Litsy

Kim | Rudyard Kipling

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This one ended up being a surprise win for me! While I didn't absolutely love it, I still found it an engaging and personable story with a likable MC. While there were definitely some of the prevalent attitudes from circa 1900, Kipling's genuine love for India and her people shines through on every page. I had no idea what to expect from this one, and while I would have probably benefited from better knowledge of the contemporary political ⬇

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) players, I still found the adventure to be great fun.

Thanks for reading this #RandomClassic with me, friends - sorry I didn't have very many discussion posts!! Did you end up finishing/enjoying it at all? Let me know what you thought!!

@Lcsmcat @BarkingMadRead @CatLass007

#MtTBR
#BookSpin (Sept) #BookSpinBingo
#WickedWords - Superstition @AsYouWish
#SummedEndReadathon @TheSpineView
#ISpyBingo - Something Orange @Clwojick 1w

CatLass007 I‘m glad you enjoyed it. I think part of the reason I didn‘t was because I was listening to two books that take place in India, even though they are a few decades apart. And the coincidence of the narrator being the same for both books didn‘t help. In the past I used to read one book after the other whatever they were about. I used to read several books per week. This year my Goodreads goal was 50 books. I‘ve completed 103 so far, (cont) ⬇️ 1w

CatLass007 and counting. But all of them have been audiobooks. Being unable to focus on the printed word started around 30 years ago when I first started experiencing depression and anxiety. Every once in a while I‘ve been able to read an actual book but that has been a hit or miss thing. Yesterday, just yesterday, I committed to myself that I would read at least one of the three books written by my friend Richard Hood. He suggested that I start with

Carolina Blood

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CatLass007 I guess I started to say that as I‘ve gotten older I‘ve become more of a mood reader. And I only figured that out this summer. I may go back and try to listen to Kim again at some point in the future. I may not. There‘s just SO MUCH out there to read. 1w

TheSpineView Well done! 1w

TheAromaofBooks @CatLass007 - I've gotten way more into bailing on books over the last several years. So many good things to read out there and only so much time - I totally agree that you have to move on when something isn't jiving for you!! 1w

CatLass007 I used to never bail. I‘d stick with it until the bitter end. It‘s only in the last few years, especially once I joined Litsy, that I‘ve decided that bailing is not failing. It‘s not quitting. It‘s actually a way of protecting yourself and allowing yourself to move on. 1w

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TheAromaofBooks

Montana Sky | Nora Roberts

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A soft pick for me, I didn't find this to be one of Roberts's best. The characters were rather tropey, and I was a bit surprised to find so many factual inaccuracies from an author who is usually pretty well-researched. (No one rides yearlings?! Hens don't just sit around on their eggs after they lay them and rarely go broody? Horses don't usually just stand around and let you shoot attacking bears - they run away??) Willa got on my nerves SO ⬇

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) much. But I still found a lot of warmth and humor in this one. I absolutely loved Adam and Lilly together, and enjoyed the pacing of the mystery aspect. I probably won't reread this one, but it was a good one-off nonetheless.

Thanks for hosting @StayCurious !!!

#MtTBR
#BookSpinBingo
#LittensLoveRomance 1w

Clare-Dragonfly OK—so what does “go broody” mean? I thought it was “that thing hens do where they sit on eggs” so clearly my education on this point is lacking 😂 1w

TheAromaofBooks @Clare-Dragonfly - So normally a chicken just lays her egg and moves on with her life. They don't sit on them or even care about them UNLESS a hen goes broody, in which case she will sit on a nest and try to hatch the eggs. She usually will be productive/peck at you if that's the case, but most hens only go broody once a year, and many breeds are specifically bred to reduce a hen's likelihood of going broody at all because she doesn't lay eggs ⬇ 1w

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TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) if she is sitting on them. So the whole egg-collecting scene where she has to reach underneath a bunch of grumpy chickens to get all the eggs just isn't really what happens, like maybe a couple hens are still in there in the middle of egg-laying for the day, but it's unlikely that she has a bunch of brooders to contend with 😂 I have 19 hens (a bunch of different breeds), only one went broody this entire year. 1w

TheAromaofBooks @Clare-Dragonfly - It wasn't really THAT horrible of writing, it just... wasn't right 😆 The scene with the yearling horse was the most ridiculous - like that's genuinely pretty basic research that you don't ride horses when they are only a year old. 1w

Clare-Dragonfly So normally hens know their eggs are not going to hatch, but sometimes they decide they‘re going to have chicks and actually try to hatch the eggs, and that‘s going broody? That makes sense—chickens may not be very bright but they probably know if there‘s no rooster around their eggs aren‘t fertilized! And I‘ve definitely read things with people hunting all around the fields for the eggs the hens have left lying around. 1w

TheAromaofBooks @Clare-Dragonfly - Wellll you can't give the hens TOO much credit 😂 They don't seem to have any connection between whether the eggs are viable and their desire to try and hatch them. Sometimes they just decide to go broody and start setting!! Once they do, they'll sit on anything (which is why chickens are sometimes used to hatch ducks or turkeys). I gave my broody hen four eggs from four different chickens. They will even sit on absolutely ⬇ 1w

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) nothing! Just an empty nest! Eventually they either snap out of it (usually 3-4 weeks) or what they are sitting on actually hatches. But during that time they don't lay eggs, and actually hardly eat or drink anything. She'll just sit there with a dreamy look on her face making little clucky sounds haha Which is why many breeds have been purposefully bred to eliminate the tendency towards broodiness (leghorns, the main commercial egg ⬇ 1w

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) producers, almost never go broody). And now I'm getting very rambly about chickens, but I've raised them all my life and actually love them a lot haha 1w

Clare-Dragonfly They don‘t eat or drink when they‘re broody?! That sounds evolutionarily non-optimal 😂 7d

TheAromaofBooks @Clare-Dragonfly - I'd say “evolutionary non-optimal“ is probably an overall solid description of chickens 😂 They only eat/drink enough to basically just stay alive. In fairness, though, they are expending almost no energy, as they just sit and stare into space all day. Low food intake means they spend less time off their nest and also don't soil the nest. So it kind of makes sense, but they do lose a lot of weight during that time!! 6d

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TheAromaofBooks

The Boxcar Children | Gertrude Chandler Warner

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It was an absolute delight to revisit this childhood favorite! My siblings and I LOVED this book growing up, and it definitely inspired us to play “Runaway Kids“ a LOT 😂 While I really enjoyed rereading this one, as an adult reader, it left me with SO many questions!! Where are the parents? Why are they scared of the grandpa? Why have they never met him?? I just don't know! So while I did like this one and still think it's a fantastic book for ⬇

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) young readers, as an adult it did seem to have a few blanks in the story!

Thank you SO much for hosting this readalong @megnews !!

#MtTBR
#192025 @Librarybelle (1924)
#100YearsofBooks
#SummerEndReadathon @TheSpineView
#BookSpinBingo 1w

AnnR Great review, @thearomaofbooks . I agree the story left so many unanswered questions. It bothered me as an adult. I never read this when I was a kid, so I'm not sure what my reaction would have been. (edited) 1w

Librarybelle Wow…1924! 1w

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TheSpineView Excellent! 1w

JenDR I think as a child when I read this, I just assumed that the parents were dead but .... as an adult, that brings up more questions for me. If they are dead, their previous community - aren‘t they curious as to where the four kids disappeared off to? Neighbors, friends parents, teachers, members of the church? No one was looking for them? 1w

TheAromaofBooks @AnnR @JenDR - Right?? Where is literally anyone from the children's past life??? But every kid I know who has read this book has absolutely loved it, so it does seem to be a story that can be enjoyed if you're young enough to not need all the details 😂 1w

TheAromaofBooks @Librarybelle - My edition is from 1950, but I didn't realize it had originally been published almost 100 years ago!! I'm doing pretty well with this challenge, but still have a lot of the 70s and 80s to fill in!! 1w

Librarybelle I have a bit of the middle decades to fill in. I cannot believe that it was almost 100 years ago for the Boxcar Children! So amazing! 1w

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TheAromaofBooks

Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition | Joseph Heller

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My feelings for this book are all over the place, which honestly makes sense when one actually thinks about this book. I loved it; I hated it. It made no sense; I totally got it. I couldn't keep the characters straight; I was emotionally devastated every time one of them died. I hate ambiguous endings; an ambiguous ending was the perfect way to end this book. The book was way to long; I wasn't ready for it to end. ⬇

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) This was a 1-star read; it was a 5-star read.

This isn't a book I would ever reread. I found the humor to be repetitive, the writing disjointed, and the absolute constant obsession with women as sexual objects/whores to be very wearing. Yet this is a clever book, darkly humorous, and unafraid to point out the many absurdities we have as government institutions, military organizations, and simply human beings. ⬇ 1w

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) I didn't love and I didn't even really enjoy it, but I found this one to be thought-provoking, a book that will stick with me for a long time.

Thanks for reading along with me (or at least trying to! 😂), friends!! In the end, I think I did find this one to be worthwhile, but I'm interested to hear if you all did, or if you found it to be not worth it after all? #RandomClassics

@Lcsmcat @eeclayton @Read4life @BarkingMadRead 1w

TheAromaofBooks #BookSpin (August) #BookSpinBingo
#MtTBR
#WickedWords - Beach @AsYouWish
#SummerEndReadathon @TheSpineView 1w

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Ruthiella Great review! 👍 1w

Lcsmcat I‘m totally with you - it was ambiguous. I‘m glad I read it, but it annoyed me. 1w

Mollyanna This is exactly why it‘s one of my favorites. Every time I read it it reflects differently on the time and place I am in, frustrating and lovely at the same time. 1w

TheSpineView Great job!🤩📖📚 1w

TheAromaofBooks @Mollyanna - I can totally see that!! I started enjoying this book more when I started “talking it out“ with my husband, too - it's a book that I needed to digest a little more than my usual fare!! 1w

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DivineDiana

The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories | Nella Larsen

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This book was a combination of short stories and two novellas. Spare, beautiful writing that pulls you into the stories. Detailed description of clothing and settings. Endings with a punch. A member of the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen was chosen for the New York Times project Overlooked. Obituaries were written posthumously of historic women who were overlooked. #booked2023 #ashortstorycollection #mttbr

Cinfhen, BarbaraTheBibliophage, alisiakae

DivineDiana https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/overlooked-nella-larsen-n... 1mo

Cinfhen Wonderful!!! 1mo

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TheAromaofBooks

The First Four Years | Laura Ingalls Wilder

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While this was my least favorite of the Little House books, that's still not a bad rating, considering I absolutely love the entire series. I think it's important to read this book for what it is - an outline/concept for a book - rather than a finished product. I personally think that if Laura had finished this book, she would have spent more time drawing out the happy times to balance out the story of the incredibly bad luck that plagued them. ⬇

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) I really do wish she had finished it, because there are some really interesting bones here and I would have loved more details on so many different things. To me, what really came through was the genuine love and respect that Laura and Manly had for each other. I loved the line, “It was a carefree, happy time, for two people thoroughly in sympathy can do pretty much as they like.“ Laura wrote that after being married to this guy for ⬇ 2mo

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) around 60 years, so I felt like it spoke well of their overall relationship and time together. I loved the all the little things she mentions Manly doing for her, like buying her a pony and sending someone else to finish her least-favorite chore! understand why many people don't care for this one because it definitely is much sadder in tone than the other books, and abrupt in places, but what I saw was two young people who cared about ⬇ 2mo

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) each other deeply, determined to continue fighting the elements to find a good life together.

Thanks again for hosting our readalong of this series @megnews - I really, really enjoyed it and have been meaning to revisit these for years. It was so much fun to read and discuss as a group!!

#MtTBR
#SeriesLove2023 @TheSpineView @Andrew65
#192025 - 1971 @Librarybelle
#BookSpinBingo 2mo

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TheSpineView Awesome!🤩📖📚 2mo

AnnR Great review! I basically felt the same way about the book. 2mo

BarbaraJean What a wonderful review. I felt the same way, wanting more details of their life together to balance out the sketch of a terrible four years of farming! I love the way you pointed out the view this gives of their relationship. Wilder never does give many details about her emotions about Manly, in any of the books! But there were so many moments here that demonstrated how much they cared for each other and what a strong marriage they must have had. 2mo

TheAromaofBooks @BarbaraJean - I don't know why, but when he sent someone else to wash the windows for her - specifically that, not just “have her do whatever you need her to do“ - it just really touched me haha I think this book would have been SO interesting if she had finished it, a way to bring things full-circle to Rose being the same age as Laura was in Big Woods. 2mo

Andrew65 Well done 👏👏👏 2mo

Librarybelle I think The Longest Winter is my favorite from the series, but I do remember liking this one when I read it! 2mo

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TheAromaofBooks

The Toll-Gate | Georgette Heyer

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Yay!! I finished a book!! 😂

I honestly can't believe I had never read this Heyer before! The romance (while adorable) is rather secondary to the mysterious disappearance of a man in charge of a turnpike. With loads of entertaining characters, complicated motivations, and a dramatic ending, this one was just an incredibly fun romp.

#MtTBR
#192025 @Librarybelle (1954)
#100Yearsofbooks
#BookSpinBingo

TheAromaofBooks @mabell @Chrissyreadit @Julieclair - Hey friends!!! Are we interested in starting another round? Do we need more time? I was kind of thinking if we wanted to do August-November, then we could take December for holidays/catch-up. Let me know what you think!!! 2mo

Librarybelle I need to read more Heyer! 2mo

Chrissyreadit i am wanting to- but full disclosure i forgot to pack Auntie Mame for my California trip- so need to read it, but i feel ok about reading another Heyer or light romp in August too. 2mo

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mabell I‘m so glad you enjoyed it! It was fun to read it again, and I can‘t wait to see everyone‘s comments 😄 I could start in August! I‘ll start getting a few choices together. 2mo

julieclair August - November works for me! Although I still have to read The Five Minute Marriage from the last round. 🙄 Time to look at choices! Fun!!! 2mo

TheAromaofBooks @Librarybelle - I honestly have yet to pick up a bad one!! I know that she wrote mysteries as well as historical romance, but I haven't tried any of those yet. After reading this one with its splash of mystery, I'm inspired to pick one up!! 2mo

TheAromaofBooks @Chrissyreadit @mabell @julieclair - Yay!! We'll pull together some choices and see what we can find for the next round. I enjoy our group so much!!! 2mo

Chrissyreadit @TheAromaofBooks Same!!! this is the fun fluffy read i seem to crave and need but never realized how much until Heyer! 2mo

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TheAromaofBooks

The Witness | Nora Roberts

so-so

I'm usually a pretty big fan of Roberts, but this one just didn't click for me. I didn't particularly care for either of the main characters (Abigail came through as an android and Brooks was so freaking pushy, especially in the beginning, at a level where I felt like he was mis-using his position as sheriff) and for a book where she's supposedly being hunted down by Russian mafia and the FBI, the action level was almost nonexistent.

TheAromaofBooks #MtTBR
#ReadtheUSA2023 - Arkansas
#WickedWords - Independence @AsYouWish
#BookChain
#ISpyBingo - Trees @Clwojick
#BookSpinBingo 3mo

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TheAromaofBooks

A Forgery of Roses | Jessica S. Olson

pan

I really wanted to love this book because the #OwlCrate edition is SO freaking gorgeous, but it just didn't work for me on any level. If I had to choose one word to describe this book? Sloppy. 😕

#MtTBR
#14books14weeks2023 @TheHeartlandBookFairy
#ISpyBingo - Red & Black @Clwojick
#BookSpinBingo

Clwojick Oh no! Pretty though! 3mo

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TheAromaofBooks

Old Friends and New Fancies: An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen | Sybil Brinton

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Soft pick. I enjoyed this one - and I especially enjoyed reading it, as always, with the #HashtagBrigade - but I think this book would have benefited from either narrowing its focus or being spread out over multiple books. We have every single character Austen ever thought about creating all milling about, and three different love stories, so it's a lot to jam in. In the end, I wanted to like it more than I did, mainly because I'm not actually ⬇

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) convinced that any of the three couples are still going to happy in ten years! 😂 Still, a fun little romp, and kudos to Brinton for managing to work so many of Austen's characters into one story!

Thanks for hosting @BarkingMadRead - reading as a group increases my enjoyment of these books by about 1000%!!!

#MtTBR
#BookChain
#AlphabeticalBingo @Clwojick
#BookSpinBingo 3mo

BarkingMadRead This seems to be the general consensus 🤣🤣 3mo

eeclayton I'm especially doubtful about Mary+Fitz. Her passive aggressive way of problem solving may not be conducive to married bliss in the long run. 3mo

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TheAromaofBooks @eeclayton - For sure. I wish we could have seen a scene of them actually having a conversation about their misunderstandings and working through them. And I just... Kitty as the helpmeet in a parish??? Georgianna, who is sweet and kind but rich and spoiled, as the wife of a seagoing fellow who is gone for months at a time??? None of these really matched up for me 😂 3mo

eeclayton While I agree about Kitty, her engagement actually makes sense to me. She was disappointed and then welcomed the first person who was interested in her. That doesn't mean I see happy spouses in the future 😂 It's a great point that all of these conversations take place off-screen. Even with Georgiana+William, we see them meeting, but aren't given what is said. 3mo

willaful I actually think it could work for Georgina, because she's used to being the family pet and she'll just keep being that while William's at sea. Kitty I don't see at all. She'll be bored and useless. 3mo

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