June Discussion Post

[monkiainen]

It's time for our monthly discussion post! This post will remain open for you to contribute at any time, so no pressure. Even if you didn't get around to reading any of your selected books or opted out of participating for the month, you're still more than welcome to take part in the discussion.

Please copy and paste this in the comments!
<b>Who was your buddy this month?</b><br /><b>What books were chosen for you?</b><br /><b>Did you manage to read your books? Which ones?</b><br /><b>If you read more than one, did you enjoy them? What was your favorite?</b><br /><b>Would you recommend your chosen book(s)?</b><br /><b>Did you read anything else this month, outside of your chosen books?</b>

Comments

[yourivy]

Who was your buddy this month?dancesontrains
What books were chosen for you?
Choice 1:When They Call You a Terrorist: a BLM Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele (non-fiction/contemporary/female author)

Choice 2:Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (movie/tv adaptations/classics/female author)

Choice 3:Skim by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki (female author)Did you manage to read your books? Which ones?

Yes! I read both "Murder on the Orient Express" & "Skim", and am currently reading "When They Call You a Terrorist".

The latter is going slowly because obviously it's a tough subject matter to read about of which I can only take so much in one day. (I do acknowledge the privilege of being able to "put the subject out of my mind" by putting away the book, of course)
It is very well written though!
If you read more than one, did you enjoy them? What was your favorite?
I enjoyed "Murder on the Orient Express" very much - it is a classic for a reason, I think. "Skim" fell flat for me, I thought the characters were all very unlikeable and the story was hugely different from what it seemed like in the blurb. There was also one particular problematic aspect that hardly anybody who read it seemed to care about, at least according to Goodreads reviews.Would you recommend your chosen book(s)?Yes to the Christie one, no to "Skim". I am about a third through "When They Call You a Terrorist" and so far that one is good too.
Did you read anything else this month, outside of your chosen books?
I did!

-> "Das Dinner" [The Dinner] by Emily Rudolf - thriller/"locked room mystery" which was, unfortunately, very bad and I can not recommend it at all

-> "Wild Dark Shore" by Charlotte McConaghy - the newest work by one of my favourite authors, which I had been looking forward to for a long time. However, it sadly disappointed me - it was really dull & what's even worth, the story was wildly implausible. Such a bummer :(

-> "111 Dinge über Schweine, die man wissen muss" by Rudolf Jagusch [111 Things about Pigs You Need to Know] - non-fiction. This book is one of those little collections of "factoids" so to say about a particular topic. In this case, that topic was (obviously) pigs. A friend of mine had bought it and let me borrow it, since we both love pigs and think they're cute animals.

The book was cute too, it was fun to read and learn new stuff about pigs :D

-> "The Chosen" by Kristina Ohlsson - thriller/crime. While the story was interesting in this one, it was stretched out for way too long. It was around 600 pages, if I remember correctly, but could've easily been cut by about a 100 pages without losing any particularly important content. The way it is though, it kept getting rather tedious about half-way through. I only didn't DNF it because I did like the mystery at its heart and wanted to know how it would unfold.

-> "Beyond the Gender Binary" by Alok Vaid-Menon. non-fiction/gender/sexuality. I follow Alok on IG and am really enjoying their content there and the book was good too. I thought it could've been a little longer though, but I think it would work well as a primer for people new to the whole concept of non-binary genders.

Sadly, this month has been so-so when it came to reading. I hope the next few reads will be better for me!

[siberian_angel]

Who was your buddy this month? colls
What books were chosen for you? "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "The Winter People" by Jennifer McMahon and "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand.
Did you manage to read your books? Which ones? Two out of three. =)
If you read more than one, did you enjoy them? What was your favorite? "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Would you recommend your chosen book(s)? Adichie's book was real good, though pretty slow to read – my average usually is 4 days, but this took me almost two weeks! I'm not even sure why that is, whether it was the topic itself or the language… I am two thirds through McMahon's book and it's an okay read so far, even if not exactly horror... Both books were complete opposites, in the setting as well as the genre, and I think I'd rec Adichie more, even though it took me so long.
Did you read anything else this month, outside of your chosen books? Plenty, even though it's not even going to make a dent in my sky-high TBR...
☛ "Meet me when my Heart stops" by Becky Hunter (was exited for this one, but it fell flat)
☛ "The Love Haters" by Katherine Center (I pretty much love anything by this author)
☛ "The River has Roots" by Amal El-Mohtar (novella, but so achingly beautiful that I still keep thinking about it two weeks later)
☛ "Powerless" by Elsie Silver (small town romance seems to be my trope, as I've discovered this year)
☛ "Little Child Gone" by Stacy Green
☛ "The Last Slave Ship" by Ben Raines
☛ "Battle of the Bookstores" by Ali Brady
I might start another one after McMahon, but I'm not sure I'll finish it this month. Tomorrow I'll pick up a friend from the train station - she's coming up here from the south of Germany and we have a busy itinerary for the few days she'll stay with me.

[monkiainen]

Who was your buddy this month? flirtable
What books were chosen for you? Untamed by Glennon Doyle, Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman
Did you manage to read your books? Which ones? I read them all
If you read more than one, did you enjoy them? What was your favorite? All of my choices this months were great books, to be honest. But my all-time favourite out of them was I Was Born for This. I mean, band fandom + tumblr + internet friends? Totally my cup of tea.
Would you recommend your chosen book(s)? Yes to all of them
Did you read anything else this month, outside of your chosen books? I read So This Is Love by Elizabeth Lim and Karjalan kruunu by Kaari Utrio

[dancesontrains]

Who was your buddy this month?
yourivy
What books were chosen for you?
'Annie Bot' by Sierra Greer, 'The Name of the Rose' by Umberto Eco and 'Doppleganger' by Naomi Klein.
Did you manage to read your books? Which ones?
All of Annie Bot and about 12% of 'Name of the Rose'. The second one will take me a long time, it's a big book and full of references to various things that I don't know much about like medieval Catholic infighting.
If you read more than one, did you enjoy them? What was your favorite? Don't think I can make a comparative review on a whole book against 12% of another!

Would you recommend your chosen book(s)? Annie Bot, about an android created as a sexual companion, was decent - some pacing difficulties, and about as subtle as a brick in it's portrayal of racialised misogyny (Annie Bot is based off her white male owner's ex-wife, who was a Black woman) but the mood was intense and quite hard to take, as Annie lives through some horrific abuse along with being treated like a thing by the humans around her. Or, almost worse, being told that her oner is 'one of the good ones'. I'd rec it, but as a borrow from the library or a cheap ebook rather than a full price purchase.

Did you read anything else this month, outside of your chosen books? Some Star Trek IDW comics (fanservicey but fun), Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (cute gay YA, I'm looking forward to reading more by the author), Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel (imo the weakest of her autobiographical graphic novels), Aboslute Wonder Woman vol 1 by Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman (among other artists) which was stunningly good, and The Immortal Hulk Book One (the first ten issues) by Al Ewing and Joe Bennett - also very good horror, really leaning into the nightmare of sharing a body wirh a big green guy.