Deedledee reads in the 50th year

Hi folks,

I'm Dee, a librarian in rural Nova Scotia turning 50!!! this year. I live with two evil cats in a house that looks like it might be a craft store.

This year I'm only going to set one reading goal to complete the Booklist Queen's 2024 Reading Challenge.

You can also follow more of my reading at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mytwofavouritelibrarians

The Booklist Queen Reading Challenge 2024
*1. You Meant to Read Last Year - House of Ash and Bone by Joel A. Sutherland (May 4)
2. Goodreads Winner in 2023
3. About Mental Health
4. Five-Star Read
*5. An Audiobook - Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (Mar 15)
6. Set in the 1950s
*7. Unreliable Narrator - Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham (Apr 4)
8. Book Becoming Movie in 2024
*9. With an Epilogue - Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone (Jan 18)
*10. About Starting Over - The Hunger by Alma Katsu (Jan 21)
11. Author You Love
*12. Flowers on the Cover - Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O'Neill (Feb 8)
*13. Title Starts with “B” - Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey (Jan 11)
*14. Published in 2014 - Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix (Apr 6)
15. Purple Cover
16. Historical Mystery
*17. With Multiple Points of View - The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (Jan 1)
18. A Book You Couldn’t Put Down
*19. One Word Title - Beloved by Toni Morrison (Feb 14)
*20. Debut Author - The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (Feb 17)
21. 2023 Bestseller
22. Intriguing Premise
23. A Friend’s Favorite Book
*24. Author from the Southern Hemisphere - Homecoming by Kate Morton (Apr 20)
*25. About Secrets - The Future by Catherine Leroux (May 1)
26. Bottom of Your To-Read List
27. Your Favorite Genre
*28. Character Who is an Actor - Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Mar 19)
*29. Recommended on a Podcast - The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin (Mar 12)
*30. Set in Paris - Adèle by Leila Slimani (Jan 2)
*31. Ugly Cover - The Sound of Settling by Tara Dublin (Mar 23)
*32. Set in a Small Town - Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King (Jan 14)
33. Three Books by the Same Author (1)
34. Three Books by the Same Author (2)
35. Three Books by the Same Author (3)
*36. A Quick Read - Francine Poulet Meets the Ghost Raccoon by Kate DiCamillo (Feb 17)
37. Set During Autumn
*38. Classic by a Female Author - Passing by Nella Larsen (Jan 20)
39. Memoir by a Person You Admire
40. About a Historical Event
*41. Written Under a Pseudonym - The Only One Left by Riley Sager (May 4)
42. Legal Thriller
*43. Fantasy Book - Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (Mar 14)
44. Popular Book You’ve Never Read
45. Inspiring Nonfiction
*46. 2024 New Release - Come & Get It by Kiley Reid (Apr 26)
*47. Genre You Don’t Usually Read - Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James (Jan 20)
*48. You Own But Haven’t Read - Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield (Jan 26)
*49. Book About Books - Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (Feb 12)
*50. Book Everyone Is Talking About -Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune (Mar 3)
*51. With a Place in the Title - Trails of Halifax Regional Municipality by Michael Haynes (Feb 18)
52. Reread a Favorite

28/52

January
1. The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (read by Joshua Boone, Dani Cervone, Peter Ganim, Dan Green, Jenna Hellmuth, Khristine Hvam - Libby)
2. Adèle by Leila Slimani
3. Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey (read by Peter Ganim - hoopla)
4. Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King, illustrated by Bernie Wrightson
5. Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone (read by January Lavoy - CD)
6. Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James (ebook - hoopla)
7. Passing by Nella Larsen
8. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
9. Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield
February
10. Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O'Neill (JGN)
11. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (read by Helen Laser - hoopla)
12. Beloved by Toni Morrison (read by Toni Morrison - CD)
13. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
14. Francine Poulet Meets the Ghost Raccoon by Kate DiCamillo
15. Trails of Halifax Regional Municipality by Michael Haynes
March
16. Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune
17. The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin
18. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (read by Steve West - CD)
19. Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (read by Tanis Parenteau - hoopla)
20. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (ebook - hoopla)
21. The Sound of Settling: A Rock & Roll Love Story by Tara Dublin
April
22. Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham (read by Karissa Vacker - CD)
23. Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix (read by Tai Sammons & Bronson Pinchot - hoopla)
24. Homecoming by Kate Morton
25. Come & Get It by Kiley Reid (read by Nicole Lewis - CD)
May
26. The Future by Catherine Leroux translated by Susan Ouriou (read by Karie Richards - hoopla)
27. The Only One Left by Riley Sager
28. House of Ash and Bone by Joel A. Sutherland

Book 1
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
A super creepy thriller in which a serial killer travels through time via a house in Chicago. In this house he finds the names of women he must kill.
I know it sounds odd but it is very atmospheric and dark.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: With Multiple Points of View

Hiyah, Dee! Glad you made it over to the new group!

>1 Deedledee: Greetings, Dee, and a very happy holiday season. I'm Richard, and my fist visit is occasioned by your thread title: I thought reading in the 50th year was a reference to how long you'd been in the group.

My excuse is that I haven't had any coffee yet today.

Happy half-century from fourteen years up the road.

Just a youngun'! Good luck with your 2024 reading.

Happy New Year, Dee. I hope 2024 is a good year for you. I look forward to following your reading.

Happy reading in 2024, Dee!

Book 2.
Adèle by Leila Slimani
Although it's a short novel it took me over a month to finish. Everyone in this book is reprehensible.
Adele is a 35 year old woman, married to a surgeon with a small child, and working at a newspaper in Paris. But she has a dark secret. She feels compelled to have sex. Sometimes it's a tryst with a coworker, sometimes a stranger she has just met. She hides this from her husband with lies, living a double life.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Set in Paris

Book 3
Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey
In the deep edges of space a veteran with PTSD operates a beacon (a lighthouse of sorts) to ensure space ships don't hit debris. This unnamed protagonist completely alone out there, per his wishes, because of his severe psychological trauma.
It sounds dark, and does have some dark parts, but you see him slowly heal. And the level of sarcasm does help.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Title Starts with “B”

Book 4
Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King, illustrated by Bernie Wrightson
Going though the year, this novella focuses on the full moon each month when the werewolf came to take a victim.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Set in a Small Town

Book 5
Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone

Ariel wakes up in a Portugal hotel room alone. Her new husband John is nowhere to be found. Although it's still early she knows that something is wrong. She starts by talking to hotel security, then the local police and the US Embassy.
No one takes her concerns seriously at first but then the ransom demand comes.
In the investigation Ariel is asked questions she has a hard time answering — Why is John here in Portugal? Why did she come with him? Which clients is he meeting with? They've known each other for less than a year and there is lots she doesn't know about him.
While the book had a lot of twists and turns and an ending I wasn't expecting, it just felt overly long. I think it could have been more impactful with less length.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: With an Epilogue

Book 6
Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James
Why oh why did I do this to myself?
Last month my friend and I did a buddy read of Twilight after watching a very amusing review by Dominic Noble.
Then another friend suggested we should read Fifty Shades together. And I agreed. Even though I know this is the only book I've ever punched.
Somehow it wasn't as terrible this time around, likely because I knew others were suffering through it with me and we were complaining to each other about the book.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Genre You Don’t Usually Read

Book 7
Passing by Nella Larsen
Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry were childhood friends but haven't seen each other in over 12 years, when a chance encounter brings them back into each other's lives.
Irene lives in Harlem, part of the affluent black community, with her husband and two boys. She is very light skinned and can "pass". Clare, meanwhile, has been "passing" for years. She's married to a very rich, racist man, who does not realize that she is black.
Set in the 1920s during the height of the Harlem Renaissance and when strict racial segregation was enforced, this short novel explores what it is to fit in with a community and race relations.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Classic by a Female Author

Book 8
The Hunger by Alma Katsu
We've all heard about the tragedy of the Donner Party and how their trip to California to seek their fortune ended with more than half of the group's death. The Donner party, made up of many families, has nothing but misfortune on the way. There is a drought, a shortage of food, and in the midst of this they take a path that is supposed to be a "shortcut". Winter hits them hard and they are trapped in the mountains.
In this novel, Katsu explores a different reason for the deaths of so many. It is that there was a type of monster hunting them, something like a wendigo. These monsters are hungry for human flesh.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: About Starting Over

Book 9
Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield
I bought this from the library book sale last summer and it's been sitting on my shelf languishing since then.
I finished this book yesterday and I'm still not sure what I think about it.
We follow William Bellman from the age of 10. He is out playing with his friends and hits and kills a rook with his catapult. This childish act will cast a shadow over his whole life. As a young man, William seems to have everything he could want, he is handsome, charming and, a hit with the ladies. When his uncle decides to take him under his wing he becomes very successful at the family mill. Later when tragedy strikes, he throws himself even more strongly into work, until it is all that he does and is.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: You Own But Haven’t Read

Book 10
Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O'Neill
I'm reading some challenged books in advance of Freedom to Read week (https://www.freedomtoread.ca). This book was challenged at a Canadian public library in 2022 because the complainant felt it was too advanced for 5-year-old and shouldn't expose children to same-sex relationships between women.
Sadie is trapped in a tower by her evil sister. She's rescued by the Princess Amira. They go on an adventure. In the end, the two princess get married (there's stuff in the middle but I'm not going to ruin it). It's very cute. And chaste.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Flowers on the Cover

Book 11
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
June Hayward's writing career is going nowhere. She's published one book that didn't do very well and she's working tutoring kids on the SAT. While her friend Athena Liu is doing really well. She's had a huge cross-over literary hit. One of her novel's has been optioned by Netflix. She's big and only getting bigger.
When June and Athena (mostly Athena) are celebrating tragedy strikes and Athena dies. June does what any distraught friend would do - she steals the unfinished work of her friend whose dead body is being carried away by paramedics. Then she makes major edits to the work and publishes it as her own.
What follows is an insane story of her defending herself from stealing the work, an insider view of the publishing industry, and cancel culture.
Every character in this book was loathsome. They were all just absolutely terrible. But June Hayward, or she becomes known, Juniper Song, is the worst. Being inside her thoughts is awful. Toward the end of the book I was yelling at her.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Book About Books

Book 12
Beloved by Toni Morrison
I last read this book back in university and I'm glad I revisited it. This powerful book examines the psychological impacts of slavery.
The main story of the novel is Sethe's murder of her baby. She did this because a slave catcher has come to bring her and her children back to "Sweet Home", Kentucky. Sethe won't go back but she especially won't let her children be taken to that life.
Later, the house that Sethe lives in is haunted by the ghost of her dead child. When a girl shows up the question is, is she the embodiment of the baby ghost?

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: One Word Title

Book 13
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

Joe has spent his life dealing with the disappearance of his little sister. She went missing when she was 4 and their family was in Maine to pick berries as they did every year. Joe was only 6 but he felt responsible for Ruthie's disappearance.
Norma has been plagued by dreams of a family that was not hers. Dreams her overprotective mother told her to forget. When she discovers very late in life that she was kidnapped as a child she tries to find her biological family.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Debut Author

Book 14
Francine Poulet Meets the Ghost Raccoon by Kate DiCamillo
I'm reading some challenged books in advance of Freedom to Read week (https://www.freedomtoread.ca). This book was challenged at a Canadian public library in 2022 because of ableist language - specifically the use of the term "nut job".
Francine Poulet comes from a long line of Animal Control Officers. She is fearless and unflappable. She's won 47 awards. When Mrs. Bissinger calls her to catch a ghostly raccoon haunting her roof, Francine has no doubts that she can do it. But this raccoon is different. This raccoon actually scares her. Will Francine be able to recover her self-confidence and catch the raccoon?

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: A Quick Read

Book 15
Trails of Halifax Regional Municipality by Michael Haynes
Love this overview of trails in Halifax. I've walked some of these and plan to try a few new ones out.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: With a Place in the Title

Book 16.
Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune
This is not what I was expecting from a Canada Reads book, it was a pretty straightforward contemporary romance.
Fern meets Will and they spend one perfect day in Toronto. Both are young and trying to figure out what to do with their lives. They make a pact to meet in a year .... and Will doesn't show up. Fast forward 10 years and Fern grieving the loss of her mother runs into Will again. This time as a consultant trying to turn around her mom's resort business.
Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Book Everyone Is Talking About

Book 17
The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin
This is not your regular fairytale re-telling. We start with Cinderella 13 years and two children into her marriage with Prince Charming (aka Roland). She's quite unhappy. The prince turns out to have a wandering eye. Living in the castle is not all that she thought it would be.
But as we move along in the story we find out that Cinderella isn't who we think she is, she's not really a fairytale princess.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Recommended on a Podcast

Book 18
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
Lazlo Strange grows up as an orphan in a monastery and then becomes a lowly librarian. He's obsessed with a lost and mythical city that one of the monk's told him stories about as a child, and has searched the library to find any mention of it.
When a delegation shows up from the mythical city asking for help, Lazlo jumps at the chance to finally go and see it.
But all is not well, the city has lost its name and is now known as Weep. There is a strange citadel stationed over top of it. And the people have been traumatized.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Fantasy Book

Book 19
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
One of the contenders for this year's Canada Reads, Bad Cree is the story of Mackenzie and her family as they battle something evil.
Mackenzie has been living in Vancouver for a few years and hasn't gone back to visit her family, not even after the death of her older sister. She's been trying to avoid her grief after the death of her Kokum. But then she starts having some very strange dreams and realizes that the only way to make them stop is to go to her family.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: An Audiobook

Book 20
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett is just amazing. This book is another fantastic story.
Lara's daughters, all young women, return home to the cherry orchard in Michigan in the Spring of 2020. The world is at a standstill and they have paused in their various lives.
While they help their parents with the cherry harvest they ask their mom about her time in summer stock at Tom Lake and her relationship with a man who later on became a famous actor.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Character Who is an Actor

Book 21.
The Sound of Settling: A Rock & Roll Love Story by Tara Dublin

This is 1000% Foo Fighters fan fiction and initially I wasn't mad about that. I read the first half of the book in one day, but the second half... that took a week. Also, the font is TERRIBLE.
Lila is a huge fan of Case Closed. She's very active on their fan forum, mainly because her real life is terrible. When she wins a contest to see Case Closed at a small bar in LA she can't wait to go. She doesn't know what's waiting for her and how much her life is about to change.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Ugly Cover

>28 Deedledee: I am a big Patchett fan, and NEED to get to this book!

Book 22
Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham
Margot went through her first year in university in a daze. She lost her best friend in the summer after high school. But then Lucy comes into her life. Lucy is charismatic and pulls Margot into her orbit.
Lucy, Margot, Sloane, and Nicole move into an off campus house right next to a fraternity. They become friends with their neighbours. When Lucy disappears and one of the fraternity members turns up dead attention turns to Margot.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Unreliable Narrator

Book 23
Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
The premise - an IKEA knock-off store named Orsk is built on the haunted grounds of a former prison. Orsk employees have noticed problems since the store opened that are only increasing. Basil, a floor manager, asks two staff to stay with him on an all night vigil to catch the supposed intruders who are doing the damage. And all of them get way more than they bargained for.
Be prepared for some gross out horror.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Published in 2014

Book 24
Homecoming by Kate Morton
I guessed some of the twist ending but not everything.
A thriller that moves between 2018 Sydney and 1959 Adelaide Hills.
Jess Turner-Bridges is a journalist living in London, is suddenly called home to Sydney because her beloved aging grandmother Nora has taken a fall and is in hospital.
While Jess is trying to figure out why her grandmother would have been climbing up into the attic, she finds a book about the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve 1959. Part of her family history that she had never been told about.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Author from the Southern Hemisphere

Book 25.
Come & Get It by Kiley Reid
It is clear that each of the characters in this novel are about to make terrible decisions. As the reader, you can see the problems coming but the characters are oblivious.
It's 2017 and Millie is back at the University of Arkansas to finish her senior year. She's taken a bit of time off and so is a bit older than the other students around her. Working as a Residence Assistant, she has a floor of young women to take care of in addition to her classes. Then she meets Agatha Paul.
Agatha is a professor at the U of A for a one year teaching and researching position. She's a successful academic and author. In the course of her research she meets Millie and becomes entangled in her life and in the lives of the students that live around her.
A very character driven story about money, privilege, power, and race.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: 2024 New Release

Book 26.
The Future by Catherine Leroux (translated by Susan Ouriou)

Winner of this year’s Canada Reads.

Set in a sort of alternate timeline Detroit, in which the city remained part of Canada. But it’s also a dystopian hellscape where racism, substance use disorders, and social class keep people down.
Gloria shows up to find her granddaughters after learning of her daughter’s death. What she finds is a tightknit community of primarily older adults who have tried to keep the neighbourhood together despite the city and the police giving up.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: About Secrets

Book 27.
The Only One Left by Riley Sager
Lots of twists and turns - in the end, too many to be believed.

Kit McDeere is desperate for work. She's been suspended for 6 months while under investigation as one of her caregiving clients has died of an overdose and there is thought that she administered it. While she's been cleared there is still a lot of suspicion in the community.

The agency gives her an assignment that no one else wants, to care for 71 year old, Lenora Hope, who in 1929, was accused of killing both her parents and her sister in their palatial cliffside home. Lenora is partially paralyzed and non-verbal.

The last caregiver left in the middle of the night telling no one and leaving all of her personal possessions behind. What happened to her? Is there something ominous in the house?

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: Written Under a Pseudonym

Book 28.
House of Ash and Bone by Joel A. Sutherland

I had high hopes for this book but in the end it just didn't appeal to me.

Josephine and her family are going to stay for a few days at a house they inherited from a great-aunt that none of them knew. The house is gigantic and isolated and just happens to be filled with all the things the people in the family love the best, books, musical instruments, art supplies, etc. (Just an aside here but the Mom seems to only love her family and have nothing for herself).
However, Josephine has a psychic gift that the others don't know about and is able to see the evil presence in the house. Can she save her family before it is too late?

The pacing was really slow with this novel until the last 50 or so pages. The majority of the sisters felt superfluous. Some of the plot points really didn't make sense. Overall pretty uneven.

Booklist Queen Reading Challenge: You Meant to Read Last Year