are generally killed/driven out by groups of angry peasants.

I'd say it had everything I look for in a book like this: the characters were distinct and well developed, the universe was interesting and different while still internally consistent, and the plot was unpredictable but well put together. I loved the way all of the story fragments converged as the novel progressed.

...And I hate myself for getting into a series that isn't complete! Now I have to wait for the sequels to be published. It's by far my least favorite thing about genre novels - getting trapped into series!

Yesterday I read a couple of books:

And Again: A Novel - Jessica Chiarella
This was a debut novel that really feels like a debut novel - Chiarella's writing style is interesting but she's playing with ideas that have been explored often enough already to feel predictable and a bit tired.
Premise: 4 terminally ill people participate in a medical trial where their consciousnesses are implanted in healthy clone versions of themselves. Typically, there's an artist who loses her "muse" after transfer and who has a journalist boyfriend who betrays her confidence and reports on the study; there's a philandering republican politician who pulled strings to be included in the trial and who has a conniving villain for a wife; there's a failed actress who uses her sex appeal for money because she was abused as a child...nothing is particularly insightful, it's all cliche theater.

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography - Laura Ingalls Wilder
I LOVED the Little House books as a child, and really enjoyed reading through her short original (non-child-friendly) manuscript. The wealth of footnotes and included photographs and illustrations really made the book, which would have felt insubstantial and a little pointless without them. I wouldn't recommend this as a standalone work - the Little House books are superior - but as an afternoon's entertainment for a fan of the series, it was great.

Book 27 was Rule Britannia - Daphne du Maurier
Super uneven - du Maurier is always a bit hit or miss for me (I love Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, The Birds...not so much Jamaica Inn or Don't Look Now). Sometimes it's hard to tell whether she's a great writer who riffs on pulp themes or a pulp writer who sometimes hits on something great, which is true of many authors!

Re: Rule Britannia especially, it felt very uneven, as though it were a combination of several drafts - a satirical comedy version and a serious suspense/romance take on the same premise. At times things would seem quite serious and dramatic, and at others the narrator would seem like a parody character and the most absurd could-never-happen-in-reality things would happen and be taken as normal! I almost stopped reading midway through, but I did want to know what would happen enough to go on.

I wouldn't recommend it as a first or even second du Maurier novel, but if you're already a fan it's a fun oddity (being her last novel published ever) about an 80-year-old British woman leading a rebellion against US invaders.